• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

State-Owned Media Agency Leads Campaign to Cancel Science Paper Which Found ‘Climate Emergency’ Not Supported by Data

by Chris Morrison
11 October 2022 1:03 PM

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.

Tags: CensorshipClimate AlarmismClimate changeClimate EmergencyExtreme weatherFact checkFree SpeechPropaganda

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

The Energy Crisis is a Self-Inflicted Disaster – But Fracking is Not the Answer

Next Post

Man Paralysed by AstraZeneca Vaccine Tells His Story

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

18 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic | Episode 40: Rob Bates on Stopping Britain Becoming Majority-Minority, Tilak Doshi on Trump vs Green Blob and Mario Trabucco on Osborne’s Elgin Marbles Betrayal

by Richard Eldred
13 June 2025
1

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

19 June 2025
by Richard Eldred

J.K. Rowling Radicalised by TERFs, Says Stephen Fry

19 June 2025
by Will Jones

Solar Power to Blame for Spain’s Disastrous Blackout, Official Investigation Finds

18 June 2025
by Will Jones

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

19 June 2025
by Ben Pile

Another Nail in the EV Coffin

19 June 2025
by Sallust

J.K. Rowling Radicalised by TERFs, Says Stephen Fry

22

News Round-Up

21

Iran is Not Rational. It’s Part of the Islamist Death Cult

51

Tearing Bodies Apart on the Altar of Science

21

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

13

Iran Threatens Energy Market Meltdown as it “Reviews” Closure of Strait of Hormuz

19 June 2025
by Tilak Doshi

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

19 June 2025
by Ben Pile

Pointless International Research – Paid For By You, The Taxpayer

19 June 2025
by Charlotte Gill

Tearing Bodies Apart on the Altar of Science

18 June 2025
by Dr David Bell

German Pensioner Who Called Green Politician Robert Habeck a Moron Found Guilty of Five Criminal Retweets and Fined €825

18 June 2025
by Eugyppius

POSTS BY DATE

October 2022
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Sep   Nov »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

October 2022
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Sep   Nov »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

19 June 2025
by Richard Eldred

J.K. Rowling Radicalised by TERFs, Says Stephen Fry

19 June 2025
by Will Jones

Solar Power to Blame for Spain’s Disastrous Blackout, Official Investigation Finds

18 June 2025
by Will Jones

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

19 June 2025
by Ben Pile

Another Nail in the EV Coffin

19 June 2025
by Sallust

J.K. Rowling Radicalised by TERFs, Says Stephen Fry

22

News Round-Up

21

Iran is Not Rational. It’s Part of the Islamist Death Cult

51

Tearing Bodies Apart on the Altar of Science

21

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

13

Iran Threatens Energy Market Meltdown as it “Reviews” Closure of Strait of Hormuz

19 June 2025
by Tilak Doshi

Ed Miliband is Losing the Fight for Net Zero

19 June 2025
by Ben Pile

Pointless International Research – Paid For By You, The Taxpayer

19 June 2025
by Charlotte Gill

Tearing Bodies Apart on the Altar of Science

18 June 2025
by Dr David Bell

German Pensioner Who Called Green Politician Robert Habeck a Moron Found Guilty of Five Criminal Retweets and Fined €825

18 June 2025
by Eugyppius

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment