Suddenly 2018 is not the fourth warmest year of 139, but only the 6th warmest year of 40; and the decline from the peak in 2016 is some 0.6 deg C, fully 60% of that 1.0 deg C increase that the Times was trying to use to scare you.

Meanwhile, over in the House of Representatives . . . . Michael Bastasch of the Daily Caller has a summary of yesterday’s hearing before the Committee on Natural Resources. Do you think that the Dems would bring in a few serious scientists to prove their case? Don’t kid yourself. The majority’s witnesses were two politicians, a clergyman, a climate activist, and a 16 year old. From the clergyman:

“Climate change is a civil rights issue,” Reverend Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, told lawmakers on the committee on Wednesday morning. Lennox also referred to tackling global warming as the “lunch counter moment for the 21st century.” Yearwood also warned the U.S. does “not make it beyond 12 years from now without huge amounts of death, destruction, and suffering” unless Congress addressed global warming, according to his prepared remarks. To hit the point home, Yearwood wore a hat with the words “12 Years” on it, which he placed in front of himself during the hearing.

Rev. Yearwood does not seem to think that tripling or quadrupling the electricity bills of poor people is anything anyone should care about. Also, I would have recommended to the Rev. Yearwood that before issuing one of these scary climate “tipping points,” he should have reviewed the Manhattan Contrarian Climate Tipping Points Quiz to see how many climate idiots (Al Gore, Prince Charles, James Hansen, Jeremy Rifkin, Timothy Wirth, George Monbiot, etc., etc., etc.) have previously made fools of themselves by issuing these tipping points, only to see the predicted year of disaster pass without anything notable occurring.

Or, from the 16 year old:

Nadia Nazar, the 16-year-old founder of the Zero Hour Movement, said the Trump administration’s inaction on “climate change is violating my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” according to her prepared remarks.

Meanwhile, Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped her “Green New Deal” proposal on the eagerly awaiting world. Did you think this was going to be draft legislation? Please, that would take way too much work. Instead, it’s in the form of a “Resolution,” announcing the multiple intersectional “crises” that require immediate government-imposed solutions, and calling for top to bottom U.S.-led change of the world over the next decade:

[M]eeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources, . . . upgrading all existing buildings in the United States, . . . spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States, . . . working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution, . . . overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, . . . restoring and protecting fragile and protected ecosystems, . . . .

And that’s just a sample! Thanks, King Canute — er, I mean AOC.

In one final development in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the Democratic members of the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Not among them: AOC. Speaker Pelosi also had this to say about AOC’s Green New Deal proposal: “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico on Wednesday. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?” Even NP knows that this is not serious!

The rest of the world continues to build their 1600 new coal power plants.

