KUDOS TO to Jeff Jacoby for saluting the benefits of fossil-fueled living (“A valentine for fossil fuels,” Op-Ed, Feb. 12). It is also worth pointing out that while the benefits of using fossil fuels are innumerable, the costs are small and vanishing.
Activists cite “catastrophic climate change” as the impetus for “divesting” from companies that produce natural gas, oil, and coal. But warming has flat-lined since the late 1990s, even as carbon-dioxide emissions have continued to rise; severe-weather events are less common; and the North Pole is still ice-covered, despite Al Gore’s prediction that it would be ice-free by sometime last year.
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The simple fact is that the famed climate models got it wrong. An analysis by scientist Roy Spencer found that more than 95 percent of climate simulations have over-estimated Earth’s warming trend since 1979.
The benefits of using fossil fuels are as obvious as ever. Instead of breaking up with fossil fuels, let’s divest from climate alarmism.
The writer is president of the Institute for Energy Research