The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

When the history of the great Net Zero climate hoax comes to be written, pride of place will be given to the terrifying sixth mass extinction scare. Mainstream media barely question the idea that human-controlled climate is wreaking havoc with the life chances of millions of animal and plant species around the world. In November 2024, the Guardian reported that “as the planet warms up, scientists predict a series of ‘extinction cliffs’”. We are in danger of forgetting what the climate crisis means: extinction, was the cheerful article headline. But a recent bombshell report from the UK Royal Society has knocked seven bells out of all this nonsense by showing that species-level extinctions related to climate change “have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years”.

It was further found that decadal extinction rates over the last 100 years had “significantly declined” for arthropods and plants, the two groups of organisms encompassing most known global biodiversity. Overall, it was found that extinction rates have increased over the last 500 years, “but generally declined in the last 100 years”. Past extinctions are said to “strongly suggest” that climate change is not an important threat to biodiversity. Such a finding is hardly the smoking gun that shows humans burning hydrocarbons of late have or are causing a sixth mass extinction.

How future generations will chuckle over the extinction sandwich boards paraded on a regular basis in the public spaces. The Swedish Doom Goblin screeching in front of the UN cameras, of course, but also David Attenborough stating that humanity was halfway through a new extinction. Current extinction rates, he has claimed, far exceed natural levels. Another BBC doomster was Chris Packham who said that it was not a sixth mass extinction event, rather it was a “mass extermination event”.

To try to understand the motives of some activists, the unfalsifiable computer model-driven claims that small rises in temperature could collapse the ecological system are a useful bandwagon to ride. While doing so, attention can be drawn to the real problems of habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species. It is these last two issues that the Royal Society authors draw attention to, noting that recent extinctions were predominately on islands, and were caused by the introduction of invasive species. The most common current threat is said to be habitat loss. Both these issues can, and are, being tackled away from any discussion about the role of trace gases in the atmosphere. The authors note that “some studies” conclude that 20-30% of all plant and animal species may be lost to climate change in future decades under “pessimistic climate scenarios”. Pessimistic is one way to describe the scenarios that appear on the media sandwich boards – invented, unscientific, politicised computer garbage is another.

Consulting the IUCN Red List of over 163,022 assessed species, it was found that the highest extinction frequencies were among turtles and molluscs. Neither have fared well on islands due to a number of factors such as small population size, predation and limited ranges. It was also found that freshwater fish were more vulnerable than marine species. Extinctions among these were said to be common and rare respectively, which was put down to differences in potential range size and distribution. Furthermore, many freshwater extinctions have been caused by dams. Many narrowly endemic molluscs were said to have been driven to extinction by the damming of Alabama’s Coosa River in the 1900s.

There are of course many difficulties in assessing the huge field of animal and plant extinction, which the authors readily acknowledge. But many statements based on rigorous analysis of data can be made. For instance, it is noted that a larger list of generally assumed plant extinctions suggests that extinctions peaked in the 1920s. This is said to agree with the authors’ own analysis.

One of the tragedies of modern environmentalism is that it has been captured for political purposes by those seeking to centralise power through the hard-Left Net Zero political agenda. Taking control of energy, and by extension the rest of industry and agriculture, by peddling unproven opinions that humans control the climate by burning hydrocarbons requires constant made-up scares of climate collapse and ecological disaster. But taking care of the planet, reducing habitat loss and protecting the natural world is a separate issue. Often it involves proper waste management as in the disposal of plastic. It is often noted that societies that have prospered by using natural resources such as hydrocarbons are those best able to clean up and protect nature.

There are few sadder sights than environmentalists turning blind eyes to the bat, avian and insect carnage of wind turbines, the digging up of Indonesian rainforests for EV battery enhancing nickel and the rape of the Amazon to provide balsa wood cores for the proliferating but highly unreliable windmills. Quite how 50,000 green activists justified ripping down 100,000 mature rainforest trees to help them run a recent COP conference in Brazil dedicated to preserving the rainforest must, alas, remain a complete mystery.

All these political acts are committed under a ‘settled’ climate science directive that allows scares to be invented seemingly to unquestioning order. When English Test cricket used to regularly shut up shop in mid-afternoon due to fading light and despite the floodlights being on to ‘protect’ the players, the legendary fast bowler Bob Willis used to ask, ‘Where are the bodies?’ When ‘national treasure’ David Attenborough next reads from his sandwich board script about a new mass extinction, a similar reply should come to mind.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.