Inconvenient Facts
JONATHAN ANDREWS presents a personal take on the climate change debate and questions the assertion of NASA – the US science and technology agency – that 97% of scientists believe humans are causing global warming.
‘Climate alarmism’ has reached fever pitch. Or ‘boiling point’ given the recent UN assertion of ‘Global Boiling’. These headlines, coupled with relentless climate propaganda, have induced a state of fear in humankind, and it can be difficult to think rationally when fearful. So is there really cause for alarm?
The current level of CO2 in our atmosphere is measured at approximately 425 ppm – parts per million – or around 0.04% of the atmosphere. However the level of CO2 has been far higher than it is now. According to RA Berner in the American Journal of Science, levels of CO2 were around 4,250 ppm (0.4%) when the ancestors of the plants on which humans rely first evolved. If the level of CO2 falls below 150 ppm – around 0.02% – plants, and subsequently humans, die. That’s right, arguably we need more CO2 not less!
The Earth’s climate has always changed, irrespective of human behaviour. We alternate between ice ages and warm periods. The last ‘Little Ice Age’ ended around 1850. Before that we enjoyed a ‘Warm Period’ from around 950-1250 AD when temperatures were higher and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was lower than today. And current temperatures are not ‘breaking records’. The hottest officially recorded temperature was 56.7°C at Death Valley in the USA in 1913. This decade records only reached a milder 54.4°C.
In the 1970s, scientists predicted another ice age. That was changed to ‘Global Warming’ in the 1980s. However that term also had to be changed as, on average, the planet is not necessarily warming. It depends on an arbitrary starting point. If you take the ‘Little Ice Age’, as the International Panel on Climate Change does, it has warmed slightly. If you take the Medieval Warm Period, it has cooled slightly.
From the fearmongers’ perspective the latest term, ‘Climate Change’, coined in the mid 2000s, is better as it allows for any unexpected weather event to be cited as evidence … necessary for climate alarmists since evidence is not on their side.
But hang on, don’t 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? Well, no they don’t. That statistic was manipulated. Of the 11,944 papers reviewed, 7,930 took no position on the subject and were arbitrarily excluded. If one were to simply add those papers back in, the 97% figure would fall to 32%. Another review, by David Legates et al, concluded that just 0.3% of the scientists in those papers actually believed that humans cause global warming.
Most people won’t have heard of the ‘World Climate Declaration’ (WCD) as it doesn’t conform to the mainstream position of catastrophic climate change and so isn’t mentioned in mainstream media. However the WCD has been signed by over 1,600 of the world’s leading scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners. And what does the WCD say? Amongst other things it says there is no climate ‘emergency’.
Sixteen hundred scientists may not be that many. But bear in mind that signing the WCD is to effectively end your career and reputation as a scientist. That’s why most scientists don’t speak up. And because funding is often only available if you ‘tick the climate box’. Those that do speak out are usually vilified as loonies or far right extremists.
Why shouldn’t we question ‘the science’? If we didn’t, we’d still believe the Earth was flat. Or that we’re heading into an ice age! Surely debate is healthy? Why then are people who question ‘the climate science’ labelled ‘deniers’? Does that term remind you of something?
In April 2022, Melissa Fleming, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, said the UN had teamed up with Google to ensure that no contrary arguments to the mainstream climate ‘crisis’ narrative could be accessed on the search engine. Why would the UN do that? Why stifle debate? Why stop ‘science’ from being examined? Isn’t that how we learn? Hasn’t ‘science’ and our understanding of the world in which we live over the centuries changed? If the science was settled, why does it fear counter arguments?
I will end on a happier note. Like many people, you may have believed the relentless propaganda that we are running out of polar bears. Well, we aren’t. polar bear numbers declined to around 5,000 by the 1970s. However this was due to hunting, not ‘climate change’. So, in 1976, polar bear hunting was banned. And guess what? Polar bears are now estimated to exceed 30,000. Sadly you won’t see that fact in the media.
visit www.clintel.org to view the World Climate Declaration.
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Climate alarmism is provoking rejection of even common sense measures to avoid waste and environmental damage, although perhaps that’s intentional.
This is an excellent article, and kudos to HIP for publishing it.
This is an impressive demolition job on the overbearing edifice that is the Climate Change discourse. Some big beasts are slain here. But the intellectual scalpel appears too: figures on scientific agreement reduced from 97% – apparently – to 0.3%! A triumph!
These IPCC people are a shocking lot. Thirty years of effort and “expertise”, and for so little. Not able to tie their own shoe-laces, obviously. Thank heavens for Jonathan Andrews! He can show ‘em!