Climate Change: The Unsettled Science – Part 3
Iain Davis
In the final installment of this three part series we’ll look at the evident political bias and staggering conflicts of financial interest polluting much of “the Climate Science™.”
To have a full grasp of the arguments informing this article, if you haven’t already done so, please read Part 1 and Part 2.
In Part 1 we looked at the basic principles of the official climate science orthodoxy—Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory. We explored some of the numerous scientific doubts about AGW theory and noted the failure of the AGW theorist climate scientists to provide consistent layman’s explanations of their own scientific claims. This also suggests there may be a problem with the theory.
In Part 2 we continued to appraise some fundamental concepts of AGW theory. We noted the problems with some of the alleged experimental proofs and questioned the circular reasoning commonly found in some dubious “climate models.” We noted that when the models don’t match empirical data it is often the empirical measurements that are considered inaccurate, not the models. Despite the fact that the
models are based upon a seemingly unproven theory.Climate science does not exist in a vacuum. It is central to the global political push toward so-called sustainable development. While the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to transform every facet of our polity, economy and our lives, they are solely based upon AGW theory. If SDGs are going to be accepted by the global population, then we must all unquestioningly believe AGW theory.
Questioning The Bias of the IPCC
When we consider who funds the scientific bodies that provide the IPCC and “climate scientists” with the raw data for the climate models favoured by the IPCC, a political bias is evident. IPCC endorsed climate impact models, based upon AGW theory, predict everything from rainfall and severe weather events, to rising sea levels, oceanic “acidification” and ice sheet collapse. The legacy media then spreads the corresponding “climate alarm.”
GISTMP data gathering and analysis is funded by the US government. HadCRUT data—from the Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia—is paid for by the UK government. Oceanic temperature datasets are fed to the IPCC by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), funded by the UN. Data on weather events largely come from the US government funded National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the UK government funded Met Office.
The IPCC is biased exclusively toward Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory. The IPCC was established with the following remit:
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change [AGW], its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
The IPCC makes no attempt to “understand the scientific basis” for any other natural process that may impact climate change. As far as the IPCC is concerned, AGW theory is the consensus settled science. Assuming an AGW theory based analysis of climate change, the IPCC focuses upon how society should adapt to and mitigate the projected—or modelled—socio-economic impacts. The IPCC is focused upon advising political policy in other words.
The “intergovernmental” IPCC is an overt political, not a scientific body. It publishes its Summary for Policymakers (SPM) in advance of its scientific Assessment Reports (ARs). The IPCC explains the reason for this:
The IPCC has circulated the final draft of the Summary for Policymakers and a longer report of the Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report to governments for review and comments. [. . .] The Final Government Distribution [. . .] is the last phase of preparations before the Panel’s plenary approval of this final instalment of the IPCC’s [. . .] Assessment Report.
The official AGW climate science from the “United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change”—the IPCC—only assesses climate change from the perspective of a single, unproven theory and discards any and all other evidence and explanations. Prior to publishing the official climate science the IPCC first seeks government approval.
As Rob Jeffrey and many others have highlighted, there is significant concern among scientists that AGW theorists, including the IPCC, too readily discount the role of the sun in the Earth’s climate.
Jeffrey reports:
The sun and not human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be the main cause of warmer temperatures in recent decades, according to a new study with findings that sharply contradict the conclusions of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The peer-reviewed paper, produced by a team of almost two dozen scientists from around the world, concluded that previous studies did not adequately consider the role of solar energy in explaining increased temperatures.
As discussed, energy from the sun (solar flux) is measured in W/m2. Using various temperature measurements or proxies, such as glacier size, a historical record of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) can be calculated, but estimates vary considerably depending upon the measure, or proxy, used. The team of scientists Jeffrey cited used a standard linear least-square fitting for TSI records and then applied the IPCC’s recommended “anthropogenic forcings” time series to the results:
In Connolly et al. (2021) the international team of scientists found:
For all five Northern Hemisphere temperature series, different TSI estimates suggest everything from no role for the sun in recent decades (implying that recent global warming is mostly human-caused) to most of the recent global warming being due to changes in solar activity (that is, that recent global warming is mostly natural). It appears that previous studies (including the most recent IPCC reports) which had prematurely concluded the former, had done so because they failed to adequately consider all the relevant estimates of TSI and/or to satisfactorily address the uncertainties still associated with Northern Hemisphere temperature trend estimates.
The suggestion was that that the IPCC had cherry picked the data to demonstrate that global warming was “mostly human-caused.” This can be expected because the IPCC remit is only to provide “the scientific basis” for “human-induced climate change” and nothing else.
It appears the IPCC, and by extension the UN, ignored empirical evidence which indicated the effects of AGW may be overstated or that AGW theory could potentially be wrong. This cannot be called science but, then again, the IPCC is not a scientific body.
Simultaneously, the IPCC and the global legacy media demand that we all accept AGW theory as settled science. Questioning it means you are labelled a “climate denier” despite the fact that many of the people who doubt AGW theory are eminent scientists, including Nobel Laureate physicists.
Questioning AGW Theory Related Climate Alarm
The AGW theory modelled predictions of catastrophe are, at best, guesses based upon a single questionable theory and speculative computer models, not scientific fact. As stated by the IPCC, long term climate predictions are impossible. Climate alarm is an emotional response to speculation.
We should not overlook environmental problems. Pollution, perhaps most acutely plastic pollution, habitat loss, deforestation, biodiversity loss, etc. may well be exacerbated by natural and anthropogenic climate change, but we don’t really know to what extent. There is a risk that we might wrongly imagine that reducing CO2 emissions will provide environmental solutions. Perhaps doing less than nothing to address real environmental risks.
Rob Jeffrey cited the work of climatologist Richard Lindzen. In 2011, in A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action, Lindzen wrote:
[. . .] the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. Polar bears, arctic summer sea ice, regional droughts and floods, coral bleaching, hurricanes, alpine glaciers, malaria, etc. etc. all depend not on some global average of surface temperature anomaly, but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind. [. . .] This is simply to note that factors other than global warming are more important to any specific situation. This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred and this will not change in the future. Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this.
The IPCC—a body of the United Nations—drives much of the climate alarm. It is all predicated upon the AGW theory based notion of the “climate crisis.”
“Alarm” means:
Sudden worry and fear, especially that something dangerous or unpleasant might happen.
Virtually none of the historical, alarming prediction made by the IPCC and other AGW theorists have materialised. In 2005 the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)—IPCC co-founders alongside the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO)—claimed that environmental disasters would create 50 million ‘climate refugees‘ by 2010.
The UNEP and the IPCC are not the only “authorities” to have made baseless AGW theory related prophecies of doom. In 2003 the Pentagon released its terrifying document “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.” It claimed that California would be flooded with inland seas, parts of the Netherlands would become “unlivable,” Australia would become a fortress island subcontinent and summer polar ice would completely vanish by 2010.
None of this happened but the severity of the alarm has only intensified. Empirical evidence cannot possibly be the source of climate alarm. The data simply doesn’t warrant any “climate alarm” driven panic.
By more or less every measure, there is virtually no sign of any increasing or unmanageable risk from a warming climate. Instead, climate alarm appears to be the product of a global legacy media propaganda operation and some scurrilous data manipulation.
Take the BBC article Climate change: Huge toll of extreme weather disasters in 2021, for example. The hyperbole was linked to unevidenced claims from the IPCC. The BBC wrote:
In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first part of its sixth assessment report. In relation to hurricanes and tropical cyclones, the authors said they had “high confidence” that the evidence of human influence has strengthened. [. . .] “The proportion of intense tropical cyclones, average peak tropical cyclone wind speeds, and peak wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones will increase on the global scale with increasing global warming,” the study said.
In 2022 the UN’s WMO said that man-made “climate change” was partly responsible for a claimed five-fold increase in weather disasters over the last 50 years. It noted this “devastating” increase had also coincided with fewer deaths from weather disaster due to “improved early warnings and disaster management.” Quite where the WMO got its scary data from or what it based its claim of improved early warning and response upon is hard to say.
When a devastating tsunami struck Indonesia in 2018 the “early warning” system failed completely. Similarly, when catastrophic wild fires broke out in the Hawaiian island of Maui the early warning system was conspicuously absent. As was the Maui emergency response from US authorities. The lack of adequate government response is nothing new. The same was notable following Hurricane Katrina that destroyed much of New Orleans in 2005. Numerous explanations have been offered for deficient early warning systems and poor government coordination of relief efforts.
The WMO claim that “improved early warning and disaster management” explains lower mortality from environmental emergencies is certainly questionable. Perhaps there are other factors that have contributed toward fewer deaths caused by extreme weather events.
Engineers designing infrastructure projects and urban developments need to understand the potential risk of future natural disasters. In 2016 researchers from Cambridge University Department of Engineering searched the available records and were surprised by what they found:
It is widely promulgated and believed that human-caused global warming comes with increases in both the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. A survey of official weather sites and the scientific literature provides strong evidence that the first half of the 20th century had more extreme weather than the second half, when anthropogenic global warming is claimed to have been mainly responsible for observed climate change. The disconnect between real-world historical data on the 100 years’ time scale and the current predictions provides a real conundrum.
Moving into the 21st century, the best “climate disaster” data currently available comes from International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Belgium Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). When Professor Roger Pielke Jr. checked the EM-DAT data he found that between 2000 and 2021 the general trend in recorded global weather and climate disasters showed an approximate 10% decline.
Fig 7: Global weather and climate disasters
Cyclones and hurricanes are the most damaging of all weather events. Klotzbach et al 2021) found:
This study investigates 1990–2021 global tropical cyclone (TC) activity trends, a period characterized by consistent satellite observing platforms. We find that fewer hurricanes are occurring globally and that the tropics are producing less Accumulated Cyclone Energy—a metric accounting for hurricane frequency, intensity, and duration.
Hong et al. (2017) measured the maximum daily streamflow data from 9,213 flood monitoring stations across the globe. The researchers concluded:
[. . .] there were more stations with significant decreasing trends than significant increasing trends across all the datasets analysed, indicating that limited evidence exists for the hypothesis that flood hazard is increasing when averaged across the data-covered regions of the globe.
IPCC predictive models stated that global warming would severely reduce snowfall. When Connolly et al. (2019) compared the IPCC models with real world data they found that there had been a slightly larger decline in spring snowfall than the IPCC projected but this was more than offset by a notable increase in winter snowfall.
As the planet warms, the likelihood of extreme heat events will increase. While these pose a potential health risk to vulnerable people, the mortality risk they face from extreme cold is significantly greater. Gasparrini et al. (2015) estimated that extreme cold events are potentially seventeen times more dangerous to the vulnerable than extreme heat events.
The legacy media persistently highlights the mortality risk related to extreme heat, but occasionally this evident propaganda misfires. In an article from the global media outlet Sky News, titled Temperature related deaths on hot days have more than doubled in 32 years, while the headline and most of the content heightened climate alarm, tucked away in the piece was the observation:
[D]eaths linked to cold weather outnumbered those associated with extreme heat [. . .] with rising temperatures resulting in fewer cold related deaths, there has been an overall fall in temperature related deaths in general.
Supposedly, the alleged sixth mass extinction event is being “aggravated by runaway climate change.” The idea stems from the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) release of its 2019 Summary for Policy Makers. The sixth mass extinction alarm continues to be relentlessly pushed by the legacy media.
To put it mildly, this claim is dubious. The raw data on species loss is collated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). It produces the corresponding Red List. The IPBES chose to display the Red List data as the cumulative loss of species throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st century. The resultant graph appeared to show an alarming increase in species loss.
Closer analysis of the data shows that most of the forced extinction peaked at the end of the 19th century. With the decline of excessive hunting, there was a steady decrease in species loss. As post WWII CO2 emissions are supposedly the primary culprit for AGW climate change, there is an inverse correlation between man-made CO2 emissions and species loss. This doesn’t rule out the possibility that climate change is a factor “aggravating” continued extinctions, nor is it reason to be unconcerned, but it does indicate that human CO2 emissions have nothing to do with extinctions.
Fig 8: the IPBES climate alarm graph vs the data from the Red List.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims that “wildlife” has declined by 69% since 1970. This has led to some alarming “end of days” stories published by the legacy media. The WWF states:
Today we face the double, interlinked emergencies of human induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity, threatening the well-being of current and future generations.
The 69% figure is based upon the Living Planet Index and the reporting of it is misleading, to say the least. Of course we should be concerned because it still tells us that, on average, there was a 69% decline in population across 31,821 studied vertebrate “populations.” However, this doesn’t necessarily tell us much about vertebrate extinction risks.
To illustrate the problem with the WWF and legacy media claims: if there were three populations of Elephants, each containing 100 animals, and two populations were driven out by farmers and migrated to join the third, two out of three studied populations would have been wiped out. The “population” decline would be 66%. However, the third population would have increased to 300 Elephants and the number of Elephants wouldn’t have decreased at all.
There are an estimated 5 to 10 million species on Earth, living in separate populations all over the planet, and we’ve only identified about 2 million of them. While the 69% figure tells us that some vertebrate populations are declining, it doesn’t tell us much about the overall picture. However, the headline figure lends itself well to scary headlines if your objective is propaganda.
It is more informative to look at the net impact across taxonomies of vertebrates. Roughly 50% of studied populations are increasing and 50% are decreasing. Work needs to be done to understand why some populations are struggling while others are thriving. Conservation efforts can then be targeted as required. What scary WWF figures do not tell us, despite legacy media claims, is that AGW based climate change is contributing toward wiping out “wildlife.”
As noted by NASA, increased atmospheric CO2 is stimulating plant growth leading to the greening of the planet. This is why we commonly use between 800 ppm – 1200 ppm of CO2 in greenhouses. It leads to more vegetation, higher crop yields and so on. This is generally good news for animals, including human beings.
That said, as also reported by the WWF, we are using more land, more water, more pesticides and creating more environmental pollution. As recently pointed out by Canadian meteorologist Chris Mart:
Sitting on our hands and blaming climate change for every abnormal environmental event is a waste of time when our efforts would be better spent on addressing how to manage risk and mitigate vulnerabilities.
Other global organisations are equally eager to push apparently unwarranted climate alarm. In 2021 the World Economic Forum (WEF) reported how the climate disaster was killing off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Coral bleaching is a concern, but what causes it and the GBRs ability to recover is part of a far more complex picture.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s 2021/22 Annual GBR Report noted:
Above-average water temperatures led to a mass coral bleaching event over the austral summer of 2021/22. [. . .] Survey reefs experienced low levels of other acute stress over the past 12 months, with no severe cyclones impacting the Marine Park. [. . .] The combination of few acute stresses and lower accumulated heat stress in 2020 and 2022 [. . .] has resulted in low coral mortality and has allowed coral cover to continue to increase in the Northern and Central GBR. [. . .] On the Central and Northern GBR, region-wide hard coral cover reached 33% and 36%, respectively; the highest level recorded in the past 36 years of monitoring. Region-wide hard coral cover on reefs in the Southern GBR was 34% and had decreased from 38% in 2021, largely due to ongoing crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.
Warmer waters, fewer cyclones, more crown-of-thorn starfish, lower coral mortality and rapid coral growth all combine in a complex ecosystem that determines the health of the GBR. The simplistic narrative of “climate alarm” published by the WEF wasn’t even close to being accurate.
The same can be said about the apocryphal stories told about the melting ice sheets. The UK Guardian published the petrifying tale of “dire” five meter sea rises caused by the “inevitable collapse” of the ice sheets in west Antarctica. Imagining a future of abandoned coastal cities threatening a “third of the global population” and predicting “doom” brought about by the “climate crisis,” it was only fleetingly that the Guardian mentioned there was uncertainty about the computer model predictions.
The models may be uncertain but, in fact, there isn’t that much uncertainty about Antarctic ice sheet collapse. Assuming the current warming trend continues, research led by field scientists from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research—who physically inspected the ice sheets to assess their stability—was reasonably certain.
As we are in a warming interglacial period, the ice sheets are melting. The question is how fast and what the impact might be.
Professor Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute said:
While a number of glaciers in Antarctica are retreating at the moment, we find no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat yet, [. . .] our calculations also clearly indicate that an onset of an irreversible retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is possible if the current state of the climate is sustained.
Prof Julius Garbe added:
The thing with sea-level rise from Antarctica is not that changes would happen overnight as an immediate threat to coastal communities. The process of melting would happen over hundreds or thousands of years.
As shown by Bell et al. (2011), the ice sheets are thickening in east Antarctica. This will potentially counteract any possible sea level rise caused by melting ice sheets in west Antarctica.
Glaciers are retreating just as they once advanced. As they move they tend to grind away whatever is beneath them. “Ice patches” are static and have a complicated relationship with glaciers. During extremely cold periods, such as the Little Ice Age, they can expand and become moving glaciers, or they can be compressed by glaciers moving above them. But virtually all glaciers start as ice patches and ice patches are the last thing that remains when glaciers melt.
The legacy media constantly cites the melting glaciers as evidence of the supposedly “catastrophic” and, crucially, “unprecedented” climate crisis. It uses alarming analogies, for example by comparing meltwater volume with the volume required to submerge a country. Ice archaeology casts significant doubt on the basis for these scary media stories.
While the distribution of artefacts found when ice melts suggests movement both around and within ice patches, the nature of some archaeological finds clearly show human activity in historically warmer climates.
For instance, the discovery of a Viking highway on the melting Lendbreen ice patch in Norway, tells us that there was a major trade route in the region around 300 CE. Warmer climate conditions led to a population boom in the area. This trade activity seemingly peaked around 1000 CE.
While the population today is much larger, such finds indicate that human beings not only adapt to warmer climates but thrive in them. All of this evidence is ignored by climate alarmists, such as the IPCC. Instead, there is a constant drive to heighten public fear.
In 2003, the US Department of Defense commissioned climate scientists from Columbia university who predicted that man-made global warming could cause rapid global cooling.
This goes to the heart of what independent researcher James Corbett called the “unfalsifiable woo-woo pseudoscience” of climate alarm. Less snow, more snow, fewer hurricanes, more hurricanes, droughts, floods, heat waves, ice storms, you name it, think of any weather or climactic event, no matter how contradictory, it will be attributed to AGW by some “climate scientists.”
The government funded IPCC models and predictions are promulgated by a global legacy media propaganda network, almost entirely owned by a tiny handful of global corporations. The propaganda network fuels widespread climate alarm, despite the lack of any reason to be afraid. No matter what the IPCC or the legacy media claims, climate alarm is not supported by the data.
Even if climate change risks were approaching potential catastrophe, and there doesn’t appear to be any reason to think they are, the idea that humanity couldn’t adapt seems bizarre. Human beings have been adapting to climate change for hundreds of thousands of years. We’ve reclaimed entire nations from the sea.
The frequent disconnect between the “climate alarm” stories and the empirical, scientific evidence raises many questions. Why are intergovernmental organisations, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), global stakeholder capitalist organisations and legacy media outlets across the world trying to scare people witless by making outlandish claims about an imperceptible “climate disaster”?
Why do they want to convince people they face an imminent “climate catastrophe” when, evidently, that isn’t the case?
Questioning the Legitimacy of AGW Theory Climate Science
Rob Jeffrey Ph.D wrote:
Unfortunately, on many occasions, so-called climate change experts have manipulated the data they have presented to enhance the arguments that man is causing global warming. [. . .] [T]here are several incidences where data has been manipulated to exaggerate the impact of global warming and humans’ influence on global warming.
The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (CRU) at the University of East Anglia provides much of the HadCRUT data which informs the IPCC’s climate change models. In 2009 the CRU were embroiled in the Climategate Scandal.
Leaked emails, probably from a disgruntled insider, appeared to show systematic data manipulation (scientific fraud) at the heart of the CRU. The emails revealed apparent collusion between supposed scientists to hide, alter, misinterpret and otherwise manipulate raw data to allegedly demonstrate AGW.
The emails showed that wealthy NGO’s, such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), were influencing the science of the CRU and its international partner network of scientists. The WWF asked the CRU to “beef up” some of the data and downplay less convenient evidence. The CRU evidently complied. It was not acting as an objective scientific body.
One of the key tenets of AGW climate change is that the current human emission driven warming is “unprecedented.” Any evidence that current warming is not “unprecedented” would require a reassessment of AGW theory. It seems pretty clear from the email exchange that CRU scientists colluded with other leading IPCC linked “climate scientists” to hide some of the contradictions in the data.
The CRU scientists could not apparently demonstrate that modern day warming was notably different from previous warming events. The raw data suggested a similar Medieval Warm Period and modern warming trend that followed from the end of the Little Ice Age. Other datasets appeared to show that the rate of global warming had been through a period of “decline” during the late 20th century while CO2 levels were consistently rising. This didn’t appear to support AGW theory either.
The uncertainty was in the proxy data—tree rings—used to estimate historical warming. 20th century tree ring data was at odds with thermometer measurements from the 1960’s onward. This led the CRU and IPCC scientists to doubt all tree ring data but the added uncertainty only made it more problematic to prove that current warming was indeed “unprecedented.” It was noted the conflicting data suggested that “the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago.”
One of the leading CRU scientists (Phil Jones) wrote an email in which he said he had “completed Mike’s nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years.” This had enabled him to “hide the decline” observed since 1960.
The IPCC lead author group wanted to include the now infamous hockey-stick graph, first published by American climatologist and geophysicist Prof Michael E. Mann, in its third assessment report. In keeping with its remit to only provide the “scientific basis” for AGW theory, the IPCC wanted Mann’s hockey-stick graph to show the world that “unprecedented” modern warming was caused by humanity’s CO2 emissions. But the raw data just didn’t fit the graph. This is what the CRU scientists were seeking to remedy with Mann and others.
Phil Jones discussed how ‘Mike’ Mann’s “nature trick” resolved this problem. The “trick” was explained in an email from Chick Keller from the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California:
Anyone looking at the records [for] the temperature variation for many individual records or sites over the past 1000 years or so[. . .] see this as evidence that the 0.8° Celsius or so temperature rise in the 20th century is not all that special. The community of climate scientists, however, in making averages of different proxies gets a much smaller amplitude of about 0.5° Celsius [for historical records], which they say shows that [. . .] the 20th century warming is unique.
“Unprecedented” 20th century warming was demonstrated by applying Michael E. Mann’s “trick” of averaging proxy data in a manner that effectively removed contradictory data. This enabled the IPCC to include Mann’s hockey-stick graph in its third assessment report (TAR) and claim “unprecedented warming.” It is the TAR which is most commonly referenced to demonstrate the scientific consensus on AGW theory.
The Climategate Scandal does not prove that AGW theory is wrong, only that further research was needed at the time to firmly establish its credibility. Unfortunately, it also reveals, that under pressure from groups like the IPCC and WWF and with dependent funding from oil companies on the line, the “climate scientists” seemingly chose to fudge the data instead.
This interpretation of the Climategate Scandal is supposedly a conspiracy theory that has allegedly been “debunked.” The BBC reported that the emails “seemed to suggest scientists had been deliberately manipulating data to exaggerate evidence of climate change.” The BBC then firmly declared that this “wasn’t true.”
Why the clear evidence of data manipulation allegedly isn’t true has never been explained. Instead the legacy media has shifted the Climategate narrative into a story about alleged hackers, right wing extremists, conspiracy theorists, climate deniers and the victimisation of honest, hard working climate scientists. Nonetheless, the evidence still appears to show that data manipulation occurred, no matter how the narrative is retold.
A Canadian court case followed when Michael E. Mann, who works at Penn State University, brought a defamation case against climatologist Dr Tim Ball after Ball quipped that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn State.” Ball’s lawyers chose the “truth defence.” Ball’s defence intended to demonstrate that the defamation claim was without merit by proving to the court that Ball’s comment, insinuating that Mann had knowingly engaged in scientific fraud, was accurate.
Prior to the case being heard, Dr Tim Ball’s defence team exercised their legal right to request that Michael Mann disclose the mathematical regression he had used to formulate his, and the the IPCC’s, “hockey-stick” graph. This would enable the court to decide if the data was fairly and accurately portrayed by Mann. If judged so, Mann would almost certainly have won his defamation claim against Ball.
More than eight years after the defamation claim was lodged by Mann, the case was summarily dismissed, and all costs were awarded to Dr Ball, because Michael Mann failed to produce the requested mathematical regression. Mann’s apparent explanation for not providing his mathematical proof was that he was too busy for eight years.
It seems possible that the real reason was that it would have shown data manipulation and Mann would have lost his defamation case on those grounds and, presumably, his scientific credibility with it. When the mathematician Stephen McIntyre and the environmental economist Dr Ross McKitrick re-analysed Mann’s hockeystick calculations they found:
[. . .] estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. [. . .] The major finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the 20th century. The particular “hockey stick” shape derived [. . . ] is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components.
“Mike’s nature trick” effectively added data from one dataset to data from another. This was justified by claiming that the historical temperature record was wrong. If the historical proxy data temperature record is considered more reliable, then, there is no “unprecedented warming” and no “hockey-stick.”
Mann, Jones, the CRU and other climate scientists ostensibly removed both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age to show “unprecedented” modern warming. This was then used as the “scientific basis” demonstrating AGW driven climate change in the IPCC’s TAR.
It seems that releasing information as required is a problem for some of those involved in the Climategate Scandal. When a freedom of information request was made to find out how many members of the CRU who were embroiled in the ClimateGate scandal continued to contribute the IPCC assessment report, the publicly funded University department did not respond as required. The UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) found that the University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Section 50) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
We should remember, of course, that regardless of the emails, the contradictory science, the raw climate data and the court rulings, the Climategate Scandal has been resoundingly debunked by the legacy media. All of the evidence can therefore be ignored and consigned to the memory hole.
We might be tempted to do so, were it not for the fact that this kind of evident data manipulation is seemingly ongoing. It appears to be common AGW theory climate science practice.
There is no doubt that official “climate science” temperature adjustments occur. There are many reason given to supposedly explain these adjustments, including the relocation of measuring stations, improvements in modern analysis techniques, accounting for urban heat island effects and so on. Yet, despite this lengthy list of multiple factors informing the “adjustments,” the effect of the changes made to the raw data is consistent.
Historical temperatures are decreased and relative modern temperatures increased. The trend is always to statistically heighten the perception of global warming.
For example, if we look at the raw 1998 data from NASA’s GISTEMP (GISS) records for the US Celsius surface air temperature (SAT) annual mean temperature anomaly since 1880, we can see that 1998 had a +1.05°C anomaly. This made 1998 the fifth warmest Celsius anomaly year after 1917 (+1.06°C), 1931 (+1.15°C), 1921 (+1.19°C) and 1934 (+1.30°C).
If we then look at the same dataset but this time adjusted in 1999 by GISS, the changes are obvious. The year 1998 has become the second hottest annual mean anomaly year with an increased +1.20°C anomaly. 1934 Remains the hottest year, but its anomaly has been reduced from 1.30°C to 1.24°C. All the other historical temperature records have also been reduced te elevate 1998 to its new position: 1917 (+1.00°C), 1931 (+1.00°C) and 1921 (+1.08°C).
Despite the explanations for these adjustments, which continue to this day, it is hard to see this as anything more than data manipulation. Far from objective “climate science” this appears to be scientific fraud in action. We may even have been given an explanation regarding why the manipulation has occurred.
The greenhouse effect was a largely forgotten scientific theory until 1988 when then director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) James Hansen told the US Senate Energy committee “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”
Speaking in 1999, the year the “adjustment” of GISS data started, James Hansen told his GISS colleagues:
Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years [following adjustment]. Yet in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.
This doesn’t evidence AGW theory. Now the data has been “adjusted” it is far more amenable.
Questioning the AGW Theory Sceptic’s Bias
Most well know AGW sceptical scientists, such as the astrophysicist Willie Soon, lead author of Soon et al. (2015)—referenced in Part 2—are regularly accused of funding bias by climate alarmists.
In Soon’s case he received some funding from interests linked to energy companies, such as the Charles G. Koch Foundation. Of course, it is reasonable to consider a potential conflict of interest with Dr Soon’s or anyone else’s work.
Yet these concerns about possible conflicts of interest seemingly only extend to AGW sceptics. Those who advocate AGW theory and climate alarm, such as the Sierra Club, and the American Geophysical Union, also receive funding from the fossil fuel and energy industries, but aren’t questioned.
the Climate Bond Initiative
Fossil Fuel companies are also funding “official” climate change research. Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company on Earth, is committed to “reach net zero emissions by 2060” and is “accelerating the country’s transition to a green economy.” To this end it has invested “more than $186 [billion]” in “collaboration and innovation” to help achieve “sustainable growth” in keeping with “global goals.” Saudi Aramco has made a massive capital investment commitment entirely contingent upon continued acceptance of AGW theory.
As we’ve already discussed, the “official” AGW climate science is often funded by groups like the BMGF. The BMGF Trust manages the BMGF endowment fund. As you might expect, the BMGF “Trust” is heavily invested in pharmaceutical and agri-chemical corporations, such as Moderna and Bayer. In turn, Bayer is pushing the production of biofuels through its effective subsidiary CoverCress.
Rodrigo Santos, Bayer’s Crop Science Division president, said:
CoverCress is exciting because it has the potential to become an important source for biofuel production.
Bayer is set to profit handsomely from the increasing use of biofuels, and so too its major investors, such as the BMGF Trust. This explains why Bill Gates has long been an investment partner with oil companies in bio fuel development. Yet when DeCicco et al. (2016) looked at the US production cycle of biofuels they found:
U.S. biofuel use to date is associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO2 emissions.
It seems the BMGF couldn’t care less about increased CO2 emissions, yet it is funding the consensus AGW climate science which informs sustainable development and net zero policies. The BMGF Trust are also set to profit from technological solutions to the “climate emergency.” This is not a potential conflict of interest for “the Climate Science™” that anyone seems particularly interested in.
Moreover, the “official” AGW climate science is overwhelmingly funded by tax payers via their governments. Funding projects like the EU’s Horizon Europe will only invest its €95.5 billion budget into research that “helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). The UN states that SDGs are entirely hung upon the assumption that AGW theory is an established, scientific fact:
Climate change is caused by human activities and threatens life on earth as we know it. With rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is occurring at rates much faster than anticipated. Its impacts can be devastating and include extreme and changing weather patterns and rising sea levels. [. . .] Saving lives and livelihoods requires urgent action to address the climate emergency.
Funding initiatives such as Horizon Europe raise the possibility of an enormous scientific conflict of interest for AGW theory science. Like the IPCC, Horizon Europe funding is exclusively biased toward just one scientific theory. But the finger is only pointed at the AGW theory sceptical science.
Influential climate change activist groups, such as Just Stop Oil, are funded by some of the richest oiligarchs on Earth. Extinction Rebellion is funded by, among others, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).
CIFF invests more in “climate change organisations” than in any other lobby sector. The BMGF, the Rockefellers and the European Climate Foundation—the largest single donor—are among CIFF’s leading financial backers.
The European Climate Foundation is also backed by, among others, the Rockefellers Bothers Fund. Having amassed a staggering fortune from fossil fuels and banking, the Rockefellers are now supporting the “climate change activists” calling for a switch away from fossil fuels to “renewable energy.” The Rockefellers are heavily invested in renewable energy and the envisaged low carbon economy.
Climate activists, like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, are campaigning on behalf of oiligarchs. Again, all based upon the continued acceptance of AGW theory.
CIFF, the European Climate Foundation, Horizon Europe and formerly the Rockefellers—who actually still invest via CIFF and the European Climate Foundation—directly fund the global Climate Bond initiative. Climate bonds will enable investors to profit from a new global economic model based upon the mobilisation of “global capital for climate action.” All based upon AGW theory.
The Climate Bond initiative’s partners are multinational banks and investment management corporations including BlackRock, HSBC, State Street, Credit Suisse and Barclays, etc. They report their collective mission:
Climate Bonds aims to educate, inspire, convene, and steer a global collaboration of institutional investors, governments, development banks and industry to shift capital toward low-carbon and resilient investments. [. . .] We are at the forefront of advances in sustainable finance, collaborating with numerous global stakeholders, including governments, investors, banks, and large companies.
The ambition is to create an investment market worth $5 trillion (USD) annually:
Governments must signal clear support for net-zero by initiating a supportive policy environment for transition. [. . .] To reach 1.5°C society must undergo a transition. [. . .] The climate challenge offers a political opportunity to steer the real and financial economy towards a green future. [. . .] Investors have been supporting the transition since 2007, and appetite is growing as illustrated by the rapid expansion of the green bond market.
An entire new global economy is being constructed on the back of AGW theory. AGW theory is the “scientific basis” for the UN’s Agenda 2030 which aims to transform the world:
All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. [. . .] We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path.
Governments, intergovernmental organisations, global NGOs and philanthropic oligarchs, the biggest polluters on Earth, including global oil and energy corporations, global financial institutions and billionaire investors are exerting their financial might to support the AGW theory “climate scientists.” There is no comparison with the relatively minuscule levels of funding received by the scientists labelled “climate deniers.”
Frankly, it is absurd that climate alarmists accuse AGW sceptical scientists of funding bias while simultaneously ignoring the staggering conflicts of financial interest behind all AGW theory “climate science.”
Why?
At the 2022 WEF Sustainable Development Impact Meeting, Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the UN, told delegates that the UN had partnered with several big tech companies—TikTok , Facebook (Meta), Google, etc.—to censor and control what she called “climate change narratives.” Fleming added:
We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.
That Fleming felt confident enough to assert that the UN “owns” climate science is bad enough. But that she was, for all intents and purposes, correct, should be a matter of concern for science and scientists everywhere. That the UN also assumes the right to stop anyone, including scientists, from publicly questioning the AGW theory climate science it owns is a matter of concern for humanity.
While there are clearly many scientific reasons to question AGW theory climate science, the refusal to entertain any doubt or brook any questioning is highly conspicuous. Especially in light of the fact that doubt, not consensus, is a foundational scientific principle.
Perhaps more blatant yet are the continued attempts to deceive and mislead by those who most fiercely insist that we unquestioningly accept the official “climate alarm” narrative. Speaking in August 2023 at the Signet Library in Edinburgh, former US secretary of state and current US special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry gave an address in which he said:
[. . .] without a single piece of peer reviewed, documentation to the contrary, we are again witnessing another moment in which the persuasive force of evidence and with it, earth’s future hangs in the balance. All because some extremist political voices, holdout nations, and vastly vested interests have declared war on facts and science. [. . .] While they refuse to accept the facts behind the increasingly obvious damages of the climate crisis, they lash out at the truth tellers, and label indisputable evidence as hysteria. They compound the already difficult challenge of the climate crisis by promising to do more of exactly what created the crisis in the first place. So now, humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself—by those seducing people into buying into a completely fictitious alternative reality where we don’t need to act and we don’t even need to care.
As Rob Jeffrey highlighted in his Ph.D thesis, contrary to Kerry’s claim, there is a wealth of peer reviewed scientific evidence that “documents” scientific doubt about AGW theory and the alleged “climate crisis.”
That Kerry accused sceptical climate science of bias by “vested interests,” while failing to mention that “the Climate Science™” is paid for by nation states and the most powerful corporations on Earth, was nothing other than propaganda by omission.
John Kerry is a lawyer by profession, not a scientist, but he strongly promotes the AGW theory based concept of climate change. For him to assert, as he does, that any lay opinion about climate change that disagrees with his own is “extremist” is the mark of a rank propagandist. That he insinuates there aren’t any climate scientists that question his proclaimed certainty only emphasises the point.
His further insistence that “the damages of the climate crisis” are “obvious,” that every claim he makes is a “fact” and only he, and those who agree with him, represent the “truth,” was resoundingly false. Kerry is yet another voice insisting that we must not question an unproven, highly speculative theory.
Bluntly, it seems Kerry was lying. You could say he was spreading disinformation, misleading his audience or indulging in propaganda. But lying will suffice, it amounts to the same thing.
The question is why?
Why, time and time again, are the proponents of AGW theory caught manipulating or falsifying data? Why does the legacy media continually misrepresent the facts to push climate alarm? Why do people like Kerry and organisations like the United Nations and powerful interest groups, such as the WEF, call everyone who questions AGW theory “deniers” or “extremists?” What possible reason do they have for making up a never ending stream of falsehoods?
Sustainable development is a resource grab by a network of globalist “vested interests.” That network is using SDGs to re-imagine the global economy in order to centralise and consolidate global power into the hands of a select few. It is a bid to cement global governance under a global public-private partnership. Ultimately, this is the conflict of interest that is driving fraudulent science and the censorship of scientific debate.
Beneath all of this perhaps there is something else, even more malevolent. Kerry gave us a clue when he said “humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself.” This has long-been the argument of eugenicists who consider humanity to be a blight. Convincing us that we should sacrifice ourselves for their benefit has always presented a public relations problem for the eugenicists.
In 1991 the Rockefeller funded globalist think tank, the Club of Rome, published The First Global Revolution. In it they revealed how they resolved the eugenicists sales pitch conundrum:
In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap….namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.
The UK government’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) benefits from £8 billion (USD $10.2 billion) of UK taxpayers’ money earmarked for environmental scientists and UK researchers. But only for those who contribute toward fulfillment of the “global goals for sustainable development. Again, there is apparently no conflict of financial interest here at all.
Trust the science.
Inevitably, “the Climate Science™” has rammed home the essential eugenicist message that we should curtail humanity in order to save the Planet. NERC recently funded publication of the “scientific” paper “Measurements of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath and the development of UK scale emissions.” Based upon an assumption that AGW theory holds water, the extremely well funded scientists found:
Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming. [. . .] We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.
Thirty four years after a global network “came up with the idea” that the “threat of global warming” exposed humanity as the “enemy,” John Kerry, and many others like him, are still peddling the same arguments. Regardless of the fact that their doom-laden soothsaying is demonstrably and consistently wrong, the eugenicists are still trying to convince us that “humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself.”
If we buy it, AGW theory forms the basis for the complete restructuring of our world. A process that commits all of humanity, excluding the select few, to ever more onerous behavioural restrictions and increasingly limited opportunities.
I extend my gratitude to my editor, who has provided invaluable contributions to my articles since October 2021 (but who, for personal reasons, prefers to remain anonymous).
You can read more of Iain’s work at his blog IainDavis.com (Formerly InThisTogether) or on UK Column or follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his SubStack. His new book Pseudopandemic, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon and other sellers. Or you can claim a free copy by subscribing to his newsletter.
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