The mainstream media (MSM) is almost unanimous about anthropogenic (man-made) global warming or climate change or deregulation as shown by world temperatures increases of just over 1,0 C since 1850. This supposed catastrophe is said to be the result of increased man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from more use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. The MSM now refuse any debate on the question with climate ‘denial’ laws proposed for those doubting this theory so many scientists online precisely denying would therefore be guilty as would many in opinion polls, authors of scientific books, articles and blogs including this writer. Indeed the ‘end of the world’ opinion about climate catastrophe is increasingly challenged as seen in the link below. For those saying that some of those signing are not ‘climate scientists,’ it should be remembered that this expression was unknown until recently and that any serious climatic analysis requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, meteorology and botany among other disciplines. The list is growing daily with professors from various disciplines and countries adding their names.
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/WCD-version-06272215121.pdf
It needs to said before discussing the issue, that the vocabulary ‘denial’ is grotesque, usually reserved to those denying the factual genocide of millions of Jews in the 1930/40s. ‘Global warming scepticism’ is far more appropriate since nobody doubts that the climate is changing as it always has since the beginning of the world around 4,6 billion years ago and (almost) nobody doubts the gentle global warming over the last 200 years. Those signing the above mentioned list make precisely this point; the issue is whether this warming is man-made and dangerous and whether anything can be done about it.
CO2 is only 0,04% of all atmospheric gases, 96% of which occurs naturally
CO2 is not carbon monoxide (CO) which is a potentially mortal poison, but is essential for life on earth! Plants inhale CO2 to grow and exhale oxygen or O2 and humans do the contrary. This elementary botany, (photosynthesis) is or was taught in schools and this author studied it aged 11. Increased CO2 means more plant growth as NASA’s recent satellite photography proves showing substantial increases in world forests and other vegetation in the last 50 years corresponding to 18 million km2 or 28 x the size of France. Of course the MSM rarely mention this fact, but comment about forest being lost which refers to virgin forest not new ones. (Again no climate sceptic would agree with destroying virgin forests, but many grow back again surprisingly quickly when left alone outside human influence.)
To return to CO2, 96% of the famous 0,04% of all atmospheric gases occurs naturally in the oceans and from other events like volcanic eruptions so outside human influence. With increasing population, transport, heating and industrial production, the man-made part of CO2 has increased from about 3% of 0,04% (0,0012% of all atmospheric gases) to around 4% of 0,04% so 0,0016%. The figures are undisputed, but rarely published and perhaps some of the climate hysteria would disappear if they were more known.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) created in 1988 to consider climate questions agrees that CO2 is a minuscule trace gas, but since CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, the IPCC consider that this leads to the greenhouse gas effect, something potentially dangerous in their opinion. CO2 is not the only gas doing this, the other main ones being water vapour, nitrous oxide, methane and ozone, but CO2 takes longer to dissipate and has more effect in the short-term than the others. (Without these gases, average world temperatures would be about – 18° C rather than the current 15° C.) Climate sceptics agree on the figures, but disagree on the consequences since there is little proven correlation between historical increases, stability or decreases of CO2 and temperatures. Research in ice cores shows a 400 000 year gap between CO2 modifications and any temperature consequences with evidence suggesting that increasing temperatures leads to more CO2 and not the contrary.
The IPCC view is that CO2 remained stable for a very long time until human activity caused it to rise, in their view dangerously. This is the discredited 1990s ‘hockey stick’ theory, exposed as a fraud when the scientist promoting this idea lost libel claims against those challenging it. In 2009 hackers (admittedly illegally) discovered private e mails from the University of East Anglia where many climate models are produced and discovered discussions about hiding data from previous cooling or warming periods. Indeed, during the ‘little ice age’ in early 18th century Europe, the climate was much colder than today with fairs and markets taking place on thick winter ice in London and other European cities. During the medieval warming period 1000 years ago, the climate was much warmer, England was a major wine producing country and Greenland was so named for reasons that then seemed obvious. 2000 years ago the Romans occupying Britain were able to grow grapes and were pleased not to have to bring their wine from home. In the 1930s the world was much hotter than today when measured in countries with reliable systems, essentially the USA, Australia, France or the UK. As literature at the time describes, the US Middle West was a dust bowl and it was so hot that millions fled to California or literally went mad. These historical climate changes had nothing to do with CO2 from using fossil fuels, a theory that only became popular in the 1980s.
The repeated claim that “the science is settled” since “97% of scientists agree the man-made global warming exists and is dangerous” to quote ex-US President Obama is a total fraud. It was a conclusion based on a survey of 11944 abstracts on climate written from 1991 to 2011 where 66,4% of these papers made no comment about human behaviour and climate. Presumably the hypothesis was considered too stupid or irrelevant to mention? Of the 32,6% of extracts making any reference to climate, 97,1% concluded that very limited global warming is happening and the suggested that there ‘might be some connection’ with human behaviour. This is hardly conclusive and many climate sceptics would agree with it. (0,7% of the extracts rejected the idea and only 0,3% or 41 abstracts agreed that man-made CO2 was most likely cause of global warming.) “Lies, damned lies and statistics” as the they say.
Science should be based on empirical evidence about real observed temperatures, not about opinion polls leading to a supposed consensus and the reason is simple: since the beginning of modern scientific progress, ideas that were strictly in the minority have turned out to be true. The fact that the earth moves around the sun and not the contrary or that vaccinations help build immunity against diseases and do not automatically give the disease to those vaccinated are among many, many examples.
Science should also not be the result of models with subjective hypotheses; if a climate model assumes that CO2 is dangerous and CO2 increases, the model becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Also, climate models by definition give varying results proving the point that they are not infallible and all of them start with the hypothesis that climate is static which it is untrue. Finally, science should not be about extrapolated trends where the results are ‘cherry picked’ to fit the theory. Any climate analysis should be based on long-term trends and not weather events.
How to measure temperatures?
Few countries have had reliable measuring systems for long and there are obvious distortions when measuring in open countryside 50 years ago and continuing to measure in the same place that is now a built-up city. So-called record temperatures last summer in England of just over 40° C (104 F) were measured at Heathrow Airport and a military airbase, upstream or downstream from planes landing and taking off! Since 70% of the planet is water, any reliable measuring should not be on land anyway, but in the troposphere (just below the atmosphere) using satellite technology and balloons. Measured this way, current temperature increases are around 0,12 C every decade which is not an existential threat to human existence.
As seen above, during the 1970s, many politicians and media were equally convinced of global cooling and this author is old enough to remember his parents and school teachers discussing this issue. Some ‘climate science’ today is as credible as suggesting that US junk food is like French gastronomy, but most politicians agree with the IPCC or are afraid to suggest otherwise. The latest IPCC report suggests that 1 billion people living in coastal cities are at danger from rising sea levels, but the same report suggests that the rise has been 1-2 mm per year over the last 100 years “and there is no evidence to suggest that this rise is increasing.” The IPCC then contradicts this with models suggesting a 50-100% increase to perhaps 3 mm per year. Even if true, 2050 is in 27 years time x 3 mm per year = 81 mm. Is humanity incapable of dealing with this by digues or other protective measures? Billions of climate refugees are going to flee like from biblical plagues into higher grounds? Yet, those disagreeing with anything suggested by the IPCC are considered by much of the media as completely stupid or dangerous fanatics, rather like media attitudes towards those voting for Brexit or President Trump or questioning Covid policies in other contexts.
Other wrong predictions after the 1970s global cooling scare
20 years ago ‘experts’ predicted that children would never see snow again and that the Kilimanjaro mountain would lose its snow cap. The Arctic was predicted to be ice free by 2008, but the quantity has increased to levels of 20 years ago and the Antarctic has seen its coldest ever measured 6 month period. Wrong predictions continue: glaciers are indeed declining in Europe, but growing in Greenland and a decline is inevitable anyway since the last ice age ended 12000 years ago. Polar bears were to go extinct, but are now thriving. Islands like the Maldives were to disappear, but where 4 new airports are being built. Predictions that Manhattan would be under water from rising sea level remain fantasy and such evidence as exists of significant rising sea levels are due to sinking land masses that happens naturally.
The Coral Reef was said to be destroyed by global warming in Australia, but is thriving where it is even warmer in Papua-New Guinea with recent news of a spectacular and ‘unexpected’ growth in the Coral Reef unreported or hardly reported by the MSM. There are not more hurricanes, floods or other climatic disasters than in the past, statistically slightly fewer and considerably fewer when measured in terms of number of victims. Australian or Californian forest fires were far worse in the 1970s and are partly caused today by laws against removing dead vegetation. Record acreage burned in France last year only relates to statistics dating from 2006 and most fires were started either deliberately or by stupidity when throwing cigarettes out of cars or holding barbecues near forests. The bad fires in Greece in 2020 were worse in the 1980s, but don’t let the facts get in the way of the story. Floods in Pakistan in 2022 led to about 1600 deaths, but were worse in 1950, 1970, 1992, 1993 and 2010 with the 1970 death toll estimated between 300 and 500 000! The number of victims of extreme weather events has declined from about 5,5 million per year 100 years ago to around 400,000 today despite an enormous increase in population and urban development on unsuitable land where the risk of flooding or fire is high.
Collective panic and psychological illness :
Instead of considering real evidence, the IPCC models are assumed to be infallible leading to daily doomsday predictions from self-proclaimed experts with zero scientific knowledge led by a Swedish girl of 20 with a long history of mental illness. Psychologically, the impact is devastating with young people suffer suicidal levels of depression having been constantly told that the world is coming to an end. Many women refuse to have children because of the ‘carbon footprint’ of their babies and others already with children regret having them which is not psychologically ideal for the children concerned. Governments promoting climate catastrophe theories are encouraging irrational and neurotic behaviour so extinction rebellion fanatics glue themselves to the road and throw paint on works of art as if that changes anything. Climate-ecology demonstrators using violence claim that their behaviour is justified since “the end is nigh” a subject dismissed as a joke in the more logical age a few years ago. Humans have primeval fear and the good news might be to remember that predictions about the end of the world have happened since the beginning of the world. Those believing that climate change is an existential crisis for humanity will be proven wrong, just like all other similar predictions.
Climate panic has become a cult, everyone must believe in it and if not, we are all heading for hell and damnation as religions said or still say. Climate sceptics face social ostracism, loss of career progression and jobs and sometimes physical attacks. Researchers cannot obtain grants or have their grants removed from both public and private authorities if they show any dissent. As this author has discovered, climate is another subject where social network censorship is widespread for those disagreeing with a certain view.
The impossible replacement of fossil fuels by renewables
Since using fossil fuels is supposedly responsible for the climate ‘reaching tipping point’ or ‘moving out of control’ or whatever be the latest hysteria, the idea is to replace these fuels with renewable energy. After 30 years and spending £/$/€ multi trillions, only 12% of world energy needs are met this way by hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, tide, bioenergy and waves. All this money is spent to reduce carbon emissions to zero by phasing out relatively cheap and certainly efficient fossil fuels and replacing them by much more expensive and unreliable renewable energy claimed to be cleaner, but which is not. Solar energy cannot be produced at night nor wind energy when there is no wind and the storage costs are prohibitive if indeed possible. All require expensive back-up systems to prevent black-outs. Building solar panels in China is environmentally scandalous involving the extraction of rare raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel without even considering the use of child labour or political prisoners in the process. The panels are then transported and sold to the West where politicians and some of the public can smugly pretend to be ‘green’ and virtuous. The pollution and energy costs of manufacturing wind turbines far outweighs any possible benefit from using them intermittently when the wind blows. (They also kill millions of birds caught in the blades and are an unsightly blot on the landscape or seascape.) During the 2021 Texas winter the wind turbines froze since it was so cold causing deaths from a lack of electricity. Creating biomass ‘clean’ energy by slicing trees into small pellets is ecologically scandalous when virgin forests are cut down and the wood transported half way around the world. Traditional heating of homes by fuels is being banned with energy bills and tax already vastly increased because of the extra costs. These policies have led to a reduction in living standards for almost everyone since reliable supplies of energy and wealth creation and ‘net zero’ do not go together. 10 x more people die from cold than heat every year including in rich Western countries and this figure will increase substantially.
The absurdity of net zero
Virtue signaling about ‘being green’ makes no difference to man-made CO2 anyway, since countries like the UK or France are only responsible for about 1% of it and CO2 produced in the West is declining with new technologies. Also, if Africa follows the Asian demographic and economic development model in the next 20 years, what is decided by the Western countries is even more irrelevant. Despite this, young people in particular and the public in general have been taught to believe that the West is responsible for all the world’s problems on this and many other issues, but most man-made CO2 is produced by China, India and other developing countries which is perfectly logical since that is where most people live. The truth is that the only way to reduce human related CO2 is for people to stop breathing and die.
The Paris climate agreement was supposed to be enormously important with its attempt to limit temperature rises to +1,5°C in 2050 compared to levels prior to the Industrial Revolution. Almost all countries agreed to it, but developing countries were excluded until 2030 and in the meantime, China and India open new coal power stations every week. Plane travel and shipping were also excluded because of the economic cost and it was precisely for these reasons plus the cost of carbon reductions both for industry and individuals that led former President Trump to withdraw the USA from the agreement. This decision was reversed immediately by President Biden who like others, makes speeches about existential threats to human existence with the UN Secretary General referring to “collective suicide.” Germany gives lessons in ecology to everyone and planned to stop nuclear energy production and replace it by importing more gas from Russia. (Sanctions against Russia mean this is no longer possible so Germany has reopened lignite mines, the cheapest, dirtiest and least inefficient coal and many other European countries are doing something similar.)
Pollution and climate are not the same issues
Everyone agrees that smog in cities should be reduced, plastics should not be thrown into the sea and recycling should be encouraged, but none of these desirable ideas require civilizational change. The situation is fortunately getting better not worse with relatively clean high technology industries. Rivers in Paris and London contain fish again, the air is cleaner and buildings are no longer covered by black soot. In developing economies, the picture is more contrasted with population growth, traffic and inefficient old industry meaning that the dirtiest cities in the world are in China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Obviously no pollution is desirable, but life expectancy has never been so high and despite the record world population, proportionately fewer people live in absolute poverty or are starving to death than before. There is no disagreement about anti-pollution measures assuming the cost can be justified and the benefit seen.
There is also the question of using world’s resources and again models have been constantly wrong with new resources discovered and existing ones used more efficiently. (Oil was supposed to run out by the year 2000.) Indeed, using energy efficiently is also not open to debate so everyone can agree that vehicles should run with cleaner engines. However, electric cars are not the answer since the vehicles still have to be built and cost far more, the extra electricity still has to be produced to arrive at the plugs and the batteries represent a major ecological challenge using rare earths. New building design can reduce energy consumption and old buildings renovated to conserve energy, but this also requires a cost-benefit analysis. In France, outside café terraces will no longer be heated in winter as being an unnecessary waste of energy so any analysis is not just financial, but also social. Why not prevent any neon displays? Why not make it illegal to use electricity for anything that the political ecology movement considers as non-essential? Plane travel is now illegal in France if an equivalent train journey exists in under 2 hours 30 minutes. Quite apart from the freedom of choice, the journey might also be replaced by cars or buses and the justification about how this reduces world CO2 is mathematically insane. The latest ‘green’ opinion is to ban private planes and swimming pools for the same reasons; this green fascism is a control movement on daily lives which governments are rushing to introduce. Totalitarian ideas about social control with energy quotas is no longer a nightmare that would never happen in the West.
Climate and questions of civilisation
This debate represents further evidence of the decline of Western civilisation since one key feature of it since the Enlightenment is the importance of reason. This does not exclude the belief of any superior being or God and indeed precisely an integral part of this civilisation says that man is not an absolute master of everything so cannot do exactly as he pleases, a belief that Dictators always dislike. However, Western civilisation now also means that due weight should be given to scientific evidence. Even if the IPCC were correct, there is no solution because of the size of the world population and the demand for electricity. If reducing CO2 levels requires billions fewer people, then those in favour should say so and suggest how this is to be achieved other than by mass genocide.
Another feature of Western civilisation is that human life needs protecting since the Judeo-Christian tradition from the Bible holds that humans were made perfectly in God’s (spiritual) image. Many African and Indian villages have no access to electricity so developing decent irrigation schemes is impossible. If it is desirable that they do not have access to electricity those believing this should say so leading to the morally repugnant conclusion that millions should die earlier than necessary ‘to save the planet.’ Cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuels has permitted people to enjoy a standard of living that is absolutely unparalleled in history. Fossil fuels keep people warm when it is cold, keep them cool when it is hot; if this is undesirable it should be admitted so that people can die younger and live in far worse conditions. Indeed the most extreme climate militants say as much in an indirect way and their lack of patience with dissenting views is dictatorial. Limited global warming has also increased food production, precisely for the increased world population; if this is undesirable, again it should be admitted.
Recent weather trends
The winter 2021-22 saw record record snowfalls in Madrid and in the Southern States of the USA in January and February. Europe had its coldest spring since 1956 destroying summer fruit crops followed by a mediocre damp summer. In the Southern hemisphere, Sydney in June was the coldest since 1899 and coffee, cane sugar and orange crops in Brazil were substantially reduced or destroyed by cold weather. Snow was recorded in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, on various Greek islands and in Florida. Some unusually cold Northern Hemisphere temperatures in 2021 were said to be caused by the Polar Vortex descending further South than normal because the weakening Jet Stream was unable to prevent Arctic weather descending over North America. Perhaps, but exactly the same explanation was given for global cooling in the 1970s. Apparently if it gets colder it is global warming and if it gets warmer it is as well so the lunatics are running the asylum.
The summer of 2022 in Western Europe saw some record temperatures and there is no doubt that it was hotter than usual, sometimes markedly so. However also last summer, Australia’s ski resorts opened much earlier than usual at the end of May with levels of snow not seen for 54 years. Arctic and Greenland summer ice loss was less than usual and ice coverage is now well above the low point in 2012. Israel, Morocco and Siberia saw cooler temperatures than normal and the situation is very much as normal in North America and elsewhere. President Biden’s claim that July 2022 in the USA was the 3rd hottest on record was faithfully reported by the lapdog MSM, but the figures were manipulated by reducing previous higher temperatures by 4° F and adding 1° F to those in 2022. It is no longer a question of cherry picking the base to make comparisons, but changing the figures to fit the story. As the map below shows, very hot weather in Western Europe in July last year was accompanied by much cooler weather than usual in Eastern Europe, Greece and Turkey.
Winter 2022-23 in the Northern hemisphere saw record cold temperatures recorded in the Russian and Chinese Siberian regions as well as in the USA. Vast snowfalls covered California and not just the mountains, but including the palm trees in Los Angeles! Snow again reached Texas and Florida and predictions about endless droughts in California and Australia have been proven comprehensively wrong. Few of these recent events are given much attention by the mass media, but are available on any research engine with 10 minutes’ effort. If they are mentioned, the narrative still remains that catastrophe is just around the corner.
COP (Conference of the Parties) 27, 28
The annual COP meetings are exercises in collective panic from politicians and the usual range of ‘celebrities’ as they arrive in their private jets telling how ordinary people how to live their lives. The usual ‘experts’ are being invited by the MSM to give their views and listened to by unquestioning journalists with religious faith last seen in Europe in the Middle Ages. The wrong predictions are never mentioned, views are not challenged, but declarations are made as they have done for 30 years. In the meantime in the real world, the quantity of man-made CO2 continues to increase as it will do for the reasons given in this article with or without the COP festivals. In the real world, there is a 22° C difference in average daily annual temperatures between Singapore and Helsinki. Both are rich with humanity surviving happily.
The future
Many scientists now point out that fewer sun spots showing reduced solar activity means global cooling is more likely in the near future. This is is due to the Milankovitch cycles, an accepted theory from 1941 explaining that world temperatures are affected by axial tilt, precession and eccentricity. Studies in astrophysics show that the earth is not a perfect circle and tilts when circulating around the sun and wobbles because of the atmospheric pressure from other planets. The result is that the seasons change every few thousand years and the distance from the sun is not constant. These concepts might seem complicated, but are rather more credible than panicking about how much infinitesimally small extra CO2 exists in the atmosphere from humans. It would be nice to imagine that some politicians had the courage to speak out, talk some common sense and become statesmen and not simply politicians repeating slogans looking for cheap votes. Then again “politicians think of the next election; statesmen think of the next generation.”
Already civil disobedience is simmering under the surface as the public begins to understand the economic and social consequences of the net zero agenda. The confident prediction of this author (and many others) is that in 5-10 years from now when none of the apocalyptic predictions come true, then the public will wake up to the scam and the politicians will take note. Demographers estimate that the world population of 8 billion now will increase to 9 or 10 billion over the next 15-20 years before starting a major decline from about 2045. Therefore, if indeed the human population is responsible for this non-catastrophe, the so-called problem will go away by itself!
Acknowledgements
Among a long-list of specialised publications, the author would like to thank the following sites in particular for information used in this blog.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/04/Humlum-State-Climate-2021.pdf
https://realclimatescience.com/
Where Is The “Climate Emergency”?
As a more general source of information see https://dailysceptic.org