Climate change hasn't been debunked.

I blame Big Oil for the confusion.

For some years now big fossil fuel, big animal ag/agrochemicals and their sister big pharma have been able to control the calls for the structural change necessary to protect the environment- namely removal of power for the 1% underwriting these cartels and personally responsible for 25% of c02 emissions. They’ve done this by greenwashing and scams like NetZero which indefinitely postpone even the most minimal of changes required. The 1% then either used, or created, the fake pandemic which they leveraged to promote the fake WEF ‘globalists’ wanting to kill and control us. They did this to swing the public into outright climate crisis denial - triumphing with the election of fake anti-establishment (ie anti-'Davos') but totally establishment Trump.

You really think that there was a band of wokists wanting to take over the world? You don't think that maybe transactivism was deliberately stirred? That JSO stunts were made deliberately annoying to put people off the environmental message? Could this right wing, free market backlash have been purposefully made? Either way; it's working like a dream for them.

Here’s how it’s done. The strong evidence to suggest that smoking and DDT were harmful was deliberately thrown into doubt by the very same network that is creating doubt on climate science. Journalists are paid by industry to unfavourably review the science (climate denier Toby Young is funded by BP), people on substack such as Joel Smalley and John Dee regurgitate old-hat climate change denials and people who aren’t scientists make vocal campaigns in the media instead of having legitimate scientific debate in the peer reviewed literature.

A case in point is Jordan Peterson (funding by fossil fuel via the Daily Wire) and his famous tweet which asked; ‘Does anyone see any problem with this graph?’

Yes! Me, I do! For starters the graph, by someone called Joseph Toomey, is mislabelled as ‘7,643 B.C. to present’. The data for the graph is taken from a 2004 paper by Richard Alley who uses historical data which ends in 1855. This is written on the graph as 1885, though I guess this is not the most important problem.

Although JP’s data was from a single Greenland ice core source with its many anomalies and assumptions, the graph conflates the results with the ‘climate history’ of the whole world. The error bars from a single source are just too big to draw any conclusions from, let alone circle peaks in red pen.

The author of the paper JP’s graph comes from says ‘So, using GISP2 data to argue against global warming is, well, stupid, or misguided, or misled, or something, but surely not scientifically sensible. And, using GISP2 data within the larger picture of climate science demonstrates that our scientific understanding is good.’

Everyone knows results from multiple global sources and cores must be added together and the mean taken to see the earth as a whole. Doing so shows that the temperature in the last 10,000 years remained fairly stable, until the industrial revolution, when temperatures rise with the most obvious being from the 1970s onwards and is currently rising about 10 times faster than since the last ice age. Previously, temperatures have changed more gradually, giving species time to adapt the changes.

Here’s the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph by Michael Mann and others (who won the court case over it) of the global mean temperatures.

Some estimates of the global mean over the last 12,000 years appear to show warmer temperatures than now occurring about 6000 years ago, the Holocene conundrum. Some papers sampling single source sediments in the Pacific near Indonesia, for example, show 1-2 degree higher temperatures in the Holocene than last century. There are also reports that the Medieval period, about 1000 years ago was warmer than today.

However, the Medieval Warming period was regional, other areas of the world were in fact colder (sea levels were lower so it can’t have been warmer) and even in England and other areas in the northern hemisphere it was not warmer than ‘today’ ie 2024. Information that it was is using false and misleading presentation of results. The Medieval Warm Period has not been deliberately hidden. The data has simply been updated.

This schematic below, not a representation of actual temperature data, appeared in the First IPCC report.

Jones et al. trace the schematic diagram back to a series used by H.H. Lamb, representative of central England, last published by Lamb (1982).  However, Lamb is plotting 50-year averages here, and the final data point appears to be 1950.  Jones superimposed IPCC graph (black) with Lamb's central England temperature (red) and added the Central England Temperature data up to 2007 (blue). ‘Today’, ie 2007, is clearly warmer.

For an actual representation of temperature for the Northern hemisphere as a whole, not just Central England and up to 2001 see below.

Another 2012 paper goes up to 2006 and is only looking at Scandinavia (so not northern hemisphere composites let alone global composites) admits that ‘Twentieth-century Scandinavian warming is relatively small compared with most other Northern Hemisphere high-latitude regions’. It does not show that it was globally hotter than ‘today’ in the Medieval period.

The latest 2021 reanalysis of the data and samples from around the world as a whole, using ice cores, tree rings, caves and excavations shows temperatures from the past 22,000 years now looks like this graph below and solves the Holocene and Medieval conundrums 😺!

It was not warmer than last century in the Holocene, Minoan, Roman nor Medieval periods, they are not headscratchers.

Previous studies had suggested that the earth had been hotter 10,000 years ago and was cooling (in red) but this was found not to be the case (in blue) and was in fact slightly warming.

The data is also divided into hemispheres with the Northern hemisphere showing colder temperatures initially as it comes out of the ice age. The variance around the mean may look to the eye hotter than today, but they’re not.

There is also a steeper uptick of recent warming in the Northern hemisphere compared to the southern. The north is more industrialised and emits more carbon dioxide (differences can be measured by satellite) and levels are high especially in the winter when carbon is not absorbed by leaves of plants. However, the artic sea ice melting much faster (and not reflecting so much sun) than the antarctic land ice, explains why the north is heating up more quickly than the south.

Hansen wrote in 1981 that ‘Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s’. He seems to have been right.

Thus it appears that our ancestors have not experienced anything like these temperatures for a very long time, for probably over 100,000 years. And the temperature and climate would have heated and cooled much more slowly, allowing adaptation. It is also known why its was hot, because of the orbit of the earth. Without human intervention is should now be cooling for the same reasons. Except it’s getting hot very, very fast.

Yes it’s been hotter before and our pre-human ancestors (hominids have only been around for 7 million years and our direct ancestors for only 45,000 years ago) survived. However, they were not reliant on industry and agriculture supporting 8 billion people. For some of the time there were no polar ices caps, the melting of which will significantly affect our civilisation. And the temperature changes occurred very slowly.

For the past 65 million years the earth cooled until the glacial periods and the polar ice caps reformed.

Other factors such as sea temperatures (2022 was the hottest year on record for oceans), wind patterns and El Nino and La Nina must be taken into account by those studying climate. Last year was a cooling La Nina year, yet extended heatwaves and the hottest, 45 degree temperatures outside desert regions, were still recorded in some regions of China, India and Pakistan in 2022.

The past 7 years have been the warmest ever recorded with 2016 and 2020 tied for the hottest. Some predict 2023 to be a warming El Nino year.

Indeed the latest best evidence from NOAA June 2023 the hottest June since records began in 1880.

and July

and August

And September

January 2025 was the hottest on record although the approaching Northern Hemisphere cold spell will, probably mean 2025 is not hotter than the hottest year since pre-industrial years; 2024.

Temperatures are rising. It seems to be due to a rising greenhouse effect caused by rising Co2, nitrous oxide, methane and fluorinated gases from the burning of fossil fuels and solid wast and from animal agriculture, sewage, runoff, decaying landfill as well as the cutting down of forests which absorb carbon.

The history of climate change science clearly shows deliberate misrepresentation of Hansen’s and other’s work on carbon and temperature correlation, the influence of industry on politicians and their use of the tobacco industry playbook in the manufacturing of doubt about the causes of climate change, such as blaming the sun exclusively. Just like the ‘evidence’ negating harms of animals products, climate denial absolutely stinks of deliberate industry manipulation.

Haven’t Co2 levels been high before? Yes.

The high co2 in the Cambrian 500 million years ago was before plants (or mammals) evolved to suck in the co2. It would probably have been sweltering and it was unlikely there were any polar ice caps in danger of melting and flooding homes. There may well have been high co2 then but the earth was not habitable for humans either.

And yes, Co2 may be released from the ocean after a time of warming as warm water doesn’t hold as much, though co2 itself also causes more warming. Over the past 400,000 years co2 and temperature are in lockstep. As the Earth warmed due to changes in the Earth’s orbit co2 was released from the sea creating more warming and pulling the climate into the Interglacial periods. Ice cores will show that co2 rose after warming.The lag doesn’t disprove co2’s warming effect it provides more evidence that co2 is a reinforcing feedback providing more warming.

The greenhouse effect enabling the earth to be about 14 degrees Celsius, and more recently 15 degrees, instead of -18 degrees, was first proposed in 1824 by Fourier and by Pouillet in 1827 and 1838. Eunice Newton Foote, a really amazing women, experimented on heating gas in the sun and found that carbon dioxide heated the most and showed in 1856 that ‘the warming effect of the sun is greater for air with water vapour than for dry air, and the effect is even greater with carbon dioxide.’

According to NASA ‘Some people mistakenly believe water vapor (the most abundant greenhouse gas) is the main driver of Earth’s current warming. But increased water vapor doesn’t cause global warming. Instead, it’s a consequence of the warming of the ocean. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere also amplifies the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.

Increases in atmospheric water vapor also amplify the global water cycle. They contribute to making wet regions wetter and dry regions drier. The more water vapor that air contains, the more energy it holds. This energy fuels intense storms, particularly over land. This results in more extreme weather events.

However, more evaporation from the land also dries soils out. When water from intense storms falls on hard, dry ground, it runs off into rivers and streams instead of dampening soils. This increases the risk of drought.

Yes, co2 is only a small percentage of the total gases in the atmosphere. But things like cyanide in small quantities can kill you and lack of tiny quantities of minerals will as well. It’s not the relative amount that’s important, it’s that the amount is increasing. As humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, small changes in climate are amplified by changes in water vapour. This makes carbon dioxide a much more potent greenhouse gas than it would be on a planet without water vapour.

The earth has warmed by 1.2 degrees since the industrial revolution began and is now rising by about 0.18 degrees each decade. Most of the warming has happened over the last 40 years. Sea levels have risen by 8 inches since records began, with 4 of that in the last 20 years.

Climate change will of course increase the main driver of disease which is not pathogens nor parasites, but poverty and enforced migration. It’s not caused by too many impoverished Africans or Indians, with their small footprints. It’s caused by too many chiefs. The wealthiest are mostly to blame. The elite 1%, those people telling us how to live our lives, account for 25% of carbon emissions.

Instead of addressing the inequality caused by the 1%, they have managed to turn equality into a dirty word.

I think the earth will become hotter and, yes, just a few degrees will make a huge difference to many people. There will be more floods, droughts, species extinctions, crop failures and migrations.

Addressing climate injustice as well as its main driver, neo-colonialism, will make a huge difference to the lives of many people alive now. This is just as important as trying to make the Earth habitable for unborn human lives. It is worthwhile to do this in and of itself.

🐒

1. No thermageddon? In 2022 flooding in Pakistan displaced 33 million people and 1300 died after a heatwave reaching 51 degrees (123 degrees Fahrenheit). the most prolonged heatwave in human history occurred in China seriously affecting 950 million people and drying up the Yangtze River, important for the economy of everyone in the world.

2. Yes Honga-Tonga has had an effective, but a small one against the backdrop of continued rise in temperature due to human CO2 emissions.

3. Co2 rises after temperature rises, that are due to changes in the Earth’s orbit, because the warmer sea releases Co2. This doesn't mean that co2 can't cause warming too. In fact the extra Co2 causes even more warming in a reinforcing feedback. The lag doesn't disprove warming is caused by Co2 but rather reinforces evidence of positive feedback. It is a false dichotomy to have to chose between 2 options because both are true. Increasing temperates increase Co2 and increased Co2 increases temperatures.

4. Yes, climate scientists are complete dicks about covid. Some of team no virus think that the Earth is flat, this shouldn’t discredit what they say about no virus. I only care about the science, not the people who don’t have to be right about everything to be right on one thing. We apply critical analyses to everything everyone says.

5. Yes, some weather modification is occurring (not to be confused with geo-engineering), mostly cloud seeding. It only affects local areas and has no known mechanism to cause the observed increased warming in winters and night-times.

6. Geoengineering such as solar dimming would reflect the sun and cause cooling. Again, it shows no mechanism that would cause the specific changes in day and night or summer and winter temperatures that are seen in climate change. Trails from aeroplanes do condense more in the mornings and under certain atmospheric conditions. The guy below is, for some unknown reason, in full scary hazmat gear although he is indoors and looking at a screen.

7. Is global warming actually happening at all? Something seems to be really happening from the 1980s onwards. It’s getting hotter (and apparently much more quickly than after any ice age) as emissions from burning fossil fuels, animal agriculture, deforestation and landfill continue to increase.

8. The ‘97% consensus’ that humans affect the climate came from a 2013 paper that looked at 21 years of climate change papers and selected those that answered the question: is human activity the main cause of climate change? Only those papers saying yes or no to anthropogenic climate change were included, those papers that didn’t say either way were not, it is not a statistical trick to exclude them. In any case there was also a 2009 survey by Peter Doran which found 97.4% of publishing scientists agreed that human activity has influenced global warming. In 2010 Bill Anderegg found a 97% consensus among most active publishing scientists who agreed that human activity caused warming; this was endorsed by organisations from 80 countries. Surveys of non-climate scientists and non-scientists have framed the question differently and have deliberately muddied the waters.

9. It’s not that present climate conditions are unprecedented; it is that humans have not been around to cope with them before. We’re also making them happen so fast that neither we nor any other species will have time to adapt. Our whole society is based on the stable climate that we’ve enjoyed for 10,000 years. We seem to think that we can increase consumption indefinitely on a planet with finite resources, which makes these conditions worse. We’re driving our cars directly into a brick wall.

10. Yes, polar bear populations may be increasing in some small areas, but that may be because of hunting bans introduced since the 1970s.

11. Do we need carbon or not? Carbon is the basic unit of life, there’s nothing toxic about it, it’s essential and makes plants grow for people to eat. So is water, which when vapour is also a greenhouse gas that amplifies the effect of co2. I have nothing against water either. It’s lovely, I love drinking and swimming in it. Some people seem to want to deliberately misunderstand what’s being said. Yes, co2 makes plants grow more to a limited extent under conditions where water is not present in optimal quantities. However, plants were not starving from lack of co2 before humans started pumping it out, they were flourishing. The present imbalance of co2 does not improve crop yields overall, they have never been worse. Crop yields have been further decreased due to the ‘green revolution’, loss of pollinators, intensive farming, GMOs, glyphosate, soil depletion and desertification.The human activities of cutting down oxygen producing, carbon dioxide receiving trees and burning rocks, gas and oil from under the ground is changing the balance of the co2 cycle and is creating global warming.

12. The 'climategate' emails that Corbett (who often gets the wrong end of the (hockey) stick) refers to alleged fudging of data and conflates two separate issues; ‘Mike's trick’ and hiding the a decline written about in an email by Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia. ‘Mike's trick’ is simply the ubiquitous technique of using reconstructed temperatures from ice cores and tree rings with actual thermometer measurements on the same graph. The decline referred to is not a decline in temperatures but rather a decline in tree ring thickness which should have correlated with the rise in thermometer temperatures, but which diverged in the 1960s due to local pollution in some areas. It has been publicly discussed since 1995. The intercepted emails were investigated in 2009; 9 independent studies showed that nothing affected they said affected the presentation of the date in any way.

13. The 1998 hockey stick of Micheal Mann is not an illusion or a fudge, the first critique was from Steve McIntyre who claimed it contained statistical flaws, but the stick has been reproduced many times. in fact the latest data from 60 institutions around the world strengthens it.

14. Yes, solar and volcanic activity affect temperature. It should be getting colder if we weren't warming it. When solar and volcanoes are taken into account co2 and temperature are tightly correlated. In the last few decades the sun has cooled, yet the temperature has risen. It was predicted that winters and nights should warm faster than summers and days if humans were warming the planet not changes in the sun. This is what has happened.

15. The vast majority of scientists in the 1970s predicted warming only a small minority of papers predicted cooling.

16. Yes, albedo is important. The loss of polluting aerosols is behind the recent acceleration in temperatures, against a backdrop of steadily rising temperatures due to co2 and ch4.

17. The graph below is meant to show that humans have no influence on sea surface temperatures (SSTs). It does not

Co2, as we have seen, is both a cause and consequence of rising temperatures so SSTs would be expected to be tightly correlated with overall co2 rise (a). When temperatures rise from eg an el Nino year the warm water releases more co2. Thus the contribution of human emissions would not be expected to be so tightly correlated in the short term (b). In the long term we see rising human co2 does correlated with rising sea temperatures which would be even more obvious if the graph started earlier, such as 1850, and finished in the present day 2024.

18. Water vapour is also a greenhouse gas. It doesn't cause the initial warming it amplifies it. The amount of vapour in the air depends on how warm it is. Yes carbon is a small percentage of the greenhouse gases but that doesn't mean its effect, when amplified by water vapour, is not large. Water vapour is a big reason the climate is so sensitive to co2 warming. Small amounts of things can have big effects eg trace minerals, arsenic and alcohol in the body. And just a few degrees temperature will make a huge difference to agriculture and human’s way of living even if it doesn't kill us all straight away.

19. There is no censorship of climate denial or carnivore recommendations at all on the internet, even though the government allegedly wants us to stop using oil and eating dead animals (though they heavily subsidise them). Millions have already been negatively affected by this free expression and millions of lives will be lost to climate change and poor diet because of this misinformation. It is not censored because industry benefits from climate denial and carnivore promotion. Along with other hypocritical, greenwashing measures Google has downranked climate denial in searches because they want to be seen to be doing the right thing. However, it doesn’t even matter. The algorithm is so effective at targeting Jordan Peterson to those susceptible to him. The censorship of covid denial continues because it harms, not benefits, industry.

20. We want to believe the ‘globalists’ are trying to control us (or in BRICS that the West is trying to control us) so that we can continue doing what we like and what $trillion oil industries want us to do. These industries are paying out $millions to their CEOs and share-holders, who receive $trillions in government production subsidies. In 2022 they were helped by the US ‘government to consumer subsidies’ of $1.1 trillion, also making oil artificially cheaper than renewables.

21. According to the Guardian -Fossil-fuel company BP is to hand investors $7bn this year, 2024, as it set out plans to develop a new oil hub in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian says. It reports: “The oil company has angered green groups by giving the go-ahead to develop potential oil resources of 10bn barrels from the new Kaskida project 250 miles south-west of New Orleans, after scaling back its green investments in the last quarter. At the same time it will raise its dividend payments by 10% while buying back stock worth $1.75bn over the next three months to bring its total buy-backs for the first half of the year to $3.5bn – and $7bn for 2024 as whole.

In total BP has paid out $14.8bn to shareholders since June 2023, the month that marked the start of the world’s first year-long breach of the 1.5C heating limit’.