Four leading Italian scientists have undertaken a major review of historical climate trends and concluded that declaring a ‘climate emergency’ is not supported by the data. Reviewing data from a wide range of weather phenomena, they say a ‘climate crisis’ of the kind people are becoming alarmed about “is not evident yet”. The scientists suggest that rather than burdening our children with anxiety about climate change, we should encourage them to think about issues like energy, food and health, and the challenges in each area, with a more “objective and constructive spirit” and not waste limited resources on “costly and ineffective solutions”.
During the course of their work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency is stationary in many parts of the world. Tropical hurricanes and cyclones show little change over the long term, and the same is true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity show no “clear positive trend of extreme events”. Regarding ecosystems, the scientists note a considerable “greening” of global plant biomass in recent decades caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Satellite data show “greening” trends over most of the planet, increasing food yields and pushing back deserts.
The four scientists are all highly qualified and include physics adjunct professor Gianluca Alimonti, agrometeorologist Luigi Mariani and physics professors Franco Prodi and Renato Angelo Ricci. The last two are signatories to the rapidly growing ‘World Climate Declaration’. This petition states that there is no climate emergency and calls for climate science to be more scientific. It also calls for liberation from the “naïve belief in immature climate models”. In future, it says, “climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science”.
‘Extreme’ weather events attributed by climate models – somehow – to anthropogenic global warming are now the main staple of the climate alarmist industry. As the Daily Sceptic reported on Monday, Sir David Attenborough used a U.K. Met Office model forecast in the first episode of Frozen Planet II to claim that summer Arctic sea ice could be gone within 12 years. But the likelihood of hardy swimming galas over the North Pole by 2035 seems somewhat remote, not least because Arctic sea ice has been growing in many summers since 2012. According to a recent report from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, at the end of August “sea ice extent is likely to remain higher than in recent years”.
Hurricane and cyclones are favourite subjects for green alarmists. It is unsurprising why they focus on these storms, since the Italian scientists note that historically around 60% of all economic damage caused by global disasters is the consequence of U.S. hurricanes. On May 27th, the Met Office predicted that the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, would “most likely” be above average, with a “likelihood” of 18 named tropical storms including nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes. In fact, the current Atlantic hurricane season has had its slowest start for 30 years. At the end of August there have been no hurricanes, and only three named storms, none of which produced winds of 74mph or higher.
There is plenty of evidence that hurricane and cyclone frequency and intensity has changed little over the recent historical record. “To date, global observations do not show any significant trends in both the number and the energy accumulated by hurricanes,” note the Italian scientists. The two graphs below demonstrate this.
The IPCC has reported that hurricanes have increased in frequency in the North Atlantic since 1878, but the scientists note that observations were relatively low during the first decades of the 20th century. After adjusting for lack of observational capacities in the past, there is a nominal upward trend. This trend, they explain, “is not significantly distinguishable from zero”.
The scientists accept that there has been a recent increase in heatwaves, which they attribute to the 1°C rise in global temperatures, although they note global heatwave intensity trends “are not significant”. They also point out that only a limited number of weather stations have observed an increase in global rainfall. Corresponding evidence for increases in flooding remains elusive, they say, “and a long list of studies shows little or no evidence of increased flood magnitudes, with some studies finding more evidence of decreases than increases”. So far as drought is concerned, the scientists note the AR5 finding of the IPCC that “conclusions regarding global drought trends increasing since the 1970s are no longer supported”. Several studies are said to show no increase in the main indices regarding global droughts.
In fact, a slightly warmer and wetter planet and a little extra CO2 seem to have done wonders for global crop yields. For the period 1961-2019, maize, rice, soyabean and wheat global average yields are reported to have grown every year by 3.3%, 2.4%, 2.6% and 3.8% respectively.
Well-researched, fact-driven, credible scientific papers such as this are crucial in the battle to stop green activists and rentiers having a free run to catastrophise every bad weather event in the interest of promoting a command-and-control Net Zero agenda. Attempting to attribute single weather events to humans burning fossil fuels is the product of feverish imaginations and ‘garbage in, garbage out’ climate models. Rational, evidence-based science should be promoted at every opportunity.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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I think you have to weight the cost of a life in favour of the young. Any other approach seems unnatural.
Any analysis that doesn’t include a notional cost of lost liberty on the cost side is severely lacking. Governments pay people compensation for wrongful imprisonment.
LOCKDOWN DON’T Work – they kill old people they don’t save old people
Mask don’t work
Where Are the Scientific Studies for Universal Masking?
Why Masks Are a Charade Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/08/23/masks-are-charade.aspx?ui=1fb065e0c4152b58bd4ed94cf29c7cbfad40307fb723460ddabacd55f3c58b0c&sd=20210518&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20210823&mid=DM965507&rid=1242686923
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
(also Wednesdays from 2pm)
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Ouch! I’m hoping that the Daily Sceptic looks with disfavor at the citing of dens of kookery like mercola.com
Yes, there’s a reason they used to say women and children first. Of course that doesn’t mean the old don’t matter or that we should euthanise them. But any adult who puts their own life before children’s should be ashamed.
I’m 74. I have 5 granddaughters aged between 22 and 7. Let’s face it, their likely value to society far outweighs mine. They should have been the priority over the last 18 months. I have my degrees and professional qualifications, I have worked but have been retired for years, therefore I do not make an valuable contribution to the national economy. They have had their futures blighted by the over 50s politicians who have also had their chance to learn. I am a drain – they have a productive lfe ahead of them, in spite of the last 18 months. I don’t want to be got rid of, but I am clear headed enough to know that my value is far less than theirs.
Those preferred value numbers still seem ridiculously high – no doubt to try and get the correct answer.
Do they mention the value of someone who will die in the next month covid or no covid?
My guess is we’d soon come to the obvious conclusion without having to conduct a study.
Removed. Rephrased as a top-level comment,
This sort of analysis does very little to convince people one way or the other.
There are so many arbitrary assumptions like the value of each life or the number of people “saved” that if one disagrees with the conclusions one need only take a few shots at the assumptions and retreat back into the comfort of one’s firmly held belief.
What is the assumption about “lives saved” (by shielding measures)? How do these experts determine this estimate? Seems to me the only way you could calculate “lives saved” would be to compare two similar nations that used completely opposite mitigation strategies – One nation did essentially nothing and another did essentially everything. Then you compare the fatalities from COVID.
Unfortunately, we have only one nation – Sweden – in the “placebo” group to perform such “scientific” comparisons. Still, this one comparison does reveal that there is no statistically significant difference in deaths in Sweden to most of the other countries that did use all the lockdown measures, especially when you look at the age cohorts before retirement age.
In America, one could compare mortality data from Alabama – which had much more stringent mitigation mandates – than its neighboring state of Florida. Florida has better mortality statistics on a per capita basis than Alabama. And Florida has more elderly citizens than any state in the union except maybe California.
In other words, more lives were seemingly “saved” in Florida than in Alabama. But this comparison doesn’t fit the narrative, so we can’t use it, I guess.
https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/state-vs-state
Covid charts quiz. Spot the mask mandates and the lockdowns…
So even better still when you look at age groups
There is no benefit in lockdown because communism has no benefits, mediaeval superstition has no benefits.
Oh dear. Political illiteracy strikes again. What we’ve got ain’t ‘communism’ by any stretch of the imagination.
Lockdown is communist, it is a policy imported from a communist dictatorship that has concentration camps.
No, we don’t have communism.
Communist countries didn’t have communism either.
Some more equal, were they?
No, it’s fascism!
Reminds me of that sketch about comminazis.
The only similarity I see is that neither works.
Both communism and medieval superstition seem to lead away from Liberty and towards our current economic model namely Feudalism (although it’s more stealthily done, even though economic-rent is at at historical high).
There was a story a few years back about Europe’s last feudal society (Sark, I think) coming to an end. Didn’t stay away long, did it?
On the contrary, communism always works, it always succeeds in achieving its goal of destruction for the sake of destruction.
Were any lives ‘saved’. Most commentators, even ‘pro lockdown’ ones seem to say all that happens is the can is kicked further down the road. The impact on overall mortality is minimal at best.
Quite. Given the age and co-morbidity profiles of deaths of/with Covid, the likelihood is that a high proportion of these “saved” people would have died anyway soon, either due to Covid catching up with them or to their existing age/conditions.
We haven’t really saved any lives, which can be verified by looking at the all-cause mortality figures. There is no exceptional about last year in terms of deaths
In a rational world, the latest all cause mortality from Belarus would surely be seen as conclusive (I suppose the BBC didn’t cover it…).
No, of course not. The lives “saved” by lockdowns (which I don’t believe) are more than outweighed by the ones lost by all manner of other conditions, some of which have not yet been able to be calculated (how many suicides, deaths from mental illness, bankruptcy, consistent abuse etc). hese are long term figures, which will not become evident for years.
To the rational mind, it is clear that lockdowns ‘weren’t worth it’. There are simply no significant benefits that can be pinned down, whilst the horrendous costs are plain to see.
But … all these analyses depend on the ‘assumptions’ that are made, and then turned into further assumptions about very dodgy monetary equivalents.
The real problem is that governments in general have made no attempt to analyse the immense obvious penalties of lockdowns against the lack of any claimed and unobvious benefits.
Basically, the exercise is fundamentally flawed.
European COVID-19 Vaccine adverse reactions report.
How’s that line up (in terms of numbers jabbed in the EU vassal states) with the UK’s 1500+ jab victims?
It doesn’t.
I’m convinced our total deaths post-vaccination are too low. At a rough guess, at a minimum it should be at least double, and possibly much higher than that, if we assume only 10% of adverse reactions are recorded.
30 day FB ban for posting this!!!!
The real cost, the human cost, the psychological and spiritual cost, has been incalculable.
People are not numbers or economic units.
Seems to me, we need to make just two observations:
Therefore, the “life cost” of Covid19 is zero and the benefits of the Covid19 response is zero.
Disclaimer: Getting on a bit myself, so I’m heading into the higher-chance end.
I’m 74. My 5 granddaughters matter more in terms of the future than I do. I’ve had my working and academic life, my qualifications, my youth (long, long ago) and it they who should have been prioritised. Blow the emotive response of stupid, politicians and so called experts (who are nothing of the kind) that we mustn’t “kill Granny”. This grandma thinks the young should have been prioritised. I don’t want to die, but I am less valuable than they area and to say otherwise is irrational.
Re: The “lives saved” assumption all we can do is look at the ONE “placebo” nation that did not implement “shielding” measures to save lives or slow spread. This nation of course is Sweden.
In the entire nation of Sweden, fewer than 100 people under the age of 40 have died of COVID.
Sweden has more than 14,000 deaths but the average age of a COVID victim is 82.
Apparently, FEWER people under 70 died in Sweden than in nations that went all in on lockdowns. So one could validly argue that no lives were “saved” by the mitigation mandates.
Yes, the benefit side looks to be zero or negative. I’d say it’s very hard to prove to any reasonable degree there was any benefit, so the assumption is that it was zero. The cost side is easier in that whatever approach you take, it’s going to be massive. In truth, the calculation can be done on the back of a postage stamp.
The economic value of a life is assigned and adjusted according to age. Reid’s calculation considers deaths in terms of economic loss. But might not the creeps behind this scam, have looked at the vulnerable (very old, frail, obese) and seen a value to be gained from their deaths?
So even as a decaying old bat I am worth 1.5 million dollars?lHow much does thirty pieces of silver go into 1.5 million dollars?
In my opinion, doing a cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns is fundamentally misguided because it implicitly accepts the assumption the people are essentially the same as cattle, hence, manageing them in them same way is principally ok and the only question here is whether or nor a particular attempt at manageing peoplecattle was efficient.
I’m not a cow. I object to being treated as such. In particular,
I could continue this list, but these are the three most important points which came to my mind.
Meanwhile: in the Philippines, draconian lockdowns continue.
https://mailchi.mp/tomwoods/goodbadnews?e=8e86beb5bb
“due to the so-called “delta” variant, citizens are expected to remain at home for two weeks (a tired trope by now) and may only exit their residences for essential items with a quarantine pass (one per household). Outdoor exercise was allowed until yesterday, but the authorities probably got spooked into banning it when they saw people still outside enjoying themselves (or trying to be healthy) and not cowering in fear at home.”
In New Zealand, lockdowns have been extended. Parliament suspended. Dissidents rounded up, or getting visits from the police for “re-education”, and Jacinda Ardern has sent $3million to the Taliban.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0uDUGU50Y
In Australia, there have been large public protests, and the police have used pepper spray and rubber bullets in response.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bD5-1Z1LXeU
Truckers in Australia are planning to bring Australia to a halt, telling people to stock up on food for at least two weeks.
Would anyone have believed this back in 2019??
Bears. Woods. Popes. Catholics. Fictional Detectives and Excrement. FIGHT. BACK. BETTER. Useful information, links and resources: https://www.LCAHub.org/
2 million lives saved by lockdowns? I don’t see how this can possibly be credible, looking at all cause mortality from Belarus. No lockdowns, no restrictions, no disaster.
Lockdowns were worth it. Not to me or society as a whole. The elite has achieved exactly what they wanted…fear and control. It was planned and they probably can’t believe how stupid and compliant society actually is…and how easy it was to achieve their aim.
In the UK government’s document “The tolerability of risk from nuclear power stations” first published by the HSE in 1988 (last revised 1992) there is a UK government department estimated value put on a human life:
“The Department of Transport’s consultation exercise secured widespread endorsement for its proposed value of life for application in road transport appraisal. This value now stands at £660 000 for a life.”
Adjusted for inflation 1992 to 2021 yields £1,320,000 ($1,810,000). This is less than one quarter the estimate of $7.8 million used in the study by L. Jan Reid.
Well, d’uh!