For years—actually, several decades now—we’ve heard warnings from those predicting the catastrophic effects of climate change that Earth is fast approaching a tipping point.
For climate catastrophists, the so-called “tipping point” refers to an average global temperature beyond which Earth gets so warm that we plunge helplessly and irreversibly into an era of ever-increasing climatic disasters. According to this belief system, the only possible chance the human race has to avoid climate hell is to drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that we release into Earth’s atmosphere by using fossil fuels.
In short, no climate tipping point is looming over us. Poll after poll has shown that climate change ranks at the bottom of things about which Americans are concerned. This is inevitable, as more and more people realize that trying to radically reduce the total amount of CO2 emissions is no more rational than Don Quixote’s obsession with windmills but is sure to reduce our standards of living.
The real tipping point that we’re approaching is the one when the American people will realize that they’ve been hoodwinked by an aggressive political agenda and will cry out, “Enough! No more!”
Americans are getting increasingly fed up with an overbearing government that wants to outlaw gas stoves and put kill switches in cars so that “the authorities” can take away freedom of movement.
Americans will grow tired of the electric vehicle fad as they find their range too limited (especially in colder climates and on sloping roads) and the recharging process too time-consuming, and because of the prospect of governments telling them not to recharge their vehicles because of local or regional power shortages in the electric grid. What kind of government tells people it wants them to buy a certain kind of car and then tells them, “Oh, by the way, we don’t necessarily want you to drive them”?
For sure, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the reliability of our nation’s power grid. Half a century ago, brownouts and blackouts in major American cities were virtually unknown. Today, due to the government-mandated shift to intermittent sources of power generation, blackouts and brownouts have increased in frequency, and the grid may reach its own tipping point at which there isn’t enough power being generated from fossil fuels or nuclear to keep the grid stable and on line. Americans don’t want to de-develop into a third-world type of power grid.
Americans will increasingly realize the folly of demonizing carbon dioxide. Those of a certain age will remember when mandatory catalytic converters were installed in our automobile engines. The purpose? To convert poisonous carbon monoxide into harmless carbon dioxide. All Americans should be reminded of a fundamental fact of life: CO2 is the basis of the food chain. Plants subsist on CO2; plants, in turn, support animal life, and both plants and animals feed human beings. CO2 is not a dangerous toxin, but the elixir of life. It’s good for us.
I can’t predict when the tipping point against climate change catastrophism will be reached, but it will come. Millions of Americans will rebel against a dictatorial government imposing a top-down centralized plan that will erode personal liberty and societal prosperity. The bigger danger facing us today isn’t the ever-changing, unpredictable climate; it’s a political agenda that seeks to regiment our lives in the name of an illusory climate emergency.