Liberty CEO, Chris Wright, Responds to WSJ Article

This weekend the WSJ wrote an article on some of my efforts to communicate to the public about energy and climate change, and LinkedIn’s censorship, then reversal of that censorship decision.  I am pleased that the WSJ wrote a piece about my education efforts as it draws attention to these critical issues.

Unfortunately, they titled the article “Energy CEO Fights Climate Science…”  Quite the opposite, my goal is to make big-picture learnings from climate science more accessible to the public and put them in context with the appropriate tradeoffs regarding energy affordability, reliability, and security.

Presumably, the “fights climate science” comes from the fact that an IPCC author said I should be censored for stating false conclusions.  Except my comments stating that hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods were not increasing in frequency or magnitude was correct.  The data backing that up is referenced in the Bettering Human Lives report released in August last year.  In the WSJ article, the authority quoted to rebut me only spoke about one, ONE of the claims I made: drought.  The IPCC does say that soil moisture deficits are increasing, a factor impacted by human activities like farming.  The IPCC does NOT say that meteorological or hydrological droughts are increasing.  I have no desire to censor the quoted IPCC author, but he has his facts wrong in this case.

Professor Roger Pielke Jr., perhaps the world’s foremost scholar on extreme weather trends, has written extensively on this topic.  Here is one of his pieces on the IPCC’s work on extreme weather:

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-report-1e3

Here is another on the 2022 year in review:

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/dont-believe-the-hype

Below are several links covering many more issues:  What the Media Won’t Tell You About . . .

• Hurricanes
• U.S. Heat Waves
• Drought in Western and Central Europe
• Floods

Engage with Pielke Jr.’s writings if you want to garner a deeper understanding of extreme weather data and the gross mishandling of this issue, unfortunately, illustrated in this WSJ piece.

Disappointing that the journal would find someone unable to get it right on droughts — one tiny topic in my broad 12-minute video — to justify a headline that I “fight(s) climate science.”

My goal is to short-circuit the media, activists, and politicians who thrive on frightening, alarmist climate pronouncements that are often at odds with the facts.  In Liberty’s Bettering Human Lives report, I wrote a 12-page long section on climate change and climate economics along with an extensive list of references for the dialogue.  Far from “fighting it,” I want to spread a basic understanding of climate change so that we can engage in a more sober conversation around the unavoidable tradeoffs that must be made on climate goals, our energy system, and poverty abatement.

I thank the journal for writing this piece and stirring dialogue on these critical topics👍