There have been further sightings of Dr. Johnson’s dog walking on its hind legs – or, rather, mainstream media outlets attempting to ‘fact-check’ climate science – “Sir, it is not done well, but you are surprised to see it is done at all.” Both Reuters and USA Today have weighed into our October 2nd article on the causes of the recent rapid slow-down of melting on the Greenland ice sheet, with the usual misgivings expressed about our opinions, not our facts. In of themselves, the ‘fact’ checks are tiresome, but they do provide an interesting insight into the substantial fault line that lies at the heart of the pseudoscientific proposition that the science around human-caused climate change is ‘settled’.
At one end of the green extreme is Professor Tim Osborn from the University of East Anglia who told a recent Daily Sceptic ‘fact’ checker that warming since the late 1800s to the present is all due to human-caused climate change “because natural factors have changed little since then”. However, in their ongoing work, many scientists track the substantial involvement of natural influences on the climate. This can be problematic for the climate alarmists since any natural explanation of climate change runs the risk of putting the human contribution in its proper context. It might, for instance, mean that a wider audience would become aware that the only significant global warming over the last 24 years in the accurate satellite record was caused by a powerful, and entirely natural, El Nino spike around 2016. Needless to say, all such doors has long been closed in the interests of promoting a settled political dogma.
Squaring this circle is well beyond the pay-grade of agenda-driven ‘fact’ checkers, so they tend to ignore it by limiting their checks to opinions, not facts. For some inexplicable reason, their work is often cited as definitive proof that climate emergency sceptics are wrong by social media companies like Facebook, and it’s possible that this is the main reason for their continued existence.
On October 2nd we reported on a paper written by three Japanese climatologists, commenting specifically on the recent decade-long slowdown of melting on the Greenland ice sheet. As we noted, the scientists wrote that “frequent occurrence of central Pacific El Nino events have played a key role in the slowdown of Greenland’s warming and possible Arctic sea ice loss”. Since the time of writing this article, the Daily Sceptic has reported further on the massive recovery in the melting rate, noting that to August 2022 there was a massive 471 billion tonnes annual ice boost on the surface, the 10th highest recorded in 42 years. This recovery has been in progress since 2012 when only 38 billions tonnes were created. We further noted that since the ‘calving’ loss at the Greenland coast is a computer-modelled annual loss figure of around 500 billion tonnes, it is reasonable to suggest that within the margin of error, the ice sheet may well have actually increased in size recently.
In our October 2nd article we argued that these revelations play havoc with the simplistic ‘settled’ science notion that carbon dioxide produced by humans burning fossil fuel is the main driver of global temperature warming. This notion is the central pillar of green activists’ claim that the climate will stop changing if the world reduces its carbon emissions to ‘Net Zero’ by 2050.
Reuters said that our article was “missing context” and the Japanese paper, “did not suggest that these local patterns are more potent than the overall warming power of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide generated by human activity”. This is a matter of interpretation, not fact. What is clear is that natural influences are at work. During the course of the paper, the scientists noted cooler conditions around Greenland compared with nearby areas, and commented: “This nonuniform Arctic warming can be attributed to natural variability, rather than anthropogenic forcing.”
Meanwhile, USA Today rates “false” the claim that the Greenland ice sheet is recovering, and earlier melting was caused by ‘natural warming’. One of the authorities consulted was Twila Moon, Deputy Lead Scientist at the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, who said: “There is no sign that the Greenland ice sheet is recovering.” She added that ongoing ice loss is “certain”. But as we have seen, the evidence points to a massive, decade-long recovery in ice loss – and “certain” is not a word that reputable scientists use very often. The suggestion by USA Today that it is “false” to suggest that earlier ice sheet melting was caused by natural warming is at odds with the findings of the Japanese scientists who – remember – attribute the massive slowdown to “natural variability, rather than anthropogenic forcing”.
All these climate ‘fact checks’ – and we have had a few of late as regular readers will know – struggle with our reporting of scientific evidence showing considerable natural variation in the climate over time. Such information often contradicts the ‘settled’ science agenda that asserts humans cause all or most climate change. The Daily Sceptic might occasionally get a fact wrong – to err is human – and we will correct or remove as required. But to dress up a different interpretation of the facts – or an honest difference of opinion – as a factual error is misleading, no matter how many ‘experts’ are wheeled out to endorse this rhetorical sleight of hand. Calling these thinly-veiled polemics ‘fact checks’ is looking increasingly silly.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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It’s good that the DS is getting attention from mainstream sources and that they are driven to increasingly desperate measures. It means a nerve has been hit.
In answer to the question in the title of this article, which I suppose may be rhetorical, I think “never” or “when we win the war” are probable answers.
“Both Reuters and USA Today”
Well that is good news because there might be some remnants of their readership still in possession of marginally functioning brains who may decide that the DS articles are “worth reading in full” for themselves.
I think it is vitally important that DS continues to challenge these myths around climate ‘change’ and so called anthropogenic global warning because the subjects are inextricably linked to the reset / Agenda 2030.
Plain old common sense tells me that a trace gas comprising just 0.04% of the earth’s atmosphere cannot possibly alter climate and planetary temperatures in the way ascribed.
The same common sense tells me that even reducing our so-called Co2 emissions by 50% – see what I did there – from 1% to 0.5% of global emissions, will make bugger all difference to the world’s weather.
The science is settled for me – climate changes and always will do and there is naff all we should be doing about it.
Actually wasn’t climate change / global warming an agreed fictional construct dating from the inception of the Club of Rome and intended simply to invoke and maintain a fear narrative in the proletariat?
Climate change is almost a contradiction because change is inherent in any climate.
Man-made global warming is sheer and utter bullshit designed for thickos and sheep.
Many years ago I used to work for Reuters. Then it was a highly respected and impartial news organisation and I was proud to be an employee.
I find it sad that it has degenerated into just another Globalist Propagandist.
Total atmospheric Co2 = 0.04%. 4% of that is anthropogenic. 1% of that is UK. That’s the UK producing 0.00001% of global Co2.
Where we live our mayor apparently think Co2 is the greatest threat facing Greater Manchester. Divided by the population, this means if we believe what he says, Andy Burnham is bravely fighting 0.0000006% of a gaseous plant food that keeps everything on this planet alive.
Some Russian cosmonauts have said you can smell Andy Burnham’s bullshit from space.
Burnham is a proper See You Next Tuesday Warrior. We even have to tolerate him in Saddleworth. Utter evil.
Has Burnham been on some of those trams (I hear some supporters of the congestion charge try to avoid them)?
Burnham is bringing in pollution charges July 2023. Ten (£10) per day for commercial vehicles. Funnily enough no parts of Greater Manchester have ‘pollution’ levels exceeding their arbitrary limits. The charge was supposed to be installed this Summer but he put it off for a consultation – yeah right.
As usual the party of the working classes is working hardest at crucifying the….erm…working man.
Glad we’ve sorted that out.
I wonder if they’d still lose a referendum on charges?
“The people have spoken – the bastards”.
While I certainly don’t buy the narrative of “catastrophic man-made climate change”, my understanding is that man’s share of atmospheric Co2 is a lot higher than 4%. From around 1850 to the present day, co2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 ppm (0.028%) to 410 ppm (0.041%), with all or most of the increase being due to fossil fuel usage. Which would suggest man’s share being nearer 30%.
You may be right, but 30% sounds unlikely. Some references are needed! Then we can talk.
They aren’t fact checkers, they are narrative enforcers for the regime, similar to the SS or the ministry of internal affairs in the Soviet Union. Understand these ppl are not interested in the truth, they seek absolute control are evil and deserve no benefit of any doubt.
Politicians and scientists have long had this symbiotic relationship. The government needs to make policy and if it can show that the “science” supports that policy then they can always come back later and say we were only taking the advice of the “scientists”. Scientists need to pay their mortgage and feed their family and if government want to pay them money to look for a purple horse, they are not likely to be in a big hurry to report back that they can’t find any. ——So what we end with isn’t “science”. It is “Official Science”. It is science in support of public policy or “consensus science”. It takes a very brave scientist to question dogma that he suspects might not be the whole truth or is only partially true, or is a pack of blatant lies, for he will simply be replaced. The role of scientists should not be to hide the many uncertainties so that a negotiated consensus can be presented as the “science”. Many governments now have a “Chief Scientist”, but this is so obviously simply to provide a veneer of scientific respectability to pronouncements about public policy. But “climate change” is not just a scientific issue. It is an economic moral and social one. Governments really must balance cost with benefit of policies, and we can see with NET ZERO that not one single question as to cost/ benefit was asked by any politician of any major party. They put ideology and dogma first and people last.
To answer the question posed in the headline – NEVER
Chris thank you for your diligence, much appreciated.
Environmentalism and its sub-cult Climatism is a religious movement. Religions have no facts they have only dogma. Any who do not accept, or challenge or disobey this are heretics and anathema. They must be cast out, their books burned, denied public discourse.
This is not an intellectual argument, or genuine scientific enquiry and the scepticism inherent in that. Climatism is therefore unfalsifiable, just like the existence of God, no evidence, no logic or reason can change the minds of the zealots.
Science, just like religion, has both an evidence-based aspect and a faith-based aspect. All of the world’s religions, for example, have scriptures that form the basis of their practise and belief systems. Much of the content of the scriptures, for example the Bible, can backed up with reference to historical documents, providing evidence that events chronicled in the scriptures actually did happen, albeit perhaps not precisely in the way penned by the original scribes in the language of their time.
However, a large portion of religious scriptures is also open to interpretation, and it is the job of the religious scholar to apply their interpretations in the most meaningful way they can.
Similarly, taking climate science as the most pertinent example here, while we are literally “drowning” in hard data providing evidence that the climate is changing, and that atmospheric CO2 is changing and has changed constantly since an atmosphere came into existence, the faith-based aspect of this science is whether or not we are to blame for the climate and atmospheric conditions; whether or not what is happening currently is net-destructive compared with similar weather events in that past; and whether or not the steps we take to “mitigate climate change” will make any difference to the future of the climate.
In my opinion, an interpretation of data should never be used to inform public policy. For example, moratoria on fracking, curbing investment in fossil-fuel energy production and committing to net zero by 2050, are ALL based on an interpretation leading to a perceived consensus, where even this “consensus” itself is an interpretation of the balance of scientific opinion!
Well said Mr Morrison and please keep saying it.
It’s when you’re over the target that the flak is greatest.
I set up a WhatsApp group with a couple of old university friends about four years ago. Just the three of us. One of them – nameless, obviously – is the Reuters Bureau Desk Chief for Blank Blank. I adore him because, well, he’s one of my many very successful old friends and has helped me out over the years (problems, problems…). We have much in common when talking about music, for instance. And humour. By contrast, I’m nobody and have done nothing of note. But OMG he talks s**t on a variety of subjects. I’ve not yet confronted him with the old Gates/WEF/Conflict of Interest stuff (amply evidenced by many researches I’ve indulged in), and I actually hope I’m never brought to that pitch. But it’s all very trying; despite an old mates’ agreement that we’ll never post in our group anything other than Derek & Clive references and comments on books, music and other pretentious stuff, he will Not Stop posting stuff which to say the least he knows will, er, get my attention. I’m a small-c conservative, he’s a raging leftie. We get by, but only because I don’t lay out my wares, as it were, for him to bloody well think about. As I say, I love him, but he’s a stupid t**t.
Yes, I understand that one well. It’s hard to sometimes share with friends who are on a different trajectory, have fixed ideas about things and think they know what is happening. For the sake of the friendship, you keep schtum, don’t make waves and go along with all the superficial stuff that the friendship is based on. I’ve found that such friendships get stretched over time and that I now have found new friends from the people I know who are switched on and who share my viewpoints. I do keep a lifeline open to old friends but it is no longer so important to me and I’m not bothered about ‘missing out’ – I’m just doing my thing and am forging a new creative life for myself and making friends of all different types, connecting with like-minded souls and other people who I wouldn’t have thought could become important to me. It’s a funny old life for sure.