Category Archives: Climate change

Apocalypse from now on?

How the climate of fear turned a heatwave into a catastrophe.

Article by Tim Black.

Excerpts:

Take the rising temperatures in Britain over the past two decades, which culminated in a record 40 degree Celsius at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. It is undoubtedly true that all of the UK’s 10 warmest years on record have happened in the past 20 years. But what is striking is that during this period there has been no accompanying increase in the kind of fires we saw in Wennington – even in Greater London, which is the hottest, most populous area in the UK.

Quite the opposite. As the Spectator notes, between 1966 and 2008 there were more than 30,000 fires in Greater London, peaking in 1976 when there were nearly 64,000 fires. Since 2008, the number of fires recorded in London has fallen dramatically, with just 15,000 in 2021.

Even grass fires, which one would expect to be on the rise given the hotter, drier climate of the past two decades, have actually been in decline in Greater London. As the London Fire Brigade puts it, the number of grass fires in Greater London is ‘significantly lower [today] than a decade ago’. Indeed, grass fires peaked in 2003 and have fallen 83 per cent since then. Which is hardly a sign that we are heading towards a future of annual wildfires and burnt-out houses.

[…]

This contrast between the catastrophising of our cultural and political elites and a rather more mundane reality is borne out globally. We hear constantly about ‘extreme’ weather events. We hear endless talk of the rise in natural disasters caused by manmade climate change. Our house is on fire, says Greta Thunberg relentlessly. It certainly feels as if the world has entered a period of ever-more dangerous natural instability.

Yet the statistics tell a very different story. As Michael Shellenberger noted in his 2020 book Apocalypse Never, there has been ‘a 92 per cent decline in the decadal death toll from natural disasters since its peak in the 1920s’. Back then, 5.4million people died from natural disasters. In the 2010s, just 400,000 did.

[…]

Sontag’s analysis of the apocalyptic imagination, which she witnessed emerge during her own lifetime, is as invaluable now as it was then. She didn’t dismiss or ‘deny’ the facts from which the apocalyptic visions drew their dark inspiration. AIDS really was a terrible disease. Heavy industry really could cause instances of environmental degradation. And no doubt the climate could be warming.

What she critiqued was the apocalyptic extrapolation. This means that any challenge or problem we face, when refracted through the apocalyptic imagination, is presented in terms of the catastrophe to come. Every scientifically observable change in nature is, via ever more sophisticated modelling, transformed into a future end-of-days event. This is less a scientific procedure than a creative, metaphorical one, transforming one thing into something else. As she put it: ‘Every process is a prospect, and invites a prediction bolstered by statistics. Say: the number now… in three years, in five years, in 10 years; and, of course, at the end of the century. Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.’

[…]

Think of anti-pollution measures introduced in Western societies over the past couple of centuries. Excessive smoke and smog wasn’t in the past treated as a symbol for something else – as a warning sign or punishment or the occasion for a Just Stop Burning Things protest. It was simply treated as a practical problem to be solved. Which it was.

So it is with a potentially warmer climate. Whatever problems it throws up, there is a sober, resilient approach we can take. This is no easy task, of course. It requires us, as societies, to re-orient ourselves in relation to the future, and also in relation to the past. It requires recovering and revitalising the Enlightenment ideals we have repudiated, too often in the name of environmentalism. Only by re-embracing reason, science and progress will we have the wherewithal to face the uncertainty of the future with a degree of confidence. Perhaps then we can finally stop catastrophising about climate change and start treating it as a challenge we can overcome.

These farmers are fighting for us all

We are witnessing a global revolt against the irrationalism of the elites.

Article by Brendan O’Neill.

Excerpts:

It is truly bizarre that pressure is being put on farmers to cut back on emissions, which really means to produce less food. This captures just how entrenched, and unhinged, the cult of green thinking has become among the new elites. So much so that they now prefer to larp as saviours of the planet from a fantasy doom than they do to think carefully about how to generate enough food and wealth to ensure that everyone can flourish. This is where it becomes clear that the otherworldliness of our rulers is not only annoying and often free of fact and reason – it is dangerous, too. An elite that spends more time fantasising about an environmental Judgement Day than it does thinking about how to meet the needs of the population, which sees sunny weather as a sign from Gaia that we must sacrifice things like farming and food production to appease the angry gods of climate change, is an elite that has lost the moral plot. It is an elite that can no longer be trusted.

It isn’t only farmers who are rising up. And it isn’t only the Net Zero derangement that is concerning people. Dutch fishermen and truckers have joined Dutch farmers in solidarity. People in Ghana are protesting against shrinking fuel supplies and power cuts. Cab drivers in Italy are taking to the streets over fuel prices. Farmers and other workers in Poland, Spain and Albania are protesting, too. People are fuming over the cost-of-living crisis, the economic impact of lockdown and the glaring inability of the elites to provide for all. Worse, the glaring inability of the elites even to acknowledge that providing for all should be the priority of society, and that it should matter far more than their own self-indulgent fearful fantasies.

This is why the global farmers’ revolt and the rising up of working people really matters. These rebels are not only demanding that their right to work and to live comfortably should be respected. They are also brilliantly confronting the delusions of the elites, who have got so lost in narratives of fear around climate change, lockdown and everything else that they can no longer see what is real and what is important. The shattering of the elite’s luxury apocalypticism should be seen as one of the key tasks of the 2020s.

It’s crucial to understand what we’re up against

A global type of totalitarianism based on technocratic and transhumanist ideologies

A discussion between Patrick Wood and Dr. Joseph Mercola.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

> It’s become absolutely crucial to understand what we’re up against, globally, and who’s responsible for the rising totalitarianism and their ultimate intention

> The COVID pandemic was a coup d’état by the technocratic cabal that is behind the global takeover agenda, referred to as The Great Reset

> The Great Reset was introduced by the World Economic Forum, which is tightly coupled to the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Their agenda is to implement a global type of totalitarianism based on technocratic and transhumanist ideologies. Part of that plan also includes reengineering and controlling all life forms, including humans

> While the outward expression of technocracy will appear as totalitarianism, the control center is not an individual. Rather than a single person ruling by the decree, technocracy relies on control through technology and algorithm. This is a very important difference. In short, there will be no individual to blame or hold accountable. The “dictator” is an algorithm

> Technocracy is an invented and unnatural form of economics that expresses itself as totalitarianism and requires social engineering to work. Technocrats in the past defined technocracy as the science of social engineering. Controlling the populace is crucial for the system to function

Continue reading here. (Includes two videos.)

BBC accused of institutional alarmism

A new report reveals long list of climate misinformation

Writes Net Zero Watch:

London, 9 June – The BBC has been accused of institutional alarmism as a new report reveals the BBC’s persistent exaggeration and false information when it comes to climate and weather-related news.

The report, compiled by climate researcher Paul Homewood, reveals that the BBC has been forced to correct a dozen false claims and other items of fake news in climate-related coverage after receiving public complaints in recent years.


The report, which has been submitted to the Government’s upcoming Mid-Term Review of the BBC, shows that it has become common practice for BBC reporters to publicise exaggerated and often misleading weather-and climate-related stories in order to hype up the potential risks from global warming.

Net Zero director Benny Peiser said:

Persistent misrepresentation by BBC journalists in climate news coverage is fuelling the corporation’s institutional alarmism.

Institutional alarmism is a form of hyped and exaggerated news reporting that is deeply embedded in the BBC. It manifests itself as unbalanced, one-sided coverage of climate risks that are habitually exaggerated and that go uncorrected by the BBC’s in-house fact checkers.”

In 2020, the BBC’s director general warned that the problem posed by disinformation online was increasingly serious and that the BBC would need to work harder than ever to expose fake news and separate fact from fiction.

Since then the corporation has set up a team of fact checkers, a BBC-wide ‘Anti-Disinformation Unit’ and a ‘Climate Misinformation’ team. Yet none of these teams of fact checkers noticed or addressed the long list of false news stories that were only corrected by the BBC after lengthy and protracted complaint procedures.


Paul Homewood said:

There can be little doubt that the cases documented in this report are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other such inaccurate news or false information are broadcast by the BBC without being noticed or complained about.

It is also true that the BBC regularly try to fob off complainants with spurious replies, leading many to give in. This is even the case when their inaccurate claims are obvious, easily proven and manifest.”

Here’s the full report. (PDF)

The BBC’s climate fake news

Time and again it has put the narrative ahead of the facts

Article by Fraser Myers on spiked-online.com.

Excerpts:

The BBC is very worried about ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ – especially when it comes to climate change, a cause close to Auntie’s heart. So much so that in 2020, it hired its first-ever specialist ‘disinformation’ reporter, who last year fronted an eight-part series for the World Service all about ‘climate disinformation’. The main theme of the show was that fake news about the climate could lead us to ‘catastrophe’.

Perhaps the BBC’s misinformation specialists should have been looking closer to home. Recently, the corporation’s very own climate editor, Justin Rowlatt, was found by the Beeb’s own editorial-complaints unit (ECU) to have made two ‘misleading’ statements in a Panorama documentary about climate change and extreme weather, broadcast last year.

The vast global reduction in natural-disaster deaths – tragically misreported by the BBC – tells an alternative, humanistic story. This is the story of human progress – of global economic development, industrialisation and innovation. This has allowed humanity to liberate itself from the vagaries and cruelties of nature. It is the simple reason why worsening weather does not translate into greater death and destruction. And it is this very progress and liberation that climate alarmists threaten to undo.

There is no climate emergency

Consider Signing the World Climate Declaration

From the “Climate Intelligence” website:

>>>>>

A global network of 900 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming

The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models

Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth

CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters

There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.

Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, and they certainly will, we have ample time to reflect and re-adapt. The aim of global policy should be ‘prosperity for all’ by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. In a prosperous society men and women are well educated, birthrates are low and people care about their environment.

Epilogue

The World Climate Declaration (WCD) has brought a large variety of competent scientists together from all over the world*. The considerable knowledge and experience of this group is indispensable in reaching a balanced, dispassionate and competent view of climate change.

From now onward the group is going to function as “Global Climate Intelligence Group”. The CLINTEL Group will give solicited and unsolicited advice on climate change and energy transition to governments and companies worldwide.

* It is not the number of experts but the quality of arguments that counts

World Climate Declaration plus all signatories in pdf

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Why global warming is good for us

Climate change is creating a greener, safer planet.

Matt Ridley has written a long piece with the above title for spiked-online.com. Here’s a crucial excerpt:

In January 2020, the UK’s chief scientific adviser organised for some slides to be shown to Boris Johnson to convert him to climate alarmism. Thanks to a freedom of information request, we now know that these slides showed the likely acceleration in sea-level rise under a scenario known as RCP 8.5. This is shocking because RCP 8.5 has long been discredited as a highly implausible future. It was created by piling unrealistic assumptions on to each other in models: coal use increasing tenfold by 2100, population growth accelerating to 12 billion people, innovation drying up and an implausibly high sensitivity of temperature to carbon dioxide. No serious scientist thinks RCP 8.5 represents a likely outcome from ‘business as usual’. Yet those who want to grab media attention by making alarming predictions use it all the time.

This confirms what Darrell Bricker says in his presentation on population growth. We now know it is unlikely to go far beyond 9 billion, will reach its peak around the middle of the century and is likely to be lower than today by 2100. At some point Bricker says that he and his co-author checked a large number of climate studies, and only one even mentioned the possibility of a smaller sized world population. And none took this into consideration when producing their climate models.

Greta Thunberg vs Boyan Slat (who?)

Wrong thesis of media star vs right thesis of a nobody

See here.

Greta is now 19, Boyan is 27.

At age 16, Boyan invented a “passive plastic catchment system, using circulating ocean currents to net plastic waste”. On Boyan’s Wikipedia page, it says: “As of mid 2020, Interceptors have been deployed in Indonesia and Malaysia, and are prepared to be deployed in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic.”