The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. There is no climate emergency, say the authors, who are drawn from across the world and led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
Particular ire in the WCD is reserved for climate models. To believe in the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. Climate models are now central to today’s climate discussion and the scientists see this as a problem. “We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models,” says the WCD. “In future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.”
Since emerging from the ‘Little Ice Age’ in around 1850, the world has warmed significantly less than predicted by the IPCC on the basis of modelled human influences. “The gap between the real world and the modelled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change,” the WCD notes.
The Declaration is an event of enormous importance, although it will be ignored by the mainstream media. But it is not the first time distinguished scientists have petitioned for more realism in climate science. In Italy, the discoverer of nuclear anti-matter Emeritus Professor Antonino Zichichi recently led 48 local science professors in stating that human responsibility for climate change is “unjustifiably exaggerated and catastrophic predictions are not realistic”. In their scientific view, “natural variation explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850”. Professor Zichichi has signed the WCD.
The Declaration notes that the Earth’s climate has varied for as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm periods. “It is no surprise that we are experiencing a period of warming,” it continues. Climate models have many shortcomings, it says, “and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools”. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, but ignore any beneficial effects. “CO2 is not a pollutant,” it says. “It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.”
In addition, the scientists declare that there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and such-like natural disasters, or making them more frequent. “There is no climate emergency,” the Declaration goes on. “We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050,” it says, adding that the aim of global policy should be “prosperity for all” by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. “In a prosperous society, men and women are well educated, birth rates are low and people care about their environment,” it concludes.
The WCD is the latest sign that the ‘settled’ fantasy surrounding climate change science is rapidly breaking down. Last year, Steven Koonin, an Under-Secretary of Science in the Obama Administration, published a book titled Unsettled in which he noted that, “The science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what our actions will be.” He also noted that rigidly promulgating the idea that climate change is settled demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, “retarding its progress in these important matters”. In 2020, the long-time green activist Michael Shellenberger wrote a book called Apocalypse Never in which he said he believed the conversation about climate change and the environment had in the last few years “spiralled out of control”. Much of what people are told about the environment, including the climate, is wrong, he wrote.
Of course, green extremists in academia, politics and journalism will continue to argue for the command-and-control they crave through a Net Zero policy. In the end, their warped view of the scientific process will fade, leaving a trail of ludicrous Armageddon forecasts, and yet more failed experiments in hard-left economic and societal control.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Postscript: When we posted this article on the Daily Sceptic Facebook page, it was labelled “False Information”, a conclusion reached after it was “checked by independent fact-checkers”. If you then click on “See Why”, you’re taken to this page on a website called Climate Feedback. It takes issue with this sentence in the Petition on Anthropogenic Global Warming started by Professor Antonino Zichichi: “Natural variation explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850.” This is “incorrect” for the following reason: “Natural (non-human) drivers of climate change have been mostly stable since the onset of modern warming and all the available scientific evidence implicates human greenhouse gas emissions as the primary culprit. Scientific evidence also indicates that climate change is contributing to intensified or more frequent natural disasters such as heatwaves, drought and heavy rainfall.”
To claim “all the available scientific evidence” supports the view that human activity is the “primary culprit” when it comes to climate change is a bit misleading, surely? In fact, Professor Zichichi refers to at least some scientific evidence that the anthropogenic responsibility for the climate change observed during the last century has been exaggerated on page 1 of his petition. Indeed, Climate Feedback’s labelling of the central claims made in the World Climate Declaration as “incorrect” is a step up from its previous analysis of the Declaration, which concluded that the scientific credibility of the Declaration was “very low”.
Chris Morrison responded to some of the criticisms to the above piece here and specifically to the Climate Feedback fact check here.
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Bang on with that last paragraph, Will. The hypocrisy is off the charts. I wonder how many pro-Hamassholes will be arrested for antisemitism at the weekend. Talk about perspective…Poor Bridgen was well and truly shafted wasn’t he? Anyway, my money’s on white police arresting/warning white patriots for waving their British flags and generally being patriotic. Especially if they’re all cut from the same cloth as that godawful ”Lesbian Nana” horror.
And the BBC obviously only apologized due to getting shed-loads of complaints so I’m glad ‘people power’ is still effective to some extent.
I’m glad to see this article, because I complained to the BBC about what they did just to see what they would say. They didn’t address specifically what I wrote and just sent a general reply to everyone, because clearly a lot of people complained.
This is what they wrote…..“Thank you for getting in touch about the House of Commons Adjournment Debate ‘Trends in Excess Deaths’, broadcast on BBC Parliament on 20 October.
To allow us to reply promptly to your concerns, and to ensure we use our licence fee resources as efficiently as possible, we are sending this response to everyone. We are sorry not to reply individually, but we hope this will address the points you have raised.
It is normal practice for BBC Parliament to show what are known as ‘story astons’ (or captions) which put debates into context for viewers. They are not comments, but editorial context written by journalists working on the live output.
The first aston made clear to viewers that Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen had tabled the debate.
In accordance with the BBC’s guidelines on due impartiality, the remaining astons reflected (and are attributed to) the majority medical and scientific view that vaccines are safe.
We’re sorry if you remain unhappy. We have included your points in our overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback at the BBC, and help inform our future editorial judgements.
Thanks again for getting in touch.
Kind regards,
BBC Complaints Team”.
A complete batting away of the issue, but it seems they may have succumb to the volume of complaints.
I got that response initially, so I raised my complaint to the next level and then got the one reported in the article.
I’m still deciding whether I’ll pursue it to the next level. I suspect it would be batted away with a response that basically says “the BBC has admitted a mistake and apologised, so Eff Off” ….. but I still may do it.
It’s almost as if antisemitism had been a spectre of the past¹ until it was unearthed as weapon of choice against Jeremy Corbyn, presumably for want of real arguments. Since then, the powers-which-are have come to really like it and keep on antisemiting at every opportunity — after all, no one can think of a better way to argue about politics than claim the people on the other side are all Nazis or sort-of-Nazis.
¹ This is not strictly true. Governments of Israel have compiled yearly antisemites lists, usually including anyone who wasn’t a Jew and nevertheless critical of any of their policies, for a long time. But this used to be background noise until Corbyn.
While I suspect Corbyn, like many politicians, is more interested in strategy than harbouring any personal animosity towards Jewish people, he (like some others) has shown himself perfectly capable of hitching his wagon to a movement that is overtly, murderously anti-Semitic, presumably to bolster his support base. This mural has more than a few overtones of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
https://news.sky.com/story/senior-labour-figures-defend-jeremy-corbyn-over-anti-semitic-mural-row-11303966
It’s really useles to try to dump this story on me. Antisemitism was a political movement in Germany from the 19th to the early 20th century and that’s what the people controlling Israel are alluding to when they use the term. The large numbers of Arabs and muslims in general successive governments of Israel have – quite intentionally – alienated to the point where they’ve become their sworn enemies never had the power to do to Jews whatever they wanted to, hence, what they’d be doing if they ever had this power, something that’s exceedingly unlikely to happen, because Israel has unquestioning support of all greater powers of the world, is entirely unknown. In any case, this has no connection to what people have been trained to think of when they hear the term antisemitism namely Something like what the Nazis did!
This nazicalling in lieu of making an actual argument is childish and strongly suggests that the people who claim that the Holocaust was a singular event in human history don’t really believe this themselves. It can’t both be singular and ubiquitious.
Suggest you read the Quran if you think anti-semitism is a modern movement…
Anti-Zi*nism perhaps, but certainly not anti-sem*te. All people of the Levant are Semites.
Isn’t it nice to be an establishment corporation and to be able to get away with spurious attacks on people by simply issuing carefully worded apologies, months after the fact and that pretty much no one will read or report on (least of all, of course, the BBC itself).
Still continuing with the bias during their Kings Speech broadcast where the presenters condemned the Govt planned annual oil and gas licences.
You have to wonder about people still thinking you can power the 21st century by wind & solar power and that electric cars are feasible.
Nick was even more uninformed than Huw, and muddled the names of two officials, although one wore Army red & the other Navy blue.
The BBC have exclusive access to all, but I was finally able to move to GB News when they started their coverage and who manage better with far less resources.
Can anyone find this apology? Should it be publicly visible?
Well, it is actually buried away here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications
They should be regulated to make their apologies for these gaffs more open.
“We accept there was a lack of consistency in the use of our captions and that the number posted during the speech was not proportionate, nor always relevant which created the incorrect impression that there was an editorial approach in relation to the views expressed. We apologise for this and are reviewing the way we use such captions during proceedings.”
Twaddle!
>M1 and Clive; I am in complete agreement; this is as gaslighting in extremis.
That weasel phrase is more revealing than the admission they got it wrong – BUT THAT WAS INTENTIONAL!!!!!!
The BBC’s output is ALWAYS approached from an “editorial” pov; ffs they are an alleged news outlet!!!!! – if that is NOT (ever) the case, their content would contain a warning that, eg, “the views expressed are those of the author [ who would/must be named] and not the BBC…….” followed by the usual self absolving disclaimer of liability. I do not ever recall this being employed other than very rarely?
It is a sign of the mounting pressure that some of the UFLW within the BBC can make a disastrous editorial decision ( and the streamline banner content must have been prepared well in advance ) but STILL feel so bombproof they can issue an apology which is nothing of the sort.
The BBC are under tremendous pressure – IMHO they have made a disastrous decision to make their complaints process the personal responsibility of Davie – he of the AWG/CC “settled science” self professed bias. He is a marketing man with not one shred of journalistic or editorial acumen or experience……..massive own goal ( a non BBC journalist/MSM editor – K.Mackenzie??? just joking – would have been a far better choice to out the fires out…)
At the risk of being off topic, I know I cannot as one individual tackle the whole BBC editorial apparatus. I could vent my spleen but where does that get me? Therefore I have waged a war against The BBC via their egregious and obvious editorial bias via BBC HYS topics – I have been blocked as a result, in the past (no warning, for at least 6 months) and my posts are now instantly monitored. A significant number have been removed but because I have chosen subjects and how I post very carefully a large number have been reinstated ( but not all ); reasons given for removal are illogical and demonstrably “wrong”. The BBC HYS censors are , now, so on the back foot ( which alludes to a degree of panic ); in the past they have allowed very extreme personal abuse by publishing posts against anyone who is pro Brexit, pro Tory ( I am NOT), anti AWGCC – tbf some were removed but by no means all and remained visible for hours after the fact. The BBC therefore tolerates abusive content when it is directed at subjects their bias is self evident but not when anyone of a different view counters that abuse with facts……BBS endemic editorial bias QED.
This is the guts of a recent “attack” by me on this very subject: I complained against my original post’s removal and very forcibly put the case against its removal – The BBC HYS censor moderators rolled over ( and this is the first tacit admission that their output is NOT editorially impartial ) – they have lost that argument for good with their last email to me which appears first – it was ostensibly comments on an article about CC and I stated that AWG/CC so called science is emphatically NOT settled and I mentioned the Oregon Declaration as “evidence” . I implore all to take The BBC biased editors on in this way if their time permits….the Bridgen apology is just one more example that they know they have lost the “impartiality” argument, “we” know it, they know we know it – so “keep going”?:
Dear BBC User,
Thank you for contacting the BBC.
In this instance, it appears your comment was removed in error so we have reinstated it.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Due to the volume of correspondence we receive, we are unable to discuss this matter further.
Regards,
BBC Moderation Services
http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation
From: XXXXXX
Sent: 13 October 2023 17:46
To: Central Communities Team. <Central-communities-team@bbc.co.uk>
Subject: Moderation Comment form response
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Please choose a subject: Appeal against moderation decision
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Your comments: It is the case that the study of the earth’s climate ( and therefore weather systems ) is multi disciplinary , and in many cases little understood as has been stated by scientists many times the world over – eg the influence of the Sun in all its aspects. The BBC in recent days has made a massive play that it is editorially impartial [ viz. HAMAS atrocities] – anyone who has studied the BBC’s output knows this is abject rubbish as eloquently detailed by Robin Aitken ( ex BBC…he knows); the BBC has decided as far back as 2006 that the “science is settled” as far as AWG/CC is concerned , and has trotted out this editorially partial theme ever since despite thousands and thousands of scientists ( which The BBC is emphatically NOT and which employs biased reporters – Rowlatt for one – to constantly push AWG/CC ) signing the Oregon Declaration and others which The BBC habitually ignores. Similarly The BBC constantly pushes their “Anti-vaxxers” agenda in the face of decades long evidence documenting serious issues with certain ( many ) vaccines as well as the disaster of experimental mRNA gene editing drugs with a tsunami of evidence documenting fraudulent trials (Pfizer’s own documents attest to that), historically unique levels of adverse effects, premature death, massive levels of excess deaths that are caused by repeat doses ( I doubt The BBC will report on the massive meta analysis of southern hemisphere, official government data sourced, that – yet again – proves the scale of death and adverse harms caused by these highly dangerous drugs ) You cannot argue that The BBC has NOT remained editorially impartial as far as AWG/CC/SARS COV2 drugs – The BBC spouts their settled position constantly – and in so doing refutes their own mendacious statement that, as Mr Davie has tried to gaslight everybody, editorial impartiality remains a “raison d’etre” What utter self evident rubbish – “you ” have once again fallen into a trap which highlights the total lack of impartiality but illustrates the scale of corporate mendacity as far as your sanctimonius editorial position evident with the horror of the genocidal terrorist attacks in Israel by HAMAS – a legally proscribed terroist organisation. If you do not reinstate, I do not particularly care – I have proved my point multiple times – but this act of censorship in a week when the cowardice show by The BBC plumbs the deepest depths possible whilst trumpeting the one off switch of BBC “editorial impartiality” is the final straw – I will send this to Davie’s office and publish the exchange as I see fit.
“which created the incorrect impression that there was an editorial approach in relation to the views expressed”
Frustrating isn’t it – how those pesky word things just keep spontaneously appearing on the screen, by complete chance in exactly the right order to create an incorrect impression!
Happens all the time doesn’t it: I notice that petrol round our way is £1.59/litre, which I think is absurdly expensive; I must have been given the incorrect impression – you know, by those words and that!
“It’s almost as though the Tory leadership don’t actually care about antisemitism but just weaponising it against troublesome MPs.”
Parliamentarians, double standards – well blow me down…..