Responding to the new wave of climate scepticism

When my book Breaking Together came out in May, some of my climate activist friends were surprised that I gave significant attention to rebutting scepticism on the existence of manmade climate change. I also surprised some of my colleagues at COP27 a year ago, when I gave a short talk on the rise of a new form of scepticism. That new form is couched in the important desire to resist oppression from greedy, hypocritical and unaccountable elites. I think the surprise of some that we still need to respond to climate scepticism reflects the bubble that many people working on environmental issues exist within. That’s a bubble of Western middle classes who believe they are well-informed, ethical and have some agency, despite relying on the Guardian, BBC or CNN for much of their news. Outside that bubble, there has been a rise in the belief that authorities and media misrepresent science to protect and profit themselves, while controlling the general public. That was primarily because of the experience of the pronouncements and policies during the early years of the pandemic. When people who are understandably resistant to that Covid orthodoxy have discovered the way elites have been using concern about climate change to enrich themselves, such as through the carbon credits scam, many have become suspicious of the whole agenda on climate change. Those of us who know some of the science on climate, and pay attention to recent temperatures and impacts, can feel incredulous at such scepticism. My green colleagues ask me: “How can someone deny what’s changing right before their very eyes?”

What is even more surprising is how many people who previously critiqued industrial consumer societies and were moderately or strongly green, such as stopping using a gas guzzling car, have suddenly turned into climate deniers. That is something that my friends Indra Donfrancesco (the Mayor of Glastonbury) and Gail Bradbrook (co-founder of XR) have experienced and are taking seriously. As someone who shares a deep concern both for the environment and our personal freedoms, I am also concerned about this new form of climate scepticism. Therefore, in the last month, in some of the many messaging groups where I see climate denial videos and blogs shared with the belief that “elites are lying to control us,” I decided to respond. It had pained me to see people who are rightly concerned about the rise in authoritarianism were repeating the stories originally invented by the PR professionals and thinktanks working for the oil industry. That led to one sceptical friend listing questions for me to respond to. I took the time to reply, and am sharing my answers here in case they help you with your own discussions with any sceptical friends.  

My answers were not always a straightforward rehearsal of mainstream climatology. That is because I have concluded that there have been some mistakes by that mainstream. Those mistakes include misrepresenting the carbon lag, overplaying the importance of computer modelling, pretending that CO2 levels are like a thermostat, ignoring the global importance of the cloud seeding effect of forests, downplaying and underestimating the importance of aerosol masking for keeping temperatures down, pretending we can be confident about when a tipping point might be reached, ignoring the critical importance of ocean health on the atmospheric composition, and always erring on the side of least drama. All the claims in my responses are backed up with references and further argumentation in Chapter 5 of my book.

My correspondence with people expressing a new type of freedom-defending climate scepticism has led me to conclude that something else is needed than simply correcting their views with clear logic and evidence. My answers to the questions, which you can read below, may not have been perfect. But the responses from sceptical people have sometimes seemed irrational. For instance, one type of response is an inconsistent switching between epistemologies (the fancy word for describing our view of how we come to know things about the world). That inconsistency involves sometimes claiming to reject all scholarship as untrustworthy instead to trust only firsthand experience. It is inconsistent because they ignore lots of firsthand experience contrary to their view, while also reaching for second hand and poorly referenced or debunked scholarship (often in the form of a blog or video clip) that might seem to support their view. Another irrational approach is the repetition of a claim that has already been debunked, which is the intellectual equivalent of raising one’s voice. One example is sending a blog or a video that repeats previously debunked claims. Another approach is to switch topic on to values and principles, while repeating false binaries given to them by the media. Specifically, that is the binary that climate change can’t be real because globalist elites are profiting from the issue and trying to control us. Instead, both the former and latter can be true at the same time (yep, quite elementary logic). Finally, the most widespread and pernicious irrationality is to regard these discussions as just one topic, and then choose criticism of the globalists as being the most important response, rather than understanding the situation of the natural environment and responding to it in a better way. That happens when people think “after all this debate, I’m not sure about climate change but I’m certain about resisting the globalists, so I’ll focus on that.” If one’s motivation for inquiring into public affairs is to feel like a moral agentic person and experience a burst of energy from belonging to the good guys in a fight, then such a conclusion is seductive. That is especially because it requires no painful recognition of the ecological tragedy, no sacrifices, no risk taking, no changing of lifestyles, and no complicated participation in community projects. It also generates easy likes on social media from people similarly addicted to narratives that avoid difficult self-reflection and change. Unfortunately, the result of this irrationality is people don’t begin to prepare emotionally and practically for what has already started unfolding around them.

Noticing how, in this era of increasing anxiety, people are becoming more influenced by whatever stories are promoted to them by either mass media or alternative media, I included a whole chapter on ‘critical wisdom’ in my book, and have made it a foundational part of my online courses ‘leading through collapse.’ But the key need to escape the attraction of this new form of denialism, which is being engineered by the PR professionals and thinktanks that work for the oil industry, is to advance a freedom-loving environmentalism. Such an environmentalism recognises that we would not have trashed our environments unless we were manipulated and coerced into doing so by exploitative economic relations, including the expansionist monetary system. That is one reason why ‘ecolibertarianism’ is such a major part of my new book.

In any case, I hope the following Q&A where I respond to someone expressing the new kind of climate scepticism is of use. Thx, Jem

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Climate Sceptic Q1) What % of the atmosphere is CO2?

My Answer: CO2 at present is slightly over 420 parts per million and rising. That is a tiny percentage of the atmosphere, at 0.042%. However, it has a significant warming effect through absorbing infrared light, which is demonstrated with experiments and human activity has increased it in the atmosphere to become 50% higher than 200 years ago. Methane has a stronger warming effect, with some estimates it is 80 times stronger in the short term. Methane does that at parts per billion, not million. CFCs are measured in parts per trillion. They are even stronger in their warming power. They also degraded the ozone layer (a different issue) in concentrations of parts per trillion. Some chemicals in suntan cream kill corals in the sea at parts per trillion. Cyanide is natural but kills us at over 300 parts per million in our bodies. I list these to illustrate: the smallness of a concentration doesn’t determine the power of a chemical. To suggest it does is an elementary logical mistake and is being used as a rhetorical device by some people including popular podcasters. Anyone using such a rhetorical device deserves our suspicion. This is something we can all look up quite quickly as these are arguments were had for decades before the globalists hijacked environmentalism and made it all about business, finance and authoritarianism. For instance, read more here.

Climate Sceptic Q2) Why was it so much hotter at various times throughout history and yet look at how much humans have continued to flourish despite all those hot periods? Why should any other further hot periods be worse than previous ones, especially considering all the advanced technologies we have now to deal with any problems that arise?

My Answer: The paleo records suggest the Earth was hotter than today about 100,000 years ago and at various times before that. But we are hotter now than at any time in the last 100,000 years. So no, it has not been hotter than now during human civilisation (or even during the era of the ancient civilisations that popular researcher Graham Hancock believes existed). For instance, the medieval warm period and the roman warm period did indeed both exist, but were not warmer than today. When saying that, I am referring to global averages not a specific region like the coast of Greenland. In Chapter 5 of Breaking Together, I address this point and critique the way climatologists previously dismissed past warm periods too casually. However, what’s key is not just overall warmth but (i) the speed of change and (ii) the distribution of the heat (iii) the location of human settlements. In turn:

• The current heating is thousands of times faster than anything seen in the paleo records. Ecosystems need time to adapt. Trees don’t get up and move. Evolution takes a lot of time. That is one reason why we have a collapse in biodiversity, such as insect loss, as well as massive tree death (leading to bigger and fiercer wildfires).
• the current heating is greater at the poles, due to ice loss effects, in particular. That destabilises the jet stream causing periods of extreme heat and cold in lower latitudes. That has been modelled by the experts at IASSA in Vienna to likely cause a multi bread basket failure (MBBF) within 3 years of the world hitting 1.5C average warming. The implications of that for humanity are huge.
• globally, 267 million humans live in low lying areas (no more than 2m above sea level), and sea-levels will rise slowly but inexorably for centuries due to the current and locked-in warming. The energy demands for building dykes around so many cities and pumping out the rainwater is not feasible. Also, their surrounding agricultural lands will be affected. Massive relocation is ahead.

Climate Sceptic Q3) Why did Al Gore and “Inconvenient Truth” say all the ice would be melted and we’d be under water by now, but it didn’t happen and we are not underwater?

My Answer: My recollection is that Al Gore didn’t say that in that film. He claimed in an interview that all the Arctic ice would have melted by now. That Arctic ice is already floating in the ocean and so it’s melting doesn’t affect sea level rise. If he said it would, then he was wrong and anyone who knew about ice in water would have known he was wrong. Al Gore has got many things wrong. I criticised his capitalist technosalvationist rhetoric during one of my speeches at COP27 in Egypt. However, to focus on one fallible human rather than what is actually happening in our world, is a tactic of diversion, conscious or not.  It is easier to think negatively of someone than face a painful situation square on, something we know from other areas in our life. But back in reality, Arctic ice has melted faster than the past scientific consensus. And it is now on the edge of becoming ice free in northern hemisphere summers, leading to massive heat absorption due to the loss of reflective ice cover. That will further mess with the jet stream and disrupt grain production.  

Climate Sceptic Q4) Why have ocean levels not risen a single inch in all the decades of the seaside places I’ve lived my entire life?

My Answer: Ocean levels are measured both locally and through satellites. Estimates are rises of 3.2mm a year at present, but also that the rise is non-linear. That means that the pace is speeding up, and therefore could be due to self-reinforcing feedbacks, suggesting a form of runaway, or ‘out of control’ global heating (one does not need to assume exponential rise for that lack of control to be real). How such change is experienced by an individual is another issue. When we witness coastal erosion, or flooding estuaries during high tides, or learn of saltwater intrusion into rivers and wells, then we can rightly wonder whether this is just normal or whether the sea level is rising. It could be just a local effect and therefore we need to seek data on this phenomenon of global sea level rise if we want to have understanding. In my case, I have witnessed increased erosion and flooding in the different hometowns of my Mum and my Dad. I am also aware of worrying stories from low lying areas. One needs to choose a big conspiracy to dismiss the scientific measurements on sea-level rise as all fake. If one chooses that then there is no way to dialogue as all the relevant data for knowing a widespread phenomenon could simply be dismissed. The question then arises if someone is being selective (and inconsistent) in their dismissal of scientific data to maintain their narrative.

Climate Sceptic Q5) Have you received any financial compensation for any of your research into climate? By whom and for what reason(s)?

My Answer: On climate, none at all, and the opposite is the case. I took a year of unpaid leave from September 2017 to research the climate science myself, rather than rely on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). So I gave up 55K GBP that year as a full professor. My conclusions led me to publish a paper that intentionally destroyed my professional standing in the corporate sustainability field. I subsequently volunteered for free for 2 days a week to create www.deepadaptation.info as a free network for people with climate anxiety, to help us find positive ways forward. This issue became my seva, or service, as I realised that many people would freak out and either live in total denial or become aggressive authoritarians. I knew there is a better way of responding. I received funding to help develop the Deep Adaptation concept and forum, but I didn’t take any of that as wages for myself. I then received a grant to help keep the Scholars Warning active and write my new book – but climate is just one chapter of 15 in that book. I agree that financial considerations of scientists and their institutions influence their work. Such financial interests have diluted their attention to the full risks from climate change, and led also to distractions, in at least two ways.

First, there is scientific reticence within establishment climatology, which is well documented in peer reviewed journals. More recently, one of the most famous climatologists, Professor James Hansen has explained how the ignoring of the catastrophic heating implications of cleaner air (due to less use of coal and dirty shipping fuel in particular) was a direct result of institutional self-interest. I quote from his recent paper:

“This is crazy,” you must be saying, “why don’t you measure the aerosol climate forcing, instead of this round-about inference via detailed effect on [the Earth’s Energy Imbalance] EEI and absorbed solar energy?” Good question. The short answer is that we (the first author and others) tried, but, in career-long failure could not persuade NASA to fly a small satellite with the two instruments (a high precision polarimeter and an infrared spectrometer) needed to monitor the aerosol and cloud microphysics that define the aerosol climate forcing. The short explanation is that NASA preferred large, slow, multi-billion dollar missions as needed to support the budgets of the large NASA Centers. Throw in a climate-denier NASA Administrator, who, in angry response to our persistence, struck out the first line of the NASA Mission Statement “To Understand and Protect the Home Planet.””

Second, the oil industry knew how dangerous climate change could become and yet deliberately hid that and funded research since the 90s to create a sense of uncertainty where before, in the 80s, there had been certainty of some salient points (that humans are causing additional warming and that is going to become a big problem). The world’s governments agreed that in 1987 but the globalists drove the world towards Armageddon by spreading rapacious capitalism and greed instead. They did that by spreading neoliberal economics (involving forced privatisations, property enclosures, indebtedness, and cuts in health and welfare spending on the poor), through anti-democratic organisations like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. Like many people who were paying attention to world issues, I campaigned against that globalist agenda from 1998 to 2002, including helping organise people to protest at key summits of the G8, WTO and World Bank. Having driven us into a terrible environmental situation, the ideas of globalists on what to do about it are also ideological, misinformed, self-serving and self-aggrandising – the latest manifestation of what I call Imperial Modernity in my book.  

Climate Sceptic Q6) CO2 is the gas that plants and trees consume to grow more, increased plant growth provides greater vegetation abundance, more food and more oxygen and more foliage that provides cooling shade. What makes you think the system isn’t perfectly designed for self-regulation?

My Answer: The CO2 fertilisation effect, also called ‘global greening’, has been important in absorbing some of the CO2 from industrial civilisation. However the fertilisation effect is limited by other factors, such as how much more rapidly a plant can grow due to genetics, sunlight, water, micronutrients and the relative absence of weather extremes and disease. Sadly, I learned in my research in 2017 and 2018 that ‘global greening’ had already reached its peak and instead former carbon sinks (seas and landscapes that would absorb CO2) were risking becoming carbon sources. This is now proven to be the case for many of the world’s forests and I provide data and references in my book. Scarily, it is one of the amplifying feedbacks that mean the situation is not under human control anymore. Modern human culture refuses to consider we are not in control. That is a juvenile and solipsistic attitude that underlies the hubris now threatening the future of civilisation. I write about that ideology in Chapter 9 of Breaking Together. The ideology remains popular, because a lot of people pretend to themselves that they want to know reality when actually they want a story of reality to feel good about their lives and avoid emotional pain. I wonder if it’s a kind of solipsism made possible by living entirely artificial lives in urban settings, relying on supermarkets and screens, divorced from the cycles of death and birth in nature.

You are right that more foliage is important for temperature regulation. But not in the way you describe, which is only very localised, in comparison to a global problem. Instead, forests are key to global temperatures by seeding clouds around the world through the pollen and bacteria they send up into the atmosphere during evapotranspiration. This issue has been downplayed in mainstream climatology and policy. I describe that as a terrible oversight in Chapter 5 of my book. That isn’t good news, as it doesn’t reduce the importance of the heating effect of increasing CO2 by 50% in the atmosphere over the last 200 years.

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Climate Sceptic Q7) Our planet exists in a cold void of space, what makes you think any excess heat doesn’t simply disperse into space?

My Answer: You are referring here to the Earth Energy Imbalance. Not all heat coming in from the sun is radiated back into space or there wouldn’t be our climate and life on Earth. Oceans and atmosphere absorb some of the heat (the oceans accounting for about 90 percent of the energy absorption). The energy inputs and capturing of that energy change over time, changing the average temperature of the Earth. Dr Lindzen popularised the idea of an IRIS effect of excess heat being radiated back into space. That has subsequently been debunked by many studies (referred to in my book). Instead, there is a science on the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI). It shows that we are in a very unusual period of imbalance in the last few years due to policies that have been reducing aerosols in our atmosphere. The previously mentioned paper from James Hansen and colleagues makes that very clear. Leon Simons worked with him on that and is the key scientist using twitter to share the latest updates. These are top scientists who are not welcomed by any part of the establishment, because those with power prefer the public to think that the climate situation is either under control or a complete hoax, so that we might continue to live as normal. When Dr Lindzen was promoting the IRIS effect argument of excess heat dispersing into space, he was funded by big oil. I have not seen him retract his theory but instead say very similar things on the Jordan Petersen podcast without using the actual name of his theory, which prevents swift debunking by a curious-minded viewer.

Climate Sceptic Q8: Do you realize that most climate crisis fear science models are theoretical computer programs? Not measured hard data. They pulled the same BS with covid.

My Answer: Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Climate scientists used computer models partly because they could delay concluding what was obvious through other science and instead imagine that the future climate could be controlled by our policies and actions. Because if they didn’t use models then they would need to rely on comparisons with past climates reconstructed from palaeontology. Such comparisons indicate that at current CO2 we will experience over 2 degrees warming above preindustrial average temps. That’s a level that would set off more amplifying feedback loops, taking us into unpredictable temperature futures. By using models, climatologists are able to claim that the inevitable level of warming from existing CO2 in the atmosphere is uncertain, and so they then discount it altogether. They do that by running many simulations and finding they all differ sufficiently to not allow a consensus to be reached. That lack of consensus is then used to discount the issue completely. That is the actual climate scam, which is perpetuated by the IPCC and its most vocal champions. It means that some commentators on climate falsely claim that when the CO2 stops being emitted, the warming will stop and soon reverse. I wrote about this duplicitous use of models as a justification to ignore ‘committed warming’ from existing CO2 in an essay last year that critiqued the way career scientists and others seem to be overly influenced by their own professional interests when addressing this issue.

A similarly poor way of using models was when the more advanced models in 2021 had begun predicting hotter, faster and more destabilising outcomes from greenhouse gases than the older models. To avoid dismay, a group of leading scientists including Dr. Gavin Schmidt (NASA) suggested dropping the ‘hottest’ models and weighting them by how well they compared relative to other metrics – something the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had already done in its reports. This is explained here (but not unfavourably, as Carbon Brief likes to maintain a view on climate change that can see technology and policy as solutions).

Current observational data (‘hard data’) in 2023 is showing that current ocean temperatures and atmospheric temperatures are exceeding the temperatures projected by an averaging of the climate models over the past 20 years. Some mainstream climatologists are trying to downplay that and pretend that the current changes are within their expected range, as they seek to retain their credibility and influence. I believe we need to learn from their failings (and their misplaced aggression towards the many scholars, like myself, who pointed to the more concerning science over the last 5+ years).

The parallel with models used for assessing Covid-19 is that institutional and professional self-interest influences whether models are used and how they are used. In some cases that is to cause fear, because it enables control and profiteering. In other cases, it can be to distract from realities that fundamentally challenge incumbent power. The latter is true for climate change.

Climate Sceptic Q9) Can you quantify exactly what % of human lives you feel are directly threatened by climate change over the next 100 years? How about next 1000 years? I’d like to understand very specifically what kind of threat you think climate change is.  I come from Canada, it would be amazing if Canada could be warmer.

My Answer: I think this is a brilliant question because it challenges me to get specific beyond my comfort zone. The reason it is outside my comfort zone is something I’ll come back to in a moment.

First, let’s clarify terms. Let’s take “threatened” to mean reduced life expectancy. That means ignoring for now reduced physical or mental health, or reduced opportunities for self-actualisation. I will just stick to life and death. Let’s take “directly” to mean threatened only through the direct impact of weather on an individual rather than through systems, such as impacts on grain markets, insurance markets, and so on. With that as the criteria, then although extreme events like droughts, floods, fires, storms, heat domes and cold periods, are increasing, and can be truly tragic, compared to the global population not that many people will die directly from such events.

If a change in one factor has an intermediary process before killing people, then what matters is not whether it works “directly” but whether it is significant in producing the outcome of death. That is important, as the big concern with climate change is the destabilising of weather and seasons, for that effects habitats, agriculture, and water availability. For instance, one impact is increased zoonotic disease in humans due to insects and animals having different ranges and migrating differently and the animals becoming more sick and shedding viruses. As an example, there has been an explosion of Lymes disease in the UK (something which affected my close family members). The rise of zoonotic diseases could be huge for the human race, but is too complicated to model and so can’t easily be included. Yet it could be the number one factor threatening civilisation due to climate change, for reasons I detail in Chapter 4 of my book (which you can download free from jembendell.com). Combatting that scary future was the excuse used by bureaucrats to fund reckless gain-of-function research into viruses, which has created yet another damaging impact on humanity. I also discuss that in detail in Chapter 4. But it is too complex to put numbers of likely deaths due to climate-related increases in zoonotic disease.  

So, how many people will die of climate change? We know people are dying already due to climate change. For instance, the Red Cross report two million more people a week need humanitarian aid due to problems made worse by climate change. The FAO and WFP report that climate change is one of the main factors influencing the rise of hungry people in the world (now over 700 million). It is unclear how many will die from that. Looking ahead, one recent peer-reviewed scientific study, which reviewed lots of other existing work, concluded that roughly 1 billion people will die if the planet warms above pre-industrial averages to 2 degrees Celsius or higher by 2100.

Such questions and calculations are outside my comfort zone as I don’t believe one can predict outcomes as specific as the numbers of people dying from changes in highly complex natural and human systems. I am critical of those who try to do it because they must assume that impacts are mostly incremental i.e. for another tonne of CO2, that there is an incremental increase in the hazard. In Chapter 5 of my book I explain in some detail how this idea is incorrect, and that we may have already passed tipping points that will lead to further damage, whatever our reductions of CO2. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to change, but that we can’t pretend we are in control. For a reality check, that recent study mentioned 2100 for a 2C average warming above pre-industrial. However, with 2023 global average temperature anomalies already at 1.8C for the month of September 2023, and the El Nino Pacific Ocean phenomenon only just beginning and likely to heat the planet much more in 2024, we could be looking at least some months above 2C next year – that’s decades ahead of those past climate model projections.

As I mentioned earlier, IASSA predicted a multi breadbasket failure (MBFF) for maize/corn within 3 years of global 1.5C. Therefore, just on that basis I remain comfortable with my public guestimate back in 2018 that we will see signs of societal collapse in all countries of the world by 2028. In fact, data in the last 5 years only adds weight to that guestimate, and I go into detail on it in Chapter 6 of my book on ‘food system breakdown’. If we look at wider data on other dimensions of industrial consumer societies, one can make a credible argument that the process of the creeping collapse of such societies already began prior to 2016.

One problem with answering your question on projected deaths is that above 2C global average warming, the various amplifying feedbacks mean that we could be headed upwards of 5C and therefore even human extinction this century becomes a credible perspective. I do not conclude that, but it is shocking that such situations even become possible and are then dismissed by so many without sober analysis. 

Finally, let’s not forget more extreme periods of cold are being caused by impacts of climate change on the jet stream so it’s not about Canada simply getting warmer, it’s Canada experiencing more weather extremes and unseasonality – very tough for forests, wildlife and agriculture. People who watch businessman Bjorn Lomberg show up on podcasts are constantly misled on this matter to think climate change is just about a slight increase in warmth rather than the temperature extremes it generates.

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Climate Sceptic Q10) Exactly what places do you believe are threatened by climate change and what places have immunity from it? What % of the Earth is threatened by land size?

My Answer: All ecosystems on Planet Earth are already experiencing some perturbation due to the pace of change towards higher variability of temperatures and precipitation. That is why the world’s leading ecologists at IPBES have reported such harrowing losses of biodiversity in recent years. Chapter 4 in my book summarises the latest situation with biodiversity, including the implications for humans, and how some of the largest environmental groups in the world systematically downplayed the situation to remain positive and sell the environmental agenda to donors.

Climate Sceptic Q11) I have friends all over the Earth, none of them are complaining about heat. So what gives? Either A – it’s not as hot as some reports suggest. B – it is hotter, but that’s not a bad thing. C – all my friends are dishonest. What do you think is the answer?

My Answer: Climate change is making weather more variable, including colder at times, due to effects on the jet stream. My friends in Greece, Pakistan, New York, Spain, Canada, and Australia have all complained about either unprecedented heat, cold, floods, droughts and forest fires (or a mix thereof). My friends in tropical tourist destinations have also complained about coral bleaching. All of my friends are complaining about prices, and I guess that most of yours are too, unless you are only hanging out with the elites. Those prices are partly due to monetary policies, as I explain in Chapter 2 of my book. But they are also partly due to our economic system hitting planetary limits, including the impacts of a changing climate on food production, as I explain in Chapter 1. But your question is also about how people are experiencing life. The biggest data sets show that ‘standard of living’ and ‘quality of life’ have been falling since before 2016 in most countries in the world, and even in most economically ‘advanced’ countries since 2019 (i.e. before the pandemic). This decline indicates global causes, not local or national ones. In my book I explore those global causes, of which environmental degradation is a key one.

Climate Sceptic Q12) Many public figures have repeatedly for years given detailed critiques refuting the severity of climate change including Bjorn Lomburg, Alex Epstein, Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. John Christy, Marc Marano. Also, a group of over 1600 international scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth. You think they are all wrong or lying for some reason? “There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration. All the evidence I’ve seen suggests there is no serious threat, if anything life will get better for many people if the planet is a bit warmer. Yes, maybe some challenges for some folks in some areas, but no apocalyptic fear porn worthy threat.

My Answer: Years ago, Dr John Christy offered a very important critique of Professor Michael Mann and his ‘hockey stick graph’. I agree with him and Dr Judith Curry that the graph blended data types and ignored other data to produce a visual effect that might then be used to misinform people. Therefore, subsequently, it has been used incorrectly in climate communications by people who mean well. For instance, people ignore the reality of a ‘carbon lag’ that is shown in the data on ancient climates. That is where carbon dioxide rose hundreds of years after past warming, not before. That means we are in a far worse position, not a better one, as there is likely ‘committed carbon’ (mainly to be released by the oceans) due to existing levels of warming. I explain this in detail in Chapter 5. Therefore, I disagree that the professional annoyance of Dr Christy and Dr Curry with one somewhat confrontational scientist (Michael Mann) should make us focus on him rather than what the science suggests about our situation overall. The reality of a carbon lag is too shocking for most of us to comprehend – as it means we have already created the potential for runaway climate change. Perhaps that is why people prefer squabbling about who said what, who is good or bad, and whose side we are on. I thought we had left playschool, but clearly many of us never did, and I include the top climatologists and their petty public squabbles in that critique.  

So, do I think people are lying? I am not that interested in whether people are confused, distracted, lying to themselves, or just lying in public. Instead, I read the relevant science and the current observational data. I read the debunking of Dr Lindzen and how he has never responded to that. I observe that Bjorn Lomborg is a businessman who owns and runs a consultancy that works for big foundations and has a public brand and narrative. I see him continually make the elementary error that climate change doesn’t create periods of extreme cold, so that he can state his rhetorical flourish that more people die of cold than heat. I can also observe that the oil industry were behind the original version of the letter you just cited, before suggesting people compare its statements with your questions and my answers. That will highlight how many of its statements are junk that have been debunked many years ago. Instead, I can point to how there was no oil industry or other corporate backing for a letter I co-wrote and co-signed with 500 other scholars in 2020, which called on the media to report on the risks of societal disruption and collapse. Instead, we are ignored, then vilified, shadow banned, and deplatformed (e.g. me from X/Twitter) because our analysis is the greatest challenge to corporate power there could be. See www.scholarswarning.net

If you want to keep up with the frightening climate news and impacts, just type “in recorded history” into Twitter, and you will see that either there is the biggest ever conspiracy that fakes the measurements, science and videos, or that Mother Nature herself must have joined in on the ‘climate scam’.

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