Has Santa Barbara Sunk Beneath the Waves Yet?

The Climate Discussion Nexus has a short, amusing video, checking in on the sea levels of the beautiful city of Santa Barbara, California. The long and the short of it is, despite what you hear constantly from climate doomsayers, sea-levels in Santa Barbara are rising at an ever-so-slight rate of .99 millimeters per year. Says the video, "That's right, a century from now, the good people of Santa Barbara can expect sea levels to [have risen] a full .32 feet. That's 9.9 centimeters, for you metric folks!" Or 3.89 inches. And that's assuming that current trends continue, which is no sure thing.

No wonder even environmentalists (the rich ones) keep investing in beach front real estate! They know they've got nothing to worry about. Which is to say, they're lying.

That's kind of their modus operandi, ever since James Hansen's infamous 1988 testimony in front of an Al Gore chaired senate committee in which he explained that the then-ongoing heatwave gripping much of the country was due to anthropogenic global warming, and the "greenhouse effect," one of the founding moments of the modern environmentalist movement.

It was nonsense of course -- heatwaves come and go -- but the New York Times made Hansen's testimony front-page news the next day, under the headline, “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate: Sharp Cut in Burning of Fossil Fuels is Urged to Battle Shift in Climate.” And thus a narrative was born, one that has produced untold amounts of misunderstanding, misinformation, and misery.

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of Hansen's testimony, several conservative think tanks including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute, have put together a project that "fact-checked ten of the most headline-grabbing warnings" which even a slight bit of investigation show to be false. Here's a quick summation from the Washington Examiner:

• The smoky Canadian fires were caused by climate change. “This is false. Data and history show that wildfires in Canada have not increased number or severity, and that, driven by prevailing winds, smoke from Canada’s annual wildfire season has darkened U.S. skies multiple times in the past.”
• Florida strawberries are threatened by climate change. The Department of Agriculture said, “Florida’s strawberry harvests increased by nearly 50 percent between 2001 and 2019, from approximately 135 million pounds per year to 195 million pounds per year. The strawberry news is even better nationally.”
• Climate change is causing a honey bee die-off by raising temperatures too early, even in January, during which the Associated Press said Washington, D.C., hit 80 degrees. "First, honeybee colony survival depends on a number of things, especially beekeeper hygiene. Next, Washington, D.C. has never had an 80°F day in January, per the National Weather Service. While Washington D.C. has had January days in the 70s, they date as far back as 1907.”

Another relevant fact-check addressed the incessant claims that the present elevated temperatures in Texas are evidence of "climate change." The study's short-form response: "Texas has suffered extreme and extended heat waves before, most recently in the June-August 1980 heat wave that resulted in 2,000 deaths. Moreover, heat wave frequency and intensity have dramatically declined in the U.S. over the past 90 years."

In other words, it is summer in Texas. Meanwhile, back in Santa Barbara: