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But Mr. Lambert fails to make his case. Why? Simply regurgitating "conventional wisdom" just doesn't suffice when that conventional wisdom is just plain wrong.
For example, did you know that ... 1) the earth hasn't warmed for 17 years? 2) the Pacific Ocean is cooling and Antarctic ice is at 30-year highs? 3) there's no conclusive evidence that man-made greenhouse gases cause warming? 4) higher CO2 levels and modest warming would be good for the planet? And 5) sea levels are extremely unlikely to rise materially in the intermediate term, if ever?
Why haven't you likely heard all this before? It's because of the conventional-wisdom sources - a powerfully vocal admixture of several interest groups: research scientists, thousands of whom would lose their livelihood if man-made global warming is invalidated; environmentalists trying to "save the planet"; and the mainstream media, which knows that crises, real or supposed, engage subscribers.
The alarmists' case rests on a three-legged stool: a strong, and accelerating, upward trend in temperatures; a rise in CO2 and other man-made greenhouse gases; and the harmful net effects justifying international policies to limit greenhouse gases.
Clearly, the failure of any leg invalidates proposed action calls.
Turns out, the hard facts - from a bevy of credentialed scientists - undermine all three legs.
Rising-temperature trends have been exaggerated
The earth has not warmed over the past 17 years (period). A prior 20-plus-year warming interval incubated the man-made global warming hysteria. But it was preceded by a 30-year global-cooling period - so substantial that many of the same alarmists (including The New York Times, Time magazine and Science Digest) were calling for global actions to stem the "coming ice age."
Hard data show that any Arctic melting has been dwarfed by the 2013 30-year record-high Antarctic ice cover.
The link between global warming and carbon emissions is tenuous at best
The 17-year temperature flat-lining has occurred despite a continuing provable build-up of CO2. In March 2013, United Kingdom "experts" admitted that their previous alarming forecasts had been breached on the downside and that their models linking CO2 with global warming needed to be "overhauled."
The journal Global and Planetary Change concluded, "CO2 released from ... fossil fuels (has) little influence on ... changes in atmospheric CO2."
Water vapor, another greenhouse gas, dominates climate. Our atmosphere contains 60 times more water vapor as CO2, on average.
Higher CO2 levels and some modest global warming would have an overall beneficial global effect
A 2013 American Geophysical Union journal study shows that elevated CO2 levels are making arid regions greener. Another study finds that "warmer" means a longer growing season, with higher rainfall yielding greater output.
No overwhelming scientific consensus about man-made global warming exists.
A petition signed by more than 31,000 U.S. scientists, including Nobel laureate Edward Teller, urges the United States to reject any international global-warming efforts. Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society to protest man-made global warming.
Paraphrasing the Manhattan Declaration, which was signed by more than 800 credentialed scientists: Climate has always changed, independent of humans. There is no convincing evidence that industrial CO2 emissions has caused or will cause catastrophic climate change.
The supposed climate-expert "consensus" is false. Government attempts to legislate costly regulations will slow development and markedly diminish future prosperity while having no impact on climate change.
Of particular concern to Palm Beachers, sea levels are not rising alarmingly
Sea levels have been rising very gradually since the last Ice Age. The total ocean rise since 1870 (pre-auto carbon-emission era) is about 8 inches. The rate, which has been constant since the 1920s, amounts to only a couple of millimeters annually.
Barrier islands are particularly vulnerable to long-term erosion, causing an upward bias to old-tech sea-level readings. Venice and New Orleans are very visible examples of land settling rather than seas rising.
Even the world's leading alarmist entity, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recently admitted, "Observations to date provide no conclusive and general proof as to how climate change affects flood behavior."
So relax. These and many other hard facts tell us we should ignore the man-made global-warming alarmists and put our collective energies to work solving real problems.
Sea Levels are not a one-way street. As the climate of Earth continues to descend from the Holocene Maximum, sea levels are going to drop. The assumption that sea levels must always rise is absurd.
Dropping sea levels. Who has considered the implications?
Stop for a minute, and think about the disruption that will ensue. Major sea-canals, ports and channel depths will all see changes. Access will diminish or become work-intensive to maintain.
Now imagine the world today with sea-levels dropping 300 feet over the course of 10,000 years (the time it takes to plunge fully into Ice Age temps/climate patterns/ice sheets).
Three Hundred Feet !!!
Coastal geography will expand, and continue to expand.
Atmospheric density at the new (and lower) levels of elevation will increase. This should counter the weaker Sun, depending on location and proximity to the equator.
The real question then becomes: Will the new coastal land be more than, equal to or less than the land lost to Ice Sheets?