On September 14th the Daily Sceptic published an article reporting that four leading Italian scientists had undertaken a major review of historical climate trends and concluded that declaring a ‘climate emergency’ was not supported by the data. They suggested that children should not be burdened with anxiety about the climate. The Daily Sceptic story was retweeted around 9,000 times, read by at least 24,000 people and was widely seen across social media. It was picked up by print media such as the Australian and broadcast on a widely-distributed Sky News Australia clip. Mention was made of the impressive credentials of the authors, who included two physics professors, an adjunct professor of physics and an agricultural meteorologist, and the wide variety of sources they had referenced.
The story sent shockwaves through the ranks of the ‘settled’ climate science community that takes a more alarmist approach to the prospects of humanity and the Earth’s climate. As always with heretical stories like this, the mere suggestion that the climate is not breaking down runs the risk of destroying the need for a command-and-control Net Zero solution. Something had to be done.
State-owned Agence France-Presse (AFP) is rapidly becoming the ‘fact-checker’ of choice for those seeking to enforce the strict ‘settled’ science narrative. On Monday, the Daily Sceptic published details of a rather muddled ‘fact-check’ written by Roland Lloyd Parry in which it was stated that we had misled over the recent growth in Arctic summer ice. To present his case, Lloyd Parry compared one fact – summer sea ice in 2022 – to a 30-year average ending 12 years ago. Now Lloyd Parry is joined on an AFP fact-check of the Italian scientists by senior editor Marlowe Hood, who was recently given €100,000 (£88,000) by the Foundation arm of a large Spanish bank heavily involved in financing green technology. Hood describes himself as the Herald of the Anthropocene, the latter a political renaming of the current Holocene era that puts the alleged dominant role of human activity on the climate at the centre.
The claim that there is no evidence of a climate emergency is said to be “misleading”. AFP reports that “top climate experts” say the paper “cherry-picked” data. Of course scientists often debate each other’s findings in a robust fashion, but what they don’t – or shouldn’t – do is call for the other side to be cancelled. One of the experts quoted by AFP was Friederike Otto, an academic whose doctoral work was in philosophy of science, who works at the Imperial College-based Grantham Institute for Climate Change, a body partly funded by the green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham. She said that “of course” the authors were not writing this article in good faith. “If the journal cares about science they should withdraw it loudly and publicly, saying that it should have never been published.”
AFP author Marlowe Hood tweeted:
Their anti-free speech pressure bore fruit and on September 30th the publisher Springer Nature highlighted the following announcement at the top of the Italians’ paper: “Readers are alerted that the conclusions reported in this manuscript are currently under dispute. The journal is investigating the issue.”
All science, of course, should be in dispute. Will Springer bow to future pressure to place a similar statement against work on particle physics or molecular chemistry if a government-owned news agency ‘fact-checks’ its conclusions?
Other experts quoted by AFP included Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the U.K. Met Office. He felt the scope of the paper was much too limited for it to inform a high level-level statement on whether the climate crisis is evident or not. Betts of course is often quoting the high authority of the IPCC, and goes on to note that the ‘attribution’ of human influences to extreme weather events has strengthened of late. Others point out that this type of work is the product of climate models and is unproveable.
Betts went on to suggest the scientists ignored results which showed some “extremes” were increasing. According to Betts, it was noted “in passing” that “global trends in heatwave intensity are not significant”. Inexplicably, AFP and Betts failed to quote the beginning of the sentence in which the rigorous Italians drew attention to studies that had shown for the period 1951-2017, “a significant increase in yearly values of heatwave days, maximum heatwave duration and cumulative heat”.
Friederike Otto commented on hurricanes and droughts, noting: “Nobody said they are increasing globally – the IPCC is very clear on that – but that doesn’t mean the trends that occur are not hugely problematic for the regions where they are already occurring.” With the best will in the world, it is difficult to see what Otto is writing about here.
Another scientist calling for the work to be cancelled was Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth Systems at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He told AFP that he did not know of the Springer journal, “but if it is a self-respecting one it should withdraw the article”.
Citizen journalist Paul Homewood also covered the story and noted: “To simply demand that the journal withdraws the paper is the worst sort of censorship, and reminds us all of the dark days of Climategate, when such practices were rife whenever anybody dared to challenge the climate establishment’s agenda.” Homewood looked at a number of the Italian paper’s statements and concluded the study was “actually a pretty level-headed, uncontroversial assessment of the actual data”.
It is difficult to see how AFP can call its work a ‘fact-check’. It has not checked any facts on its own account, and just reproduced opinions from four people it describes as “experts”. Yet in its headline it says the Italian scientists “cherry-picked” data. The claim there is no evidence of a climate emergency is said to be “misleading”, but AFP’s evidence to the contrary is just what others have told it. Nevertheless it has spearheaded a campaign to cancel the work, and potentially harm the reputations of four distinguished and highly credentialled Italian scientists.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Has anyone considered the very real possibility that Ed Milliband is ill? that he has some form of clinical insanity? it would go a long way to understanding the sheer absurd lengths to which he is going in order to stop us using fossil fuels. Why pour cement down a fracking well to block it up, to prevent it ever being used? when the law has put in place sufficient restrictions for it ever taking place in this parliament and without a reversing of the law. He is surely doing the equivalent of a Crusader smashing, destroying and removal of all buildings effigys, and people who practised a different religion in order to wipe any chance of it continuing in the future.
I do believe he needs to be examined as he is clearly obsessed in a very dangerous way and is as a result a danger to humanity.
Concreting over wells is simply Scorched Earth Policy and is actually preposterous. We are governed by ideologues that will stop at nothing to get their own way and as a result we now have electricity prices 3-4 times higher than in the USA, where they continue to use fossil fuels for the benefit of the citizens, and it is only going to get worse in the UK and all countries pandering to the UN/WEF pretend to save the planet eco socialist fraud.
He’s concreting the fracking wells to prevent any future government reversing his decisions. To restart a dormant well you need a lot less investment than drilling a new one – so at a stroke he has made any future decision to frack for gas more expensive than it need be.
However, it is quite possible to drill new wells and the gas will still be there for future generations when the lunacy abates. The current government’s attempt to constrain future governments decisions will fail.
If he’s I’ll then the whole world’s political establishment is. Reference the earlier article on the impact of the sun, you’d have thought any uncorrupted politician would suggest checking it out before wasting £trillions on stuff of doubtful utility.
Mental condition: narcissism, psychopath.
I think the only solution is a straight jacket and a padded cell
Rope is cheaper, and hempen rope is “sustainable”.
Yes, i’ve thought that for some time
It costs money to do that and concrete is not CO2 friendly. This is about trashing capitalism – the goal of the green movement since communism failed.
Wind is cheaper than gas —–TRUE. As a fuel wind is free and gas is not free. You need to bring it from the ground and that costs money. But harnessing the wind is not free, and the wind needs the gas powered plants ticking over waiting for the wind to stop, which is often and many times unexpectedly, often at times of greatest need etc. So anyone who says “wind is cheaper than gas” is deliberately only telling you part of a story. Then we have the situation where the more wind you have the less reliable the grid, the more backup you need all costing more and more money, and as we reach beyond the reserve margin, storage will be required to avoid blackouts. This storage which is not yet developed except pumped hydro is very expensive, often costing 10 to 20 times more than the actual energy it is supposed to be backing up. As a result we have spiralling costs, destruction of the economy that depends on low energy costs, and a country totally covered in thousands of turbines, solar panels and thousands of new pylons to take the renewable energy to the grid. This is total absurdity. There is no need for this mad rush to Net Zero in such a short time frame, all because of the madness of the global warming groupthink politics which is lying to the UK citizens that there is a climate crisis and that we in this country must be world leaders in fixing it.———-Then after all of this nonsense about wind being free or cheaper than gas, our government then ties the price of wind to the price of gas so that we never get any benefit from the “FREE WIND”. —-It is outrageous eco politics that is taking people for a ride, and I would go so far as to say it is the greatest pseudo-scientific fraud ever perpetrated.
“Wind is cheaper than gas” is an utterly meaningless statement, intended to mislead.
Indeed.
No resource has any value in its natural state. The value comes when it is put to beneficial use, and its cost is the capital required to do so. If the cost input exceeds the output value, then that is a loss. The cost input to provide electricity from wind and solar exceeds the value of output, because of the intermittency cost – the indirect cost of alternative generation to provide power when wind/solar cannot, and to stabilise the grid.
And… a resource does not exist until Mankind invents it by finding a beneficial use for it. Iron ore, oil, coal were not “resources” in the Stone Age, for example.
The Earth has no resources, only Mankind has resources.
All pretty obvious- though you have put it very succinctly. Sadly I suspect many don’t grasp it, such is the degree of economic illiteracy. Should be compulsory in every school.
And it’s used that way constantly by the MSM. You only have to read the comments sections on any MSM article on energy costs, to see 90% of people believe wind turbines and solar are ‘free / low cost’… I’d say less than 10% of posters actually understand the real cost, once intermittency and subsidies are taken into account. Whether most people think the electricity is simply waiting for them, behind their sockets or something, I don’t know. In a way it’s perhaps a reflection of the historic level of reliability of the British national grid has enjoyed, which Millibrain is slowly destroying
Yes – see my reply to JXB.
Yes but because it is actually true that the wind is cheaper than gas as a FUEL, it allows the charlatans to mislead the public.
“Worker mobility is an issue rarely considered by politicians, who often view themselves as citizens of anywhere…”
…Likewise in a corporate past life, the new C.E.O. with family based on another continent from a previous C.O.O. position, opting to boost the share price (and annual bonus) by moving the whole caboodle on a whim from one side of a country to the other, in order to access “a world-leading corporate ecosystem.”
No evidence-base whatsoever cited for putting thousands of working and family lives through the mangle and splashing a corporate billion on a vanity project.
As for Kommissar Miliband, someone please send for straightjacket, largactil and 50 ml syringe.
We’re a smallish firm – about 60 people. I guess some of them are easily fungible but most are not. If your people are not important to your business then you might not have the right people. When we moved offices we were at pains to ensure it was very near the old one so as not to discombobulate the staff.
Could he not have had the head band of the hat adjusted for him? Or does he believe he has a brain the size of a planet? Or perhaps some PR person was having a laugh?
Command & control economy because we are back to Marxist-Socialist Labour revealing its true colours.
Jobs are a cost. If more jobs are being created than currently required to produce the same or lower output, this is a loss to the economy = makes us poorer.
If these jobs are created by subsidies using taxpayer cash = reduces economic activity = makes us all poorer.
It is why free market capitalism regulated by supply, demand, prices, innovation and technological advance together with consumer choices = prosperity. Exhibit A: Industrial Revolution. For the alternative: USSR.
Indeed we are. But the Conservatives are as committed to net zero as Labour. In fact, THE CONSERVATIVES SET THE NET ZERO BY 2050 TARGET. Not Labour.
Labour pushed through the Climate Change Act, but with the target of an 80% reduction. The Conservatives upped the target to 100%, or net zero.
The Conservatives remain committed to the 2050 net zero target. It is still their official party policy. Don’t be fooled by occasional sceptical comments from them that fall short of committing to a change in policy.
Is there a single ‘green’ technology that has proved beneficial? Answers on a postage stamp.
Great – let’s get all the workers to sell their houses to move to the jobs and be made poorer by the costs of moving, of buying and selling a house and oh yes, have thousands of pounds stolen from you by the state in a tax known as stamp duty.
And a good day for this article as our ignorant scrounger of a PM Two Tier No Idea Kier is spouting lies at the energy security jamboree in London before he goes off to a lovefest with global fascist Usually Fond Of Lying. If we had a functional opposition we could expect a rebuff of all of his lies but not with Olukemi Adegoke or of course the great Messiah who is too busy moving his company into the centre-left Uniparty ground as he proposes all the immigrants can stay under an amnesty.
Does anyone else worry that Milliband and Labour are deliberately trashing the country? It is the sort of thing I heard Marxists fanntasizing about when I was back at university a couple of years ago.
Worry? That’s clearly what they are doing imo… question is, how can we stop and reverse it?
Never forget that Mad Miliband is fully supported by the Mad Monarch of Windsor.