2010: “According to an email obtained by Media Matters, managing editor Bill Sammon imposed an order on Fox News journalists to cast doubt on climate change.”
Content on this page:
• Clippings from the news stream
• Arguing against climate scepticism and denial
• Understanding climate scepticism and denial
• ‘Sceptical environmentalists’
• Speaking up against climate sceptics and deniers
• Personal encounters with climate change deniers
• Myths explained
• Climate change denial: examples
“Climate change skepticism slows the global response to the greatest social, economic and ecological threat of our time.”
~ Matthew Hornsey, social psychologist
2013’s Climate Grinches — Stealing Christmas Warmth And Putting It Into The Atmosphere
“Part of what is going on is an information war. $8 trillion can buy you a lot of information, and can help you spread a lot of misinformation.”
Tony Seba, an energy expert from Stanford University, author of ‘Solar Trillions’
In 1982, Exxon’s researchers concluded that we need to leave 80% of the world’s fossil fuels under ground in order to stop climate catastrophe. They then spent the next 30 years trying to bury the evidence that their business model would make survival impossible for millions of people. (www.insideclimatenews.org)
The climate denialists are conducting an extremely dirty, repulsive and dangerous business. Since Barack Obama’s climate-speech on 25 June 2013, they have a new name: they are the ‘flat earthers’. Some of them are sponsored by ‘eco-terrorists’ also known as ‘Big Gas’, ‘Big Coal’ and ‘Big Oil’. Others are just in it for the fun of it or because they are engaged with one conspiracy-theory or another.
President Obama stated: “We don’t have time for a meeting with the Flat Earth Society.”
This fossil fuel business-sponsored smoke of doubt and denial — which has held the journalists and politicians back and put them in doubt as well, as if they were paralyzed zombies — should be totally ignored from now on, so that we can focus our time and energy entirely on the new carbon-free possibilities and the positive, sustainable developments.
Below you will find more information about the phenomena, which many in the climate action movement found themselves spending an increasing amount of time on in the beginning of 2013, because they could see how much their activities held progress on the climate issue back. Luckily, those days are over now. Even mainstream media has started regarding climate deniers as members of the ‘Flat Earth Society’, and deal with them accordingly. Though most of us have never been up in space ourselves and seen the evidence with our own eyes, the rest of are fully aware that the Earth is actually not flat.
The Truth About Global Warming – Science & Distortion
Guide: How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
Here is a excellent presentation of what to say when a climate sceptic (Americans write skeptic with “k”, Australians use “c” – but not to worry, they mean the same) presents to you his or her distorted view of what is happening to our world:
→ Grist series:
: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming
www.grist.org/series/skeptics
Empirical evidence
How is it possible for a literate person to still believe there’s no “empirical evidence” for human-induced climate change? And why can’t we just settle this once and for all? The main rise in greenhouse gas levels in the air is coming from burning coal, oil and gas. There is a bunch of evidence for this. Marcus Gibson, a sustainability professional, explains:
→ The Fifth Estate – 28 March 2017:
Empirical evidence of human-induced climate change? Here you go
Clippings from the news stream
→ ABC News – 8 November 2021:
Farmer worried crop-damaging storms are becoming more frequent
“An SA farmer is fed up with climate change denial after his property incurred significant crop damage.”
→ Al Jazeera – 17 April 2021:
The Campaign Against the Climate: Debunking climate change denial
“The shocking exposure of a multi-million-dollar, 30-year denial campaign that has undermined science and cast doubt on the dangers of climate change.”
→ MPR News – 21 December 2017:
The industry of climate change denial, and a warm Alaskan winter (audio, 9 min)
Analysis of 38 contrarian papers
“According to a review published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology, researchers tried to replicate the results of those 3% of papers — a common way to test scientific studies — and found biased, faulty results.”
The researchers reviewed and summarised differences and common features of 38 contrarian papers that dispute anthropogenic global warming.
→ Read the article:
Learning from mistakes in climate research
→ Quartz – 5 September 2017:
Those 3% of scientific papers that deny climate change? A review found them all flawed
“I’ve come to the realization that there is no graph, no chart, no international consensus statement, no engraved stone tablet lowered from heaven that could to convince someone who — by choice — refuses to believe a fact. It doesn’t matter to them how confident the scientific community is. And we’ve reached the point where debating denial is a waste of time. The need to fight climate change is just too urgent to wait for everyone to get on board.”
~ Eric Holthaus
→ Grist – 23 June 2017:
The fact is: Facts don’t matter to climate deniers
→ HuffPost – 20 June 2017:
Here’s What Happened When A Climate Scientist Went To A Pub To Argue With Deniers
Delusional thought disorder
“The belief of climate change deniers is usually unshakable. Many delude themselves that there is a conspiracy.
Trump used the words “hoax” and “Chinese hoax” adding paranoia to his armory. This is another clinical feature of delusional thought disorder.Denial comes disguised as fervent coal advocacy, coal is cheap- denying the huge health costs, windmills despoiling the landscape and 3,000 deaths from unaffordable power.
Solutions for a return to rational thinking by climate deniers are impossible; there is no benefit in arguing or explaining.
Needy decisions are threatened from within democracy in both US and Australia and must be resolved by democracy.
Otherwise our freedoms will be assailed by a chaotic world. The electorate needs to have sufficient electoral recognition of the need to replace deniers.”
~ Dr David Shearman AM FRACP, Hon. Secretary of Doctors for the Environment Australia, and Emeritus Professor of Medicine University of Adelaide
→ The Guardian – 19 July 2017:
COAG: Can democracy weed out climate deniers?
American meteorologist calls out climate deniers
North Carolina meteorologist Greg Fishel issued a challenge to climate deniers, urging them to “put up or shut up” and “submit your work the way real scientists do, and see where it takes you.”
Fishel is among a growing number of meteorologists who acknowledge that human-caused climate change is real. Some of those meteorologists are urging their colleagues to discuss climate change on the air.
Fishel challenged climate deniers to submit their findings to one of the American Meteorological Society’s peer-reviewed journals, adding,
“So prove me wrong bloggers and essayists. Submit your work the way real scientists do, and see where it takes you. Uncover that bias and corruption you’re so convinced is present. If you end up being correct, society will owe you a huge debt of gratitude. If you’re wrong, stop muddying the scientific waters with ideological trash.”
→ EcoWatch – 23 May 2017:
‘Put Up or Shut Up’: North Carolina Meteorologist Calls Out Climate Deniers
Lawsuit in Texas: “Climate action groups are corrupt”
“A mathematician and software engineer has filed a lawsuit in Texas naming dozens of environmental groups and others seeking to influence public action and expenditures regarding global warming programs in an action alleging violations of RICO – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Plaintiff Leonid Goldstein explains at the outset of his complaint, “This is a civil suit against Climate Action Network and other corporations, who engaged in a long-term criminal scheme, involving a false claim that anthropogenic release (or emissions) of carbon dioxide caused a dangerous ‘global warming’ or a dangerous ‘climate change,’ and persecution of the dissidents or demanding government actions, based on this false claim, including money transfer.
“In fact, the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide significantly increases agricultural production worldwide. The surface warming, theoretically caused by increased concentration of carbon dioxide, is insignificant and almost undetectable, and is expected to be globally beneficial.” ”
→ WND – 13 October 2016:
Now RICO turned against climate-change activists
“Lawsuit charges conspiracy to hide truth, promote propaganda for financial gain”
In a new thesis in psychology, titled ‘Ideological roots of climate change denial: Resistance to change, acceptance of inequality, or both?’, Kirsti Jylhä at Uppsala University has studied the psychology behind climate change denial. The results show that individuals who accept hierarchical power structures tend to a larger extent deny the problem.
→ Media release about the report: The Psychology Behind Climate Change Denial
“Climate science denialists will often fool people, and sometimes themselves, by cherry-picking the bits of evidence they think fit their argument. At other times, they’ll construct elaborate conspiracy theories about human-caused climate change being a front for a New World Order, with the United Nations as the Illuminati. But often, they just get things badly, horribly, terribly, and embarrassingly wrong.”
→ Desmog Blog – 15 September 2016:
Australia’s Climate Denialist Senator Malcolm Roberts Fails High School Science in Maiden Speech
“Soft climate denial takes a few different forms but it is remarkably easy to define: soft climate denial means that one acknowledges in some parts of one’s life that climate change is real, disastrous and happening now but in most other parts of one’s life, one ignores that anthropogenic global warming is, in fact, a real existential emergency and catastrophic. Soft climate denial can be practiced by individuals and groups alike, in fact, it is as much a group phenomenon as it is an individual defense mechanism.”
→ New Economic Perspectives – 7 September 2016:
Living in the Web of Soft Climate Denial
UN cancels all further action on climate change after internet commenter exposes it as a hoax
“The United Nations announced today that any and all action and/or conferences focusing on climate change will immediately cease. The announcement comes after the UN read several comments on climate change articles on the internet.
“Wow, we were way, way off,” said Dr. Chris Eula of the UN. “It’s really sad so many scientists wasted their careers studying climate change and climate science only to find out that the whole thing was a giant hoax.”
Everything began to unravel after a recent article in the New York Times about how malaria may make its way to North America in the next few decades. Malaria, a disease typically found in tropical climates, is very rare in cooler, more temperate zones.
“After reading that article I made my way down to comments and was blown away,” recalls Dr. Eula. “There must have been at least 30 or 40 commenters who all said climate change was fake, a hoax perpetuated by scientists to make money or something like that. A few of them had the word “FACT” written in all caps after their statements too. And if I know anything about the internet its that you can’t write the word FACT unless it is true.”
Several nations, including the United States and Canada, have also stopped all research into climate change after they were made aware of the comments.
The latest projections show that an estimated 1400 scientists across the globe will be out of work in the next few months.”
→ Source: The Science Post
“Climate science denialist James Delingpole thinks that he can disprove concerns about ocean acidification from just a few hours Googling. Because, you know, that’s all it takes.”
→ Desmog.uk – 26 August 2016:
Coordinator of UK Ocean Acidification Research Attacks The Spectator for ‘Willfully Misleading’ James Delingpole Column
→ The Conversation – 10 August 2016:
The Galileo gambit and other stories: the three main tactics of climate denial
“How does one dismiss a global scientific consensus built on a robust body of empirical evidence? There are five characteristics of science denial. These common traits are seen when people reject climate science, the benefits of vaccination, or the research linking smoking to cancer. The techniques of denial are: fake experts; logical fallacies; impossible expectations; cherrypicking; and conspiracy theories.”
→ The Conversation – 5 August 2016:
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts is in denial about the facts of climate change
Climate education meltdown in Portland
Some thoughts from the American organisation National Coalition Against Censorship after a “Climate Education Meltdown” in Portland. 3 June 2016.
Portland Resolution on Teaching Climate Change Raises Concerns
NCAC has released the following statement on the climate change controversy brewing in Portland:
On 17 May 2016, the Public School Board of Portland, Oregon unanimously adopted a resolution to “Develop an Implementation Plan for Climate Literacy,” which concluded with this recommendation:
“The implementation plan should include a review of current textbooks for accuracy around the severity of the climate crisis and the impact of human activities. PPS will abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its root in human activities.”
For all its good intentions, the resolution raises serious concerns:
Most critically, the resolution is dangerously over-broad, potentially affecting a wide range of valuable educational materials. Social studies texts accurately describing the political debate around fossil fuels and climate change, for instance, would presumably contain comments from individuals who “express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis.”
If such material is excised from the curriculum, will students be prepared to face – and argue with – climate change denial when they encounter it in the world outside school?
Purging the curriculum of this kind of material will undermine public education, which should equip students for critical and informed consideration of important matters of public policy and controversy. This goal is clearly identified in the 2011 Oregon Social Sciences Academic Content Standards, which state that “Students learn to assess the merits of competing arguments, and make reasoned decisions that include consideration of the values within alternative policy recommendations.”
Even if some scientists questioning the human causes of climate change do so apparently at the behest of the fossil fuel industry, it is still a fact that environmental policy is a subject of ongoing debate. Students should be conversant with, and equipped to address, the various questions and issues that are the subject of public discussion.
The resolution is also unnecessary. Oregon has standards in place to insure that education in science and social studies is consistent with current scientific and scholarly consensus. In March 2014, the Oregon State Board of Education adopted as the Next Generation Science Standards based on a framework developed by the National Research Council. These include as a “disciplinary core idea” the role of human activity in global warming: “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming).”
Finally, the resolution is undermined by the appearance that its adoption was driven primarily by political pressure, rather than pedagogical considerations, because it represents the views of environmental groups that have lobbied the school board for many years. Curricular decisions that appear to be a result of political pressure are suspect no matter from which political side the pressure comes. This is especially true when such decisions are made by school board officials who generally lack the subject-area expertise essential to the development of accurate and effective curricula. Under these circumstances, it is incumbent on the board to defer to professional educators and subject matter experts in determining the content of curricula.
Deciding how to approach the existing political debate around the causes of climate change should be left to those who teach about it: science professors, social studies and civics professors may approach the issue differently in accordance with the requirements of their subject matter. Elected officials have an important role in ensuring the availability of an adequate education to all students; they should devote their energies to that worthy goal, and leave decisions about what and how to teach to the people who are trained to do it.”
→ See the newsletter
→ Read more: www.smh.com.au
“So it turns out you can tell a lot about the favourite arguments of climate science denial groups from the place where they get their cash.”
Graham Readfearn
→ Readfearn.com – 11 Januay 2016:
Remarkable chart shows how “carbon dioxide is good” if you take cash from Exxon or the Kochs
Study finds the ‘Era of climate science denial is not over’
Conservative think tanks in the United States are a sort of “ground zero” for the production of doubt about the links between fossil fuel burning and dangerous climate change.
These think tanks produce reports, hold conferences, write books, go on television, produce columns and blogs and generally and liberally splatter the public discourse with talking points.
→ Read Graham Readfearn’s article on www.desmogblog.com – 7 January 2016
→ The Guardian – 21 December 2015:
Ian the Climate Denialist Potato wishes almost everyone a Merry Christmas!
Climate misinformation thrives in Australian media
“One week after the UN Climate Summit – and not a single word about climate change in these different newspaper reports.” (…) “In Geelong, it gets even worse. The only mention of climate change in the second-largest paper in the city, distributed to all residents free of charge, are two letters to the editor, which claim, among other things, that “there has been no warming now for 18 years”:”
→ Climatesafety.info – 21 December 2015:
Climate misinformation thrives in Australian media
→ National Observer – 3 December 2015:
Ecojustice files complaint with Competition Bureau against climate denial groups
Report: True extent and influence of climate denial
A new study exposes true extent and influence of climate denial echo chamber for the first time. “There are some 4,556 individuals with ties to 164 organizations that are involved in pushing anti-climate science views on the public. Funding from ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations have notoriously played a part in building the climate denial movement,” according to the Nature Climate Change study.
→ Read more on www.desmogblog.com – 1 December 2015
“In the 64th Sustainable Hour on 94.7 The Pulse, we are talking about climate change and sea level rise as well, and we take a look at the debate which has been going on for more than a year in the Letters to the Editor section of Geelong Independent about whether climate change and sea level rise is myth or reality.
In particular, the two gentlemen Alan Barron and Ray Black have been arguing tirelessly back and forth on the topics. Today, we have invited them to join us in the studio of The Sustainable Hour on 94.7 The Pulse.”
→ Listen to the one-hour radio show – while you can read more about climate skeptism on the webpage there.
→ Independent Australia – 13 January 2015:
The climate wars: IPA amateurs inordinately outgunned by Royal Society experts
The Institute of Public Affairs has renewed its attack on climate science. Steve Bishop explains why it could suffer very serious injury in this conflict.
Understanding climate scepticism and denial
→ Inside Climate News – 22 December 2017:
How Big Oil Lost Control of Its Climate Misinformation Machine
“One of the longest and most consequential campaigns against science in modern history is becoming more extreme—and turning against its originators.”
→ Read the guide by Climate Outreach: Why are people still sceptical about climate change?
→ The Guardian – 30 November 2017:
New study uncovers the ‘keystone domino’ strategy of climate denial
How climate denial blogs misinform so many people with such poor scientific arguments.
“Confronting Trump – or any other climate denier – on the basis of facts simply won’t work. The challenge should perhaps be to first rally public opinion until there is an overwhelming consensus that serious and urgent action is needed. One practical short-term solution might be to shift the public discourse from “climate change” to “pollution”. Focusing on pollution has three advantages that may mean it moves public opinion better than global warming…”
→ The Conversation – 22 August 2017:
How to win the climate wars – talk about local ‘pollution’ not global warming
→ Duke Today – 6 November 2014:
Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions
Duke study sheds light on why conservatives, liberals disagree so vehemently
“There may be a scientific answer for why conservatives and liberals disagree so vehemently over the existence of issues like climate change and specific types of crime. A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don’t, then they tend to deny the problem even exists.”
The study, ‘Solution Aversion: On the Relation Between Ideology and Motivated Disbelief’, appeared in the November 2014 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
→ The Guardian – 21 December 2013:
Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.
→ Independent Australia – 2 December 2013:
What climate denial has learnt from tobacco denial
Those who reject the science of climate change are using the same tactics used by the tobacco industry to deny the health effect of smoking, writes Anne-Marie Blackburn from Skeptical Science.
“The real reason conservatives don’t believe in climate science is they can’t stand the solution.”
Chris Hayes, producer of the climate documentary ‘The Politics of Power’
The five stages of climate change denial
1. Deny a problem exists (“it’s junk science”).
2. Deny humans are the cause (“the climate has always changed, it’s not because of industrial activity” – never mind the rate of change and the source of change).
3. Deny it’s a problem (“global warming will benefit humanity”).
4. Deny we can solve it (“renewable energy is not practical on a large scale”, “carbon taxes don’t do anything for the climate, plus they hurt the poor”, etc.)
5. It’s too late anyway… (so lets just keep going with business as usual)
Dana Nuccitelli in theguardian.com on 16 September 2013.
“For people who reject regulation or other restraints on profit-making, or who believe they have a fundamental right to use as much fossil fuel as they wish while driving or flying or heating their swimming pools, or who hate the thought of wind turbines spoiling their view, the temptation to reject the science seems overwhelming.”
George Monbiot, in The Guardian on 30 August 2013
Climate sceptics’ spell upon their opponents
Roger Pielke Jr. is professor of environmental studies in the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado. He wrote an interesting article about climate campaigners and climate sceptics in the British newspaper The Guardian:
“Make no mistake, fighting sceptics has its benefits – it reinforces a simplistic good versus evil view of the world, it gives a sense of doing something, and privileges scientific expertise in policy debates. However, one thing that it does not do is contribute towards effective action on climate change. The battle over public opinion on climate change has long been won, and not by the sceptics. But simply by virtue of their continued existence, the climate sceptics may have the last laugh, because many climate campaigners seem to be able to see nothing else in the debate. Climate sceptics are not all powerful and may not even be much relevant to efforts to decarbonise the global economy. They have, however, cast a spell upon their opponents.”
Continue reading here:
→ The Guardian – 24 May 2013:
Have the climate sceptics really won?
Despite recent fears of sceptics winning public debates, they are not all powerful, but have cast a spell upon their opponents. Roger Pielke Jr
Role of the media
“Report: Media gives climate change deniers disproportionate amount of attention. Specifically, politically conservative news outlets like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the Wall Street Journal were responsible for the lion’s share of the false balance, disproportionately representing climate contrarians in their stories about the IPCC report.”
→ The Guardian – 11 October 2013:
Conservative media outlets found guilty of biased global warming coverage
New studies show conservative and politically neutral media outlets are creating false balance in climate change reporting. By Dana Nuccitelli
Just how many climate sceptics are there?
Social science based survey findings show consistently that the majority of Americans, British and Australians accept climate change is happening and they accept the science and they are concerned. Some surveys say that 7 to 10 percent of people are very dismissive. Other surveys say that around 8 percent or less – depending on the criteria – could be considered genuine climate science deniers, and that about 4 percent of people refuse to accept climate change exists regardless of any cause.
→ RenewEconomy – 5 April 2013:
Just how many climate sceptics are there?
“They consider abandoning fossil fuels, the world’s cheapest, most efficient and wealth-creating power source…”
“Climate change is not about credible scientific evidence. It has its roots in Marxism…”
“Western capitalist societies have given up on rational thinking. They embrace junk science and junk economies and adopt wealth-destroying post-modern pseudo-economics…”
Maurice Newman, former Chair of the ABC and former member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council – in The Australian on 28 December 2015
Book: ‘Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand’
By Haydn Washington, Routledge, Political Science, 224 pages
“Paradoxically, as the climate science has become more certain, denial about the issue has increased. The paradox lies in the denial. There is a denial industry funded by the fossil fuel companies that literally denies the science, and seeks to confuse the public.
There is denial within governments, where spin-doctors use ‘weasel words’ to pretend they are taking action. However there is also denial within most of us, the citizenry. We let denial prosper and we resist the science. It also explains the social science behind denial. It contains a detailed examination of the principal climate change denial arguments, from attacks on the integrity of scientists, to impossible expectations of proof and certainty to the cherry picking of data.
Climate change can be solved — but only when we cease to deny that it exists. This book shows how we can break through denial, accept reality, and thus solve the climate crisis. It will engage scientists, university students, climate change activists as well as the general public seeking to roll back denial and act.”
Climate denial funds
A group named Donors Trust has been funneling far more money than ExxonMobil ever did to climate denial groups, but because the source of the funds remains largely hidden, the public has been unable to pressure the donations to stop as they did with Exxon. A small portion of Donors Trust’s funding was recently revealed by the Center for Public Integrity, yet even that small portion has significant ties to the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel interests.
Between 2008 and 2011, Donors Trust doled out over $300 million in grants to what it describes as “conservative and libertarian causes,” serving as “the dark money ATM of the conservative movement.” Donors Trust enables donors to give anonymously, noting on its website that if you “wish to keep your charitable giving private, especially gifts funding sensitive or controversial issues,” you can use it to direct your money.
One of the “controversial issues” that Donors Trust and its sister organization Donors Capital Fund have bankrolled is the campaign to cast doubt on the science of climate change and delay any government action to reduce emissions. The following chart created by The Guardian based on data from Greenpeace shows that as ExxonMobil and the Koch Foundations have reduced traceable funding for these groups, donations from Donors Trust have surged:
→ Media Matters – 28 February 2013:
How The Dirty Energy Money Funding Climate Inaction Slips By The Press
Scientific Guide to Global Warming Scepticism
Scientific scepticism is healthy. In fact, science by its very nature is sceptical. Genuine scepticism means considering the full body of evidence before coming to a conclusion. However, when you take a close look at arguments expressing climate ‘scepticism’, what you often observe is cherry picking of pieces of evidence while rejecting any data that don’t fit the desired picture. This isn’t scepticism. It is ignoring facts and the science.
The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism looks at both the evidence that human activity is causing global warming and the ways that climate ‘sceptic’ arguments can mislead by presenting only small pieces of the puzzle rather than the full picture.
→ Skepticalscience.com – 8 December 2010:
The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
by John Cook
Download the guide: Guide_to_Skepticism.pdf
Conservative media creates distrust in scientists through five main methods:
1) Presenting contrarian scientists as “objective” experts while presenting mainstream scientists as self-interested or biased.
2) Denigrating scientific institutions and peer-reviewed journals.
3) Equating peer-reviewed research with a politically liberal opinion.
4) Accusing climate scientists of manipulating data to fund research projects.
5) Characterizing climate science as a religion.
From facebook.com/AskAClimateScientist
What peer reviewed science has to say about global warming
Often, the reason for disbelieving in man-made global warming seem to be political rather than scientific. The goal of the website Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming.
When you peruse the many arguments of global warming sceptics, a pattern emerges, according to Skeptical Science. Sceptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on ‘Climategate’ emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature.
Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.
→ Skeptical Science:
Getting Skeptical about Global warming skeptism
Analysis, tools and resources
The Union of Concerned Scientists is concerned about restoring scientific integrity. The union “puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet’s most pressing problems.
Joining with citizens across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy
to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.”
The union’s website contains a material about: Abuses of science basics – In depth look at abuses of science – Analysis of abuses of science – Tools & resources for identifying abuses in science
Abuses of Science
What You Can Do
“In Australia, with more conservative voters deciding they must reject climate science in order to oppose the kinds of values they see environmentalism representing. Right-wing demagogues like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones have taken up the denialist cause as a means of prosecuting their war against progressive trends in Australian society.”
Clive Hamilton
→ The Conversation – 27 September 2013:
IPCC report will make no difference in culture of denial
By Clive Hamilton
→ The Guardian – 8 August 2013:
Fox News found to be a major driving force behind global warming denial
American consumers of conservative media like Fox News distrust climate scientists and don’t believe the planet is warming. By Dana Nuccitelli
Australian Parliament voted on climate change
On 29 April 2013, Australian Parliament debated a motion put by NSW independent Rob Oakeshott: whether the science of man-made climate change was real. Oakeshott wanted to try to clear that up “that this House expresses full confidence in the work of Australia’s science community and confirms that it believes that man-made climate change is not a conspiracy or a con, but a real and serious threat to Australia if left unaddressed.” No one objected, so as it turned out, an unanimous vote “positions the deniers and the conspiracy theorists where they should be – on the fringe,” Oakeshott told the press afterwards.
Sydney Morning Herald – 4 June 2013:
Canary isle shows climate change is real
Australia: “The record does show that about a quarter of the Coalition’s federal MPs have, at some point, expressed disbelief or outright denial that man-made climate change is real. Among them is Tony Abbott, who, before becoming Opposition Leader, said he was “hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change”, and famously called it “absolute crap”.” By Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald political and international editor
→ Sydney Morning Herald – 20 June 2013:
Think tank a false climate prophet
A free-market think tank has been heavily pushing climate change scepticism. Much of the climate change scepticism in Australia can be traced back to the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a prominent news source and intellectual role model for conservative politicians, industry magnates, religious leaders and opinion makers in the media.
The mining industry is a major IPA sponsor and occupies senior positions on its board of directors. By Elaine McKewon
→ Forbes – 26 May 2013:
The 4 Species of Climate-Change Denial: Lessons From Comparing Republican Decision-Making Cowardice To Angelina Jolie
“Fascinated to be in a petri dish for the science of why we don’t believe science I sat back and watched. 4 species of response emerged…” By Todd Essig
→ The Guardian’s Planet Oz blog – 17 May 2013:
Zombie climate sceptic theories survive only in newspapers and on TV
Study finds overwhelming scientific consensus that humans have caused global warming, but media still hasn’t caught up. By Graham Readfearn
→ Readfearn.com – 10 May 2013:
The Australian Brings You The Climate Science Denial News From Five Years Ago
“Experts warn of a coming ice age” declared the headline in a story which appeared in last week’s The Australian newspaper. In reality, the headline should have read something like this “One solar physicist in Russia who is a member of a climate science denial organisation says we’re heading for global cooling but all the other people we spoke to say he’s dead wrong”. Not as catchy though, eh? Blog-post by Graham Readfearn
→ Scientific American – 6 May 2013:
Climate change denial, laissez-faire economics and conspiracy theories: A productive pairing?
That climate change denialists don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming is a given, but are there other more general indicators of their belief system that include climate change denial as a subset? This is the question that a group of psychologists from the University of Western Australia and the University of Zurich sought to answer. They found that climate change denialists also seem to display two other characteristics; a belief in laissez-faire capitalism and more troublingly, a tendency to espouse conspiracy theories. By Ashutosh Jogalekar
→ The Guardian – 2 May 2013:
How climate scientists are being framed
To turn the public off climate change, right-wing media is blaming scientists for hurting kids and being puppets of totalitarianism
→ EcoMENA – 15 April 2013:
Exploring Climate Change Disinformation
For decades, the oil and coal industries and some of their largest industrial customers have conducted a sophisticated and wildly successful multimillion dollar campaign to convince the public that climate change is not a serious threat. The impetus for the campaign has been to protect industry profits by blocking any action designed to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other global heating gases produced in burning fossil fuels. By John J. Berger
→ Graham Readfearn – 5 March 2013:
Climate Scientists Pursued By Sceptics Through Courts Of Law And Public Opinion
The climate science denial industry doesn’t like Penn State University’s Professor Michael Mann very much. By Graham Readfearn
→ The Guardian – 12 April 2012:
Attacks on climate science by former NASA staff shouldn’t be taken seriously
A letter from former administrators, astronauts, and engineers at NASA expressing climate change scepticism does not deserve parity with the agency’s peer-reviewed climate scientists. By Dana Nuccitelli for Skeptical Science, part of the Guardian Environment Network
→ Huffington Post – 22 November 2011:
Climategate 2.0? New Emails Hacked — Pay No Attention to the Energy Industry Behind the Curtain
“A new batch of nearly 230,000 illegally hacked emails is up online in the same old places the last batch went up in November of 2009. It seems like old times. Jeff Id, the Air Vent blogger, has a batch up again, as do other climate deniers.” By Shawn Lawrence Otto, Author, science advocate, filmmaker
“If you’re saying something that people don’t want to hear or accept, a significant proportion of them will reply with hostility. Not because they know the facts, or because they have researched it themselves, but because they’re so psychologically involved in believing good news that they will oppose it with a reflex.
In addition, if the solutions proposed sound like they involve the government, you will have all the political rightwing try to block it as a reflex, even if it means them overriding hard science, which is what’s going on today. Changing people’s minds is almost impossible, even among scientists. Max Planck said, to paraphrase, that science advances one funeral at a time. You could add that economics advances the same way. You have to wait to get rid of the people who have career investment in a topic before a new generation can see the light.”
Jeremy Grantham, environmental philanthropist and legendary fund manage
Jeremy Grantham — ‘the world’s most powerful environmentalist’ — on climate sceptics and misinformation:
“The misinformation machine is brilliant. As a propagandist myself [Jeremy Grantham has previously described himself as GMO’s “chief of propaganda” in reference to his official title of “chief investment strategist”], I have nothing but admiration for their propaganda. [Laughs.] But the difference is that we have the facts behind our propaganda. They’re in the “screaming loudly” rather than the “fact based” part of the exercise, because they don’t have the facts. They are masters at manufacturing doubt.
What I have noticed on the blogs and in the comments section under articles is that over several years, as the scientific evidence for climate change gets stronger, the tone of the sceptics is getting shriller and more vicious and nastier all the time. The equivalent on the other side is a weary resignation, sorrow and frustration and amazement that people on the other side can’t look at the facts. The sceptics are getting angrier and more vicious every year despite the more storms we have, and the more mad crazy weather we have…
One of the problems is that typically you are not dealing with the facts. Putting in more facts makes the sceptics more angry. They have profound beliefs — as opposed to knowledge — that they are willing to protect by all manner of psychological tricks. So you have people who are very smart — even great analysts and hedge fund managers — who on paper know that their argument is wrong, but who promote it fiercely because they are libertarians. Libertarians believe that any government interference is bad. Anyone with a brain knows that climate change needs governmental leadership and they can smell this is bad news for their philosophy. Their ideology is so strongly held that remarkably it’s overcoming the facts. They are using incredible ingenuity to steer their way around facts that they do not choose to accept philosophically. Laying down more facts just makes them more angry. You may win over a few neutrals. They are the people you can win over. But it’s very hard to win over the hardcore sceptics, of which there are plenty.
We can try to bypass them on one level and we try to contest the political power of the sceptics. They are using money as well as propaganda to influence the politicians, particularly in America. It almost doesn’t even exist in countries outside the US, UK and Australia. A cynic would say that the petrol-chemical industry also happens to be Anglo-Saxon. Where are the great oil companies based? They still have great power. The oil companies seem to have pulled back from directly supporting climate sceptics over the past few years because — in England, in particular — they were embarrassed and it became untenable to be so obvious. But they’re still influential.
You don’t have go via back-channels any more, courtesy of the US Supreme Court, because it is completely legal for a corporation to invest tons of money in advertising programmes to say who is good and who is bad in a race for the Senate without even asking permission from the people who actually own the company. Corporations are treated as human beings and money is treated as having the right to speak. There’s dark money and light money. The anonymity they adopt is legal. They don’t have to say who their donors are. It is quite remarkable.
And then you get the Something Something for the Environment, which are actually just sceptics funded by the bad guys. And then there are the thinktanks who have become propaganda-tanks.”
→ The Guardian – 15 April 2013:
Jeremy Grantham on population growth, China and climate sceptics
‘The world’s most powerful environmentalist’ on battling the ‘misinformation machine’ and why China is his ‘secret weapon’
→ BBC News – 11 January 2010:
Science must end climate confusion
Climate scientists need to take more responsibility about how their work is presented to the public, suggests the Met Office’s Richard Betts. In this week’s Green Room, he says it is vital to prevent climate science being misunderstood or misused. By Richard Betts
‘Sceptical Environmentalists’
“What the world’s climate alarmists are asking us to do is immoral.”
Text from the DVD ‘Carbon Dioxide and the “Climate Crisis” – Doing the Right Thing’
Fox Business – 29 March 2013:
Germany Pays Billions to Delay Global Warming for 37 Hours
‘Sceptical Environmentalist’ author Bjorn Lomborg on the cost of fixing global warming.
“Global warming is real, and it is something we need to fix, but we should do it smartly,” said Bjorn Lomborg in Fox Business on 29 March 2013. “Germany spends about 110 billion dollars in subsidies on solar panels, and the net effect will postpone global warming with 37 hours. That is a bad deal.”
“We need to find smart ways to ensure that we can get everybody on board, not just the rich, well-meaning Germans and Danes. But that we can find technologies that will be so cheap that the Chinese and the Indians will buy into the technology. This about innovation.”
My comment to Lomborg: Yes, innovation is good and necessary. I listed some examples of promising technological and scientific break-throughs here. But Lomborg’s argument reminds me of a person some 100 or 150 years ago who’d be insisting that people should refrain from investing their money in trains and cars, because, as he’s be saying, “It is a waste of money. 25-50 years from now, you will be able to get much smarter trains and cars.”
Lomborg’s argument is a show-stopper, because he doesn’t have an alternative to put in place. He says that “Climate change is real,” but then he doesn’t come up with any smart technology which can fix the problem. So what can we use that viewpoint to, except that he can spread a bit of confusion, and delay the process fo freeing ourselves from the fossil fuels. What is motivating him to do that?, I wonder.
With the global CO2-emissions problem, we are told by scientists that we are seriously running out of time. We can’t sit and wait and hope that probably one day something really smart will be invented. We will need to get started with what we have, just like the early train and car producers did. We need to focus on the zero fossil transformation first, and then get better and smarter at how we do things as we move along. If it is costly in the beginning, then let it be costly. The alternative, to wait around, is not an option.
In the Fox Business programme, Lomborg talks about subsidies to solar panels in Germany as if they were a waste of money. That is so wrong.
According to the German Solar Industry Association the Germans prevented the emission of 19 million tons of CO2 in 2012 through the use of solar technologies. That is just a drop in the sea of the 36,000 million tons carbon humanity sends out as a whole, annually — it is something like 0.05 percent.
But what you can’t measure is the inspiration, motivation and inclination to act that the German solar model spreads to the rest of the world. It is about showing the way. It is about showing what is possible, so others can learn or copy. It is what it means to be a leader and to show courage. It is just like saying that building the first cars and trains back in history was a waste of money, because they were slow, expensive and there weren’t many of them.
Lomborg didn’t bother to spend even a couple of seconds explaining that Germany’s 110 million dollars of subsidies (government support) to the solar sector are dwarfed by the global dubsidies to the fossil fuel industry, which according to IMF, are around 1,900 million dollars annually. Is that smart, according to Lomborg?
→ The Energy Collective – 7 April 2013:
On Energy and Climate Change Issues, Mixed Messages
“Current messages delivered by the various media and other outlets vary enormously with a bewildering array of assertions and counter claims.” By David Hone, Senior Climate Change Advisor for Shell and Chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association.
→ The Telegraph – 18 June 2012:
Global warming: second thoughts of an environmentalist
Fritz Vahrenholt, one of Germany’s earliest green energy investors, is not convinced that humanity is causing catastrophic global warming. By Fritz Vahrenholt
Speaking up against climate change sceptics and deniers
Answers to 12 typical denier questions
Climate Reality has produced an e-book where you can get the answers to some of the most common questions about our climate. They write:
“We’ve all been there. Maybe you’re at an office holiday party and your coworkers are enjoying the eggnog a little too much. Before you know it, the questions about our climate begin. Or maybe you’re at a family dinner and your brother-in-law asks, “But if there’s a snow storm outside, can the climate really be warming?”
No matter the situation, the questions always seem to hit the same points. That’s why we’ve created our latest e-book, The 12 Questions Every Climate Activist Hears and What to Say, where we detail the most common misconceptions and arguments against the reality of man-made climate change – and simple ways to explain why they’re totally wrong.
In this free e-book, we teach you how to answer the most common questions every climate activist hears, including:
- How can the Earth be getting warmer if it’s cold out today?
- What about the “global warming pause”?
- How can scientists predict climate change if they can’t always predict the weather?
- How do we know it’s because of us, and not a natural cycle or the sun?
- Is it too late to do anything?
- And more
As a climate activist, you already know the climate is changing and we need to do something about it. We hope this e-book provides clear, understandable answers to these confusing questions. And if you find it useful, share it with a friend!
Thanks for all that you do to protect our planet,
– Your friends at Climate Reality
www.climaterealityproject.org”
→ Download: 12 questions every climate activist hears
→ Australian Ethical:
Talking with the enemy
“Australian Ethical’s Head of Ethics Research, Dr Stuart Palmer, helps illuminate some philosophies of climate sceptics, and explains how he’d talk to a climate denier.”
Climate science for sceptics
“A lot of people out there are telling us we need to take urgent action to curb climate change. Another lot are telling us we don’t. What seems to be missing on both sides of the argument are good scientific reasons why we should, or shouldn’t, take action. And when the various claims get mixed up with politics as well, it can become very hard to unscramble fact from opinion.
Scepticism is central to science. Science progresses when questions are asked – and answered. This website is an attempt to help genuine sceptics find scientific answers to their questions about climate change.”
→ www.cs4s.net
A company takes a stand
Edelman has formally declared it will no longer accept climate denial campaigns. The statement by America’s biggest public relations firm may be the industry’s first official position on climate denial.
→ Read more on: www.theguardian.com
Antidote to the plague of climate denialism
“How do you turn climate change deniers into an environmental champions? Get their kids on the case.
Watch this video to see how it works!
Then tell members of the American Congress: it’s time to act on climate change.”
‘Science Fair Nightmare’ was published on youtube.com on 9 October 2013.
Twitter-hashtag: #ScienceSaysSo
More than 100 members of American Congress deny the basic science of climate change, which is embraced by 97% of climate scientists. For these deniers, a school science fair is their worst nightmare. Young people overwhelmingly share scientists’ grave concerns about climate change and its affect on the world and their lives.
Fear not, climate worrywarts, perpetually-stubbled Hollywood actor-vist Adrian Grenier has found the antidote to the plague of climate denialism that permeates certain sects of Congress: a pretty funny, satirical PSA.
Released last week and narrated by Grenier, “Science Fair Nightmare” depicts a fictional Congressman learning to embrace the truth about global warming after his anti-science views thoroughly embarrass his young daughter at a school science fair.
‘Science Fair Nightmare’ was created by League of Conservation Voters, in partnership with Organizing for America and SHFT.
At the conclusion of the ad, viewers are urged to challenge the 161 current members of Congress that deny global warming.
→ Bloomberg explains the general, indisputable science with a series of graphs
→ You can support this idea by signing the petition on: www.climatenamechange.org
Flip the burden of proof
“If you were to ask any scientist, ‘Are you absolutely certain’ about anything, they would say, ‘Well, no. There’s a .001 percent chance it could be different.’ So it’s better to actually say, ‘Look, how certain are you that it is not catastrophic?’ And then you’ll get the correct answer.”
Tesla Automotive CEO and co-founder Elon Musk on 23 May 2013: Flip the burden of proof onto those who deny greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming.
Watching the Deniers: holding sceptics to account
Mike Marriott from Melbourne runs this blog as his “contribution to trying to address the issue of climate change.” He has adopted the “Six Aspects of Denial” from Sean B. Carroll’s book ‘The Making of the fittest’: “I regard these as the most common non-scientific objections to the science of climate change. Actually, I will be so bold as to say these six “aspects” are pretty the core arguments of the denial movement.” Read more: Six aspects of denial
→ Blog: watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com
Message to FOX News and The Wall Street Journal
There’s “No Global Warming in North America” …or at least that’s what one major news source wants millions of people to believe.(1)
Anti-science media pundits who promote absurd myths like this have found a home: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
Thousands of supporters like you have already contacted Rupert Murdoch to demand that all his media outlets—from FOX News to The Wall Street Journal—get the facts straight. Murdoch’s company has publicly pledged to address global warming, but we need to hold him to it.
The media is the front line in the war against science. If people like you and me speak out, we can ensure Murdoch’s editors think twice before putting misinformation on the air or in print. If not, those distortions will go unchecked.
Despite the company’s claim that “News Corporation is committed to addressing its impact on climate change,” News Corp. is still a platform for people who claim that arctic ice is increasing and that a winter blizzard proves there’s no such thing as global warming.(2)
In the wake of major scandals, Murdoch & Co are trying to avoid further controversy. This is a critical window of opportunity to demand that they give legitimate scientists a place at the table and stop letting pundits spin anti-science misinformation.
We’re building a groundswell of support to hold News Corp. accountable—but we need your help today to make it happen.
You and I believe in science. It’s time we stop the all-out war on science, the environment, and public health led by Murdoch’s media pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Thanks for all that you do to defend defend science against political and corporate influence.
Sincerely,
Chrissy Elles
Outreach Associate
UCS Climate & Energy Program
See coverage:
(1). nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/05/09/study-no-global-warming-north-america
(2). newscorp.com/news/news_335.html
mediamatters.org/research/200912150010
mediaite.com/tv/global-warming-skeptic-predicts-brutal-winter-warns-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet/
The Keeling Curve
You’d think that The Keeling Curve speaks for itself.
These iconic measurements, begun by Charles David (Dave) Keeling, a world-leading authority on atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation and Scripps climate science pioneer, comprise the longest continuous record of CO2 in the world, starting from 316 ppm in March 1958 and approaching 400 ppm today with a familiar saw-tooth pattern. For the past 800,000 years, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 parts per million.
The great thing about The Keeling Curve is that the measurements from Mauna Loa are not affected by scientific uncertainty or empty political promises, but paints an unvarnished snapshot of the world’s true climate state.
“I wish it weren’t true, but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400-ppm level without losing a beat,” said Scripps geochemist Ralph Keeling, who has taken over the Keeling Curve measurement from his late father. “At this pace we’ll hit 450 ppm within a few decades.”
The website keelingcurve.ucsd.edu offers background information about how CO2 is measured, the history of the Keeling Curve, and resources from other organizations on the current state of climate.
→ Source: scrippsnews.ucsd.edu
‘The Heretics’ author Will Storr on talking climate change with Lord Monckton. Posted in March 2013 on Vimeo.
→ Forbes – 19 May 2013:
Will Angelina Jolie Help End Climate-Change Denial, And Help The Republican Party?
Angelina Jolie, by announcing her preventative double masectomy, will likely have significant influence well beyond women’s health. For example, her leadership just may end up helping those fighting in the Republican Party to end ongoing anti-science climate-change denial.
→ The Guardian – 17 May 2013:
Global warming has not stalled, insists world’s best-known climate scientist
Prof James Hansen warns public not to be fooled by ‘diversionary tactic’ from deniers
→ BBC News – 9 May 2013:
Prince Charles hits out at climate change sceptics
World leaders must “act now” to protect the rainforests or risk the Earth becoming a dying patient, the Prince of Wales has warned. By Damian Carrington
→ The Guardian – 9 May 2013:
Prince Charles attacks global warming sceptics
Prince uses speech at St James’s Palace to single out ‘confirmed sceptics’ and environmentally unfriendly businesses. By Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
→ The Raw Story – 9 May 2013:
Prince Charles criticizes ‘corporate lobbyists’ and climate change skeptics for turning Earth into a ‘dying patient’
The Prince of Wales has criticised “corporate lobbyists” and climate change sceptics for turning the earth into a “dying patient”, in his most outspoken attack yet on the world’s failure to tackle global warming. He attacked businesses who failed to care for the environment, and compared the current generation to a doctor taking care of a critically ill patient. By Felicity Lawrence
On 11 April 2013, the American President, Barack Obama, finally stepped directly into the climate denial debate, and started saying it outright, for instance on his Twitter profile: “It’s time to stop the denial on climate change.”
Two weeks later, he and his team started a petition and published a video asking for Americans to join the fight to get serious on climate change: “The science on climate change is clear. But many members of Congress are in complete denial, and they’re standing in the way of progress. We need to call them out. Watch this embarrassing video—and join the fight to get serious on climate change.”
“Right now, way too many lawmakers in Washington flat-out refuse to face the facts when it comes to climate change. We’re never going to make real progress on this issue unless members of Congress get serious. Instead, some of them have made a habit of publicly mocking it. We thought it was time to call them out for denying what’s basic science.
The science matters in this. That’s the message way too many people in Washington need to hear right now. In 2011, there were 240 members of Congress who voted to say that climate change is a hoax. Most of them are still around today, and they’re getting away with it—some of them are actually proud of it. They think the whole debate is pretty funny.
If we want to make progress on climate change, we need everyone in Congress on board for a solution. It’s our job to show them there’s a price to pay for being a climate denier. Add your name to join the fight.”
→ Petition: my.barackobama.com
“We need to start by having a conversation about climate change,” U.S. Senator Al Franken said on 22 April 2013: “It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue just because it’s uncomfortable to talk about.”
→ Washington Examiner – 23 April 2013:
Senator Al Franken: Cheetos are delicious
Bernie Sanders — an Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont — said the following in the U.S. Senate:
→ More about Bernie Sanders’ speech: Huffington Post
Personal encounters with climate deniers
Essay about climate sceptics
Mik Aidt: “You can’t judge climate sceptics as if they are all the same. They come in various sizes and shapes, with different motivations, and we need to be able to distinguish sceptics from deniers, trolls from laggards. We have seen their messages of doubt spread and grow just like a virus. However, from my experience, the best way to approach the phenomena of climate sceptics is not to treat it as if were a battle against a virus. The best medicine is to meet the scepticism with its opposite: with full confidence and trust in our scientists, respect when appropriate, education whenever possible – and always: a smile and a positive, embracing attitude. And then, apart from that, just leave them there in the conspiracy corner where they belong.
Here is what I have learned about climate deniers and sceptics after having worked as a radio host and an activist advocating for strong climate action during the last four years. During that time the so-called ‘climate sceptics’ have been taking me on an emotional rollercoaster of frustration, first of all because I have been able to observe how effectively their anti-renewables messages have managed to influence climate and energy policy making at all levels, even parliamentary elections, and in particular in countries like the United States and Australia.”
“Dispel this wankers info”
According to ‘Hrafn’ (Ass Ended Master) who started a discussion thread titled ‘Ok Climate tards’ and posted the above on webanarchy.net on 8 May 2013, this particular page is a “fucking chart” and I am a “wanker” in the category of Climate Retards.
Linkedin discussions
In March 2013, I started up a group on linkedin.com which I called ‘Bloggers for Climate Safety’.
Umah Papachan wrote in a discussion thread on linkedin.com on 6 April 2013:
Climate change & global warming are scams. Global warming is a Ponzi scheme to con people and govts to give money to all these worthy causes. Journalists like yourself are advocating reducing carbon emissions so that you can paid lots of money to lie to the publica bout it!. When it is not so! The fact that countries like Madagascar are asking money from rich nations like the US is another way of redistributing wealth, a flawed liberal Communist ideology! All in the name of saving the environment when these poor countries will not save the environment but stash the money into their own private Swiss accounts! And the UN is a corrupt institution!
And I replied:
Mik Aidt wrote on 7 April 2013:
@Umah Papachan: I do not understand how you – and anyone, actually – can go on saying that “climate change & global warming are scams”, except of course those who have stakes in the fossil industry, or are on their payroll.
1) What exactly is it that is so terrible about humanity shifting over to renewable energy sources and getting rid of some pollution in the air they breathe, even if those CO2-warming-calculations scientists keep coming up with should turn out to be wrong or exaggerated?
2) What are your sources? Where do you find the evidence that convincingly shows that climate change is a scam? Jeff Poole, a blogger from Australia, wrote the other day:
“The World Bank, the International Energy Authority, the IMF, every national science body on the planet, every state meteorological authority on the planet and even the Pentagon and the Australian Defence Force are agreed that human-forced climate change is a serious problem.
Yet the fossil fuel lobby still uses the same tactics (and many of the same PR agencies and ‘Think Thanks’) as their friends in the tobacco lobby to spread disinformation and doubt about this problem.
This is not just a few smokers dying early, this is about the future of farming, and hence civilisation, on this planet and these dimwits are more concerned about the profits of coal and gas companies…?
Some strange, strange people inhabit this Earth”
Please elaborate, enlighten me, Umah Papachan, did you actually personally read the recent World Bank report? If not, here is a link:
The other day I was watching this documentary by National Geographic, called ‘Six Degrees Could Change The World’. I may be more naive than you, or less informed, but I actually find a lot of what they show and tell in that documentary to make sense. I find it important, and credible.
I also watched James Hansen on TED — and found him to be a person I’d actually trust more than I’d trust some journalist or blogger who is telling me that he is a liar.
Or did you read the testimonial of Australian firefighter Ken Thompson in Sydney Morning Herald on 5 April 2013, Time to pull out all stops to face a formidable foe? He refers to a new report by the Australian Climate Commission, The Critical Decade, but he also talks from 40 years of experience as a firefighter — about how the bushfires are growing bigger and more frequent, and how local communities simply cannot cope with the magnitude of the fires they are experiencing. So he is a liar too in your world? And profiting from it, according to you?
I’ll agree with you that UN has turned out to be a rather hopeless and useless body when it comes to fix global problems. But that is not the same as calling journalists who are advocating reducing carbon emissions liars, and that they should only be doing it “so that they can paid lots of money to lie to the publica bout it!”
Literally the only people I know who write about these topics are bloggers, because mainstream journalists couldn’t care less about this topic, and these bloggers I know personally, I can asure you, they get paid absolutely ZERO for all the work they do.
I assume you would not be interested, but in case others who are reading this are, then I’ve posted some graphics and videos on this page, https://climatesafety.info/?page_id=231 — which has been my personal way of collecting some answers to all the questions I have. Like I said, I am not an expert. I am a listener. I listen to what those who are experts are telling us, and try to learn from that.
Utah government support oil awareness project for school children on Earth Day
Myths explained
American President Obama’s Science Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, answers a question about whether climate change is driving extreme weather events such as a heavy snow fall. Published by The White House on youtube.com on 18 December 2014.
Dr. John Holdren answers a question about what evidence points to a human role in what is affecting the climate. Published by The White House on youtube.com on 18 December 2014.
Dr. John Holdren answers a question about the alleged 18-year pause in global warming. Published by The White House on youtube.com on 18 December 2014.
The Guardian: about climate scepticism
A section of The Guardian newspaper’s Environment website is dedicated to the theme:
Climate change scepticism
“The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) has recently reached a “milestone” of 400 parts per million (ppm). In some circles, this announcement has been met with consternation and gnashing of teeth. The proper reaction is celebration.”
Cato Institute
→ Daily Kos – 19 May 2013:
Big-thinking Cato Institute: 400ppm haz got what plants crave
→ ThinkProgress.org – 7 May 2013:
99 One-Liners Rebutting Denier Talking Points — With Links To The Full Climate Science
Progressives should know the disinformers’ most commonly used arguments — and how to answer them crisply. Those arguments have been repeated so many times by the fossil-fuel-funded disinformation campaign that almost everyone has heard them — and that means you’ll have to deal with them in almost any setting, from a public talk to a dinner party. You should also know as much of the science behind those rebuttals as possible, and a great place to start is SkepticalScience.com. By Joe Romm and Climate Guest Blogger
“Scientists are actually concerned about the unprecedented rate of our CO2 emissions. The CO2 emissions rate from the Siberian Traps eruption (which lasted a million years) caused warming and ocean acidification that preceded the end-Permian extinction, 250 million years ago. Today, our CO2 emissions rate is ten times faster than that of the Siberian Traps.”
~ SkepticalScience.com – 15 May 2013:
Schmitt and Happer manufacture doubt
Dr. Harrison Schmitt and Dr. William Happer, who have scientific backgrounds but are not climate scientists, just wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Despite their claims, global warming continues. This continued warming is confirmed by GRACE, ICESat, InSAR, GPS, and camera observations of ice sheet mass loss, which absorb heat without warming as they melt.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
The YouTube channel Climate Denial Crock of the Week is “knocking down the nonsense of Climate denial”. More information on Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week website: climatecrocks.com
→ The Guardian – 19 May 2013:
Climate change: human disaster looms, claims new research
Forecast global temperature rise of 4C a calamity for large swaths of planet even if predicted extremes are not reached. Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
→ The Guardian – 16 May 2013:
Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds
Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% — 83 papers — of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear. Article by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian’s US environment correspondent
→ Sojourners – 27 April 2011:
How to Talk to Climate Change Skeptics
10 myths about global warming, and what the science really says. By John Cook
→ The Guardian – 24 April 2013:
Why is Reuters puzzled by global warming’s acceleration?
‘Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown,’ said Reuters. But warming is speeding up, and scientists can explain it. By Dana Nuccitelli
→ Think Progress – 23 April 2013:
Debunking The Dumbest Denier Myth (Again): ‘Climate Change’ Vs. ‘Global Warming’
Some myths pushed by the anti-science crowd are so laughably backwards that repeating them should be grounds for expulsion from homo “sapiens.” And so it is with the doubly wrong claim that progressives are now using the term ‘climate change’ because the planet has supposedly stopped warming.
Of course, it hasn’t actually stopped warming. But since the deniers make up stuff about the science, why shouldn’t they make up stuff about everything else? By Joe Romm
Myth: “Global warming has stopped since 2000”
Myth explained: Warmth is spreading to ever deeper ocean levels. Hidden heat in the oceans may return to the atmosphere in the next decade
→ Reuters / Sydney Morning Herald – 8 April 2013:
Oceans may explain slowing climate change: study
Climate change could get worse quickly if huge amounts of extra heat absorbed by the oceans are released back into the air, scientists said after unveiling new research showing that oceans have helped mitigate the effects of warming since 2000
Climate change denial: examples
2017: US administration views on climate change
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
Donald Trump, US Presidential Candidate 2016 – now President
“Climate change could be happening and it could be a part of human action, but its costs in the near term certainly are not great.”
Jeff Sessions, 2015 – now US Attorney General
“I would not agree that [human activity] is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Scott Pruitt, Director, Environmental Protection Agency
“[Climate change] is all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight. Al Gore is a false prophet of a secular carbon cult”
Rick Perry, US Presidential Candidate 2012 – now Secretary of Energy
Spreading lies is easy
All you have to do is write it. On 14 March 2016, Larry Pickering told his readers that China is to “open one new coal-fired power station each week for the foreseeable future”, and without any further documentation, he shouts out a headline which goes: “THE SCIENCE IS IN!.. global warming and Obama are both frauds”. How easy is that? Just state it, and someone out there might believe you.
“Most people know the earth has shown no sign of warming and that climate change is a natural occurrence. The Paris climate convention was yet another failure with India, Pakistan and China refusing to come on board by guaranteeing to open one new coal-fired power station each week for the foreseeable future… in China’s case at least until the 2030s.”
Larry Pickering, 14 March 2016
The real data
The data show that as China’s overall coal use declined last year, the country’s coal imports fell nearly 30 percent. China’s fall in coal use in 2015 follows a 2.9 percent drop in 2014. In response to its declining consumption, government officials have announced that the country plans to lay off about 1.8 million coal and steel workers as thousands of coal mines shutter across the country.
The data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics also show that electricity produced from renewable energy sources across China is spiking — with wind power up 33.5 percent between 2014 and 2015, and solar power production up about 74 percent in that time.
→ Source: www.reneweconomy.com.au
Climate Deniers in American Congress — documented on video
→ ThinkProgress – 19 September 2013:
The Five Craziest Arguments At Yesterday’s Climate Hearing
EPA administrator Gina McCarthy and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz testified before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the impact of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The Republican side of the dais argued against doing anything about carbon pollution, but they also spent much of their time focused on inaccuracies and misconceptions about climate change. By Ryan Koronowski
→ Rolling Stone – 19 June 2013:
The 10 Dumbest Things Ever Said About Global Warming
The most egregious myths, misconceptions and flat-out lies about the future of the planet
Carbon dioxide “literally cannot cause global warming.”
Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist appearing on Fox News
“Global warming is idiocy”
“The myth that human made CO2 builds up and sticks in the atmosphere for 100’s of years is just more scary religious crap.”
“Global Warming is complete idiocy.”
“They’ll throw a study at you and demand you refute it. When you do refute it, they throw another study at you. When you refute that one, they throw yet another. Since the internet provides instant access to millions of studies, they have no lack of supply and as you knock down each silly study, another is thrown at you. Eventually, when you quit the stupid process, the Dr. Jimbys go, ‘Aha! I win!’ ”
Comments written on 24 March 2013 below the article The Engineer Behind the Climate Change Train Wreck
By Leslie Eastman
“Fallacies about global warming” – Lord Monkton
“Lord Monckton intellectually beats down another Global Warming fraudster with clear insight and Data live on Australian TV, Sunrise.
“Don’t believe the mainstream media, research the science for yourself — CO2 does not cause global warming, there is no correlation.”
– YouTube user ‘UKInfoWarrior’
“The foundation arrogantly ignores any challenges to the accuracy of the information it spreads, and has not been held to account for misleading the public. As I have discovered on numerous occasions, when the foundation is notified of inaccuracies, it simply refuses to admit it is wrong or to apologise,” said Mr Ward, who is a reviewer for the forthcoming International Governmental Panel on Climate Change report.
→ The Independent – 14 June 2013:
Lord Lawson’s climate-change think tank risks being dismantled after complaint it persistently misled public
By Tom Bawden
→ Tory Aardvark – 31 May 2013:
The Great Climate Change Scam – The Decline In A Month Is Incredible
“…a week in politics is a long time, well a month in the Anthropogenic Global Warming industry equates to several years of decline, as the move away from Green foolishness and stupidity accelerates in the last bastion of the Church of Climatology, Europe.” By Tory Aardvark
Watts Up With That
With close to 150 million views in April 2013, wattsupwiththat.com is allegedly “the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change.” It is run by former television meteorologist Anthony Watts in the US.
Wattsupwiththat.com – 8 May 2013:
The political target of limiting the effect of Man-made global warming to only +2⁰C can never be attained
The effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas becomes ever more marginal with greater concentration. By Anthony Watts
→ Think Progress – 19 May 2013:
Minnesota State Rep Calls Climate Change ‘Complete United Nations Fraud And Lie’
Minnesota State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) took to the House floor to talk about climate change and renewable energy. Using sources such as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Gruenhagen told his colleagues that climate change is a “complete United Nations fraud and lie…. The latest facts from CPAC show that in the last sixteen years there’s been no global warming.” By Matt Kasper
→ Grist – 1 May 2013:
Climate-denying GOP rep wants to take science-funding decisions away from scientists
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a climate skeptic who somehow became chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, wants Congress to meddle in decisions about which science research efforts should get government funding. By John Upton
→ NetRightDaily.com – 30 April 2013:
Church of Global Warming feels the heat
It is a bad time to be a global warming believer. By Rick Manning
→ NaturalNews.com – 31 March 2013:
CO2 myth busted: Why we need more carbon dioxide to grow food and forests
If you talk to the global warming crowd, carbon dioxide — CO2 — is the enemy of mankind. Any and all creation of CO2 is bad for the planet, we’re told, and its production must be strictly limited in order to save the world. But what if that wasn’t true? By Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
→ Huffington Post – 23 March 2013:
‘Greedy Lying Bastards’ Takes On Climate Deniers, Big Oil
By Jon Bowermaster
→ The Guardian – 14 February 2013:
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks
Anonymous billionaires donated $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit climate change science. By Suzanne Goldenberg
→ GreenBiz.com – 7 February 2013:
Why We’re Turned Off and Tuned Out to Environmental Crises
“When it comes to climate change, the fall in concern since 2009 has eroded the head of steam that appeared to be building around this issue over the course of more than a decade. Now, barely half of those polled consider it a “very serious” problem.” By Sam Mountford
→ Express – 20 November 2012:
100 reasons why climate change is natural
Here are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made. By Charlotte Meredith
Re-published by endalldisease.com:
100 reasons why global warming is a fraud
Climate change denial comments in excerpts
“The myth that human made CO2 builds up and sticks in the atmosphere for 100′s of years is just more scary religious crap.”
“Look at the temperature of Europe over the last 1000 years… the little ice age proves that Global Warming is complete idiocy.”
“They’ll throw a study at you and demand you refute it. When you do refute it, they throw another study at you. When you refute that one, they throw yet another. Since the internet provides instant access to millions of studies, they have no lack of supply and as you knock down each silly study, another is thrown at you. Eventually, when you quit the stupid process, the Dr. Jimbys go, “Aha! I win!”
UFO proponents are notorious for this, bigfooters, too, but the AGW [Agitators for Global Warming?, ed.] folks are learning it as well.”
“ ‘…the temperature is shooting up at unprecedented rates.’ Politely…and scientifically…BULLSHITE.”
“It is of course a lie, but these characters have taken a lesson from Goebbels, or whoever it was who invented the idea that if you tell a lie often enough…..”
“For the past 800,000 years, earth has been in a cycle of warming and cooling in which the temperature of the whole planet rises and falls a total of about 9C. Nobody knows what causes this. We are currently at or near the warmest point of the cycle – the mean planetary temperature will fall about 9C over the next 80,000 years or so. Until we do understand what is driving this cycle of warming and cooling, and can factor it into the changes (or lack thereof) that we are observing, the fuss over manmade climate change is pointless.”
“Climate change fears are based on a scam driven by a deluded political class hell-bent on undermining fossil fuel industries.”
Lord Christopher Monckton, quoted in an Australian newspaper — not ten years ago, but on 8 March 2013.
“We know, do we not, that the hypothesis that man-made global-warming was going to cause totally apocalyptical boiling in 2050 now is completely nonsens. The hypothesis is dead in the water,” said Member of the European Parliament Godfrey Bloom in Strasbourg on 15 April 2013 — the day before a vote in the parliament on a rescue-plan for EUs carbon trading system. Thanks to people like Godfrey Bloom, the rescue-plan was rejected, sending a signal to the entire world that the 500 million people of the European Union are not prepared to make their polluters pay for their carbon emissions.
“There has been NO warming of the Earth due to “Man Made” co2. The warming can be atributed to 50 years of higher then average solar activity on the Sun that started in the 1950’s and ended around 2006. (…) please keep up the fight by calling yourself a “Climate Realist”, the term “Climate Skeptic” is not correct, as there is nothing to be skeptical about! It’s the Sun stupid;)”
Gabriel
The Realists Take on Climate Change:
ClimateRealists.com
“In following the money, it would be good to catalog who is raking in the bucks. The selling of worthless carbon credits was perhaps most profitable, but other forms raked in hundreds of millions already, notably out of the $90 billion taxpayer “donation” to “green” energy frauds. These solar/battery companies would seem to have been the favored quid pro quo route for Obama campaign donors.
Large corporations like GE, position themselves to profit from the AGW scam, and now don’t want to lose that investment. But all the free weatherizing and subsidized ‘green” appliances has mostly run its course.
The other “profit” is political, in making lefties look green, but also weakening America. Big Government wants control, and all this fracking and American ingenuity wreaks havoc with the left’s plan to put us all on a food stamp program.
But Obamacare is squeezing Joe Sixpack’s family for an extra $4k a year, and this warming BS is getting another $4k since Obama insists “electricity (and gas) prices must necessarily skyrocket”. Middle America and job creators are all getting squeezed, but rewards for the welfare state are better than ever … free phones and health care, even for the illegals.
Bills are coming due, and lies are being revealed, in time for a 2014 takeover of the Senate. But the story has to break beyond the blogosphere, which even the RNC has apparently never heard of. ”
“Climategate”
“Much of the initial scepticism about man-made global warming stems from a leaker who shared email communications between prominent international researchers within the U.K.’s University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) network.
The individual is known in global warming sceptic circles as “Mr. FOIA” (aka. Freedom of Information Act), and he has been busy again. He just issued a password along with instructions to a select group that provides access to a new and much larger communications file: These files are ones that many of those researchers and their sponsoring organizations have worked very hard to suppress from legal FOIA requests.
Climate watch-dog Anthony Watts is following the data release closely, and it seems that the leaker wants to share information on his identity and motivation:
That’s right; no conspiracy, no paid hackers, no Big Oil. The Republicans didn’t plot this. USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK. There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere.
Wealth of the surrounding society tends to draw the major brushstrokes of a newborn’s future life. It makes a huge difference whether humanity uses its assets to achieve progress, or whether it strives to stop and reverse it, essentially sacrificing the less fortunate to the climate gods.
We can’t pour trillions in this massive hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor and pretend it’s not away from something and someone else
As hard data and brave citizens combine to block bad climate policy, this is one wreck I will truly enjoy watching. Pass the popcorn!”
The above comments written on 24 March 2013 below this article, The Engineer Behind the Climate Change Train Wreck
By Leslie Eastman
→ Principia Scientific – 27 March 2013:
Climategate leaker: Our civilization is being destroyed by lying “science” elitists
Anonymous hero who exposed the global warming emails tells the world why he did it – and releases a huge final trove of secret conversations. “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multi-decadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably.” By Ron Arnold
And yes, there is empirical, peer-reviewed support for the conclusion that climate deniers, in general, are truly awful human beings:https://t.co/3B2xJB19Jh https://t.co/U5t8EgAiDl pic.twitter.com/7PGIuxCHwH
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) October 9, 2023
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