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The on-again, off-again richest man in the world, Elon Musk, casually dropped another contradictory opinion on climate change today.
“The risk of global warming is exaggerated in the short term,” Musk tweeted, “but significant in the long term.”
The entrepreneur’s fortunes skyrocketed thanks to environmentally conscious ventures: from the electric vehicles and energy storage systems of Telsa Motors, where Musk is CEO, to the solar energy installers SolarCity, which Tesla later acquired.
But over the past year, Musk’s forward-thinking eco-work on building a sustainable energy future has taken a backseat to his new public persona as Twitter’s new owner.
Musk replied to conservative media activist and influencer Mike Cernovich that he believed “the risk of global warming is exaggerated in the short term, but significant in the long term”
Musk isn’t the only high-profile celebrity to denounce climate change this year. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly mocked eco-enthusiasts, saying nuclear war is the far greater threat.
“When I listened to people talk about global warming that the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch in the next 300 years and they talk about this as our problem our big problem is nuclear warming where nobody knows it even about,” Trump told former Fox host Tucker Carlson late last month.
The scientific community agrees that climate change has taken place over the past century and that human activity has “undeniably led to global warming” of up to 1.1°C.
But what is still being debated politically is the most likely impact that warming will have, and when.
A former senior Greenpeace Canada official, Patrick Moore, testified for the Senate and in the media that “the impact of climate change has been vastly exaggerated” who shares Musk’s view, in stark contrast to many leading scientists.
Last March, the world’s leading climate scientists issued dire “final warnings” alongside the latest parts of the Sixth Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Human activities, mainly through greenhouse gas emissions, have undeniably caused global warming,” said their report, noting that global surface temperatures have already risen 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists on the panel also warned that rising temperatures will increase the scarcity of both food and water for about 3.3 to 3.6 billion people currently living in highly vulnerable regions.
Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have released their sweeping sixth assessment of the impact of greenhouse gases. The panel reports that higher risks are now being reported for lower levels of global warming
In their sixth assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommended not increasing fossil fuel infrastructure
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that sweeping changes to current climate policies would be needed to keep warming to a safe level of 2°C to 1.5°C
Their data showed that between 2010 and 2020, human deaths from extreme weather caused by climates, floods, droughts and storms were 15 times higher than the past average in the same highly vulnerable regions.
In fact, unlike Musk, reviews revised by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office determined in 2019, almost all climate models have underestimated the rate of global warming in the short term.
Because three-fifths of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans, this seemingly small change in temperature has dramatic consequences.
As the UK Met Office found, after reviewing their Hadley Center historical analysis of sea surface temperatures (SST), the hidden, underwater melting of ice sheets and glaciers worldwide is occurring a hundred times faster than climate models predicted in 2019.
Musk’s comments on climate change on Twitter appear to be part of a trend in which the billionaire has begun to weigh in on controversial issues, criticize transgender medical procedures and encourage Americans to vote Republicans.
Musk tweeted his new climate opinion in response to a comment from conservative media activist and influencer Mike Cernovich, who had recently called global warming “the biggest scam in human history.”
Musk’s comments on climate were made in response to a tweet from conservative media activist and influencer Mike Cernovich
Both Musk and Cernovich have made their recent climate remarks regarding the Senate testimony on the taxpayer costs demanded to convert the US to a carbon neutral economy.
These plans, as detailed by the Biden White Houseironically contain significant grants to Musk’s own Tesla Motors to help the company expand their network of electric vehicle charging stations by 3,500 units nationwide.