An open letter to all political leaders currently fighting a General Election in the U.K. calling for an “ambitious” programme of green policies has been signed by 408 climate activists. The BBC refers to “the most distinguished of the country’s” climate scientists; Bob Ward, who organised the petition through the billionaire-funded Grantham operation, tweeted, “be ambitious on climate, scientists urge parties”, while James ‘the climate clock is ticking’ Murray from Business Green stepped up a gear by referring to “top scientists“. Scientists, you say? The first ‘scientist’ in the alphabetical list is an Associate Professor of Accounting, the second is a geographer specialising in “disaster risk reduction”, while the third is an archaeologist.
The green Grantham stunt is of course the latest in a long line of attempts to suggest that most ‘scientists’ believe humans control the climate. The letter refers to “growing damage to lives and livelihoods” in the U.K. caused by increases in the frequency and intensity of many extreme weather events. This evidence-lite but ubiquitous assertion is not even backed up by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which finds there has been no human involvement in most natural events such as floods, droughts, wildfires and cyclones to date. Nor is human involvement detected in forecasts stretching to 2100.
There are some academics who have signed the letter who can be fairly described as scientists, but the vast majority would struggle to justify such a title. The list is littered with lawyers, psychologists, philosophers, landscape designers, engineers and computer modellers. One interesting take from the letter is to note how many ways a university Geography Department can be renamed to capitalise on the climate zeitgeist. A similar ‘scientists’ stunt was pulled last month by Damian Carrington in the Guardian, who polled 400 so-called scientists and in an ocean of emotional guff concluded the world is heading towards a “semi dystopian” future. Signed up for both agitprop operations is Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, who is described as the Director for U.K. Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation. A more enlightening CV might note that she is an “environmental psychologist” whose first degree was in theology and religious studies with French.
Perhaps Marco Silva, the BBC Verify climate ‘disinformation’ specialist, could cast a critical eye over the Ward letter when he returns at the end of the month from his six-month re-education sabbatical at the billionaire-funded Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN). One or two signing names might be familiar to him, including Saffron O’Neill, described as a Professor of “Climate and Society”. She is a past speaker at the OCJN and is noted for speculating on the need for “fines and imprisonment” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science.
Would any scientist seriously sign up for such a policy knowing that it would destroy the ongoing scientific process? A process, it might be noted, that has served humanity so well, certainly since the time Pope Urban VIII played the ‘well supported’ argument and cut up rough with Galileo and his heretical view that the Earth orbited the Sun.
The Ward letter is a Grantham operation and is ultimately funded by the green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham. Two Grantham Institutes are funded at the London School of Economics and Imperial, where a computer model ‘attribution’ operation is used to garner headlines with implausible claims that humans have caused individual weather events. Investigate science journalist Ben Pile has tracked some of the major contributions made by Grantham up to 2021.
As well as significant sums paid to LSE and Imperial, there are major contributions dispersed to other green foundations that crop up all the time when there are global Net Zero collectivisation narratives to be spun in the media, politics and academia. Jeremy Grantham has a long track record of preaching about the coming apocalypse, asking a 2019 meeting in Copenhagen, “what should I do, you say?” He met his rhetorical question by advising:
You should lobby your Government officials – invest in an election and buy some politicians. I am happy to say we do quite a bit of that at the Grantham Foundation… any candidate as long as they are green.
Ward is employed by Grantham at LSE to “communicate” climate science, notes journalist Matt Ridley. For years he complained to the newspaper industry’s self-regulator IPSO about climate articles that took a sceptical line. It was part of a campaign of “sustained and deliberate” pressure put on editors to toe the alarmist line, states Ridley. Ward tied journalists down in a time-consuming process in the hope it deterred them and their editors from writing and commissioning work. It worked, observed Ridley, noting, “he has frightened away some journalists and editors from the vital topic of climate change, leaving the catastrophists with a clear field to scare children to their heart’s content”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
“Check out my DeSmog page here,” is what Tom Nelson writes in the ‘About’ section of his Substack publication, to link his profile on a publication called DeSmog. Calling itself “the world’s number one source for accurate, fact-based information regarding global warming misinformation campaigns”, DeSmog is a well-known platform to try and debunk – or smear – the so-called climate sceptics. The publication was founded in January 2006 by Canadian PR-expert James Hoggan. Hoggan has said that his interest in climate issues began in 2003 when he was invited to join the board of the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental organisation that unconditionally backs the theory of a man-made climate crisis. Interaction with pro-climate crisis scientists and political activists such as Al Gore led Hoggan to take the climate issues presented to him very seriously, and this led to the founding of DeSmog – “to raise awareness and help people become savvy about the global problem of climate change disinformation”.
Climate crisis PR and the ‘disinformation database’
Indirectly, the origin story itself shows that the purpose of the publication is not to provide unbiased scientific information on the arguments of all parties to the climate debate, but to present only one side of the science to the public so as to support the founders’ chosen and unchallengeable basic claim that humans are changing the climate and a catastrophe lies ahead. In essence, the website can also be seen as a PR-publication for one side, which ironically was acknowledged by Richard Littlemore, one of DeSmog‘s key authors back in the day, as early as 2009. In November 2009, emails from scientists on the computer server of the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit were made public by a whistleblower or perhaps hackers. The whole affair became known as Climategate. These emails contained 15 years of communications between the most prominent climate scientists in the world. And they were embarrassing. The emails provided insight into the practices that ranged from bad professionalism to fraudulent science. Bias, data manipulation, dodging freedom of information requests and trying to subvert the peer-review process were uncovered. In the midst of this scandal, DeSmog author Littlemore informed Michael Mann, author of the flawed ‘hockey stick’ graph of rising temperatures in the 20th century and a prominent climate scientist who played a major role in Climategate and mainstream climate science in general, that DeSmog‘s role in reporting on the issue was “all about PR here, not much about science”.
While such bias should make one sceptical of the publication, DeSmog is used by both the mainstream press and fact-checkers of all kinds as a source of essentially unchallengeable truth today. And despite the errors – which can happen with any of us – there is in fact a great deal of truth to be found there. For example, it factually describes that John F. Clauser, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022, has said he does not believe there is a climate crisis. Similarly, it reviews the lives and work of many other scientists of the same calibre, and shows where and in what words they have denied a man-made climate crisis. But if everything is as said, what is the problem? The point is that the heading under which information about these renowned scientists and other ‘sceptics’ is listed to the public is called ‘Climate Disinformation Database’.
Nelson’s profile, which he refers to on his Substack, is also on the same database. Why is he giving a link to it? “It’s quoting what I have actually said. Somebody spent a lot of time on it, and I wouldn’t have spent that much time myself to write up this kind of ‘about me’ page. So it’s a pretty good ‘about me’ page and if people want to take a look at it, they can get a reference to my work over the last few years,” Nelson explains. DeSmog‘s Editor, for example, has read through all of his posts on social media platform X and highlighted the most important ones. It also outlines which prominent scientists he has interviewed on his climate podcast. And there’s also a section explaining that Nelson is the producer of Climate: The Movie, a recent documentary by British documentary filmmaker Martin Durkin, which critically examines the climate catastrophe claims. Nelson says he is not at all bothered by the coverage of his work alongside world-renowned scientists at such a ‘disinformation database’. “Whenever somebody in the climate cult talks about ‘disinformation’ or ‘misinformation’, I replace that with ‘information’ and that’s what it is – it’s information,” he says.
How a woodpecker led to climate realism
Nelson is an electronic engineer with a Master’s degree and has worked in tech and software for many years. He became interested in climate issues in the second half of the 2000s, and this is linked to his hobby of birdwatching. In 2004, claims were made of the rediscovery in the United States of a species of bird that was declared extinct in the 1980s, the ivory-billed woodpecker. Nelson recalls it was reported on the radio and some people were moved to tears that a species thought to no longer exist had been rediscovered. It was also the subject of an in-depth, peer-reviewed paper by 17 authors published in a scientific journal. But when Nelson delved deeper, he discovered something he was not expecting to find – no evidence of the supposed rediscovery. According to him the whole story was based on a particularly blurry video and an even blurrier photo as evidence of the species’ rediscovery. “It was completely crazy. It was just groupthink. They didn’t see it and they never did get a picture of it. It was all a complete crock,” Nelson says.
Around the same time, a friend told him to take a similar look at the debate about climate and global warming. Until then, he hadn’t paid much attention to the issue and believed that if that’s what the scientists were saying, then humans were probably causing global warming with their CO2 emissions, and possibly a catastrophe would eventually follow. “When I looked at the evidence for myself I was surprised to find that there was nothing, no evidence that there’s a climate crisis,” he says. According to Nelson, anyone can search and look for themselves and see for themselves whether the heat is really too warm now, or were the heatwaves of the 1930s worse? Are polar bears really going extinct? Have yields dropped dramatically? Are droughts in the U.S. state of California worse than 200 years ago? Is the stormy weather becoming more frequent and storms more powerful? Are there really more wildfires?
“You don’t have to be a climatologist. You don’t have to have a degree. Just an ordinary person who can read data and use Google and look at graphs – you can check all these alarming things yourself,” he says. “It’s a complete crock. All of it. Every single bit of anything alarming you’ve heard about the climate and CO2 causing bad weather, it’s all a complete baloney. Not true and no evidence supports it,” Nelson says.
Since about 2006, he has been researching, publishing and arguing about climate issues on a daily basis. According to Nelson, the whole climate emergency is a scam for power and money. There is a lot of money in the energy transition movement, while all sorts of ‘climate restrictions’, be they carbon credits or nudges to change our diets from beef to insects, or possible travelling instructions, are part of this power play, he argues.
Podcast interview led to producing the film
Nelson started his climate podcast series in 2022, where he critically discusses climate science with renowned scientists and other researchers interested in the topic. One of his first guests was documentary filmmaker Martin Durkin. Nelson was already a fan of Durkin’s documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, which was released back in 2007. This film as well critically examined the climate catastrophe predictions.
Speaking about the film, Durkin said at one point that he could actually make a much more meaningful film now. This led to the plan to make a new film and Nelson joined the project as the producer. The new film was released in March this year. Nelson says all the credit for making the film goes to Durkin. “He did all the interviews. He wrote the script, he did the narration and I give him 100% of the credit, to him and his team, for producing such a great movie,” he says, adding that the film didn’t cost much to make financially. “Martin is very good at spending small amounts of money well, and it did not cost that much to make this movie. Largely travel and a lot of people volunteered their time,” Nelson says.
The declaration of a man-made climate crisis is criticised in the film by a number of respected scientists: the aforementioned Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. Clauser, Professor Steven Koonin, who is the author of Unsettled and a former Provost and Vice-President of Caltech, Professor Richard Lindzen, who is a former Professor of Meteorology at Harvard and MIT, Princeton Physics Professor William Happer, Professor Nir Shaviv from Racah Institute of Physics in Israel, Professor Ross McKitrick from the University of Guelph and several others.
Nelson points out that many people may even be surprised to learn that these scientists, who are also called ‘climate deniers’, do not actually say that the climate is not changing, but on the contrary, they say that the climate is changing all the time. It is simply a question of the cause of climate change, or in other words, of why the change is happening. The climate is a complex system, and we obviously do not even know all the drivers. But the world-renowned physicists Clauser, Koonin, Lindzen and other scientists who speak in the film are given the title of ‘climate deniers’ simply because they oppose, for example, the claim that climate change is caused solely or mainly by anthropogenic CO2.
Since people are constantly presented with CO2 as the main cause, it becomes ingrained in their consciousness, even though they may not have any idea how much of CO2 there actually is in the atmosphere. “People don’t know that it’s about 0.04%. They’re guessing numbers like 5% or more. People are worried that the atmosphere is going to fill with CO2. They think CO2 maybe looks like black gas, black soot or something,” Nelson notes, adding that this ignorance is kind of baffling.
There is no business model behind the film
Nelson points out that they didn’t make the climate film to make money. “We just want a lot of people to see it, because it’s just so important to fight back against this scam. It is kind of the fight of our lifetimes. Because if we let the bad guys win, they’re going to reduce our freedom. And it’s going to be a much worse world if we let them impose all this crazy stuff on us to try to prevent bad weather,” Nelson says. “And as I keep saying, we could spend $50 trillion. We could never have an internal combustion car again. Never eat any meat and go live in caves. And still, there would be no measurable weather or climate benefit ever,” Nelson says.
There has been a major media push to block the film. Facebook, for example, has declared it ‘misinformation’ on the basis of the opinions of fact-checking portals it funds, and these fact-checks also form the basis of what the mainstream press thinks. However, Nelson says that this has not significantly disrupted the distribution of the film, as it has been widely shared, including on platforms that do not engage in censorship – such as X or Rumble. “It’s going to be very hard for anyone to take it down just because it’s up everywhere now,” Nelson says, adding that it’s a little surprising that the film is still available on YouTube.
When will the climate crisis be over?
There are a number of factors, apart from the press and the attitude of the social media companies, that are hindering the spread of critical assessments of the climate crisis. For example, many young scientists, who are also critical of the issue, are reluctant to express their criticism publicly. “They don’t dare to speak out because they’re not going to get published then. They might lose their job. Their family might get some blowback,” Nelson says. If a researcher can no longer publish his or her work in the scientific press, it essentially puts a damper on his or her entire career. “It’s so much easier to just sit back and pretend it’s true,” Nelson says.
However, he believes that this is all changing as more and more people start to look critically at the whole issue. One of the reasons for this ‘awakening’, according to Nelson, is the Covid crisis – a fact that has been acknowledged to him by a number of people recently. “They say they found out that we were not being told the truth about Covid and that the Government and the press were lying to us. And then they started asking themselves, what else are they lying to us about?” he says.
The mainstream press, of course, is still in the business of avoiding these questions and all too often labelling them as misinformation, but Nelson notes that by now one might well be asking, what is the mainstream really? For example, Joe Rogan’s well-known podcast has 14.5 million followers, which makes publications like CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post look like dwarfs in comparison. For instance, CNN’s prime time ratings have dropped constantly and are now below 500,000. Rogan and other podcast producers with large audiences, however, are already ridiculing climate alarmism. What this means, according to Nelson, is that more and more people are becoming climate realists. Nelson ultimately believes that the whole climate catastrophe movement will crumble faster than we would think. “I think people are just going to stop talking about it. I think that’s how this is going to end. There’s not going to be a big revelation where people say, hey, we were wrong completely. Sorry about that. They’re just going to stop talking about it. That’s my prediction,” Nelson says.
The UN Chief reminds us that we are babies who need an unelected tribal chieftain to protect us from seeing naughty persuasive words. Lord help us if grown up doctors, dentists, economists and people who keep planes-in-the-sky are accidentally exposed to The Word Of Exxon, or Shell, or BP. They might vote the wrong way, or buy the wrong car. They might influence their own children. (They might wonder why they pay money to The UN?)
What looks acts and smells like a global government in waiting? The United Nations wants your money and control over what you read and see. They also want control over the voices of the industry they are proposing to destroy.
The latest science decree from the Experts is that fossil fuel companies are the “Godfathers of climate chaos”. They’re probably sneaking around behind you like the mafia, dropping flood-bombs on your children’s school and raining on your Pride Parade. Fossil fuels are just like tobacco now — apart from how they harvest the fields and feed the children and fly us to Barbados for beachy weekends. (Marlboro only did that in the adverts…)
The UN need an enemy to blame for everything, and the best kind of enemy is one that can’t speak:
UN Secretary General António Guterres called coal, oil and gas corporations the “godfathers of climate chaos” who had distorted the truth and deceived the public for decades.
Just as tobacco advertising was banned because of the threat to health, the same should now apply to fossil fuels, he said.
His remarks were his most damning condemnation yet of the industries responsible for the bulk of global warming. They came as new studies showed the rate of warming is increasing and that global heat records have continued to tumble.
Oh Woe, if only the UN could persuade the people not to buy oil, gas and coal to avoid the oceans boiling off to space. That would end the power of the fossil fuel giants right then and there. But after 30 years of trying, the UN, the bankers, and the sycophant cowards in academia all failed to convince the average driver to ride a bike or catch a bus.
Let’s face it, they failed to even convince themselves to use Zoom instead of flying 100,000 planes to UN parties in Dubai or Azerbaijan.
So the tar-and-feathering must continue:
He said many in the oil, gas and coal industries had “shamelessly greenwashed” with lobbying, legal action and massive advertising campaigns.
“I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies,” he told an audience in New York.
“And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”
They must be afraid that one day the captive fossil fuels giants will wake up and fight back.
Not that there is much sign of that yet:
In response, representatives of fossil fuel groups said they were committed to reducing their emissions.
“Our industry is focused on continuing to produce affordable, reliable energy while tackling the climate challenge, and any allegations to the contrary are false,” said Megan Bloomgren, Senior Vice President of Communications at the American Petroleum Foundation.
Though the warning flares must be popping on the horizon. BP lost $1 billion trying to make wind power work, and changed policies from cutting oil to increasing it. Shareholders and investors like Bluebell Capital are openly knocking a few heads together on boards of sitting-duck gas and oil giants — explaining how their Net Zero targets are helping their competitors, and hurting their investors. Bluebell are buying the dips as it were –the dippy boards. They will reap (hopefully) the financial rewards of turning around suicidal companies. As a money making strategy, that might light a fire under some old fossils.
The UN is a threat to democracy. Ban funds to the UN instead.
An article published last November from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled “Prosocial Motives Underlie Scientific Censorship by Scientists: A Perspective and Research Agenda” exposes a profound issue within the scientific community—censorship driven by ideological motives under the guise of prosocial concerns. This phenomenon has far-reaching implications, suggesting that academia and scientific institutions may be increasingly influenced by leftist or Marxist ideologies, leading to a skewed representation of scientific knowledge that aligns with regime-approved narratives.
Overview of Scientific Censorship
Scientific censorship, as defined by the authors, involves actions aimed at obstructing particular scientific ideas from reaching an audience for reasons other than low scientific quality. Historically, censorship has been associated with authoritarian regimes and dogmatic institutions. However, this paper posits that contemporary censorship is often propagated by scientists themselves, motivated by self-protection, benevolence towards peers, and concerns for societal well-being.
“Science is among humanity’s greatest achievements, yet scientific censorship is rarely studied empirically. We explore the social, psychological, and institutional causes and consequences of scientific censorship (defined as actions aimed at obstructing particular scientific ideas from reaching an audience for reasons other than low scientific quality)”
The article further challenges popular narratives, stating,
“Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection, benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns for the well-being of human social groups”.
One of the critical points raised in the article is the role of ideological bias in scientific censorship. The authors highlight that most modern academics lean politically left, which predisposes them to censor right-leaning perspectives. This ideological homogeneity creates an environment where certain viewpoints, particularly those challenging prevailing leftist ideologies, are systematically suppressed.
The paper notes,
“Most modern academics are politically left-leaning, and so certain right-leaning perspectives are likely targets for censorship”
This bias not only stifles scientific debate but also distorts the scientific record, leading to a false consensus on various issues.
Historical Context and Modern Parallels
The paper draws parallels between historical instances of censorship and modern practices. It references the persecution of Galileo by Aristotelian professors, who used the Church’s authority to punish him for his heliocentric views. Similarly, today’s academics often leverage institutional power to suppress dissenting voices, whether through formal rejections or more subtle forms of social punishment.
“Although the Church ultimately sentenced Galileo, his persecution was driven primarily by Aristotelian professors who appealed to the Church’s authority to punish him. In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, state censors (often academics themselves) revised and rejected manuscripts in a system similar to peer review”.
The authors provide a taxonomy of censorship, distinguishing between “hard” censorship (exercised by authorities like governments and universities) and “soft” censorship (social punishments like ostracism and reputational damage). Both forms are prevalent in modern academia, often justified under the pretext of protecting vulnerable groups or preventing harm.
“Hard censorship occurs when people exercise power to prevent idea dissemination. Governments and religious institutions have long censored science. However, journals, professional organizations, universities, and publishers—many governed by academics—also censor research, either by preventing dissemination or retracting postpublication. Soft censorship employs social punishments or threats of them (e.g., ostracism, public shaming, double standards in hirings, firings, publishing, retractions, and funding) to prevent dissemination of research”.
The article warns of the significant consequences of scientific censorship. When certain ideas are systematically suppressed, the published literature becomes biased, leading to a distorted understanding of reality. This, in turn, affects policy-making and societal norms, as decisions are based on incomplete or skewed information.
“Systematic censorship, and thus systematic misunderstandings, could emerge if a majority of scientists share particular preferences or prejudices that influence their scientific evaluations”.
The authors illustrate this with a hypothetical scenario:
“The potential epistemic consequence of scientific censorship. Green stars are evidence that X is true. Red stars are evidence that X is not true. Assume that each piece of evidence is equally weighty. Censorship that obstructs evidence against X will produce a peer-reviewed literature that concludes that X is true when most likely it is not”.
Recommendations for Transparency and Accountability
To address these issues, the authors call for greater transparency and accountability in scientific decision-making. They suggest empirical studies to examine the costs and benefits of censorship and advocate for clear, transparent criteria for evaluating research. This would help mitigate the influence of individual biases and ensure that scientific discourse remains open and robust.
“We discuss unknowns surrounding the consequences of censorship and provide recommendations for improving transparency and accountability in scientific decision-making to enable the exploration of these unknowns”
The ideological capture of academia and scientific institutions is not a new phenomenon, but its implications are becoming increasingly apparent. When scientific discourse is dominated by a particular ideology, it undermines the fundamental principles of science—objectivity, critical inquiry, and evidence-based reasoning.
The alignment of academic institutions with leftist or Marxist ideologies exacerbates this problem. These ideologies often prioritize social and political goals over objective truth, leading to the suppression of research that contradicts their narratives. As the article notes,
“Science exists in tension with other institutions, occasionally provoking hostility and censorship”.
This ideological capture is evident in various fields, in particular climate science, where dissenting views on issues like climate change and policy responses are almost always marginalized. The result is a monolithic perspective that discourages genuine scientific debate and innovation.
Conclusion
The PNAS article sheds light on a critical issue within the scientific community—censorship driven by prosocial motives and ideological bias. This phenomenon threatens the integrity of scientific research and undermines public trust in scientific institutions. To preserve the credibility and objectivity of science, it is essential to recognize and address the ideological influences that drive censorship and to promote a more open and balanced scientific discourse.
By fostering transparency, accountability, and ideological diversity, we can ensure that science remains a true reflection of reality, rather than a tool for advancing specific political agendas. Only then can we uphold the fundamental principle that evidence, not ideology, should guide our understanding of the world.
Comedy environmentalist Jim Dale and Dale Vince have both suggested that climate ‘denial’ should be a criminal offence. It gets them clicks and attention on cable and mainstream news, and it plays into a wider push by green billionaire-funded lawfare outfits using the courts to enforce Net Zero industrial shutdown. But it begs the question: what are the climate ‘deniers’ actually denying? Dale is a climate campaigner who points to bad weather as evidence that the climate is collapsing before our very eyes. But the evidence suggests no such thing. Data since 2000 show that there has been no increase in extreme weather, no increase in loss of life and no increase in economic costs.
The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) is a U.S. Government-supported tracker of mass disasters as well as health and economic impacts. It lists 26,000 disasters worldwide from 1900 to the present day. Dr. Matthew Wielicki, a former Geology Professor, has compiled data from this source and they provide no evidence to support the claim that ‘extreme’ weather is on the rise.
Dr. Wielicki suggests that the recent decrease in perceived climate urgency and importance among the American public, especially young adults, as shown by the recent Monmouth University poll “may be influenced by an observable lack of escalation in the direct impacts of climate change”. Such data can lead to scepticism or reduced concern, he adds.
It seems that the lack of evidence drives the alarmists further and further away from scientific reality in their desperation to promote Net Zero. Last week’s absurd survey of 380 “top scientists” by the Guardian found climate modeller Ruth Cerezo-Mota wailing that it was almost impossible not to feel “hopeless and broken” after all the flooding, fires and droughts of the last three years. Biologist Camille Parmesan was so fearful she almost gave up what she called climate science 15 years ago to become a nightclub singer. Now she says all the scientists she works with are at the end of their rope “asking what the fuck do we have to do to get through to people how bad this really is”. Engineering Professor Jonathan Cullen states the climate emergency is already here because just 1°C of heating has “supercharged the planet’s extreme weather”. Millions of people have “very likely” died early as a result, he claimed. Lorraine Whitmarsh is an ‘environmental psychologist’ at the University of Bath, and worries about the future her children are inheriting since climate change is an “existential threat” to humanity.
The Guardian article was written by Damian Carrington, one of the green billionaire-funded lobby group Covering Climate Now’s three journalists of the year in 2023. This operation pumps out ready-to-publish climate catastrophe copy to media outlets worldwide. Carrington polled over 800 lead authors or review editors of all reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2018. He received replies from 380 authors, but as with all IPCC (and Guardian) reports, the definition of ‘climate scientists’ is very broad. Carrington describes Professor Lisa Schipper as an “expert on climate vulnerability”. Schipper notes that she is “particularly interested in socio-cultural dimensions of vulnerability including gender, culture and religion, as well as structural issues related to power, justice and equity”. Ralph Sims of Massey University says extreme weather events will escalate and there will be environmental refugees by the millions. Sims’s first job in academia was as a lecturer in agricultural machinery.
Meanwhile, back to the science, and the problem – the giant elephant in the room no less – is that the IPCC gives almost no credence to talk of a climate crisis based on observable bad weather patterns in the past and looking forward to the end of this century.
The above table published in the latest IPCC assessment report reveals this clearly. It shows there is little or no evidence that the following have been, or will be by 2100, affected by human-caused climate change: river floods, heavy rain and pluvial flooding, landslides, droughts (all types), fire ‘weather’, severe wind storms, tropical cyclones, sand and dust storms, heavy snowfall and ice storms, hail, snow avalanche, coastal flooding and erosion, and maritime heatwaves.
Far from living in a time of climate collapse, we appear to be enjoying a benign spell in an interglacial period. A little extra carbon dioxide, rescuing the Earth from possibly dangerous denudation, and a gentle rise of 1°C in temperature from the Little Ice Age, has boosted plant growth around the world. Evidence continues to be produced showing substantial CO2 greening of the planet including desert areas. A recent paper Chen et al. 2024 found that CO2 greening had actually accelerated over the last two decades.
The people spinning the tale of climate collapse – some of them advocating jail time for dissenters – are hysterical, but deadly serious. Ask Gianluca Alimonti, an Italian Physics Professor, whose paper stating a climate emergency was not supported by the available data, was recently retracted by Springer Nature after a year-long campaign by activist scientists and journalists, including Graham Readfearn of the Guardian. The Alimonti paper, which also included the work of two other physics professors, found that rainfall intensity and frequency was stationary in many parts of the world, and the same was true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity showed “no clear positive trend of extreme events”.
Only a fool would consider arguing that climate contrarian scientists should be sent to jail, as Dale did with Andrew Doyle last Sunday on GB News’s Free Speech Nation. Alas, the transcript of Dale’s comments does little to clarify his argument – it’s just word salad gibberish for the most part. But his intention is clear. Time for ‘deniers’, whatever they are supposed to be denying, to be marched off to jail. The sad thing is that he is not alone – Dale says it is “common sense”, which, as Doyle observed, is the refrain of every tyrant in history who’s wanted to jail his opponents.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Another day, another fatuous ‘fact’ check from Reuters. This time the news agency accuses the Daily Sceptic of “cherry-picking” Arctic sea ice extent data to provide a “misleading” story. Being accused of “cherry picking” by an outfit that funds a course for journalists that encourages them to pick a fruit such as a mango and discuss why it isn’t as tasty as the year before due to climate change is beyond ridicule. Taking lectures on responsible journalism from a Net Zero-obsessed operation that has promoted a course speaker who has suggested “fines and imprisonments” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science is laughable, if also a tad sinister.
One of the activists called to admonish the Daily Sceptic with a ‘straw man’ argument was Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who said: “Comparing two specific years is not an indicator for or against long-term changes”. The Daily Scepticdid not do that. Interestingly, this would appear to be the same Walt Meier whose comments on ”mind blowing” low winter levels of Antarctica sea ice last year made headlines around the world. Meier claimed at the time that it was “outside anything we have seen”. Happily, the Daily Sceptic was able to remind Meier that he had been part of a team a decade ago that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus weather satellites and found a similar sea ice low in 1966. At the time, Meier commented that the Nimbus data show there is variability in Antarctica sea ice “that’s larger than any we have seen” since 1979.
This latest fact check was similar to the failed attempt made recently by the BBC statistical programme More or Less. In both cases, exception was taken to our reporting that on January 8th this year, Arctic sea ice extent had soared to its highest level for 21 years. This was factually correct as both the BBC and Reuters confirm. Since the article went viral on social media, the attack focused on a claim of “cherry picking”, despite the article clearly placing the statistic in the context of long-term changes in Arctic sea ice. In the third paragraph it was noted: “We must be careful not to follow alarmists down their chosen political path of cherry picking and warning of climate collapse on the basis of individual events.”
The article featured the work of Danish scientist Allan Astrup Jensen who observed that the summer Arctic ice plateaued from 1979-97, fell for 10 years and then resumed a minimal downward trend from 2007. We also noted the work of climate journalist Tony Heller who used a four-year moving average, shown below, that revealed that the Arctic sea ice extent at its minimum level in September has been stable for over a decade.
None of this material appeared in the Reuters hit-job, although the criticism of the earlier BBC fact check was made available to the authors ahead of publication. What it did of course was cherry-pick the year 1979, when Arctic sea ice was at a probable 100-year high, and draw a line straight down to the present day. It is not in dispute that Arctic sea ice is currently at a lower level than the 1979 high point, which happened to coincide with the arrival of consistent satellite data. But Reuters used the testimony of an “expert in the modelling of the sea ice”, Miguel Maqueda of Newcastle University, to state: “There is no evidence nor reason to believe that the downward trend in winter sea ice extent in the Arctic is coming to an end.”
Despite the article fairly explaining the cyclical long-term trends in Arctic sea ice, a subject ignorned in most current mainstream media for political purposes, Reuters saw fit to headline its article: ‘Climate change sceptics use misleading Arctic ice data to make case.’
That, more or less to coin a phrase, sums up the blinkered approach that keeps climate catastrophists and their mainstream messengers focused on the fear-mongering prize. There is plenty of evidence in the historical record to show that Arctic sea ice is cyclical and the recent trend points to recovery and a possible upturn. After all, you don’t need a climate model to work that one out, just look at the data. Not to point this out is, how shall we put this, ‘misleading’. Those less charitable might prefer a considerable harsher verdict.
As we have seen in past editions, Reuters is up to its neck in Green Blob attacks on independent climate journalism. So-called ‘fact checks’ from operations like Reuters are frequently used by malevolent players attempting to destroy the possibility of competitors receiving online advertising revenue. In effect they are a form of trade protection warfare.
The mango nonsense, meanwhile, is promoted in the six-month study sabbatical offered to journalists around the world by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Immersion in the correct political narrative surrounding climate collapse, the ludicrous idea of ‘settled’ science and the need for extreme Net Zero measures, whatever the cost, is the order of the day. The obvious aim is to insert fear mongering stories into all sections of the media. Current attendees include BBC ‘disinformation’ reporter Marco Silva. The course is run by the Reuters Institute and funded by the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Direct funding has been provided by the Laudes Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. The latter operation is heavily supported by past Extinction Rebellion paymaster Sir Christopher Hohn.
Reuters is also one of the partners of Covering Climate Now (CC Now), a billionaire-backed offshoot of the Columbia Journalism Review. This operation claims to feed over 500 media operations with free, pre-written climate catastrophising stories.
Guaranteed, no doubt, to be spared a ‘fact check’.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
A horrifying pivot towards Communist Chinese style censorship and tyranny is in progress in Australia, as Aussie politicians threaten Elon Musk with prosecution and jail, for refusing to remove truthful content which politicians deem socially unacceptable from the internet.
Utter contempt’: Elon Musk goes to war with Australian government over violent content
Elon Musk has stepped up his war of words with the Australian government, reacting to one Senator’s call for him to be “jailed”.
Elon Musk has stepped up his war of words with the Australian government over demands the X social media platform remove videos of the stabbing of a Sydney bishop, as the controversy around violent content spirals into a wider free speech debate.
The eccentric billionaire has been publicly feuding Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant for the past week over what he has characterised as an “attempt to censor the entire world”.
“The Australian people want the truth,” Musk wrote on Tuesday, sharing a post stating that X had become the most downloaded news app in Australia. “X is the only one standing up for their rights.”
Mr Albanese had earlier blasted the Tesla chief executive as “arrogant” and someone who “thinks he’s above Australian law”, while Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie — prior to shutting down her X account — suggested he was a “friggin’ disgrace” who “should be in jail”.
“This woman has utter contempt for the Australian people,” Musk responded.
…
“Australia has made clear they believe in stripping away human rights (freedom of expression) in order to satisfy what they deem appropriate for your eyes and ears,” Mr Pavlovski wrote on Tuesday.
The following is an Aussie federal senator demanding Musk be jailed for ignoring Australia’s demands for censorship;
Pro-censorship Aussie news outlets are attempting to use appeals to Nationalism to whip up opposition to Musk’s attempts to defend Australia’s freedom to view uncensored news.
Big victim or big mouth? Time for Australia to put Elon Musk in his place
Elon Musk’s legal team revealed a curious problem for the billionaire when they told an Australian court on Monday night that they could not get legal instructions because it was 2am on Sunday at their client’s American headquarters.
The remark was revealing because Musk’s social media platform, X, has been operating in Australia for more than a decade, collecting whatever revenue it can make, but now lacks a local office to make the big calls on urgent requests to take down violent posts.
…
Federal Court judge Geoffrey Kennett ruled against X on Monday night, but another hearing is due soon and a final decision is yet to be made. So far, federal eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has gained the injunction she wanted to force the company to act.
…
The legal argument is full of technical questions, such as the way virtual private networks allow people to dig under the barbed wire that countries try to install at their online borders. The VPN is a wonderful invention for dissidents evading dictators in some countries, just as it helps drug-runners dodge police in others. It blurs the idea of national borders.
Watch out, however, for any argument that says Australia should not dictate terms to the social media giants because that’s what China does. That is classic false equivalence. The eSafety Commissioner is acting with the authority of a federal law passed by a parliament that reflects the will of a free people in a democracy.
I’m not sure why “acting with the authority of a federal law passed by … a democracy” makes censorship OK. If every act of a democratically elected parliament is acceptable, would it also be acceptable for an elected parliament to pass a law abolishing all future elections? Would establishment journalists like David Crowe then write an article explaining that the abolition of elections was legitimate, because the politicians who abolished future elections were elected by the people?
You have to draw the line somewhere. A free press, unfettered access to news, is as much a pillar of democracy as holding elections. Would voters choosing politicians based on biased and heavily censored access to news, having their decisions fed to them by one sided media content, with opposition silenced by a government managed news cartel, be any less of a tyranny than a state which completely abolished elections?
What can Australians do about this Orwellian nightmare? Voting for politicians who oppose this kind of censorship is the obvious solution, but most Aussies simply aren’t aware of the danger. With the exception of courageous conscientious objectors, all the mainstream political parties in Australia appear to support a significant increase in censorship. Political parties like One Nation, which consistently oppose prosecuting people for telling the truth, are routinely vilified by the establishment press.
Did I mention the establishment press also has some protection against these new disinformation laws, providing they behave? Of course, if the Aussie government no longer recognises a news outlet as a professional news organisation, they might struggle to remain protected under the misinformation laws.
One option which is not currently illegal to my knowledge is downloading tools which allow circumvention of any censorship. One such tool is the TOR Browser.
TOR makes it very clear where they stand on internet censorship – from the TOR about page: “all of the people who have been involved in Tor are united by a common belief: internet users should have private access to an uncensored web.“
The TOR project was created to allow mainland Chinese and other oppressed peoples circumvent harsh national censorship policies, by disguising the internet route to censored site, using relay stations provided by volunteers.
TOR takes advantage of the fact that it is impossible to conduct commerce on the internet without encrypted communications. But that encryption which makes e-commerce possible also makes it possible to disguise which website you are visiting, with the help of relay stations outside the national firewall, provided by volunteers who support the TOR network.
Obviously use at your own risk – no system is 100% safe. And when it becomes clear that corporate VPNs and tools like TOR have turned the Aussie Government’s attempt to crack down on internet freedom into an embarrassing political failure, they may double down, and make a serious effort to outlaw attempts to circumvent their censorship laws.
Until today, I thought of TOR as a tool only people living under Communist tyrannies need, not as a tool myself or other Aussies might need to use, to gain uncensored access to the Internet. But I guess that is the risk you run living in a nation which does not provide a constitutional guarantee of free speech. What is not guaranteed might one day be taken away from you. And even that which is guaranteed must be defended, by electing politicians who regard upholding and defending the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution as a sacred trust.
Facebook’s censorship is totally out of hand, and their “independent and nonpartisan fact checks” are anything but. Now they are censoring “Climate: The Movie.” The supposed “fact checks” provided by Science Feedback and Climate Feedback (they are two branches of the same organization) have been shown many times to be both partisan and ideologically driven. The “fact check” of Steve Koonin’s bestselling book Unsettled done by Climate Feedback was blisteringly criticized by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in a lead editorial by the WSJ editorial staff.
The editorial includes the following:
“Mr. Koonin, whose careful book draws extensively on existing scholarship, may respond on the merits in a different forum. Suffice it to say here that many of the ‘fact check’ claims relied on by Facebook don’t contradict the underlying material, but instead argue with its perceived implications.
The fact-check attacks Mr. Koonin’s book for saying the “net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century.” Minimal is in the eyes of the beholder, but the U.S. National Climate Assessment predicted America’s climate costs in 2090 at about $500 billion per year—a fraction of the recent Covid stimulus in an economy that could be four times as large.
The fact-check on the statement that ‘global crop yields are rising, not falling’ retorts that ‘while global crop yields are rising, this does not constitute evidence that climate change is not adversely affecting agriculture.’ OK, but that’s an argument, not a fact-check. …
Climate Feedback’s comment on a line from the review about ‘the number and severity of droughts’ does not identify any falsehood, but instead claims, “it doesn’t really make sense to make blanket statements regarding overall global drought trends.’ Maybe it doesn’t make sense for Facebook to restrict the reach of legitimate scientific argument and competing interpretations of data.”WSJ, May 7, 2021.
Steve Koonin’s rebuttals of the Climate Feedback post are here and here. I’ve also written about the erroneous Climate Feedback post here.
In other words, fact checks should check facts, not a difference of opinion between two scientists. “Fact checks” today are too often thinly disguised and very biased editorials, often confusing very left-wing interpretations of ambiguous data with facts. Then these supposedly “independent and nonpartisan fact checks” are used by Facebook, and sometimes by Linkedin, as excuses to censor legitimate and well-documented posts and movies. Documentation and references of the facts and interpretations presented in Climate: The Movie can be found here.
Further reading on the blatant bias and misinformation found the Science Feedback and Climate Feedback websites:
Climate Feedback’s fraudulent and misleading fact check of a famous and well-respected peer-reviewed article by Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon, and 21 well qualified co-authors is refuted here.
Climate feedback also gets a fact check of the CO2 Coalition completely wrong, as described here.
Finally in their fact check of Gregory Wrightstone of the CO2 Coalition they make 13 wildly incorrect (lies?) about Wrightstone, as described here.
In summary, the Science Feedback and Climate Feedback website are both unreliable and misleading. Why Facebook and Linkedin put their trust in such a biased organization is unknown, unless they are also pushing an ideologically biased narrative.
Their overly long (4,700 words!!) critique of Climate: The Movie is fully debunked in my annotated bibliography of the main points made in the movie, but I can hit the main points here.
The first clearly false claim is that recent climate change is being driven by CO2 exclusively with no input since 1750AD from changes in the Sun or nature at large. This is an unsupported claim by the IPCC (AR6, p 5) that is frequently disputed in the peer reviewed literature [For example: (Soon, Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future, 2007), (Davidson, Stephenson, & Turasie, 2016), (Koutsoyiannis, Onof, Kundzewicz, & Christofides, 2023), and (Liu, et al., 2014)].
Second, there are very serious and well-documented problems with current measurements of global warming at Earth’s surface. These problems are discussed in the movie. Science Feedback attempts, in far too many words to be believable, that the measurements are accurate. The problems are all well documented in the peer-reviewed literature [For example: (Connolly, et al., 2023) and (Soon, et al., 2023)].
Third, the movie explains that temperatures today are within the normal range of temperatures seen in Earth’s recent and longer-term history and they are not unusual or unprecedented. This fact is very well documented in the peer reviewed literature [ (Kaufman & Broadman, 2023) and (Scotese, Song, Mills, & Meer, 2021)]. The Science Feedback critique first complains about this statement and then later agrees with it.
Then they go on to say that “warming trends” are unusual over the instrumental era (past 140 years or so) compared to ancient temperature trends, based upon uncertain climate proxies. The climate proxies used in the latest IPCC report (AR6) have a median temporal resolution (time between temperatures) of 164 years (Kaufman, McKay, & Routson, 2020). So how can they know whether the proxy trends are more or less than today? See here and here for the details. Also see this excellent post by Renee Hannon on the impact of comparing daily thermometer readings to climate proxies.
They make many other incorrect and misleading claims. They claim there is no evidence that polar bear populations are increasing, they are (Crockford, 2022). They claim that the Great Barrier Reef has not recently reached a record size, when it has according to Peter Ridd and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
They make many other claims that statements from the movie are misleading, including claims that the IPCC/CMIP climate models are accurate, but the IPCC itself admits they are flawed:
“Hence, we assess with medium confidence that CMIP5 and CMIP6 models continue to overestimate observed warming in the upper tropical troposphere over the 1979–2014 period by at least 0.1°C per decade, in part because of an overestimate of the tropical SST trend pattern over this period.“(AR6 WGI, page 444).
In short, the Science Feedback post is clearly incorrect in its claims that the movie is misleading. Science Feedback looks at the same data and facts that the movie examines and draws different conclusions than the eminent scientists in the movie. They have a different opinion than the experts in the movie. That does not mean the scientists in the movie are factually incorrect. Look at the data yourself, support for all 70 serious scientific claims made in the movie can be found here for those that want to see more.
A potentially game-changing film on the fraudulent climate change narrative and the collectivist Net Zero project hits global social media screens today. “Climate change is an invented scare of self-interest and snobbery, cynically promoted by a parasitic, publicly-funded establishment hungry for power and money,” says writer Martin Durkin. The attitude of middle class environmentalists can be summed up as “how can we stop people buying cheap things in shops”, observes Baroness Claire Fox. On the science side, the 2022 Nobel Physics laureate Dr. John Clauser asserts: “There is no correlation between temperature change and carbon dioxide – it is all a crock of crap.”
The new film is a long-awaited sequel to Durkin’s The Great Global Warming Swindle film shown on Channel 4 in 2007. The outcry from activists at the time led to the banning of sceptical climate science views across most mainstream media, bans that continue to this day. The new film is called Climate: The Movie and features many top sceptical climate scientists. It lays out the politically-supressed views surrounding natural climate variation in riveting and persuasive detail. As Durkin notes at the beginning, his new film is the story of how an eccentric environmental scare grew into a powerful global industry. “When I hear people pontificating about a rise of one and a half degrees, I think what have they been smoking,” says Emeritus Professor William Happer of Princeton.
“There is no climate emergency. There is no evidence of one,” comments Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the original founders of Greenpeace. Around 20,000 years ago, CO2 was at the lowest level it has ever been in the history of the Earth. The gas is currently 420 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere and has recovered from 180 ppm. “If it had gone down another 30 ppm, we would all be dead,” observes Moore. The film quotes other scientists noting that CO2 levels were much higher in the past at times of very high biodiversity levels on the planet. One of the numerous ‘scams’ identified in the film is that there is little correlation between CO2 and temperatures across the 500 million year record. In fact, recent ice core evidence shows periods when temperatures rose ahead of increases in CO2. The opinions and hypotheses surrounding unproven anthropogenic climate change simply do not stand up to past scientific observations.
“We should be very grateful that CO2 levels are beginning to go back up – there is not enough fossil fuel to get to historical levels, but at least we can make a start,” observes a mischievous Professor Happer. “CO2 is quite unimportant in controlling Earth’s climate,” says Dr. Clauser. For him, the behaviour of clouds is “hundreds of times more powerful than the trivial effect of CO2”.
The science of climate features heavily in the film and clear explanations are provided throughout. “Compared to the last 500 million years the Earth is exceptionally cold,” explains Durkin. The reason there is ice at the poles is that we are in an ice age, observes Moore. “We are at the tail end of a 50 million year cooling period, and they say it is too hot,” he adds. As regular readers of the Daily Sceptic will be aware, recent surface measurement have been badly corrupted by growing urban heat. Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, who has studied the urban heat effect in great detail, calculates that most of the measured urban warming since 1880 is due to the urban heat effect.
Many of the issues discussed in the film will be familiar to Daily Sceptic readers – from the biased UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change only considering human involvement in the climate (it would be out of a job if it found humans were not that important) to the trillions of dollars spent on Government-mandated inferior green technologies.
The corruption of ‘settled’ science is widely discussed with click-bait, well-funded scientists feeding doomsday climate predictions into the public space via the unquestioning mainstream media. Few corruptions are more blatant than attaching bad weather events to long-term changes in the climate. Science writer Tony Heller calls it “absurd”, adding, “there is no basis to it, it is biased propaganda”. The capture of scientific journals is almost complete with any scientist questioning the ‘settled’ narrative unlikely to be published. Starting out in their careers, academics from numerous disciplines are more or less advised to keep their mouths shut about the narrative or lose students, grant funding, the ability to publish work and ultimately their jobs.
Universities and science bodies around the world have lost their hard-won reputations for the unbiased pursuit of truth through the scientific process. In its place is a grubby rush for cash in the interest of promoting an ideological fad. The Durkin film shows in clear detail that the science attributing all climate change to humans using hydrocarbons is far from settled, and is disputed by many distinguished academics of considerable scientific standing. Net Zero and the stories about the climate that accompany it is a political project. “If you are a climate activist, you are actually facilitating a huge validation of the Government running our lives,” says Claire Fox. Net Zero demands on governments mean they can “interfere in every nook and cranny”, she argues.
But it is towards the end of his excellent film that Durkin shows the true wickedness of the Net Zero agenda. In Africa, diseases and early deaths are widespread as developed countries refuse to sanction investment in hydrocarbon energy. Women still cook on dung fires causing lung disease and blindness. Agriculture suffers from a lack of tractor power and fertiliser. Meanwhile, diarrhoea is endemic and billionaires send pills to mask the symptoms. But Western banks will not lend money to provide hydrocarbon-powered refrigeration and clean water infrastructure. The greens think that Africans should not use hydrocarbon resources, and this sums up the “ruthlessness and depravity” of the agenda, says Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Climate: The Movie is available on YouTube, Vimeo, X, Rumble, BitChute and other social media sites from today. It is written and directed by Martin Durkin and produced by Tom Nelson.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
A leading member of a Canadian centre-Left party supporting Justin Trudeau’s minority Government has tabled a bill seeking to jail people who speak out in favour of hydrocarbon fuels. Charlie Angus is a leading member of the NDP party which has 25 seats in the Canadian Parliament, and his bill seeks to ban the commercial promotion of hydrocarbons by any means “that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service”. Angus’s bill (C-372) is given the Orwellian title of ‘An Act respecting fossil fuel advertising’, and under this proposed anti-free speech measure, a gas station retailer could be fined C$50,000 for offering a complementary coffee and doughnut with every full tank.
There is not much between Canada and the North Pole so without natural gas to heat their homes, the locals would likely die in their thousands during the winter. Without diesel trucks to transport food vast distances, famine would stalk the land. Yet Bill C-372 states in its preamble that “fossil fuel production and consumption has resulted in a national public health crisis of substantial and pressing concern, in a way that is similar to the public health crisis caused by tobacco consumption”. Smoking cigarettes is a voluntary and enjoyable pastime for some, but it has the unfortunate side-effect of causing death. Hydrocarbons keep people alive with power for clean sanitation, transport, domestic temperature control, food production and back-up for unreliable wind and solar power. Without hydrocarbon use, the only people able to live in most of Canada would be Eskimos huddled together for warmth in igloos.
Under the bill there is a blanket ban on the promotion of oil and gas. A curious clause bans the suggestion that the burning of some hydrocarbons and the emissions caused are “less harmful” than other fossil fuels. This provision would make it illegal to state the scientific fact that burning natural gas produces less than half the carbon dioxide than the burning of coal. It would also be an offence to suggest that the use of hydrocarbons would lead to positive benefits for the environment, the health of Canadians and the global economy. Whatever the facts based in science or economic observation, all these ‘wrong’ thoughts can be punished with a C$500,000 fine and two years in prison.
The bill’s attack on hydrocarbons is broad and even attempts to suppress sales at the retail level. Gas stations will be banned from issuing loyalty cards, cash rebates, tickets to prize draws and free gifts such as coffee and doughnuts.
If this was just the work of a lone parliamentarian green crank, it would be easy to laugh and dismiss. It is a private member’s bill and will struggle to be passed into law, but its promoter is a major figure in the NDP, and his party currently holds political sway since it helps prop up the minority Trudeau Government. “We welcome the NDP’s bill to the House,” said Kaitlin Power, the Press Secretary of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she added: “We will carefully assess its bill and look forward to productive debates and discussions around this important issue.”
The NDP bill is an attack on free commercial speech and seeks to demonise an industry that is vital to modern life. The belief that Canada, along with every other modern industrialised society, can remove hydrocarbon energy use within less than 30 years is a luxury, decadent affectation. It is the work of politicians with little understanding of science and the workings of a modern state. It fails to comprehend that life without hydrocarbons for 99.9% of people who have lived on planet Earth was hard, brutal and uncertain. Without reliable cheap fuel, all that ‘first generation to go university’ stuff will be replaced by working the land of the local warlord, or skivvying in his great house. It is the work of badly educated people who think they can outsource all their vital manufacturing to the emerging superpower of China, open their borders to all and sundry and squeeze the living conditions of existing residents, abolish traditional families, bend the knee to defund the police, or impose so many woke conditions they are unable to function properly, ditto external security services.
It is the belief system of a cult that wants to impose a massive supra-national programme of deindustrialisation, and still peddle the fantasy that we will magically stay warm, delicious food will be available at the press of an iPhone, and everyone will live in peace and harmony. It is the belief system of people who live in Imagine, one of the great John Lennon’s sillier songs.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
Share this:
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie name
Active
Wer wir sind
Textvorschlag: Die Adresse unserer Website ist: https://climate-science.press.
Kommentare
Textvorschlag: Wenn Besucher Kommentare auf der Website schreiben, sammeln wir die Daten, die im Kommentar-Formular angezeigt werden, außerdem die IP-Adresse des Besuchers und den User-Agent-String (damit wird der Browser identifiziert), um die Erkennung von Spam zu unterstützen.
Aus deiner E-Mail-Adresse kann eine anonymisierte Zeichenfolge erstellt (auch Hash genannt) und dem Gravatar-Dienst übergeben werden, um zu prüfen, ob du diesen benutzt. Die Datenschutzerklärung des Gravatar-Dienstes findest du hier: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Nachdem dein Kommentar freigegeben wurde, ist dein Profilbild öffentlich im Kontext deines Kommentars sichtbar.
Medien
Textvorschlag: Wenn du ein registrierter Benutzer bist und Fotos auf diese Website lädst, solltest du vermeiden, Fotos mit einem EXIF-GPS-Standort hochzuladen. Besucher dieser Website könnten Fotos, die auf dieser Website gespeichert sind, herunterladen und deren Standort-Informationen extrahieren.
Cookies
Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar auf unserer Website schreibst, kann das eine Einwilligung sein, deinen Namen, E-Mail-Adresse und Website in Cookies zu speichern. Dies ist eine Komfortfunktion, damit du nicht, wenn du einen weiteren Kommentar schreibst, all diese Daten erneut eingeben musst. Diese Cookies werden ein Jahr lang gespeichert.
Falls du ein Konto hast und dich auf dieser Website anmeldest, werden wir ein temporäres Cookie setzen, um festzustellen, ob dein Browser Cookies akzeptiert. Dieses Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und wird verworfen, wenn du deinen Browser schließt.
Wenn du dich anmeldest, werden wir einige Cookies einrichten, um deine Anmeldeinformationen und Anzeigeoptionen zu speichern. Anmelde-Cookies verfallen nach zwei Tagen und Cookies für die Anzeigeoptionen nach einem Jahr. Falls du bei der Anmeldung „Angemeldet bleiben“ auswählst, wird deine Anmeldung zwei Wochen lang aufrechterhalten. Mit der Abmeldung aus deinem Konto werden die Anmelde-Cookies gelöscht.
Wenn du einen Artikel bearbeitest oder veröffentlichst, wird ein zusätzlicher Cookie in deinem Browser gespeichert. Dieser Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und verweist nur auf die Beitrags-ID des Artikels, den du gerade bearbeitet hast. Der Cookie verfällt nach einem Tag.
Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites
Textvorschlag: Beiträge auf dieser Website können eingebettete Inhalte beinhalten (z. B. Videos, Bilder, Beiträge etc.). Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites verhalten sich exakt so, als ob der Besucher die andere Website besucht hätte.
Diese Websites können Daten über dich sammeln, Cookies benutzen, zusätzliche Tracking-Dienste von Dritten einbetten und deine Interaktion mit diesem eingebetteten Inhalt aufzeichnen, inklusive deiner Interaktion mit dem eingebetteten Inhalt, falls du ein Konto hast und auf dieser Website angemeldet bist.
Mit wem wir deine Daten teilen
Textvorschlag: Wenn du eine Zurücksetzung des Passworts beantragst, wird deine IP-Adresse in der E-Mail zur Zurücksetzung enthalten sein.
Wie lange wir deine Daten speichern
Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar schreibst, wird dieser inklusive Metadaten zeitlich unbegrenzt gespeichert. Auf diese Art können wir Folgekommentare automatisch erkennen und freigeben, anstatt sie in einer Moderations-Warteschlange festzuhalten.
Für Benutzer, die sich auf unserer Website registrieren, speichern wir zusätzlich die persönlichen Informationen, die sie in ihren Benutzerprofilen angeben. Alle Benutzer können jederzeit ihre persönlichen Informationen einsehen, verändern oder löschen (der Benutzername kann nicht verändert werden). Administratoren der Website können diese Informationen ebenfalls einsehen und verändern.
Welche Rechte du an deinen Daten hast
Textvorschlag: Wenn du ein Konto auf dieser Website besitzt oder Kommentare geschrieben hast, kannst du einen Export deiner personenbezogenen Daten bei uns anfordern, inklusive aller Daten, die du uns mitgeteilt hast. Darüber hinaus kannst du die Löschung aller personenbezogenen Daten, die wir von dir gespeichert haben, anfordern. Dies umfasst nicht die Daten, die wir aufgrund administrativer, rechtlicher oder sicherheitsrelevanter Notwendigkeiten aufbewahren müssen.
Wohin deine Daten gesendet werden
Textvorschlag: Besucher-Kommentare könnten von einem automatisierten Dienst zur Spam-Erkennung untersucht werden.
