It's July, and, shockingly to the NYT and other media outlets, it is hot.  It is another day, and another article is being used to scare the public into capitulating to the radical leftist agenda to destroy the fossil fuel industry and thereby to destroy our way of life and the economy.

The media have little concern about the massive economic harm being done to the poor, the middle class, and small businesses.  All that matters is power for Democrats and their agenda. 

A Wilting Climate Response

As another heat wave descends, the U.S. federal government is pulling back from the climate fight. What now?

Weather forecasters say that Britain this week may experience its highest temperature on record — more than 40 degrees Celsius, or about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. In response, officials in London have asked people to stay home, saying that vehicles may overheat and rail tracks may buckle.

Somehow, after almost 150 years of warming supposedly caused by humans and fossil fuels, it was very cold in England recently: there were 50,100 excess deaths in the winter of 2017–2018.

Excess winter mortality in England and Wales: 2017 to 2018 (provisional) and 2016 to 2017 (final)

It is likely that last winter's increase was due to the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine and below-average winter temperatures".

In the 2017 to 2018 winter period, there were an estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales.

"The number of excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017 to 2018 was the highest recorded since the winter of 1975 to 1976.

Somehow, after almost 150 years of warming supposedly caused by humans and fossil fuels, there was record cold in Texas, an oil-producing state.  They had a record 205 hours of sub-freezing temperatures from Feb. 10 to Feb. 19 of 2021.

A year later: A look at what caused February 2021′s Arctic blast, waves of wintry weather

The Waco Regional Airport, where weather records are recorded in Central Texas, shattered the record for most consecutive hours at or below freezing. The 205 hours of sub-freezing temperatures from February 10th to February 19th was really only possible because of one atmospheric phenomenon: the polar vortex [emphasis added].

The Earth has had heat waves throughout history, long before fossil fuels could have caused them. 

The warmest day on Earth in history appears to have been in California in July of 1913, so we have had 109 years of cooler temperatures than on that day in Death Valley, California, while fossil fuel usage and the human population have been rising rapidly 

1913 – in July, the hottest heat wave ever struck California. During this heat wave, Death Valley recorded a record high temperature of 57 °C (134 °F) at Furnace Creek, which still remains the highest ambient air temperature recorded on Earth.

• 1540 European drought — Extreme drought and heatwave lasting 11 months in Europe.
• July 1757 heatwave — Europe, hottest summer in 500 years before 2003.
• 1896 Eastern North America heat wave — killed 1,500 people in August 1896.
• 1900 — historical heatwave of the center of Argentina between the first eight days of February 1900 known as "the week of fire" affected the cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario with temperatures of up to 37 °C (99 °F) but with a very high index of humidity that elevated the sensation of heat to 49 °C (120 °F) severely affecting the health of people causing at least more than 478 fatalities.

I live in Springfield, Ill., where the record high was 112 degrees on July 12, 1954, 68 years ago.  This year, the temperature was in the low 90s, which was a few degrees warmer than average.  Nineteen fifty-four was during a global cooling period, which lasted from 1940 to 1975. 

The Earth cooled so much that on the first Earth Day in 1970, we were warned that billions would die from starvation because of the existential threat of a coming ice age. 

A seventh-grader should be given a science experiment with two variables.  The first is global temperatures from 1880 until today.  The second is crude oil usage from 1880 until today.  The 7th-grader would assume, from the indoctrination he has received, that the lines on a graph would be very similar. 

He would be surprised with the results, which would show that temperatures have fluctuated the last 140 years around a horizontal line with periods of warming and cooling.

The crude oil line would almost be vertical, going from around zero barrels consumed in the late 1800s to around 100 million barrels per day today.  The findings of this simple experiment would show there is a zero or negative correlation between crude oil use and temperatures.  The temperature could not have gone down while crude oil use was rising if there were a correlation. 

The temperature is only one or two degrees higher than it was in 1880, and this occurred after an over 500-year little ice age that ended around 1860.  A one- to two-degree warming after an ice age ended would be cyclical and normal.  It certainly cannot be attributed to any variable, let alone to fossil fuels.

Sadly, the media, politicians, bureaucrats, and others, pushing the radical agenda to destroy the fossil fuel companies, will not conduct this simple experiment.  Instead, they will use easily manipulated computer models, which have always been wrong, to justify the destruction of industries that directly and indirectly employ tens of millions. 

Our quality and length of life have improved tremendously with the use of fossil fuels, and it is pathetic that partisan hacks want to negate all the progress that has been made.  Policies should be based on facts, not predictions from people pushing an agenda.

Thomas Lifson adds: Meanwhile, it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and from The Daily Telegraph of Australia (paywalled), we learn this:

Below average temperatures are sweeping across the majority of the country, as Australia experiences one of the most bitterly cold winters in a decade.

Hat tip: John McMahon.