Another €100,000 (£88,000, $107,000) has been gifted to a climate journalist via the foundation of Spain’s second largest bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA). The money is an annual presentation and was recently given to the New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert. The bank said it gave her the cash “for her extraordinary ability to communicate in a rigorous, attractive manner the fundamental environmental challenges of our time”. BBVA is deeply involved in funding subsidy-heavy renewable technologies. It recently declared record profits for 2022 of €6.42 billion, and noted that it had channelled €50 billion into “sustainable business”. Past cash recipients include Matt McGrath of the BBC, the Guardian newspaper and Marlowe Hood of Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The foundation was particularly impressed with Kolbert’s 2016 seminal book, The Sixth Mass Extinction, which was awarded a ‘non-fiction’ Pulitzer Prize. This was said to have documented the dramatic loss of species that the planet is suffering. “One third of all reef building corals, a third of all freshwater molluscs, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of reptiles and a sixth of all birds are heading towards oblivion,” she said. For good measure, she claimed that around a half of all living species on the Earth could disappear by the end of the century.
Kolbert is a Climate Catastrophist straight from central casting. She fervently believes that humans can control the climate by adjusting levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a proposition that is disputed by many scientists. She compares climate ‘deniers’ to flat-earthers. What ‘deniers’ think of climate science, or rather her take on said science, is “completely irrelevant“. Like most people in her world, she says, “I have low tolerance for people who deny facts and disregard truths”.
The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles, and is heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). But it suffers from a major flaw – a lack of proof. Most of the claims are produced by models and are just opinions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If you are in the Pulitzer prize winning territory of a sixth mass extinction, you might expect to be able to show more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.
The WWF has been responsible for much extinction alarmism since its Living Planet Index has estimated at least a 50% vertebrate decline since 1970. But a group of Canadian biologists recently cast considerable doubt on this claim, suggesting that it was a cherry pick. They showed that the estimate was produced from less than 3% of vertebrate populations. “If these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase,” they point out. “More informative indices are needed,” they conclude. The finding is perhaps not surprising since the small increases in CO2 over the last 40 years has produced 14% more vegetation across the globe.
Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian palaeontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.
As regular readers are aware, MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen believes the entire climate narrative is “absurd”. However, he acknowledges it has near-universal acceptance, despite the fact that in a normal world the counterarguments would be compelling. “Perhaps it is the trillions of dollars being diverted into every green project under the sun, and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists, along with the political control offered to elite groups in society by Net Zero, that currently says it is not absurd,” he suggests.
Neil Winton spent 34 years working for the international news agency Reuters, including four years as science and technology correspondent reporting on global warming. He wrote a recent article noting that anyone who abused people by calling them a climate denier “betrays the fact they know little about climate science, or are too lazy to do their own research”. They are more interested in forcing their views on the public and silencing debate, he added. The idea that the science is settled, he says, won’t last long if the reporter can be bothered to use a search engine revealing “scores if not hundreds of highly qualified scientists who beg to differ”.
In his new book on Net Zero, Winton notes, the author Ross Clark accuses Reuters of joining an organisation “which is dedicated to presenting a partisan view of climate change, and silences those who dare to disagree by activating the obnoxious ‘denier’ assertion”.
This organisation is called Covering Climate Now (CC Now), and it specialises in ready-to-publish climate scare stories. The Daily Sceptic wrote about it in December under the heading ‘How billionaires fill the Media with climate fear and panic’. CC Now feeds over 500 media operations and its ‘partners’ include some of the biggest names in news publishing such as Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, CBS News, ABC News and MSNBC News.
Winston notes that CC Now issues the advice: “For God’s sake do not platform climate denialists.” Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus or ridicule climate activism “don’t belong in a serious news outlet”, it says. Since when did Reuters require an outside organisation to advise it on how to report on controversial issues, asks Winton.
He adds: “If you dig deeper though you’ll find it uses weasel words only too familiar to those like me who’ve striven to provide real honesty and balance to the argument. It reveals itself as just another arrogant, warmist outfit dedicated to shutting down those with whom it disagrees. Not a thing Reuters should be associated with, surely?”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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A smidgeon more Carbon Dioxide and you get “Less SHARKS”???????? This indicates how utterly preposterous climate change politics masquerading as “science” is. There is not a shred of evidence for any of the claims and the speculative models they are all based on have all been totally wrong till now. It is quite remarkable how even when the facts do NOT fit the theory that the global government in waiting at the UN/WEF can get away with this garbage, but when you have all the bought and paid for mainstream TV channels like BBC and SKY promoting it on a daily basis with nonsense that “All scientists agree” and “we must act now before it is too late”, etc etc what can you expect from a general public who mostly don’t have the time to investigate every issue because they are busy with work and family life, so they think Investigative journalists are doing that investigating for them? ———Far from it. These TV channels and Newspapers are acting as activists. They question NOTHING, and when you question NOTHING you are not indulging in science. You are simply promoting “Official Science”.
Yes
+ the latest Delingpod with Bart Sibrel talking about the moon landings possibly being fake has left me with a few extra thoughts ! I was non plussed either way but I’m going to dig into it ! Sibrel is a typical bossy type Yank who despite that makes a compelling case & as he says it would blow our whole perception of the world wide open , both pre & post Plandemic !
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is little evidence man didn’t land on the moon. There is plenty of evidence that CO2 is not causing or going to cause dangerous changes to climate, and very little evidence that it will. All there is are computer models full of assumptions and not surprisingly they have all been completely wrong so far. The facts don’t fit the theory, and when that is the case then your theory is WRONG.
The “extraordinary claim” is that men have visited the moon.
Which is why Armstrong disappeared, Grisson was burnt to death and the drunk Aldrin admitted they never went anywhere – on tv more than once.
Wrong. There is no evidence man landed on the moon.
Explain to me how they passed without protection through the Van Allen radiation belt and why they need to do the window trick to simulate being at 120000 miles in space when in fact they were 170 miles up – the same as Shephard. The lighting in the air force hanger is so bad and so obvious it is painful to watch.
The evidence of the moon fraud is overwhelming. Oh but wait. You saw it on your little TV. Just like the Rona.
You cherry picked some stuff that suits you there mate. You have no evidence man did not go to the moon, which isn’t really that difficult, and do you seriously think that the entire NASA administration were able to pull of that con trick and no one ever whistleblew. —-But this article is actually about climate incase you didn’t notice.
“$cience.”
Or ‘The $cience.’
According to a UN official climate change now causes earthquakes, and big oil is responsible:
https://www.euronews.com/2023/02/09/climate-change-is-triggering-more-earthquakes-big-oils-interests-are-a-factor
Is there no end to this daftness?
Tesla invented a device which fitted into his pocket which was able to stimulate a localised earth tremor. On his death all of his work was seized by the FBI…. Strange that Turkey experienced a major quake just as it cleared its IMF debts….
“Confessions of a Computer Modeler
“Any model, including those predicting climate doom, can be tweaked to yield a desired result. I should know.”
After three iterations [of remodeling] I finally blurted out, “What number are you looking for?”
He didn’t miss a beat: He told me that he needed to show $2 billion of benefits to get the program renewed.
I finally turned enough knobs to get the answer he wanted, and everyone was happy.
Was the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] official asking me to lie? I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he believed in the value of continuing the program. (Congress ended the grants in 1990.)”
Robert J. Caprara, “Confessions of a Computer Modeler,”
The Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2014
https://www.wsj.com/articles/confessions-of-a-computer-modeler-1404861351
I made computer models for venture capital transactions – e.g. management buyouts. I too could get pretty much any result you wanted 5 years out and make it seem reasonable.
In total I sold about 200 models, including one to the Bank of England !
I was actually waiting for that.
“If a fault is primed or ready to rupture, all that is needed is the pressure of a handshake to set if off […] Environmental changes associated with rapid and accelerating climate breakdown could easily do the job,” professor of geophysics and climate hazards at University College London Bill McGuire pointed out
How precisely environmental changes associated with rapid and accelerating climate breakdown could exert pressure on faults is anybody’s guess. But since the good professor already pointed this out in 2012, ie, eleven years ago, this rapid and accelarting climate breakdown can’t have been very rapid and can’t have been accelerating very quickly.
Like many people I just think surely reality is going to catch up with them?
Surely? ….Any minute now?
…but no, on they go like some demented lunatic Duracell bunny….!
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-spend-energy-crisis-nears-800-billion-euros-2023-02-13/
“European countries’ bill to shield households and companies from soaring energy costs has climbed to nearly 800 billion euros, researchers said on Monday, urging countries to be more targeted in their spending to tackle the energy crisis.
European Union countries have now earmarked or allocated 681 billion euros in energy crisis speding, while Britain allocated 103 billion euros and Norway 8.1 billon euros since September 2021, according to the analysis by think-tank Bruegel…”
A self-inflicted energy crisis…and wait until they see next years bills!
Thanks for that link. I hadn’t seen that one.
Oh the irony. All this spent to SHIELD us from soaring energy costs.
.
Journalists and politicians for that matter are essentially salespeople.
And generally not very smart, though good at rat cunning.
A journalist’s raison d’etre is to make money for their employer and the “if it bleeds, it leads” principle ensures catastrophic fear works.
Banks no doubt act purely on profit motive.
I assume they consider aligning with climate catastrophism will make them immune to the “boycott/ divest” shrieking of the lunatic climate nihilists.
They are sales people selling one particular product though. ——–Climate Change.—————– It starts out with the big Corporate Globalists like the New York Times and the rest all just repeat what they say. There is no investigative journalism anymore. Only activism, for every UN/WEF agenda that the liberal left want to hoodwink the general public with.
Having a debate on any subject is an old fashioned idea for the left. Why have a debate when you can just close your opponent down by labelling them a denier or a hater.
Climate Change is so obviously nonsense. The predictions never come true. I can’t stop thinking about the following.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984
*****
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
………
I can cite well over a dozen predictions by climate scientists, starting from 1970, stating indefatigably that the World would be in complete devastation before now.
I’d happily do so, but think you’d all be bored with it after the first few.
.
“could disappear”, non-fiction!!