“IMAGINING OTHER…”
‘Protecting the
Planet’ & ‘Wellcome to the Science of Protecting the Planet’
(WEA courses)
Global Warming (i)
the science, causes, and the sceptics!
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SUMMARY:
1.
Summary/overview: #overview
1.1
Key points:
Global
warming – man-made (anthropogenic) climate change - the most serious
environmental danger we face.
1.2 How exactly does global warming
occur? #Role of CO2
Greenhouse
effect, role of CO2, CFCs, methane... ‘Climate’ is not the same as ‘weather’.
Effects are uneven.
1.4 Sources of CO2. It
is worth noting that we now can measure the different things that produce CO2,
and the pattern is revealing: #sources
2. Brief History of International Agreements
on Climate Change #history
3.
More detail on Global Warming – evidence and scale: #evidence
3.1
Is it a scam? #scam
-
97% of climate scientists agree the world is warming as a result of our
activities, mainly through carbon dioxide production.
- the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPPC)
agrees, having scrutinised thousands of peer-reviewed studies.
- the Academies of Science of 34 different countries all
signed the IPCC statement.
- the recent Paris agreement on climate change
was signed by 194 countries.
3.2
Correlation of changes in CO2 with temperature change. #correlation
Evidence
(Al Gore 2006): ice cores can be used to measure CO2 (bubbles) and temperature
(isotopes of oxygen).
Ice
ages and interglacial periods: during the ice ages the
concentration of CO2 was below 200ppm, and large parts of the earth
were covered with a sheet of ice a mile thick!
The ‘warm
periods’ show levels of up to 260ppm. ‘At no point before
the industrial era did the CO2 concentration go above 300 parts per million.’
Temperatures show dramatic
and steady increase of around 0.5 degrees since the mid-20th century. Global
temperatures have risen by almost 1 degree since 1880 (NASA).
Levels
of CO2 now: 403.3ppm (parts per million) – highest for 3
million years. (WMO)
Recent high global temperatures. Increase in CO2
still going on (and effects will last, and we cannot remove it).
Positive feedback and other concerns.
3.3 #weather and climate change – see also Effects
of global warming
3.4 Evidence and Scale - Conclusion
3.5 #updates – positive feedback loops – scientific consensus –
beef production – the Arctic
Plastic
and CO2: With plastics, the
production and use of them will emit 0.86 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent
this year (2019). This = 3.8% of total carbon emissions (Tamara Galloway,
Exeter Uni, quoting report by Center
for International Environmental Law).
4.
What does NOT cause global warming (sceptics claim
these do): #other things
(i) Sunspots, (ii) the earth’s orbit or tilt, (iii) CO2 is
heavy, how can it cause global warming? (iv) volcanoes... Other
sceptics’ arguments (and response): (v) We cannot trust scientists: UEA
emails, (vi) An Inconvenient Truth film taken to court (but no evidence of
misrepresenting facts) (vii) Arctic ice is getting thicker, (but it’s covering
less ground) (viii) There have been periods (mediaeval) when warming has not
occurred (but short!) (ix) It’s a Chinese
plot to undermine the USA, or a socialist plot (but US economy
would benefit from change to low-carbon/renewables)
5.
Who are the climate sceptics? #who? NB: no refereed scientific papers deny
global warming, while most (53%) newspaper articles give the
‘sceptical’ point of view equal space to the mainstream view.
5.1
media
5.2
key figures: Phillip Stott, Piers Corbyn, Nigel Calder, Nigel
Lawson: not scientists, but mostly pro-market and on the right
politically (see also Donald Trump!).
5.3 press: Mail
5.4 Representation in
the press: three sceptics - Christopher Booker (Sunday Telegraph), Peter Hitchens (The Mail on Sunday), Matt Ridley (Times,
former chair Northern Rock) vs. one for consensus: George Monbiot (Guardian).
5.5 Social media #social
media
5.6 ‘Doubt is our
product’ – (tobacco company 1960).
#backlash – the Manhattan Institute &
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Trying to get
plastic bag bans lifted...
6. Lobbying: American Enterprise Institute
– contributions to Exxon Mobil. #oil companies NB. 1970s Shell and
BP begin funding scientific research in Britain to examine the climate impacts
from greenhouse gases. 1990s: Exxon funds Dr Fred Seitz and Dr Fred Singer who
dispute the mainstream consensus on climate change. Both had previously
challenged the hazards of smoking. Updates: Naomi Seibt,
Heartland Institute, Desmog link.
7. #other lobbying groups.
NOTES:
1.1
Key points:
Many observers believe that
the most serious threat facing the earth today is climate change as a
result of global warming. The aspect of air pollution that is
involved here is “the greenhouse effect”.
When sunlight warms the earth, some of that heat is lost through radiation
(bouncing off the earth) back into space. But there are some gases in the
atmosphere that retain or reflect the heat back to earth – like the glass in a
greenhouse. The effect, as noted below, was first discovered in the late 19th century.
Here we have another example
of the precise balancing phenomenon at work in the ecosphere,
since we are kept at just the right temperature for life to exist! (See the
Gaia hypothesis). The most notable of these ‘greenhouse gases’ is carbon dioxide. In itself this is a harmless
gas: we breathe it out all the time, when the oxygen we breathe in has been
used in the lungs. (We could not live in an atmosphere of pure carbon dioxide,
however). The balance of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and other gases is
just right for life.
However, human industrial activity
- especially the burning of fossil fuels - including cars, has resulted in an
increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, which has been carried up into the
atmosphere and now keeps in some of the sun’s heat. Other contributing gases
are CFCs (see notes on the ozone layer...) and methane: the latter is naturally produced by
rotting vegetation, in ponds etc, but the amount of methane produced by human
activity has actually increased with the industrialisation of farming, since
cows’ flatulence contains the gas! A large proportion of greenhouse
gases some from this source.
With regard to carbon dioxide
emissions in the UK, levels are likely to be higher than government
statistics suggest, and everyone agrees they are going to keep on rising so
long as we continue to burn fossil fuel (especially coal and oil, but also
gas).
There are a few people who
say there is a correlation but not cause and
effect – but given some of the changes to weather etc, and the measured warming
of the globe, something is causing the temperature to rise, and the vast
majority of climate scientists are convinced it is due to the greenhouse
effect. (See the section on ‘sceptics’ below). Nowadays we talk of ‘climate
change’ because the whole globe is affected. Some places will have warmer
weather, some will have colder spells, some more rain and others drought.
Weather is not the same as climate! Effects of global warming are uneven.
1.2 How exactly does global
warming occur? The role of CO2:
From https://www.livescience.com/58203-how-carbon-dioxide-is-warming-earth.html
Sunlight enters the atmosphere as
ultraviolet and visible light; some of this solar energy is then radiated back
toward space as infrared energy, or heat. The atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen and 21
percent oxygen, which are
both gases made up of molecules containing two atoms. These tightly bound pairs
don't absorb much heat.
But the greenhouse gases,
including carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane,
each have at least three atoms in their molecules. These loosely bound
structures are efficient absorbers of the long-wave radiation (also known as
heat) bouncing back from the planet's surface. When the molecules in carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases re-emit this long-wave radiation back toward
Earth's surface, the result is warming.
How do scientists measure CO2?
Scientists monitor carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by
pumping air into an artificial chamber
and shining an infrared light through the sample. Carbon dioxide absorbs
infrared light very efficiently, ... so the amount of infrared absorbed can be
used to calculate the amount of CO2
The research, published in Nature Geoscience, produces the clearest picture
yet of the Earth’s average temperature over the most recent two millennia and
reinforces concerns about the future impacts of global warming.
The study includes an update of
the original ‘hockey stick’ curve, published by Mann, Bradley &
Hughes twenty years
ago. It was the first to note that late 20th century warmth in the Northern
Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. Since then,
scientists from the palaeoclimate community have been
working to construct an improved and expanded data set, and enhance the
statistical methods underlying their reconstructions of global climate. In past
millennia, we didn’t have the luxury of modern technology such as ocean buoys
and satellites to gauge temperature, but nature recorded the answers for us. We
just have to learn how to read those clues.
Corals, ice cores, tree rings,
lake sediments and ocean sediment cores are examples of proxy data sources that
provide scientists with a wealth of information about past conditions. This
proxy data can be brought together to tell us a lot about the global climate
system in the past.
Teams of scientists around the
world have spent many thousands of hours of field and laboratory work
collecting samples and analysing data. They publish and make freely available
their precious data so that other teams of scientists can undertake further
analysis. Previously, our team and other experts around the world, meticulously
analysed, vetted and collated temperature-sensitive proxy data from around the
world. We then made the full dataset publicly available.
With this unique dataset in hand,
our team set about reconstructing past global temperatures.
Scientists are notoriously
sceptical of their own analysis, but we are more confident about our findings
when different methods applied to the same data yield the same result. In this
latest paper, we applied seven different methods to a common underlying
dataset. We found a remarkable resemblance in the multi-decadal fluctuations in
temperature between the seven methods. We also found that climate models
performed very well in comparison to our reconstructions, capturing the
amplitude of natural variability in the climate system. This gave us the
confidence to delve further, to try to understand what drove global temperature
fluctuations before the industrial revolution took hold. To do this we used
climate models and reconstructions of external climate forcing – a term which
refers to influences from outside of the climate system such as volcanic
eruptions and solar variability.
We determined that prior to the
industrial revolution, global temperature fluctuations from decade to decade
were mainly controlled by aerosol forcing from major volcanic eruptions - not
by variations in the Sun’s output. So, in the centuries before human activity
began to affect the climate – volcanoes controlled global temperature. There
are, of course, natural changes in Earth’s temperature from decade to decade
and century to century. With our new reconstructions, we were able to quantify
the rate of warming and
cooling periods across the past 2000 years. We found that at no time in that
period has the rate of Earth’s warming been so high.
In statistical terms, all
instrumental 51-year temperature trends starting after the 1950s exceed the
99th percentile of reconstructed pre-industrial 51-year trends. For increasing
timescales, particularly those longer than 50 years, the probability that the
largest warming trend occurred after 1850 swiftly approaches 100 per cent.
What does this mean in a
nutshell?
It is yet further evidence of
human-induced warming of the planet and illustrates that Earth is getting
warmer, faster. Our understanding of Earth’s past temperature variations
contributes to our understanding how life evolved, where our species came from,
how our planet works and how modern climate change will unfold due to human
activity. We know that over millions of years, the movement of tectonic plates
and slow interactions between the solid earth, the atmosphere and the ocean
affect global temperature. Over tens to hundreds of thousands of years, our
planet’s mean temperature is gradually influenced by small variations in the
geometry of the Earth and the Sun, like wobbles and variations in the Earth’s
rotation and tilt.
At the Last Glacial Maximum about 26,000 years ago, huge ice
sheets covered large parts of the Northern Hemisphere landmass.
The Earth then transitioned into
a 12,000-year warm period called the Holocene.
This was a time of relative
stability in global temperature, apart from the temporary cooling effect of the
odd volcano.
With the development of human
agriculture, our prosperity and population grew. Following the industrial
revolution, rapid warming commenced due to human activity. Now, with a clear
and concerning picture of temperature variations of the past few millennia we
have a greater understanding of the nature of Earth’s recent warming. Is this
what we really want for the future of our planet?
Researchers in this study include
Neukom, R., Barboza, L.A., Erb, M.P., Shi, F., Emile-Geay,
J., Evans, M.N., Franke, J., Kaufman, D.S., Lücke, L., Rehfeld, K., Schurer, A., Zhu, F., Brönnimann,
S., Hakim, G.J., Henley, B.J., Ljungqvist, F.C. &
Von Gunten, L.
We owe the teams of proxy experts
much gratitude. It is their generous contribution to science and human
knowledge that has supported this and other compilation and synthesis studies.
A version of this article also
appeared in The Conversation.
1.4 It
is worth noting that we now can measure the different things that produce CO2,
and the pattern is revealing:
Carbon emissions: 2nd April 2019. (G Arthur Neslen). Ryanair is the first non-coal company to become one of the top 10 carbon emitters,
according to EU figures.
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/arthurneslen
The Irish airline, which transports 130 million people a
year, declared 9.9 megatonnes of greenhouse gas
emissions in 2018, up 6.9% on last year and 49% over the last five years,
according to data in
the EU’s latest emissions trading system registry.
Andrew Murphy, the aviation manager at the European
Federation for Transport and Environment, said: “this undertaxed
and under-regulated sector needs to be brought into line, starting with a tax
on kerosene and the introduction of mandates that force airlines to switch to
zero-emission jet fuel.”
Aviation is responsible for about 3% of Europe’s greenhouse
gas emissions, but industry forecasts suggest this could rise by up to 700% by
2050 as the sector grows.
Feb 12th 2020: Notes on different sources of
CO2...
Emissions from industry and
transport make up 75% of the world’s carbon footprint (article on Bill Gates
plan for super-yacht powered by liquid hydrogen). (Jan 2020?)
10% from food waste...
[to be expanded?...]
Feb. 2020. And very
recently we have come to realise that computers contribute:
Internet: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/12/real-problem-netflix-addiction-arbon-emissions
26th Aug 2020. Staggering levels of CO2 from
incinerators –
legal challenge could be mounted against the government’s decision to exclude
waste incinerators from post-Brexit carbon emissions trading scheme (for net
zero by 2050). Sandra Laville, Guardian. Georgia
Elliott-Smith is fighting the expansion of Edmonton EcoPark
waste incinerator in north London.
For more on the contribution of
fossil fuels: see effects of global warming (see also industries
and the environment). See below on Exxon and climate
change denial.
Sep 18th 2019. Oil, war, climate change. Bill McKibben writes of the link between oil and war, after
missiles struck Saudi oil facilities over the weekend. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/18/climate-crisis-oil-war-iraq-saudi-attack-green-energy
He Includes this:
‘Thanks to great investigative reporting, we
now know that the oil industry
knew all about climate change decades ago, but instead of acknowledging it and helping us move to a
new energy future, they instead spent billions building the scaffolding of
deceit and denial and disinformation that kept us locked in the present
paradigm.
Just as they have profited from sea-level rise and Arctic melt, so they will
profit from the war now starting to unfold. (Right on schedule, the share
prices of fracking firms and oil majors all jumped perkily northwards on Monday
morning.)
27th Jan 2020. Total: 14 French local authorities and several NGOs will take court action to order Total to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. They will act under a French law the ‘duty of vigilance’ – large corporations must set out measures to prevent human rights violations or environmental damage arising from their activities. (Angelique Chrisafis)
1.5 Summary of the
main effects of global warming:
The average surface-air temperature globally has risen by
1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the beginning of the
industrial age. That's according to the fifth report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2014.
Sea-level rise has gone up globally by about 7.4 inches
(0.19 meters) on average since 1901. According to the IPCC, the rate of
sea-level rise since the middle of the 1800s has been higher than the rate
during the previous two millennia.
2. Brief
History of Climate Change (from Earthmatters,
published by Friends of the Earth, Summer 2009, extra notes from
Wikipedia and from Jonathan Watts, Guardian 10th Oct 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline).
1750
– 1800 start of industrial
revolution – rises in average global temperatures are measured as from
pre-industrial level.
1896 Swedish
Chemist Svente Arrenhuis describes
how greenhouse gases work and predicts a doubling of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere could increase global temperatures by 5 degrees.
1957
David Keeling measures changes in CO2
(Hawaii), correlates with fossil fuel use. Climate scientists now use the
Keeling curve to describe the increase in CO2.
1959 Edward Teller
tells the American Petroleum Industry a 10% increase in CO2 would melt the
icecap and submerge New York. ‘I think that this chemical contamination is more
serious than most people tend to believe.’
1965 Lyndon
Johnson’s President’s Science Advisory Committee: ‘pollutants have altered on a
global scale the carbon dioxide content of the air’ with effects that ‘could be deleterious’. The
head of APIU: ‘Time is running out.’
1970s
Shell and BP begin funding scientific research in Britain to examine the
climate impacts from greenhouse gases. A recent lawsuit claims scientists told
Exxon management in 1977 that scientific opinion ‘overwhelmingly favoured’ the
view that fossil fuels were responsible for CO2 increases.
1979
first World Climate Conference highlights
CO2 levels.
1980, 1981
scientists from API and others set up task force, and are told of likely ‘major
economic consequences’ of a 2.5 degree rise. Internal Exxon memo warns of
‘later effects [that would be] catastrophic’.
1988 James Hansen of NASA
testifies to US Senate that the greenhouse effect is changing our climate now.
1989 Global Climate
Coalition established by US industry groups challenging the science and arguing
for delays to action. Exxon, Shell and BP join 1993-4.
1990
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (established
by United Nations Environment Programme, and World Meteorological Organisation)
1st Report
says human activity likely to be contributing to climate change. Details
of working methods etc. of IPCC at: http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm
1991
Shell produces
film acknowledging ‘possibility of change faster than at any time since the ice
age... too fast for life to adapt without severe dislocation.’
1992 Rio Earth Summit or
UN Conference on Environment and Development. 172
governments participate (2,400 representatives of NGOs, and 17,000 attended a
parallel NGO Global Forum which had ‘consultative status’. Issues addressed
included: patterns of production (toxic components such as lead in petrol,
poisonous waste, radioactive chemicals),
transport, air pollution, water, protection of land of indigenous
peoples. à Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCC). US had reservations about the Convention.
Also: Convention on Biological Diversity (US did not sign),
and other statements. Criticised for not recognizing need to fight
poverty.
1990s: Exxon funds Dr Fred
Seitz and Dr Fred Singer who dispute the
mainstream consensus on climate change. Both had previously challenged the
hazards of smoking.
1995 2nd IPCC Report.
1997
Mobil places ad in New York Times: ‘the science of climate change is too
uncertain to mandate a plan of action.’ (Mobil and Exxon later merge).
1997 Kyoto Protocol (building
on the Framework Convention) signed by 192 parties (Canada withdrew in
2012 and US has not ratified it), to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ‘to
a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system.’ To come into force in 2005, and expire 2012.
1998
US refuses to ratify Kyoto protocol.
1999
Exxon CEO: ‘projections are based on completely unproven climate models
(contradicting Exxon’s own scientists).
2000
Exxon ad: ‘Unsettled Science’ claims ‘scientists remain unable to confirm...
humans are causing climate change.’
2001 3rd IPCC Report.
2001 George
W Bush opposes Kyoto ‘because it exempts 80% of the world from
compliance and because it would cause serious harm to
the US economy’.
2002 Larsen
B ice shelf breaks up – a piece of ice a quarter the size of Northern
Ireland falls into the Antarctic Sea.
2003 estimated
35,000 Europeans die in extreme summer temperatures.
2004 sudden
cold temperatures cause cracks in Empire State Building.
2005 Hurricane
Katrina hits New Orleans.
2007 IPCC
Fourth Report says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming
the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by
another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.”
2007 IPCC
and Al Gore share Nobel Peace prize. Gore’s film/powerpoint
presentation An Inconvenient Truth wins an Oscar. ‘Washington Declaration’
initiates a ‘cap-and-trade’ system to apply to industrialised
and developing countries.
2008 Ed Miliband climate change minister, UK passes
Climate Change Act (world first).
2009 Barack Obama becomes
president and puts billions into renewables.
2009 ‘Climategate’ – e-mails hacked from Climatic Research Unit
at University of East Anglia – scientists accused of
distorting evidence and suppressing opposing data. Attack is led by US Senator
Jim Inhofe, whose main donors are in the oil and gas industry at the UN climate
conference at Copenhagen, which ends in disarray.
2010 Reports by
Lord Oxburgh, Sir Muir Russell and Commons
Science and Technology Committee find no malpractice, no withholding of
evidence and no suppressing of dissenting views. Public trust in climate
scientists drops from 60% to 40%.
2009, 2010: Conferences
in Copenhagen Cancun
2012 Doha extension of
(1997) Kyoto Protocol: 37 countries adopt binding targets (of which 7 have
ratified), by July 2016 the number of countries adopting it rose to 66, but 144
are required for it to enter into legal force. EU and others agree to extend
treaty to 2020.
2013 Richard Heede of Climate Accountability Institute shows 90
companies are responsible for two thirds of the CO2 entering the atmosphere
since the 1750s.
2015 Paris Conference (UN Climate
Change Conference – COP21: 21st annual session of
the Conference Of the Parties to the 1992 Framework Convention). 196 parties attended.
Agreement will enter into force when joined by at least 55 countries
representing at least 55% of global greenhouse emissions.
2016 Earth Day – 22nd April:
174 countries sign in New York. Goal: to limit global warming
to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. Parties will
also ‘pursue efforts to’ limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. This will require
zero emissions between 2030 and 2050.
2017 Exxon, Chevron
and BP each donate at least
$500,000 for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Later he announces he will pull out
of the Paris agreement.
2017 Nov 6th, COP23
in Bonn: 10,000 government delegates, 8,000
others. Fiji is chair.
2018 US, Saudi Arabia
Kuwait and Russia dilute a landmark UN report on dangers of global warming
beyond 1.5C.
2019 secretary general of
OPEC: climate campaigners are the biggest threat to industry and are misleading
the public.
3. More
detail on Global Warming – evidence and scale:
(Notes initially
written in response to a paper by a student on one of my WEA courses,
who said climate change is a ‘disaster myth’):
3.1 Introduction: is
it a scam? ‘There is not agreement among scientists that
global warming is happening’:
Update, May 2020. A
new ‘documentary’ film, by Michael Moore has surprised many people because it is an attack on the movement for
renewable energy.
https://desmog.co.uk/2020/05/01/fossil-fuel-backed-climate-deniers-rush-promote-michael-moore-planet-of-humans - an article from ‘Desmog’ discussing how climate change deniers have latched
on to this film.
2016 notes: It seems to me that a
small group of ‘sceptics’ manage to have an influence that outweighs their number
and their importance. It may be a bit odd to arrange these notes in the form of
a ‘reply to sceptics’, but I was prompted to do so, a few years ago, by a
detailed paper prepared by a student – until then perhaps I had been guilty of
assuming that everyone knew how global warming worked!
I have also recently
(2016) had cause to write to a local paper, because they have printed at least
two letters from a local councillor who is a climate sceptic! The councillor’s argument
was (in part) that changes in CO2 occur after changes in temperature, not
before.
I wrote two replies,
and the second (which they published) points out that no sources were
given for this claim, while:
- ‘97% of climate
scientists agree the world is warming as a result of our activities,
mainly through carbon dioxide production.
- the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPPC)
agrees, having scrutinised thousands of peer-reviewed studies.
- the Academies of Science of 34 different countries all
signed the IPCC statement.
- the
recent Paris agreement on climate change was signed by 194
countries.’
I added that in the
light of this ‘It is just nonsense to talk of a 'scam' perpetrated by
mysterious 'interests' (which is what climate sceptics often say) - as it is
no-one's interests to deny that global warming/climate change is happening. The
World Health Organisation has said that 'climatic changes already are estimated
to cause over 150,000 deaths annually.'
My letter ended: ‘In
my view it is irresponsible of a local paper to keep printing these false
claims when across the globe people are already suffering from the effects of
climate change.’ However, this sentence was not printed!
I hope this explains
my concerns over ‘climate scepticism’!
Update: the same councillor
has repeated his claims more recently (2019)
and myself and a few other people have been
arguing against him.
An example is here: https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/recorder-letters-healthcare-funding-climate-change-1-6282731
I replied to various
points made in the student’s paper as follows:
3.2 Correlation of changes in CO2 with temperature change.
NASA has a graph on
their website: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/ which takes a
mean temperature between 1951 and 1980 and plots the changes since 1880. It
shows that around 1880 the temperature was 0.4 (degrees Celsius) below the
mean, and now it is approaching 0.6 above. You can either say this
is a 0.6 rise or I guess you could say it is 1 degree. I have seen other
figures of 0.8 (Robin McKie – science
editor of the Observer newspaper) or even more... and if, as many argue, the
warming is a trend, then mean temperatures are likely to carry on increasing.
There is a great danger if the upwards curve is, as Al Gore and
others argue, exponential.
In his 2006
book, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore points out (p65) that scientists
(he quotes Dr Lonnie Thompson, School of Earth Sciences, glaciologist,
Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University, and Senior
Research Scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center
at Ohio) can measure both the past temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and
the amount of CO2 in it, by examining ice cores. The CO2 is
present in bubbles in the ice, and the ratio of
different isotopes of oxygen (Oxygen 16 and Oxygen 18) records
the temperature. He prints graphs (p64) which show the changes over the past
1,000 years. These show a dramatic and steady increase of around 0.5 degrees
since the mid-20th century. Andrew Simms, G2 19th Jan
2017 says ‘temperatures have risen by almost 1 degree since 1880.’
There have been other
fluctuations – such as the ‘medieval warm period’ – but this can be seen to
have been a small, short-lived ‘blip’.
Perhaps the most
striking chart, however, shows (p66-7) measurements
in Antarctica going back 650,000 years. Here it is really clear that
the changes in temperature and in CO2 concentration correlate very
closely. You can see ice ages with periods of warming in
between. During the ice ages the concentration of CO2 was below 200ppm,
and this means large parts of the earth were covered with a sheet of ice a mile
thick! The ‘warm periods’ show levels of up to 260ppm. ‘At no point before the
industrial era did the CO2 concentration go above 300 parts per million.’
Current levels of CO2
are around 408 ppm (parts per million) – and this has
increased in the last few years (2013 – 2017) (Wikipedia, quoting National
Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration). Note that this is (only) 0.04% by volume...
[Note also: CO2 is essential for life, as the carbohydrates in the plants we
eat are our primary source of energy; carbohydrates are made by plants through
photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to convert CO2 and water into
carbohydrates]. There has been a 40% increase (from 280 to 400) since
the start of the industrial revolution in the middle of the 18thcentury.
The level of 280 ppm held for 10,000 years
before the industrial revolution. The present concentration is the highest in
at least the past 800,000 years, and likely the highest in the past 20 million
years (Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis). It is currently rising at a
rate of approximately 2ppm per year – and accelerating (Peter Tans, Trends in
Carbon Dioxide, NOAA/ESRL).
These increases may
appear small, but:
(a) only a few degrees (5 – 10) drop would produce an ice age,
and Robin McKie, drawing on UN sources, says
that an increase of 2 degrees would lead to 3 billion people suffering water
shortages, and global food production being disrupted: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/robin-mckie-carbon-emissions-up
(b) taking a global average, the 20 warmest
years have occurred since the 1970s, and the 10 warmest years have occurred in
the last 12 years (NASA) – the rate of change seems to be accelerating (see
the point below on exponential growth). 2016 has been the hottest year to date,
and each preceding year has shown warming.
Oct. 2020 Ecowatch:
https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-warmest-september-record-2648126919.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2
Monitors of the Paris Climate
Agreement will view the figures with particular alarm: for the 12-month period through to September 2020, the planet was
nearly 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial
levels.
This is close to the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold for severe
impacts to the planet detailed in a 2018 UN climate report.
The Paris Agreement, of which many UN nations are signatories, has
nations aim to cap global warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and
at 1.5 degrees if possible.
However, an increase
in global temperatures does not mean that everywhere gets
warmer! There is a difference between weather and climate, and the weather effects of global
warming are not easy to predict. However, Al Gore (2006) - see point 9 below -
lists not just glaciers melting but also some places getting more rain, some
having droughts, more hurricanes and other extreme weather events; the more
frequent closing of the Thames flood barrier etc. The Association of British
Insurers has pointed out that claims from storm and flood damage doubled
between 1998 and 2003 (to over £6 bn) (sorry, I
forget my source for this!).
See next week for more examples of the consequences
of global warming, but already Bangladesh suffers damaging floods, and these could become worse.
In Britain the Thames Barrier has been raised more often recently (19
times in 2003, as against 3 times in 1983) – there is even talk of building
another flood barrier. Just as worrying is the possibility that weather
conditions will change so that there are more storms, hurricanes etc. Or, temperature changes (e.g. to
the Gulf Streamwhich warms Britain’s coast
line) would affect crops and even turn
some areas to desert.
We have already had freak
weather conditions in Britain – the floods in Cornwall, at Boscastle in 2004 for example – and scientists such as
John Schellnhuber, of the Tyndall Centre, warn
that things could get worse (Observer 7/11/2004). Apart from the damage, Schellnhuber and others argue that a point will come
when insurers will not be able to pay for the damage: Insurers Munich Re
believe that by 2060 the “cost of our changing weather will outstrip the total
value of commodities and services produced by the global economy” The United Nations reports that the number
of natural disasters has doubled over the past decade, and resultant economic
losses have more than trebled. (Observer loc cit)]
A piece in New York
Times (Sat Apr 15th 2012) asks whether the more variable
weather we now see in the northern hemisphere is a result of climate change. In
March parts of the US were very cold, after a freak heat wave – in France it was
the other way round...
An IPCC report issued
in late March (2012) suggested there is a link, and that climate change is
leading to increased frequency of heat waves, and of heavy rainfall, and
coastal flooding. The most likely explanation is that this is connected to the
melting of Arctic ice, which has shrunk 40% since the early ‘80s – an area the
size of Europe is now water, which does not reflect heat away from the surface
as ice does. Dr Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University (quoted in the NYT article)
says the question is ‘how can it not be’ (how can the loss of sea ice not be
affecting atmospheric circulation). In particular, the heat is probably
affecting the jet stream, producing ‘kinks’ which disrupt the normal
temperatures.
Andrew Simms (loc
cit) points out that in the Arctic in Nov 2016 the temperature was 20 degrees C
above normal! Giant icebergs are breaking off in Antarctica.
However, some
scientists dispute the link between extreme weather and climate change (loc
cit): John R. Christy, University of Alabama, says it is simply down to the
very dynamic nature of weather. Martin P. Hoerling,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyst, says
what is happening in the Arctic is mostly staying in the Arctic, and some
researchers are in too much of a hurry to establish a link between weather and
human causes. But please note: these
are arguments about the exact effects of climate change/global warming, not
about the underlying trends. The same point needs to be
made with reference to the criticisms of the IPCC report which claimed glaciers
would melt quickly: this section was written by a separate group to the
scientists who measured temperature change etc, and whose task was to speculate
about the impact. No errors have been pointed out in the scientific summaries.
Conclusion: the crucial point is that previous
rises/falls (going back 600,000 years) have correlated very clearly with the
amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the vast majority of scientists believe
the major cause of the increased global temperature is increased CO2, not other
factors such as those given in section 4.
3.4 Updates: there is concern
about ‘positive feedback’ (see Week
1): as temperatures rise, changes can occur which will produce even more
temperature rises in the future, for example: when ice melts, the remaining
water absorbs more heat...
Aug. 2020. Frozen
peat is melting, but peat stores much CO2. https://theconversation.com/we-mapped-the-worlds-frozen-peatlands-what-we-found-was-very-worrying-144235 ... peatlands cover approximately 3.7 million square kilometres. If
it were a country, “Peatland” would be slightly
larger than India. These peatlands also store approximately 415 gigatons
(billion tons) of carbon – as much as is stored in all the world’s forests and
trees together. Almost half of this northern peatland
carbon is presently in permafrost, ground that is frozen all year round. But,
as the world warms and permafrost thaws, it causes peatlands
to collapse and completely changes how they relate to greenhouse gases. Areas that once cooled the atmosphere by
storing carbon would instead release more of both CO₂ and methane than they
stored. We found that the thaw projected from future global warming will
cause releases of greenhouse gas that overshadow and reverse the carbon dioxide
sink of all northern peatlands for several hundred
years’. As it melts, bacteria digest the peat...
July 2019 reports show
consensus is probably over 99% that the earth is warming:
April 2019, from Ecowatch, on beef production: https://www.ecowatch.com/beef-and-climate-change-2634244134.html
20th Sep 2019. Beef and climate change:
NFU says British
farming can become climate neutral by 2040 without cutting beef production or
converting large areas into forest. Their suggestion is growing fuel for power
stations and then capturing the carbon dioxide. Energy plants
could them become our biggest crop after wheat. Agriculture causes about
10% of the UK’s climate-heating emissions, with 90% of that being methane from
livestock and nitrous oxide from fields. Farmers are seeing the effects of
climate change with extreme weather. The plan also includes feed additives to
cut methane, gene editing to improve crops and livestock, and
controlled-release fertilisers. [Good
examples of ‘high-tech’ proposals...]
23rd Oct 2019. The Arctic (Global Citizen, Joe McCarthy):
the Arctic is now releasing more carbon dioxide in the winter than it can
absorb in the summer, according to a new report.
Now that heat waves are occurring
in the winter, and the Arctic is warming
three times faster than the global average because of human activity,
(*) greenhouse gases that would have normally remained frozen in the ground are
being released into the atmosphere, according to a study published in the journal Nature
Climate Change.
The study indicates that more
than 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide are being released from Arctic soil
annually because of warming temperatures — but plant growth in the region can
only draw around 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the soil during warmer
months.
That means that an additional 600
million tons of CO2 are being released annually, which exceeds the CO2 levels
of 189 countries.
4. Other things claimed by sceptics to cause global warming:
(i)
Sunspots:
There has been
a low level of sunspot activity between 2005 and 2010 – the lowest
levels recorded during the satellite era. This means that the earth has been
absorbing less energy from this source – recent (2011/12) calculations by the
Goddard laboratory for NASA (cited on the NASA website – see References below,
and in Hansen’s book) show about 0.25 watts per square kilometer.
But the earth’s ‘energy imbalance’ (the difference between energy absorbed by
the earth and energy returned to space) is 0.45 watts per square kilometer, that is: there is more energy generated inside
the system than the amount that exits (a positive imbalance). Temperatures have
been going up – but solar activity cannot be a cause of this. Solar activity
varies over 11 year cycles – usually pretty regularly, despite the latest dip
(see the next point).
(ii) Another key
factor is the orbit and tilt/wobble of the planet:
There are of course
natural cycles which affect the climate (including variations in solar
irradiation, La Nina etc) – and no proponents of man-made climate change would
deny this! The point is that these are natural changes, and pretty much predictable (because
their patterns are usually regular), which work over long cycles –
whereas the pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels is
not natural, and can be shown to have affected the composition of the
atmosphere dramatically in a short time:
The increase was
first measured by David Keeling in 1957 (Hansen p 116) – and he also noticed a
24 hour cycle as trees and plants absorbed CO2 during the day and gave off CO2
during the night. He also found that there were variations near to human
habitation – which is why he then made more measurements at a remote spot at
Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
His measurements,
which have never been refuted, (Robin McKie)
show that CO2 increased from around 310 ppm to
over 390 between 1957 and 2010. (*) There is no doubt that the levels will
continue to rise unless major changes are made in the way energy is generated.
Moreover, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for some time so that there is a
time-lag: even if we start reducing our output now, the results will not be
noticeable immediately.
Scientists believe it
is important to reduce the level to 350 ppm to
restore the energy equilibrium of the planet.
(*) This is a rapid
change over a short period of time – and the rate of change seems to be
accelerating. This is probably what is called exponential growth –
like a compound interest savings account where the amount of increase each year
goes up if the interest is left in. However, in nature exponential growth is
very dangerous: nothing serious seems to be happening at first, but when the
change gets more rapid we get to a ‘tipping point’ beyond which it is
impossible to reverse the change. (The example I usually use to illustrate this
is a pond in a garden: if weeds, say, are growing exponentially this means that
the time in which it takes them to double the space they take up gets shorter
and shorter. It is quite possible for weeks of growth to occur before the weeds
cover half the pond, but they will then fill it entirely overnight! Your fish
will suffocate before you have done anything about it.)
(iii) CO2 is a heavy
gas and falls out of the atmosphere:
There is a CO2 or
‘carbon’ cycle – described by Hansen on pp 118 ff: plants, the oceans and the land
act as ‘reservoirs’ for CO2 (plants/trees hold 600 billion metric tons [gigatons or GtC]
primarily as wood in trees, soils contain 1,500 GtC,
and the ocean holds 40,000 dissolved GtC –
the atmosphere holds about 800 GtC as
CO2). Again, we know there are natural cycles such as the
glacial to interglacial periods due to the movement of the earth in space. Also,
when the ocean becomes colder it holds more CO2, so the atmosphere then holds
less and this leads to more cooling. But when snow and ice melt, due to the
earth’s changing orbit or tilt, then more CO2 is released, leading to more
warming. These are examples of positive feedback – and Hansen
says they account for nearly half the interglacial global temperature change.
An estimated 30-40%
of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers
and lakes which contributes to ocean
acidification: we will deal with the various consequences of global warming
later.
The crucial point,
once again, is how human activity is interfering with these natural cycles.
(iv)
Other natural phenomena such as volcanoes affect
the picture:
Yes Mount Pinatubo
erupting in 1991 had an effect on global temperatures, by the aerosols it put
into the atmosphere: it ‘reduced solar heating of Earth by almost 2%... this...
however, was present only briefly – after two years most of the Pinatubo
aerosols had fallen out of the atmosphere.’ (Hansen:
Storms of my Grandchildren, Bloomsbury 2009, p 5). If there were a
series of volcanoes continually erupting we would see a longer-term change.
Hansen in fact
identifies no fewer than 9 ‘climate forcings’ – factors that affect the climate (p 6):
- CO2,
- other greenhouse gases,
- ozone,
- black carbon aerosols,
- reflective aerosols,
- aerosol cloud changes,
- land cover change,
- the sun e.g. June 2011. Another argument that
comes up from time to time is that the solar minimum will cause a cooling. It
is said there was a solar minimum during the ‘little ice age’ – however, recent
scientific studies show that the most likely outcome would be very slight
cooling that would make no difference to overall warming:
https://skepticalscience.com/How-would-Solar-Grand-Minimum-affect-global-warming.html
- and volcanoes.
Hansen gives precise
quantifications for the different amount of effect each has... and concludes
that CO2 is the most significant. This is neither a ‘myth’ nor what you call ‘denial’
(!) but scientific work based on real, detailed and thorough measurements.
(v)
Global warming is being unfairly used by such scientists as those at East
Anglia University, to explain famines, when these are man-made:
(i)
I am not aware of any environmentalists who would say climate change is
the only factor in food shortages. UNEP (UN Environmental
Programme) did suggest that the Darfur problem originated in climate
change, and it seems to me incontrovertible that failure of rainfall causes
crops to fail. Of course, civil conflict is a crucial factor as well in these
crises, and in some parts of the world civil war has aggravated food shortage,
(see John Vidal, Guardian 22.07.11, on the contribution of climate change + war
to famine in Somalia) but would you want to rule out climate change altogether?
(ii) Please remember
that ‘climategate’ originated when the computer
at EAU’s Climate Research Unit was hacked into (by whom?) in order to
release emails, which then were publicised by Fox News and other anti-global
warming media. Eight committees have since investigated the CRU emails, and no
evidence has been found of fraud or scientific misconduct. The
scientific findings are not in doubt. The researchers did ‘fail to
display the proper degree of openness’ in responding to queries about their
data. I suspect they were bombarded with requests from would-be deniers and
simply lost patience. Every time I encounter a climate-change sceptic I get the
same feeling!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
(vi) The film
‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was so full of errors that is was banned from being
shown in schools:
The film has not been
banned, and the court that was asked to ban it did not disagree with its
central theme:
BBC (online)
News 11th Oct 2007: A campaign to stop the
government sending DVDs to all secondary schools as part of a climate change
package was started by a parent governor Stewart Dimmock (a
member of the [right-of-centre] New Party). ‘The judge said he had no complaint
about Gore’s central thesis that climate change was happening and was being
driven my emissions from humans.’ He had reservations about 9 specific points
which were not backed up by sufficient scientific agreement, including:
- the claim that polar bears have drowned because they
have had to swim further (some have died in storms);
- the claim that sea levels would rise by 6 metres in the
near future (it would take millennia said the judge);
- there was also ‘not sufficient evidence’ that global
warming caused hurricane Katrina;
- ditto for the melting of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro, or
evaporation of Lake Chad.
The judge said that the
film should have guidance notes accompanying it to draw pupils’ attention to
these points. ‘The government has sent the film to all secondary
schools in England, and the administrations
in Wales and Scotland have done the same.’ A 60 page
guidance document now goes with it.
The book has many,
many examples of the effects of global warming, and it seems significant to me
that the court ruled that only the specific ones cited were doubtful.
(vii)
Polar ice is not melting:
You can check out
details of all this on the NASA website, which has a ‘Global Ice Viewer’ that
illustrates dynamically the changes that have been taking place - e.g.
the annual minimum amount of Arctic ice (it shrinks in the
summer and grows in the winter) has been decreasing by 11.2% per decade over
the past 30 years, and in 2007 reached the lowest recorded level.
Greenland’s glaciers
are losing 100 – 250 billion tons of ice each year and 400 billion tons has
been lost from all glaciers per year since 1994, W. Antarctica has
been losing up to 150 billion tons of ice per year). It seems to me that even
if (as you claim) the ice is thickening - which the NASA figures
at http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ deny – still
the area occupied by the ice has shrunk, and so less heat is
reflected back into space and the warmer the planet gets (positive feedback).
Moreover, other
changes have occurred in the oceans:
- sea levels have
risen by 6.7 inches (17 centimeters) in the last
century (approx 4 mm per year)– the rate of change in the
last decade has been double that of the previous century.
- the oceans’ acidity has also increased by 30% since the
beginning of the industrial revolution (NASA – full references on the webpage;
a change of 0.1 pH = 30% acidification)
- plankton, which
control the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle and part of the oxygen cycle (every
second breath we take is of oxygen from plankton), are dying off as the oceans
warm.
(viii) There have
been other periods of temperature change.
Yes but these have
been short-lived and due to natural events – the current changes are mad-made,
and they show a steady rise of temperature which cannot be reversed.
(ix) It’s a Chinese (or communist) plot!
This reveals the most
common denominator among climate sceptics: opposition to the state and to
governmental regulation. See below on lobbying... It is worth stating that
the US economy would benefit from a change to renewables (see Protecting the Planet 7: effects of climate change) – provided
government subsidies are not used for other kinds of energy production. Lord
Stern pointed out that we would save money by trying to prevent global warming,
as the costs if it increases are huge....
Conclusion: Sep/Oct
2013. Denying Climate Change:
Mehdi
Hasan has a brilliant piece in new Statesman:
Deniers are ‘merchants of doubt’, whose ‘doubts’ cost lives,
and they are conspiracy theorists. To doubt the findings of thousands of peer-reviewed
articles, when of 928 articles produced between 1993 and 2003 not one rejected
the consensus, and when 97% of climate scientists are in agreement, you have to
believe the unbelievable (‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the
American people’, according to US Republican senator James Inhofe).
Hasan
quotes an interview with Richard Lindzen, professor
of meteorology at MIT, who when asked why the national academies of 34
different countries all signed the IPCC consensus position, suggested they are
‘dependent on the goodwill of the government. And if they’re told ‘sign on’
they’ll sign on.’
According to the WHO ‘climatic changes already are estimated
to cause over 150,000 deaths annually.’
The Observer Editorial, 29th Sep 2013, points out:
deniers claim the global temperature is no longer rising, when the rate of
increase has only slowed down (and is expected to dramatically increase in
future), others say Arctic ice is not shrinking when it reached its sixth
lowest extent this year; one national newspaper claims the Arctic loss is
balanced by the Antarctic gain, when the Arctic loss is 3m sq km of ice in the
last 30 years, and the Antarctic has gained 0.3m (probably just year-to-year
variability). More worrying is the presence in Cameron’s government of such
people as: Peter Lilley (who voted against the climate change act of 2008), and
Owen Paterson, a sceptic as environment secretary(!).
(See below, for ‘doubt’ being spread)
5. Who are the
‘Climate Sceptics’?
5. 1 The media – TV and the press:
Al Gore in his book
cites a study done by Dr Naomi Oreskes of University of California,
which was published in Science magazine. She took a random sample (about
10%) of all the peer-reviewed science journal articles on
global warming from the previous 10 years. There were 928 articles in
the sample, none of which raised any doubts about the cause of global warming (though
only three-quarters addressed the 'central elements of the consensus' and the
rest were about specific issues not to do with CO2). On the other hand,
another study was done of all the articles in the previous 14 years
from what were considered as the four most influential papers in the US (New
York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and Wall Street Journal). Again a random
sample was taken, amounting to almost 18% of the articles, and this
time 53% gave equal weight to the 'consensus view' and to the
opposition (sceptics/deniers) - thus giving the impression there was
disagreement in the scientific community about the issue. (See more below).
5.2 Media
‘personalities’:
Robin McKie, Observer, 04.03.07(?), points out that those who
contest the scientific consensus, e.g. Phillip
Stott, Piers Corbyn, Nigel Calder,
Nigel Lawson, have often got a political agenda. To
deal with global warming, says McKie, quoting
philosopher John Gray, will require government action and
intervention in our lives – and probably bureaucracy – all of which is anathema
to the sceptics, several of whom have pronounced pro-market views. (We
are told, for example, that Europe will ban the inefficient
fluorescent light bulb: I wonder if the Daily Mail will start a campaign to
save it?!)
The names that McKie gives are of people who regularly can be heard
on Today and seen on Newsnight (so they cannot claim, as they do, that there is
a conspiracy of silence over their views!).
5.3 The Press (again)
Date? Mail on Sunday criticised by UK press regulator, for
claiming that global warming data had been exaggerated in order to get
agreement at Paris. The paper said data from US National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration had been treated. The controversy arose over a
‘pause’ in global warming (used by deniers to claim warming had been
exaggerated) – 1998 was exceptionally hot owing to a strong El Nino effect. But
these years still showed an upward trend compared to the average, so talk of a
‘pause’ was misleading. Fiona Harvey.
5.4 Dec 2017. Peter Wilby (New Statesman 16 Dec 2016 – 5 Jan 2017) says:
‘By my calculations, ten global-warming sceptics – including the Sunday
Telegraph’s Christopher Booker, The Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens, and the Times’s Matt
Ridley – have regular columns in the main sections of national
newspapers.’ According to Geoffrey Lean, environmental correspondent (formerly
of Telegraph, Independent on Sunday and Observer) ‘There used to be four of us
[columnists in national newspapers accepting the consensus]. But three of us
have been sacked in the past 18 months.’ Only George Monbiot
remains...
17th Jan 2020. Alex Hern. Some of the biggest companies in the world are
funding climate misinformation by advertising their goods on YouTube, according
to Avaaz. More than 100 brands had such adverts.
Firms were not aware that their video ads were being played before and during
the climate videos. Avaaz found that 16 of the top
100 videos found by searching global warming contained misinformation. Avaaz said YouTube should include climate misinformation in
its ‘borderline content policy’ and should demonetise misinformation.
June 2020. Facebook
and climate change deniers: https://www.ecowatch.com/facebook-climate-deniers-loophole
Oct 2020. Facebook has carried
advertisements denying the reality of climate change, which have been viewed by
at least 8million people. (Damian Carrington)
Adverts on Facebook denying the reality of the
climate crisis or the need for action were viewed at least 8 million times in
the US in the first half of 2020, a thinktank has
found.
The 51
climate disinformation ads identified included ones stating that climate change
is a hoax and that fossil fuels are not an existential threat. The ads were
paid for by conservative groups whose sources of funding are opaque, according
to a report by InfluenceMap.
Elizabeth Warren and
other senators wrote to Facebook
in July
calling on it to close the loopholes.
InfluenceMap compared a database of organisations it said had propagated climate
disinformation in the past against Facebook’s Ad
Library database to see which advertised on the platform in 2020. Analysis of
the ads run by these groups found 51 examples of disinformation, including an ad paid for by the conservative
group PragerU that ran to 1 October.
Its headline
was: “Make no doubt about it: the hysteria over climate change is to sell you
Big Government control.” The accompanying video said: “Fossil fuels are not an
existential threat … The Green New Deal is an existential threat.”
Another ad, which ran in April, was paid for by Turning Point USA,
whose “mission is to identify, educate, train, and organise students to promote
the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government”. It was
headlined: “Conservatives Are Pro-Science, While Leftists Are Pro-Panic!
Climate Change Is A HOAX! #ThinkForYourself
#EarthDay.”
5.6 Doubt
The tobacco industry adopted
exactly the same tactics as climate sceptics when the link with cancer was
identified: a memo was uncovered from the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company,
written in 1960: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means
of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general
public. It is also the best means of establishing controversy."
18th July 2020. Statistics and
their mis-use. Review of a recent
book The
Number Bias... by Sanne Blauw,
Sceptre: reviewed by Steven Poole, Guardian. Every decision about what to
measure and how to measure it bakes in social and moral assumptions. (Therefore
machine learning, even though based on masses of data, is often racist, or incompetent). Examples discussed: race (i.e. skin
colour...) and IQ, and ‘the deliberate
misuse of correlations, graphs and other techniques by the tobacco lobby and
global-warming deniers’...
Update March 2020. The Covid pandemic has brought out some
climate sceptics:
In America, several
states have rolled back the ban on plastic bags, having been apparently
influenced by lobbying by the Manhattan
Institute and the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI). They have completely misrepresented the
science, as there is no evidence that single-use plastic bags are safer than
‘tote’ bags.
CEI has been
supported by the Charles Koch Institute and American Fuel and Chemical
Manufacturers.
6. Lobbying, NB. 1970s Shell and BP begin funding
scientific research in Britain to examine the climate impacts from greenhouse
gases. 1990s: Exxon funds Dr Fred Seitz and Dr Fred Singer (see
further below) who dispute the
mainstream consensus on climate change. Both had previously challenged the
hazards of smoking.
Update June 2020. Fossil fuel
companies being sued for misleading the public:
https://www.ecowatch.com/fossil-fuel-companies-climate-lawsuits
The attorney general for
Washington, DC filed a lawsuit on Thursday
against four of the largest energy companies, claiming that the companies have
spent millions upon millions of dollars to deceive customers in about the
calamitous effect fossil fuel extraction
and emissions is having on the climate crisis, according
to The
Washington Post.
The suit names ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch
Shell, BP and Chevron as the defendants, and argues that the companies
"systematically and intentionally misled consumers in Washington, DC ...
about the central role their products play in causing climate change,"
according to The Hill.
Karl A. Racine, the DC attorney
general, said in a news conference on Thursday that the four companies painted
a false picture of what effect their products had and therefore violated
consumer protection laws.
"For decades, these oil and
gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science
in pursuit of profits," Racine said in a statement, as The
Washington Post reported.
"OAG filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold
these companies accountable for their deceptive practices."
In the DC suit, Racine
specifically mentioned the fossil fuel companies' strategy lifted from Big
Tobacco. "The companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science
Coalition — a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the
industry's misinformation campaign — they also funded and promoted some of the
same scientists hired by tobacco companies," he said in a statement.
More on
Exxon: Oct 2020. Exxon and
CO2 (see https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-climate-pollution-carbon-dioxide-2648117228.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1 and 2 above): Exxon Now Wants to Write the Rules for
Regulating Methane ... ›
Exxon's Climate Denial History: A Timeline ›
Oct 2020. Exxon and CO2 emissions:
ExxonMobil plans to increase its annual
carbon-dioxide pollution by more than 20 million tons per year over the next
five years, Bloomberg reports.
The increases, which
come from the company's own analysis of its direct emissions, are equivalent to
17% of its current carbon pollution — about the yearly emissions of the country
of Greece — but account for only about one-fifth of the total greenhouse gas
pollution caused by burning Exxon's fossil fuel products. Unlike many European oil
majors, Exxon has refused to make efforts to curb its greenhouse gas pollution.
Earlier this year, Exxon was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and
it is currently facing lawsuits from about a dozen jurisdictions alleging it
knew, withheld, and denied important information about the impact of fossil
fuel consumption on climate change.
7. Other
‘thinktanks’ – Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, ‘dark
money’, climate science denial, ‘climategate’,
Brexit, 55 Tufton Street: 28th June 2020:
Update: 26th Feb 2020
(David Smith, Washington). A German teenager – Naomi
Seibt - is being promoted by the Heartland
Institute to put out a message contradicting Greta Thunberg. She is paid an
‘average monthly wage’ by the Institute, which has previously campaigned on
behalf of the tobacco and coal industries.
Her mother is a lawyer who has defended members of the extreme right AfD party in Germany. Naomi was previously championed by
Martin Sellner, leader of the Austrian Identitarian Movement, who has been denied entry to the UK
and the US. She is due to address the Conservative Political Action Conference
(CPAC) near Washington, along with speakers including Donald Trump and Mike
Pence.
Update: 6th June 2019.
‘Desmog’ has very useful details of climate crisis
deniers, and how they operate, for example: https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/06/20/chief-government-climate-advisor-cleared-wrongdoing-house-lords
The lobby
group American Enterprise Institute, (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded
think-tank, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles
questioning the report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)…. The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil, and more
than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration.
Nov 11th 2019. Climategate, (2009).
Article by Brendan Montague of Desmog
and Resurgence: https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/18/how-climategate-laid-foundations-fake-news-era
Links between Nigel Lawson, Christopher Monckton, S Fred
Singer, Heartland Institute, GWPF
The target of the hack attack
had been Pennsylvania State University Professor
Michael Mann, the author
of the first ‘Hockey
Stick’ graph which
showed a dramatic uptick in average global temperatures following hundreds of
years of a fairly stable climate. [Wikipedia article doesn’t make this link...]
Professor
Phil Jones [University
of East Anglia] was collateral damage: accused of academic dishonesty, hauled
in front of a powerful Parliamentary committee to answer these trumped up
charges, his life’s work unfairly called into question. He considered
suicide.
Climategate should have been a storm in a
teacup. The emails revealed nothing new. A few choice phrases were taken out of
context, twisted, and presented as damning evidence. It was Lord Lawson who
turned it into a crisis for climate science.
He launched the Global
Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) in
Parliament just in time to make best use of the faux scandal, toured the
newspaper offices using his reputation as Thatcher’s one time chancellor to
persuade editors to take the event seriously, and called on his Tory
friends to open their
cheque-books to
fund his opaque think tank.
Singer
worked with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (now Atlas
Network) in the
United States. The foundation was primarily concerned with promoting free
market, neoliberal economics. Friedrich von Hayek was the intellectual
inspiration. He argued that any regulation would distort the market, leading
to hardship.
Singer... had previously worked with
the tobacco industry deliberately
creating smoke and mirrors around the increasing scientific consensus that
smoking caused cancer. The foundation received money from the oil industry, including Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, and was instrumental in founding the Institute of
Economic Affairs (IEA) in the UK. It was a trustee of
the IEA — David Henderson — who first approached
Lord Lawson at an event hosted by the London School of Economics and
persuaded him to take up the cause of climate denial.
Lawson did not advise fake news,
but it encouraged a distortion of reality that has seriously undermined our
politics. It opened the floodgates.
Links between climate science denial and Brexit (continued
from article above):
Along the way, the GWPF has gotten into bed with the wildest of right-wing
neoliberal think tanks, becoming intimately entwined (*) with those responsible
for serious spin and corporate lobbying around Brexit.
Lawson himself was instrumental
in the Vote Leave campaign (before applying for residency in
France). He was
happy to appeal to reactionary populism to settle scores within the
Tory party.
One consequence of this is that Nigel Farage long ago adopted the tactics of
his namesake. Farage has dabbled in climate denial.
He has gone further in stirring up populism. He is the master of scapegoating. And he is forever throwing “dead cats” into
the political arena, keeping us constantly focused on our relationship with the
EU. And in doing so, his Brexit Party — a party riddled with a Lawsonian brand of climate science denial — came close to destroying
Lawson’s Tory party while continuing to push the UK
towards the hardest of Brexits.
See also, on funding of
Conservative \party MPs: https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/19/election-2019-boris-johnson-conservative-party-climate-science-denial-funding
Johnson, Hancock, Mitchell, Hunt
and Fox all received between £20,000 and £30,000 from climate change
deniers....
The Brexit Party, and the Spiked
connection https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/11/election-2019-here-are-all-brexit-party-s-climate-science-deniers :
The Spiked group of academics and writers
who regularly publish articles attacking efforts to tackle climate change
are well-represented in the Brexit Party’s candidate list. DeSmog
previously revealed that the group was funded by Charles and David Koch, billionaire
American industrialists and infamous funders of climate
science denial.
James Woudhuysen
(Carshalton
and Wallington), a professor at London South Bank University, has written
extensively on the issue. He acknowledges its existence but opposes what he considers the
“misanthropic green ideology of restraint”, backing high-carbon projects like
Heathrow expansion and dismissing renewables as “nowhere
near viable”.
Stuart Waiton (Dundee West), a sociology
professor at Abertay University who has been writing
for Spiked since 2001, has described supporters of Greta Thunberg as
a “cult”. He told DeSmog he accepted that “mankind is
having an impact on the environment” but dislikes environmentalists’ “culture
of limits”
Kevin Yuill (Houghton and Sunderland South),
a history professor, has cast doubt on the impacts of climate change, decrying “eco-doomsayers”, while Paddy Hannam
(Islington South) has described achieving “net zero” emissions
as a “waste of money”.
Dr Alka
Cuthbert (East Ham),
another regular contributor to Spiked,
does not appear to have made any public comments on climate change.
James Heartfield, who has blamed the Grenfell tragedy on climate
targets and written a book arguing that attempts to “green”
the economy are about “manufacturing scarcity to boost prices”, is no longer
standing in Islington North for the Brexit Party. He did not know who he had
been replaced by when asked.
(*) 55 Tufton
Street: https://www.desmog.co.uk/55-tufton-street
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) exists to combat what it describes as
“extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to mitigate climate
change and regularly publishes reports rejecting the scientific consensus on
the issue. It was founded in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit in
2009 by former Conservative Chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson. Several of the GWPF's members and funders are affiliated with other groups located at 55 Tufton Street. [1], [3]
Civitas is an educational
charity and publisher
specializing in health, education, welfare, and economics. The think tank has
published reports arguing against policies to tackle climate change, including
a 2013 report by current Energy Editor of the GWPF John
Constable. It claimed
a shift to renewable energy would mean “more people would be working for lower
wages in the energy sector, energy costs would rise, the economy would
stagnate, and there would be a significant decline in the standard of living”. Sir Alan Rudge, an advisor to the GWPF,
and Lord Nigel Vinson, a GWPF funder, are both trustees. The group has been criticised by Transparify for its
“opaque” operations. [4], [45], [5], [6], [3], [7]
The TaxPayers’
Alliance is a
pressure group and think tank formed in 2004 by Matthew
Elliott to campaign
for a low tax society and advocates the removal of various measures designed to
reduce emissions, including the Climate Change Levy. In 2016 the TaxPayers’ Alliance, along with U.S.
climate science denying lobby groups the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Heritage Foundation, held a free trade event at the Conservative Party
Conference. The group was, as of November 2015, a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a climate science denial
umbrella group run by the CEI, but is no longer listed
on its website. The Taxpayers' Alliance belongs to an international
coalition of anti-tax, free-market campaign groups called the World Taxpayers
Associations. Other
members include the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance, Americans for Tax Reform, the Austrian Economics Center and the
Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. [8], [9], [10], [35]
Business for Britain is a pro-Brexit campaign
group for business leaders founded in 2013 by Matthew
Elliott to push for
a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. In 2014, it released a briefing
paper on ‘Energy Policy and
the EU’, claiming that EU
regulations and policy had driven up the cost of energy in the UK and recommending that the government should consider
opting out of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Matt Ridley,
an advisor to the GWPF,
launched the
Business for Britain North East branch, and Lord Vinson has acted as an
advisor to the group.
The European Foundation is a high-profile
think tank formed in 1993 to oppose the Maastricht Treaty and chaired by
Conservative MP Bill Cash. The group published a report in 2009 during the
Copenhagen climate summit, entitled ‘100 reasons why global warming is natural’
... Members of the group’s advisory board in clued Matthew Elliott, Richard
Smith, owner of 55 Tufton St, Roger Helmer (former UKIP member), David Davis (Cons. MP), Oliver
Lewtwin, Bernard Jenkin,
John Whittingdale, Graham Brady and iain Duncan-Smith. Owen Paterson, former environment
secretary is also on the advisory board.
Leave Means Leave is a
pro-Brexit campaign group formed following the 2016 EU referendum to
“ensure the UK makes a swift, clean exit from the EU”. It backs a
“hard” Brexit, with the UK leaving the
European Single Market, the Customs Union and the European Court of Justice,
and supports the UK reverting to
World Trade Organisation rules. The group was co-founded by Richard Tice, a property
developer and now Chair of the Brexit Party, and John Longworth, former
Director-General of the British Chamber of Commerce and now Chair of Leave
Means Leave. Its advisory board includes MPs Sammy Wilson, Owen Paterson, Graham Stringer, Kate Hoey and Peter
Bone. On a now-deleted page on the group's website, Nigel Farage
was listed as its
Vice-Chair, along with Tice.
Global Vision is a Eurosceptic campaign group launched in 2007 by the
Conservative peer Lord Blackwell, Chair of Lloyds Banking Group and a former Board Member of the Centre
for Policy Studies, and Ruth Lea, Trustee of
the Global Warming Policy Foundation and an
advisor to the TaxPayers’ Alliance. According to its website, the group
“promotes a constructive new relationship between the UK and Europe
based on free trade and mutually beneficial cooperation, whilst opting out of
the process of political and economic integration”. Its Economic Advisory Panel
includes Neil Record, Patrick
Minford (Chair of Economists for Free Trade) and Eamonn Butler (Founder/Director of the Adam Smith Institute). A now
deleted webpage listed MPs and peers
belonging to the “Parliamentary Friends of Global Vision”, which included Bill
Cash, Christopher
Chope, Philip Davies, Peter Lilley and Lord
Vinson. Its “Business Supporters” include oil
and minerals businessman Algy Cluff,
GWPF donor Michael Hintze, and Leader
of the House of Commons Jacob
Rees-Mogg.
UK2020 is a
right-wing think tank which has been compared to the
American “Tea Party” movement and was set up by Owen Paterson in 2014.
Among the policy recommendations the group
calls for is “a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the
market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions.” These
technologies include shale gas and small modular nuclear reactors. It seeks to strip back
regulations and subsidies in the energy sector designed to combat climate
change. Matt Ridley of the GWPF is a policy advisor for UK2020 and Tim Montgomerie, founder of the ConservativeHome website and a
former senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, is
their political adviser.
The New Culture
Forum is a
right-wing think tank working to change cultural debates it believes are
dominated by “the left”. According to the ConservativeHome blog, Matthew
Elliott serves as an advisor to the forum,
while Michael
Gove, former UK Environment
Secretary, has spoken at its
events. Its founder and director is Peter Whittle, former UKIP leader in the
London Assembly and Culture and Communities Spokesperson for the party.
Nov 2019. Koch brothers – see DeSmog:
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/11/election-2019-here-are-all-brexit-party-s-climate-science-deniers
also on funding to the Tories: https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/19/election-2019-boris-johnson-conservative-party-climate-science-denial-funding
April 2019 link to Left Foot Forward article on Taxpayers’ Alliance working against Southampton clean air plan:
The TPA though regarded these
penalties as a “stealth tax” and claims it campaigned
against the charges by taking volunteers to Southampton and telling visiting
football fans that their coach tickets would be more expensive.
The TPA’s campaign was supported
by Royston Smith, the Tory MP for Southampton Itchen who said the clean air
plans were anti-business.
Labour-controlled Southampton City Council eventually backed down on plans to charge vehicles. Instead, they opted to make the buses greener and allow taxi drivers to try electric vehicles before they buy them.
2016 (from DeSmogUK) –
the Brexit Climate deniers – 55 Tufton Street:
There
is a deep-rooted connection between UK climate science deniers and
those campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union, new
mapping by DeSmogUK can reveal. Tying
together this close-knit network reveals how organisations residing behind the doors of Westminter's 55 Tufton Street share
many of the same members and donors.
And
the reach of this small group of Brexit climate deniers extends beyond
this Westminster building to include prominent politicians such
as former London Mayor Boris
Johnson, Justice Secretary Michael Gove, and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom as well as traditional British
media outlets. Perhaps the epitome of this nexus
between climate science deniers and Brexit campaigners came last week
when former environment secretary Owen
Paterson delivered
a speech at this very same address. Advertised by Grassroots
Out and hosted by Paterson’s UK2020 think
tank, Paterson argued “Why the UK environment would be
improved by leaving the EU.” His speech was quickly criticised for being out-of-touch
by Green MP Caroline Lucas, who said:
“I’m as likely to ask Donald Trump for advice on race relations as I am to
trust Owen Paterson on protecting our environment.”
But
it's hard to ignore the political movers and shakers working inside the
walls of this four-storey, multi-million pound building
located just steps from the Houses of Parliament. This small, mostly male,
contingent is a significant driving force behind the 'leave' side of the
23 June EU referendum and the
same group that wants less, not more, done to tackle catastrophic
climate change. The overlap stems from a common neoliberal ideology that
fears top-down state interventions and regulations which are perceived as
threatening values of individual freedom, economic (market) freedom, or the
sovereignty of national governments. Under this logic, we must reject both
the European Union and most climate policy. It begs the question:
If Britain leaves the EU, what will then happen to the country's
climate change policy?
Delving
into the web, you’ll quickly get a sense of the deep-rooted connection
between these various organisations. DeSmog UK first
reported on this relationship in January when a slew of climate
science deniers published comment pieces blaming European bureaucracy, not climate change, for the
December flooding. Then, in February, the Independent revealed
that these inter-related groups all share the 55 Tufton Street address.
So now, with the Brexit vote less than two weeks away, DeSmog UK has
for the first time mapped, in-depth, the climate-euro
sceptic bubble for you to explore.
How to use the map: Zoom in and out
to see the web of relationships between the residents of 55 Tufton Street and its neighbours. Hover over the
lines to see the type of relationship between the two entities, and click on the
person or organisation’s name to find out more (this will open up a new tab
where you can find out more information about all of this entity’s various
relationships and stance on climate change).
Looking
at the map, you will see 55 Tufton Street at
the centre. Above, you have the building’s owner, Richard Smith, and below you
have two rows: organisations which currently reside (or did until recently) at
this address, and key figures within each organisation. And then you have the
many other relationships that are derived from this.
Please
note that this is not an exhaustive list of all people affiliated with
each 55 Tufton Street organisation.
Nor is it likely to be an exhaustive list of all the relationships between the entities
included in the map. If you spot something we’ve missed, let us know in the
comments section below.
Below (and here – link) we highlight some of key relationships
contained in this map:
Who is Richard Smith? He keeps a low
profile and is perhaps best known for when he flew David Cameron to his home
in Shobdon, Herefordshire in 2007.
The Midlands businessman owns HR Smith group, which works
on advanced aerospace technologies. Not only is he associated with several of
the organisations at 55 Tufton Street,
but as the map shows, Smith has also donated money to the Vote Leave campaign,
Labour Leave, and the Bruges Group (via his company Techtest).
Meet Vote Leave’s climate science deniers: The prominent Vote
Leave campaign group draws several of its members
from Paterson’s UK2020 think tank and Lawson’s Global Warming
Policy Foundation (GWPF), including Matt Ridley who’s a member of
both. UKIP MP Douglas Carswell is
also a supporter of Vote Leave – Carswell is
known for saying his biggest regret is voting in favour of the 2008 Climate
Change Act.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance’s
ties to everyone: In 2010 following the general election,
the TaxPayers’ Alliance hosted a roundtable
meeting to discuss the Conservative Party’s return to power.
Among those in attendance included the GWPF, Global Vision, the Centre for
Policy Studies, the Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as oil
giant BP.
Matthew Elliott: While not at the centre of the
map, Elliott is definitely at the centre of many of the 55 Tufton Street organisations, including the TaxPayers’ Alliance (and its donations wing, the Politics
and Economics Research Trust), Vote Leave, Business for Britain, and The
European Foundation. It’s also interesting to note that Elliott’s wife,
Florence Heath, is a petroleum geologist who at one time worked for Shell and
was a Charles G. Koch fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (known for
promoting climate science denial) in the summer of 2001.
Global Climate Coalition (July 2019: more from DeSmog.co.uk):
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/07/11/historical-deception-global-climate-coalition-science-denial
The Global Climate Coalition, GCC, worked
for decades to deny global warming and to say the IPCC was ‘politicised’.
Within the GCC,
the Science and Technology Assessment Committee (STAC)
took responsibility for assessing contemporary climate science and formulating
strategic arguments to undermine it. The STAC was
chaired by Mobil Oil’s Lenny Bernstein. Mobil, Exxon, and Texaco (now part of
Chevron) all contributed five staffers to the committee.
An internal 1994 document outlining “issues and options” for the GCC to consider regarding “potential global climate change”
shows the group’s outright climate science denial.
The document concludes that “the
claim that serious impacts from climate change have occurred or will occur in
the future has not been proven” and “consequently, there is no basis for the
design of effective policy action that would eliminate the potential for
climate change.”
************************