Attenborough’s “Climate Change–The Facts
By Paul Homewood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00049b1/climate-change-the-facts
The BBC continued its climate change propaganda season last night with David Attenborough’s well trailered “Climate Change – The Facts?”
The opening sequences, recorded against film of hot weather and including these quotes, left no doubt of where the programme was headed:
“Right now we are facing our greatest threat in thousands of years – climate change”
“What we’re doing right now is we’re so rapidly changing the climate, for the first time in the world’s history people can see the impact of climate change”
“Greater storms, greater floods, greater heatwaves, extreme sea level rise”
“All of this is happening far faster than many of us thought possible”
Attenborough shows this graph of global temperature trends, (though omitting satellite temperature measurements which show no increase since 1998). But he fails to explain why temperatures rose sharply in the early 20thC, long before CO2 emissions began to rise significantly.
Nowhere either does he tell us that the 19thC marked the end of the Little Ice Age, probably the coldest period since the end of the Ice Age.
In order to scare people about this small amount of warming, he has bring out the extreme weather bogeyman.
Heatwaves
Peter Stott – “It’s having a dramatic effect on our weather” “The frequency of extreme temperatures is increasing”
Michael Mann – “You’re going to get more frequent and intense heatwaves. You’re going to get worse drought”.
The example of last summer’s heatwave in the UK is used as an example of climate change, even though it was actually no hotter than the summer of 1976.
While average summer temperature temperatures may be a bit higher, winters are also milder, so it is not clear why the climate is any worse. Is Oxford’s climate worse then Newcastle’s, just because average temperatures are higher?
As for Stott’s ludicrous assertion that the frequency of extreme temperatures is increasing, milder winters will simply offset hotter summers.
In any event, daily temperature extremes are not increasing, in the UK at least. The hottest day in CET was 33.2C, set in 1976, and equalled in 1990. No day last summer got anywhere near that.
In fact, there is considerable evidence that heatwaves are actually becoming less common, at the same time as cold spells are also less frequent. In other words, temperatures are becoming much less extreme. This is certainly the case in the US, as the Federal climate report admitted:
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/
They then show a film of some dead bats in Queensland, killed by a heatwave when temperatures reached 42C. Yet the all time record for Queensland is 49.5C, set in 1972!
Picking single weather events is meaningless. But this does not stop Attenborough preposterously saying:
“Animals of all kinds are struggling to adapt to rapidly changing conditions”
As for droughts, there is no evidence whatsoever that they are getting worse, as the IPCC AR5 admits:
And in the US, as Mann ought to know, rainfall has steadily been increasing since 1900. The calamitous droughts of the 1930s and 50s are a thing of the past:
Wildfires
David Attenborough – “As temperatures rise, the threats we face multiply. Last year saw record breaking wildfires take hold across the globe. “
Michael Mann – “We’ve seen wildfires break out in Greece, even in the Arctic. We’ve seen a tripling of the extent of wildfire in the western US”
Naturally global warming is blamed for all of this.
In fact, experts in this topic are clear that globally wildfires have declined in recent years.
The EU Commission has found the same in Southern Europe:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/eu-fires.pdf
As for Greece, last summer was not unusually hot, and it was wetter than average, so clearly climate change was not a factor there.
The idea that you don’t get wildfires in the Arctic is also absurd, as Alaska’s history shows. It is dry weather and not heat which is the key factor.
In the US, wildfire acreage was much greater in the past as well.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/wildfires-were-much-worse-in-past/
Proper forestry experts, which Michael Mann most definitely is not, consistently maintain that the real reason for the severity of recent fires in California is the build up of undergrowth, dead trees, thickets of small trees, and overcrowded forests generally, all of which act as fuel.
This is the result of decades of fire suppression after the war, not climate change.
If droughts are a factor, Mann should be honest enough to admit that California’s climate used to be much drier:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/30/graphic-californias-droughts-in-the-past-1200-years/
Storms and Floods
Michael Mann – “You’re going to get more rainfall, more superstorms, worse flooding. We’re seeing the effects of climate change now play out in real time”
Maybe one of the most dishonest parts of the programme.
Even the IPCC can’t find any long term trends in tropical cyclone activity or flooding.
And severe tornadoes are have become much less common in the US:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/07/11/tornado-stats-for-2017/
Polar ice caps
It is claimed that ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland is “worse than expected”.
In fact, according to NASA, the Antarctic has actually been gaining ice. It is symptomatic of the whole programme, that Attenborough does not mention this inconvenient fact.
As for Greenland, I’m not sure what the experts were “expecting”, has any relevance at all. What we do know though, is that temperatures in Greenland are no higher now than they were in the 1930s. (Another of those “inconvenient facts”!):
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/07/01/greenland-temperatures-in-2017/
Rising seas
Inevitably rising sea levels are mentioned, and Attenborough makes the bold claim that rising seas are already displacing hundreds of thousands of people from already vulnerable coastal areas.
I have certainly never this claim before, and it seems pure hyperbole to me.
What is not mentioned though is that sea levels have been rising steadily since the mid 19thC, as glaciers started melting at the end of the Little Ice Age.
There is no sign of acceleration, and even the IPCC admit that they were rising at the same rate a century ago:
It is very likely that the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm/yr between 1901 and 2010 and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm/yr between 1993 and 2010. Tide gauge and satellite altimeter data are consistent regarding the higher rate during the latter period. It is likely that similarly high rates occurred between 1920 and 1950.
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_observedchanges.php#node11
As with some of the other segments of the programme, an emotional piece of film is shown, this time of the tiny Isle de Jean Charles in the Mississippi delta in Louisiana, which is disappearing under the waves.
In fact it has never been more than a few inches above sea level, and most of the problem lies with land subsidence and coastal erosion, caused by activities such as dredging of canals and logging.
To equate the problems faced by the Isle with general sea level rise elsewhere is utterly dishonest.
Corals
Finally Attenborough gets onto corals, and makes this astonishing statement:
“In the last three years, repeated heat stress has caused a third of the world’s corals to first bleach, and then die”
There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I have not even seen that claimed about the Great Barrier Reef.
And as we now know, the death of GBR corals was drastically overstated. Indeed, as scientists like Peter Ridd and local reef experts have long maintained, corals quickly recover from bleaching, which was just as bad in the 18thC.
Summary
One of the features of the programme is the insertion of personalised, emotional film sequences – bats dying from heat in Australia, father and son escaping from wildfire in California, and the Isle de Jean Charles.
They are clearly designed to bring home to people the real effects of climate change, and make them feel guilty. At one point, the interviewee even says “we have got to do something”.
Unfortunately, the facts don’t agree. Maybe the programme would better have been called “Climate Change – The Myths”
This first part of the programme focuses on the effects so far of climate change. In Part II, I will look at what the future holds and what Attenborough tells us we can do about it.
Trackbacks
- Delingpole: ‘Climate Change: The Facts’ Was the BBC’s Biggest Lie Ever – REAL News 45
- Climate propaganda: when “the facts” aren’t really facts – UK Reloaded
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Yep, the progamme was emotional prejudiced rubbish. As we all expected. Most was couched in generalised terms so they couldnt be held to account. ie: ‘Scientists say’ the moon is made of cream cheese. As long as you can find 2 psuedo-scientists saying this then you have not lied. Just talked garbage. That was the style of the whole propaganda piece. Overall It was very weak and obviously prejudiced so there’s a good chance most observers will see through its bullshit.
I cannot believe such arrant nonsense. Travel around the globe and you will see some of the effects of Climate change! Tell the people of Bangladesh or the Seychelles that they are imagining a rise in sea levels! Go to Antarctica and see receding ice masses. I have been there twice and seen it. Something is happening whether you like it or not!
Glaciers have been retreating and sea levels rising since the mid 19thC, long before AGW.
To understand why, you also need to understand how massively those glaciers grew during the Little Ice Age:
The recent expedition to salvage the wreck of Shackleton’s boat was forced back by the ice and had to abandon their quest – along with a rather expensive underwater craft.
Bangladesh is mostly comprised of a river delta in which regular flooding and shifting of soil etc. has always been a common phenomenon. (Which is why the item about St Claire was also a crock.
I am afraid that it is you who are subject to the ‘arrant nonsense’ of the group-think that is global warming.
An excellent and concise rebuttal Paul. Keep up the good work.
+1
I’ll second that. An amazing response in such a short period of time. Well done Paul – keep it up.
Reblogged this on Abacus and commented:
An excellent and concise rebuttal of BBC propaganda.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Reblogged this on Roald J. Larsen.
Quite simply, this must be the single worst programme about science (and we were told beforehand that the science of climate change would be explained) ever put together by the BBC. At its best it was biased and deliberately deceptive. At its worst at least some of the presenters were lying through their teeth. I simply don’t believe that these people believed some of the garbage they were coming out with.
This should go down as an inexcusable and deeply shameful episode in the BBC’s history.
My first thought was why was there no mention of the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period.
My second thought was that everybody interviewed was in support of the climate change scam except that they showed a very brief clip of Lord Lawson to prove that only old Conservative ex-politicians were against the scientific consensus.
My third thought was that the programme should have been called “Climate Change – The Propaganda”.
A great dismissal of the Beeb’ s shameless propaganda Paul. I saw it was on, but couldn’t face listening to Attenborough spouting complete nonsense – again – he should know better after doing wildlife programmes since the 1950’s. He’s probably senile now and the Beeb are exploiting this.
Not many facts.
I noticed at one stage, when talking about climate models, Mike Berners-Lee said that the “models differ slightly” on when we will go beyond 1.5 degrees if warming.
Actually that is highly misleading. In fact the models differ hugely, so much so that they have to average the results. Of the 31 models in RCP 2.6, some say we were already above 1,5 degrees in the early 2000’s and some never go above 1.5 degrees by 2050.
If the models are so good, why do they need to average out the differences between them.
There should only be one model.
It is as if NASA used 31 different models and average them to predict where space probes would go.
There is one good model that happens to be the one the Russians have. What a turnaround that the former heart of the Soviet Union is now more honest than the west on climate.
Apparently so. Do you have a collection of authoritative links?
I am not sure which model you are talking about.
Could you be more specific?
More facts
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/16/theend/
When some media commentators were doubting the wisdom of the Extension Rebellion mob promenading when the politicians were on recess perhaps the mob knew that there was greater audience looking at Attenborough last night and thinking ‘these brave protestors are on to something’ – too much of a coincidence or some deep state conspiracy – they (WWF, BBC and loony granny warrior) all belong to the same tribe – as they are smearing live yoghurt onto Heathrow this morning they will be thinking, we’re not that stupid
The sad aspect of this travesty is that the BBC has now trashed the reputation of lovable domestic hero Sir David Attenborough . It will not be forgotten
He seems to be a very willing participant and I am sure was richly rewarded for it.
It’s his own fault. Repeated at Netflix too with the walrus fiasco – walrusgate’ according to Delingpole.
You mean that lovable eugenicist who said human beings were a plague on the Earth?
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sorry-sir-david-attenborough-this-isn-t-the-way-to-tackle-over-population-8824385.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html
You mean the lovable eugenicist that said humans were a plague on the Earth?
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sorry-sir-david-attenborough-this-isn-t-the-way-to-tackle-over-population-8824385.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html
Sorry, a duplicate posting!
What reputation? The senile old duffer shredded any reputation he had years ago.
I think he’s done that himself.
Whomsoever commissions the programmes, direct, produce, write the scripts are the real culprits – and should be the targets of criticism. Instead of having an easy ride in Attenborough’s long shadow. He is just the messenger.
There is an old saying “Don’t shoot the messenger”. In this case the messenger is complicit.
Attenborough could have said “no”, but he didn’t.
One thing that most people don’t notice and which makes this propaganda, is the use of manipulative music to tell the viewer how to think about what they are watching.
Music is carefully chosen to match each sequence.
Sad, joyful, uplifting, ominous. I presume those making documentaries are trained in this technique these days but it is very insidious.
We are so used to being manipulated in this way that we hardy notice any more.
Watch the documentary again and really listen to the music.
I now notice the music after I started laughing out loud at my first view of the northern lights. On being asked what was funny, I replied “where’s the music?”. I’d realised that I’d only ever seen it on the telly, and always with background music.
SimonJ
It’s correct, much thought goes into propaganda, including the chosen music. The eco movement, or anti capitalist movement has been growing steadily since the 1960’s. Paul Erlich – still a Stanford University professor- made many doom and gloom predictions about climate change, crop yeilds and population growth. Not one of his predictions came true, but it didn’t stop him or his sheeple followers. Eco warriors are completely happy to tell the biggest whoppers to try and convert people to their cause. In the West we democratically oppose communism through the ballot box, so these communists try to gain influence in other ways. Protests against planes and transport, even though they practically all travelled on some form of fossil fuelled transport to London, and of course Emma Thompson flies 5400 miles to join them! They want us to take them seriously, but of course, we cannot. We can only pity their feeble mindedness and hypocrisy whilst contemplating what makes them so gullible.
Yes, it’s straight out of The Trueman Show, which was fiction after all, but this mawkish and maudlin accompanying music has become ludicrous. I’ve started to carry a tiny violin at all times so I can join in immediately I sense people’s feelings being manipulated. Grrrrr
A piece of production music I wrote and produced was used in a trash-science ‘extreme weather’ propaganda documentary on channel 4 last month. Unfortunately I have no say in how it’s used, but I’m making sure I donate every penny I receive from it to this blog and Peter Ridd’s appeal (if there is one).
J Burns – Well done!
The cast of the programme reminded me of the phrase “the usual suspects” but where was Bob Ward? Of course as usual with such propaganda the attribution issue was simply stated with proof only inferred. As Phillip B has pointed out no awkward questions were discussed about past warm or cold periods and their attribution. It is of course sad that in his old age David Attenborough has been so influenced by those with decarbonisation and other agendas and has clearly not read anything by those scientists offering alternate explanations. I wonder if David A ever considers the justification that the BBC had for banning David Bellamy because of his different views concerning global warming or (human caused) climate change as it is now called?
“… bats dying from heat in Australia …”.
An account by Lieutenant General Watkin Tench a British marine officer describing his experiences in the First Fleet and comments on the Sydney climate in 1790:
“… at Rose Hill, it [the heat] was allowed, by every person, to surpass all that they had before felt, either there or in any other part of the world. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain its precise height. It must, however, have been intense, from the effects it produced. An immense flight of bats driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did the ‘perroquettes’, though tropical birds, bear it better. The ground was strewn with them in the same condition as the bats …”.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00084.html#17
Meanwhile the scams ( biomass , wind turbines etc ) grow apace and the price of electricity continues to grow . The useful idiots of Cimate Extinction are allowed to mess up the daily lives of tens of 1000s and gather the media coverage they really do not deserve .
Bellamy was banned disgracefully by the BBC , has Ridley been banned too ?
I maintain that this whole boondoggle / nonsense will only be reversed when people finally realise they are the victims of a giant scam / hoax . I have been described in our local press in the North of Scotland as a flat earther for questioning the accepted views of the alarmists I hope the tide turns before the lights all go out .
As Richard Feynman said “I would rather have questions that can’t answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
Great find. Good ol’ Watkin Tench
Just read one of your articles for the first time Paul. I have many questions but my main one is ‘what is your point?’. You spend this whole blog refuting nearly every point in last night’s programme. I can’t say whether you’re right or not, I’d have to do my own research into each of your assertions. But what is your point? I notice you make no recommendation or guidance on what to do with this information. Are you saying we need not take any care on how we treat our planet because it’s not really in any trouble? Are you against renewable forms of energy? Or do you simply think it’s important to take such a programme and expose inaccuracies? What is the point of your blog?
What is the point?
Getting to the truth of the matter.
If someone tells us they are going to use OUR tax money for their GreenDream plans which cost us in terms of money and loss of freedoms
.. then we are allowed to ask whether their GreenDreams are based on robust evidence.
CFL. This blog’s articles and comments has been running for many years. I suggest you read through many of the past articles to find the answers to your questions, which have been answered many times over the years. Also read books and lectures on the subject to get up to speed on the background. Prof Ian Plimer and Prof Bob Carter are good to start with. Because we care for the planet we’d rather money was spent cleaning up real pollution rather than spent on falsely demonising plant food or playing with computer models that cant work. We support renewable energy when cost effective, but reject enormous subsidys for non efficient systems which means we dont spend on reliable energy. We reject replacing clean coal with dirty deforestation as they have at Drax. Only by exposing the fake claims that CO2 is warming the planet (CO2 was 8 times higher in the Jurassic ice age. History, physics, chemistry and geology all show CO2 does not warm the planet in any significant way) will we bring a rational approach to caring for the planet as opposed to the irrational destruction of life advocated by Attenboroughs catalogue of lies.
The point, CFL, is to expose the cod science on which this entire anti-capitalist farrago is based – and Paul does an extremely good job at it. Unfortunately, the sainted Christopher Booker has had to sheath his pen but he did the same job for many years.
It is sad to think that if these Climate Activists (terrorists?) have their way they will find themselves, in years to come, unable to use their favoured means of communication. Or indeed see where they are unless they have a candle!
The appalling aspect is that they are the ones ultimately responsible for the indoctrination of the young who are not given the full facts, even if they could comprehend them if they were.
I would like to think that you would accept that this forum is an attempt (no government funding) to correct all the false science and misconceptions. Only by a fully-reasoned, and scientifically-based discussion can the truth be arrived at. Unfortunately, precious little of that is evident in the programme under discussion.
HaHaHa. You are the ‘Helen’ from the DT comments pages. You argue the toss about AGW and then say, you really don’t know enough to argue the case and claim innocence. Classic Alinsky: destabilise the argument with ignorance. OK. You win, Your ignorance is just too profound. As is your stupidity.
CFL: “Are you saying we need not take any care on how we treat our planet because it’s not really in any trouble?”
Isn’t that the point CFL. Questions should be thoroughly tested in a form of due diligence. A good way is to gather evidence and allow its interpretation to be contested in a fair and open debate. That’s what you see here.
We don’t get to the facts by frightening the lives out of the children, and then having the BBC broadcast a polemic with frightened children telling us they fear for the future.
The BBC’s lack of ethical standards and credentials as a purveyor if ‘fake’ news are illustrated brightly in this ridiculous program. To even give one second of air time to Michael Mann, he of the roundly discredited and deceitful ‘Hockey Stick’ graph, and as evidence has shown, a proven serial liar, is reprehensible. But to then use Attenborough in this way is sickening.
Attenborough was a nationally treasured icon, but now become a laughing stock as he has allowed himself to be manipulated in this way. Obviously intelligence and integrity suffers with age. I hope we can appreciate that as a fact in his case and remember his good times.
“Attenborough was a nationally treasured icon, but now become a laughing stock as he has allowed himself to be manipulated in this way.”
This view seems to be wishful thinking. Attenborough is still a national treasure and so is highly respected and believed. If you think his recent and more strident programmes will cause more people to become sceptical, think again. Read the newspaper reviews, those programmes will convert many to believe in CAGW, and even more to believe they need to do something. Oh those poor fruit bats!!!
If you think he’s senile and being manipulated, think again. He is showing every sign of being fully committed and coming out from any constraints he might have previously thought himself bound by. Why the change now? That to me is the more interesting question. The more significant problem is how much damage he is causing to a rational evaluation of climate change and what,if anything needs to be done about it.
Poor old Hindenburg, captured by shaman and anti-capitalists to do their nefarious work. All the more shaming as there is no available refutation, no other story presented; like being in some sort if tyranny that can only survive through censorship.
A sad end to the life of a man who gave insight, instruction and took us from the mundane to the exotic, showed us the world that we ourselves would never be able to see, while he himself was cosseted in being able to have the time, the indulgence to do it.
In this programme all the wiles of the dramatist are in full play. Like Hardy and Shakespeare, things set on a presumed destructive path are doomed and beyond redemption. The hopelessness and despair in the narration seeming like a prologue to a classic stage tragedy. The building of tension only released by a crafted conclusion, I die, I die. This is not the story of mankind the life form that endures in every extreme of the planet’s environments gladly and in doing so derives laudable differences in culture, evolution. Man is indifferent to what is now suggested to be extraordinary as so many have fashioned a happy and involved life around such scenarios, thrived.
This must be a metropolitan mind-set cosy for too long and perhaps seeing its own imperiousness challenged and in the doing is saying if I cannot have it then neither are you. As our great cities clog and decay the spleen and selfishness of these people surfaces like plastic throw away. It is not nature turning-turtle but the outcome of their conspicuous self-indulgence and smugness, their introversion, that comes to haunt them.
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
Commiserations to anyone who managed to hold their noses and watch this attempt to brainwash the public into believing the UN-manufactured climate scare.
Thank you Paul for watching it on my behalf and dissecting it so well. I simply cannot listen to anything Attenborough and his badly fitting teeth have to say.
“This first part of the programme focuses on the effects so far of climate change. In Part II, I will look at what the future holds and what Attenborough tells us we can do about it.”
Is there a part II?
I can’t find anything in the EPG and there is no reference to it in the information provided for the programme.
No, sorry, it’s my Part II
(Now posted)
The trailer showed crashing iceberg calving, implying this was global warming in action. My wife wouldn’t let me watch the programme, she doesn’t want to buy a new telly.
Haha, I couldn’t watch it either, I can’t afford a new TV!
Our wives must have similar fears. I wasn’t allowed to watch it for fear of “shock and awe” to our TV.
I couldn’t watch it. Worse the Dr. Who when I was a kid.
Ben Pile live tweeted it in about 40 tweets
Just click the tweet text and the thread will open in a separate tab
Part 1
Part 2
Well I’ve clicked and the thread shows a seemingly endless number of hysterical tweets from the usual suspects, WWF, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Ward, Monbiot, Lucas and so on. They clearly regard Attenborough’s programme as a really important event that may be a tipping point in favour of their cause. I am sure the sceptical tweets are there but too far down for me to find them.
What’s interesting is the large number of blatantly partisan tweets from the BBC itself. More ammunition for Paul I hope.
The palm oil sequence got me (helped along by the orang utang)- in the list of things that palm oil is used for- crisps, chocolate etc, bio fuel didn’t get a mention, for obvious reasons.
Yes, the palm oil/deforestation issue is a major problem.
It’s hard to know what can be done at an individual level.
Deforestation need to be stopped right now, but its an environmental issue, not a “climate change” one.
Unfortunately the protesters have conflated these issues.
Ironic isn’t it that bio-diesel and bio-petrol are less efficient than the real stuff as well as being bad for the environment.
BAT HEAT DEATHS – I posted this on Bishop Hill, including a research paper link.
Key points:
Flying foxes are a pest and were shot by the thousand.
There are numerous instances recorded of them dropping dead from heat, and undoubtedly many not seen/unrecorded.
Since about 2000, the biggest cause of mass mortality events in all bats is wind turbines.
“…the district was being ravaged with terrible bush fires. On the 11th and 12th February, 1791, the thermometer in the shade exceeded 107. Flying foxes and birds fell in myriads from the trees into the Rosehill fresh water stream and created great stenches besides rendering the water un-wholesome.”
From a local newspaper recounting the event 100 years later.
“An immense flight of bats driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere”
“immense numbers of the large fox bat were seen hanging at the boughs of trees, and dropping into the water…during the excessive heat many dropped dead while on the wing”
Tench (1793), Collins (1798) Sydney NSW Summer 1790-1791
MME (Mass Mortality Events) also from heat in 1905, 1913, 1926/7
They also die from cold and wet and just about every other twist of weather.
Largest cause of MME globally since c.2000 are wind turbines.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5942905/ see appendix S3 for above heat deaths.
They used to be considered a pest and killed deliberately!
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA9YX48HTY8KV7FCXDU6KSSM1YQ-FLYING-FOXES-IN-AUSTRALIA
BBC News now has a ‘climate bot’ to keep the propaganda flowing…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47897342
Brilliant work Paul, well done. Here’s the thing though, since the BBC has a virtual monopoly on everything broadcast whatever we say won’t inform the public at large. You need your own channel.
I couldn’t watch the programme, I knew it was going to be a load of trash, just like Gore’s movies. The danger is though that the BBC will sell or even give it away to schools to aid the brainwashing of our children.
There is no agreement on what the climate sensitivity is for increasing levels of CO2 so what is the point the BBC are trying to make?
Quentin Vole said
We’ve found a zero-carbon source of energy
…… wire a dynamo to Lord Reith’s grave.
Josh carty
I’m waiting fof the news reports from Glastonbury, showing the pristine state of the site when all the luvvies have gone home – not a welly or plastic bottle in sight. I’ll also be looking out for the flying pigs.
The frustrating thing for me is that our “leaders” are so committed that they’d have no authority to tackle the extremists even if they wanted to.
I read that Corbyn won’t be invited back to the leftie love in – something to do with his jew-hating being even too toxic for them. However, they are thinking of inviting Occasional-Cortex from the States to spout her ignorant drivel to the doped-out hoard.
Well done on getting your riposte out so quickly, Paul. I took notes as the programme developed, and your posting of it plus relevant graphs will be very helpful. It was as I expected done in the style of Al Gore’s film. I don’t think I heard the role of water vapour mentioned at all (perhaps it was and I missed it as I scribbled furiously?), but of course the CO2 ‘blanket’ was trundled out as usual.
Thankfully, I didn’t hear the word ‘denier’ mentioned!
Excellent reply Paul as usual
I raise my hat and drink a toast to Paul and those of you who watched this lying crap. I really couldn’t have spoilt my Thursday evening watching it so I was watching Car SOS. Being organised and clued up, I suspect Paul could have written his rebuttal days ago given that the various topics for the endless lies were what most of us would have expected. Weather extremes, rain, floods, fires, coral, etc. Seems like the only one missing is ocean ‘acidification’ unless that was rolled out in the reef bleaching fable.
Mentioning the good Dr Ridd, as you would probably expect, JCU have no shame and seem likely to take the case to appeal. It will mean another round of fund-raising for legal costs. What a shame that we have nobody on our side who could step forward and fund his defence of freedom of speech. There is a chance that news could break through JCU’s bubble to show them what damage they are doing to themselves and back down.
BBCnews just started phase2
A call to arms? So it was actually an hour long PPB for XR, and co-ordinated with them?
The title of the programme contains a misprint. It should read:
Climate – Change the Facts
After all, AFAIK their interviewees are all guilty of that.
The propagandist role played by David Attenborough could well play a part in causing a global holocaust which will make Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot look like hopeless amateurs. 2035 carbon neutrality would result in billions of premature deaths through famine, cold and war.
The bats in Queensland died near the coast (Cairns, Ingham, Townsville). On the days that they died, heat records were smashed- 42°C two days in a row in November in Cairns, the hottest November days ever. The Queensland maximum you cite occurred in Birdsville, more than 1,700km away – not a comparable climate at all. Such carelessness.
It’s called weather
An account from 230 years of a similar thing happening
Liz, what relevance are ‘smashed records’ in such a short time period – the BoM ignores all data before 1910 and adjusts the raw data anyway. First ACORN1 which was supposed to be perfection, but then they just wheeled out ACORN2. This means that when and where records were set has changed! In the latest version the adjustments for Darwin turned a century of marginal cooling into up to 1.2C of warming.
Here are hottest days in Cairns Airport since 1945, downtown prior, by year, 1923 was the hottest 43C. 2018 recorded 39C.
The following years were 40C or above.
1995, 1994, 1967, 1935, 1924, 1923, 1915.
https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/Australia/QLD/Cairns/extreme-annual-cairns-high-temperature.php
Townsville Airport 2018 hottest day was 38C. Years over 40C (only has data back to 1941).
1995, 1994, 1977, 1971.
https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/Australia/QLD/Townsville/extreme-annual-townsville-high-temperature.php
This does not support your claim of 42C in 2018, that’s not to say some thermometer didn’t record that, but these consistent stations in the same area are a reliable inter-year comparison if your are looking for significant evidence of warming (none).
Townsville 1994 – Reported ambient >44º C resulted in deaths of more than 1,000 bats, which tends to corroborate the above. As does several other multiple heat/drought reported bat deaths in the early 20th Century in Queensland, also corroborating the heat records above in 1923 etc.
BTW – You do realise that the temperature at Cairns was set next to the runway at the airport there?
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=30025034&tab=LOCATIONS
The missing image ..Cairns Airport overview
https://twitter.com/Highflyermel/status/720491844442976258
Isle de Jean Charles
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/isle-de-jean-charles-an-island-disappears-a-1202569.html
How can it be claimed that they are climate refugees? It’s ludicrous. It’s a number of factors.
The article claims sea level rise of 1cm a year, but (an average) 9mm to 12mm (max) of that is the delta sinking according to the latest research.
It’s dishonest for DA to cite this incident in his program. Even if actual sea level rise here could be proven to be caused by CO2 emissions, it’s still a largely irrelevant factor.
The area is a load of islands in swamp/bayou in a sinking river delta, this would obviously be happening regardless of CO2 emissions (although maybe not as bad if oil companies hadn’t modified the area, but that’s not the point at debate). Deltas constantly remodel themselves through erosion and deposition naturally.
“…At one point, the interviewee even says “we have got to do something”.
Do something? “Act now!” Scaring people with propaganda, especially children, does nothing to the climate. Neither will eliminating carbon. Nor will attempting to geoengineer our way out by mitigating CO2 technologically.
The GlobalCCS Institute estimates in their 2018 report: “….there are not nearly enough facilities coming onstream. To reach the Paris 2 ̊C target, more than 2,500 facilities need to be operating by 2040 (based on a facility with capture capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of carbon dioxide (CO2).”
The arithmetic works out to 3,750 Mtpa, the equivalent of only one-half of one PPMV of oxidized carbon every year… in 20 years? The very best “we” might do would be to store enough CO2 to bring us back to the climate and the weather of 2015 when CO2 was only 400 ppmv. That is only 10 ppmv…. but a huge 78 BILLION tonnes of CO2. By 2040 it will be a lot more. And the cost, per ton?
Yes..do something. Stop the climate scam!
Attenborough shows this graph of global temperature trends, (though omitting satellite temperature measurements which show no increase since 1998). But he fails to explain why temperatures rose sharply in the early 20thC, long before CO2 emissions began to rise significantly.
This is meant to be a factual rebuttal, right? The trend in the satellite data post 1998 is indistinguishable from that before, and showing the satellite data alongside HADCRUT would have made little difference to the message…
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/offset:-0.2
In any event, daily temperature extremes are not increasing, in the UK at least. The hottest day in CET was 33.2C, set in 1976, and equalled in 1990. No day last summer got anywhere near that.
Breathtaking cherry pick there! CET is a subset of the temperature record, using just three stations. In fact according to the Met Office, 2018 was the hottest summer in England and tied for the UK as a whole.
Proper forestry experts, which Michael Mann most definitely is not, consistently maintain that the real reason for the severity of recent fires in California is the build up of undergrowth, dead trees, thickets of small trees, and overcrowded forests generally, all of which act as fuel. This is the result of decades of fire suppression after the war, not climate change.
Nope. The US National Climate Assessment was clear on this, area burned and suppression costs have risen fourfold over thirty years and ‘a warm, dry climate has increased the area burned across the Nation’.
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/
See also https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/42/11770.full.pdf
Finally Attenborough gets onto corals, and makes this astonishing statement:
“In the last three years, repeated heat stress has caused a third of the world’s corals to first bleach, and then die”
There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I have not even seen that claimed about the Great Barrier Reef.
Try this: It is now confirmed that about 29% of shallow water corals died from bleaching during 2016, up from the previous estimate of 22%, with most mortality occurring in the northern parts of the reef.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/29/coral-bleaching-on-great-barrier-reef-worse-than-expected-surveys-show
See also https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21707
Change the facts – indeed.
1)Satellites? Try UAH
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/uah6
2) The CET shows daily extremes, as opposed to summer averages, which I’m glad you accept are no hotter than 1976.Indeed on CET it was not even as hot as 1826 for the summer as a whole!
Daily temperatures are a much better indicator of extremes, and CET data clearly shows they are less extreme last year than 1976 or 1990.
3) Fires – why go back 30 yrs – my graph gives that data back to 1926, and clearly shows a decline. 30 yrs ago, fires were much less severe because of fire suppression, which has now resulted in that build up of undergrowth.
As for “drier climate” what planet are you on? The US is much wetter than it was prior to 1970.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series/110/pcp/12/12/1895-2019?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000
4) Corals – instead of believing the Guardian, try reading what the scientists themselves say:
https://www.thegwpf.com/coral-reefs-can-take-the-heat-unlike-experts-crying-wolf/
In any event, daily temperature extremes are not increasing, in the UK at least. The hottest day in CET was 33.2C, set in 1976, and equalled in 1990. No day last summer got anywhere near that
26 July 2018, Faversham – 35.3 °C.
23 July 2018 Santon Downham – 33.3 °C
27 July 2018 Felsham – 35.6 °C
See what happens when you limit yourself to 3 stations?
So now you’re comparing apples and oranges!
And what were the daily temperatures at those in 1975/76/90 etc? I’ll give you a clue – Faversham did not start recording until 1998
Very clever
In the meantime, tell me which other database of daily temperatures is published by the Met Office, other than CET.
If you are going to make long term comparisons, you need to stick to a single consistent source of data, not chop and change
{SNIP}
[I’m not going to get into a round the houses debate on things that have been posted on and discussed previously, and have no bearing on this post – Paul]
Phil, it’s too much work refuting everything, but some points:-
Of course it is important to point out that the temperature record starts at a low point and explain similar rises blamed on CO2 to those that occurred naturally – and that natural factors did not cease influence in 1950!
The CET is the only vaguely scientifically valid thing to look at – and it’s far from perfect. The ‘hottest summer in England/tied UK’ boast is not reliable, it’s a jumble of ever changing often poorly sited not UHI corrected stations, jumbled up in an opaque method by the MET – it’s for headlines, not serious climatology. Why do the hottest days appear at the same stations over and over again? Kew gardens, Heathrow etc. Tony Heller’s efforts on the USA data also show heat is certainly not at record levels/running away there.
The US National Climate Assessment – you seriously think that is a neutral and not a political report? The reasons for the recent terrible California fires have become clear – lack of fuel clearance (now being done urgently) and decrepit electricity infrastructure (PG&E being sued). And if you search Pathe news you’ll find these massive fires and floods are nothing new.
As for the satellite temperature record and coral bleaching – the link for both to the natural El Nino event is obvious – this has nothing to do with CO2 global warming. El Nino events cause bleaching, that’s well known, and that’s what’s happened recently.
Whereas the manipulated surface data has been made to appear to correlate to increasing CO2, the UAH data shows a step-change response with El Ninos. At some point La Ninas will presumably dominate again, and then we might learn something interesting.
There is ample evidence that the amount of coral damaged has been exaggerated through poor methodology and deliberate deception of words – giving % of subsets and % of % of degrees – it’s all intended to deceive. Tourist divers have gone out after the scientists and reported back that supposed total loss was fine with just a few bad areas.
The latest research papers (you can google as well as me) also show that extensive coral bleaching was likely common in the past throughout the 1800s etc. Also that it is far more resilient and recovers far quicker than thought. It was only the 1980s when we discovered how coral reproduced wasn’t it? And was it not the crown of thorns that was responsible for ALL the destruction before climate change was ‘invented’?
Ah Phil, yes I forgot to add Faversham etc. to the dodgy list!
Even if it wasn’t known to be dodgy, what would that Faversham thermometer have said in exactly the same conditions in 1976 that existed when it registered 35C? Of course it’s impossible to answer. It’s just a random single point temperature with no climate significance.
An effort has been made with the CET data to keep it consistent throughout the years – free from influence of other factors like instrument changes, method/housing changes, landscape changes, jet exhaust, traffic, air conditioning outlets etc., over a reasonably sized area of land, so that it may be of some scientific use.
Pauls piece was summarised here
https://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-change-the-facts-bbc-biggest-lie/
Looks like I lost my bet.
I had $1 Canadian riding on walruses falling from the cliffs being featured.
I should have gone with bats falling from the skies…
Thanks for this summary Paul.
Nice rebuttal. I’m sick and tired of climate change nonsense being used to frighten the public (usually to raise taxes for co2 emissions). Anyone not agreeing with ‘the facts’ is deemed a climate change denier. Scientists lose jobs and funding because they speak out against this unfounded tripe so extinguishing any chance of reasoned research for hysteria and lies. Seriously disappointed by the BBC propaganda but not at all surprised at their approach.
Seems inevitable that wildfires would become less when the wild burned up a few years earlier though.
It’s like saying no ice will melt eventually when there’s no ice to melt. But the show does promote propaganda so I’m not going to say it’s wrong pointing this out. However of all we do is pointing out flaws it’ll end with no one ever doing anything which personally I don’t care much about since the people with the problem will be after my own demise
As we’re all animals perhaps he (Attenborough) can explain why the most vulnerable in our society – pensioners – feel the need to go and move to warmer climates like Spain, etc. (where they can’t adapt).
Pray, what is Mr Homewood’s credentials? What makes him an expert in this field?
What is his explanation for the fact that there has been an unprecedented increase in the loss of animal, insect and plant species every day?
Is he familiar with the term Anthropocene?
Does he understand that the parts per million of carbon in the air has grown from 270 ppm before the Industrial Revolution to 410 ppm at present? Does he understand that there is a link between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming of the planet?
In other words, does he understand that the emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels are placing us all in danger?
Is he a shill for the fossil fuel industry?
Well, I am still waiting for my cheque from ESSO!
Species loss? If you had been following this blog, you would would realise that nearly all such losses are due to habitat loss, intensive farming, urbanisation etc etc. There is virtually no real evidence that a slightly warmer climate (back to normal Holocene conditions) has had the slightest effect whatsoever.
Credentials? All I do is present the facts. Or maybe you don’t believe the IPCC.
CO2? then please explain the LIA.
“What is his explanation for the fact that there has been an unprecedented increase in the loss of animal, insect and plant species every day?”
What is your explanation – climate change?
If so, where is your evidence?
Marie, Anthropocene is a political declaration – not reality, the International Commission on Stratigraphy rejected it.
410 ppm is low – dangerously low for sustaining life on earth. Even 820 ppm presents no risk. The atmosphere is a complex self-regulating system. The theory depends on theoretical feedbacks for dangerous warming, not the CO2 itself. But obviously warming doesn’t go haywire because of a tiny increase in one weak trace ‘greenhouse’ gas – we wouldn’t be here if it did. CO2 may produce slight warming, but it will not be distinguishable from natural variation, and it will be net beneficial.
A non-falsifiable theory is not credible. Every weather event proves it – hot or cold, wet or dry? Much empirical evidence refutes the theory of dangerous AGW. All predictions have failed – clearly indicating the theory is wrong.
There’s no widespread credible evidence of species extinction linked to CO2. Overwhelmingly it is REAL environmental issues that are at play. e.g. It is hunting controls that have determined populations of Polar Bears, Walruses or any other AGW icon you could mention.
There is no danger from CO2 except in your delusions.
Can you really not do better than the big oil funded denial slur? Pathetic.
Declaring that only ‘qualified’ people can contribute to the debate is a sure sign of fraud.
But two can play. What are your qualifications? The qualifications of David Attenborough, Al Gore, Leonardo Dicaprio, Extinction Rebellion leaders?
yes there is a link between CO2 levels and temperature. . But not the way you think. Global temperatures change due, for example, to changes in solar activity and then some time later CO2 levels change. There is a time lag in the graphs that shows CO2 follows Temperature
Marie Luyt: You might to read this, lest you place too much faith in the dangerous man-made global warming scaremongers:
Here’s how the ‘97% of scientists agree that humans are responsible for global warming’ was derived.
In January 2009, Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman of the University of Illinois at Chicago published a research paper entitled ‘Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’. This can be accessed via the internet.
Check what follows for yourself.
Comments in quotation marks are verbatim from the paper.
Survey questionnaires were sent to ‘10,257 Earth scientists’.
The paper explains that ‘This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey’.
These were:
1)‘When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained generally constant?’
2)‘Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?’
The survey was ‘designed to take less than 2 mins to complete’ and was administered online.
Firstly, note that of the 10,257 to whom the questionnaire was sent, only 3,146 individuals bothered to complete and return the survey – i.e. just short of 31%.
‘Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists’ – as opposed to for example oceanographers and palaeontologists. That’s 157 individuals out of the 3,146.
Of these 157, 79 scientists had published more than 50% of their recent research papers on the subject, and so were deemed by the authors to be ‘the most specialised and knowledgeable respondents’.
In other words, of the total of 10,257 considered knowledgeable enough to have their opinion sought at the outset of the study, only 79 individuals were by now considered to the most knowledgeable!
Of these 79, 76 (96.2%) answered ‘risen’ to question 1, and – wait for it – 75 out of 77 (97.4%) answered ‘yes’ to question 2.
So there we are – job done – 97.4% of scientists agree that humans are warming the planet significantly – or do they?
Let’s see now: 75 out of the 10,257 polled. I make that 0.73%.
How this ‘study’ ever got into print I can’t imagine.
Marie: A further point occurs to me. The global warming scare has all kinds of stories put forward as truth, and which cover many different scientific disciplines. – and this is where the propaganda falls apart, because there are specialists who spot the tall stories very quickly. You don’t have to be a climate scientist (whatever that means, exactly) to be aware of flaws and misrepresentations. As an example, Al Gore claims in his book that global warming will drive malaria northwards – yet the disease has always been present as far as the Arctic Circle. Have a look at Professor Paul Reiter’s rebuttal of Gore’s claim on the internet.
Then we have the ocean acidification scam. The term ‘ocean acidification’ was first coined by Ken Caldeira and Michael E. Wickett in 2003. They maintain that any reduction in pH is ‘acidification.’ For example, if a solution of pH, say, reduces from 12.70 to 12.69, they maintain that this is ‘acidification’ – nonsense, since the solution remains alkaline. I worked for many years in medical laboratory science, and I’d never seen such terminology used to describe a small reduction in pH. The claim that we have ‘increased ocean acidity by 30%’ is based on a fraudulent and misleading fiddling of the way the pH scale works based on their definition of acidification. Additionally, ocean pH varies, and the oceans are buffered – but that’s rather lengthy to go into here. They’re alkaline, and remain so. Check for yourself, and do so with any of the scary stories. As Paul Homewood says elsewhere, the truth is what matters.
Marie. Please look at the graph at the head of this article – the graph of temperature used by the program. Please observe that in rough terms temperatures dropped from 1880 to 1910, rose from 1910 to 1940, stayed pretty much steady from 1940 to 1975 and the rose again from 1975.
Now consider the CO2 levels over the same period. From 1880 to 1960 there was a slow steady rise of around 30ppm after which there was a dramatic rise.
Do you see any correlation? No, neither do I
Do you see that the rate of rise between 1910 and 1940 and between 1975 and 2015 are similar. What explains that? Was it just the level of CO2? I find that difficult to believe, don’t you?
Other people justify some of these irregularities by the effects of atmospheric sulphates and other pollution, but that simply goes to show that CO2 is not the only driver of temperature change.
And finally if you are so worried about shills, please ask yourself how much money is being made by promoters of climate alarmism. Do you think Attenboorough did this as a pro bono, that Lord Deben is not profiting greatly, that Al Gore receives no income from his activism?
Having done that, can you then show any evidence whatsoever that Paul Homewood is receiving any undeclared income for his work other than what detractors have alleged on the internet.
No? Thought not.
For extreme temperatures, Canada is a far better example than the UK as it is (a) larger (b) much more extreme in average temperatures between summer and winter (c) due to being more partly in the Arctic has warmed much more in recent decades.
I have looked at the data, prompted by the Canada’s Climate Change Report 2019 published earlier this month.
I found that
– Extremely cold winters have warmed by more than the summers
– The most recent of the top 30 national hot temperature records was in 1962, 1.7°C below the all-time record of 45.0 °C set in 1937
– The most recent of the top 31 national cold temperature records was −49.8 °C on January 11, 2018, 13.2°C above the all-time record of -63.0 °C set in 1947.
– The top 31 national cold temperature records include 11 of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada.
Overall, the data suggests that climate is changing for the better in Canada.
As an ‘alleged’ public service broadcaster, funded by the British public, the BBC should be forced to present a balanced/contrary view in another program
How did corals survive the Holocene Optimum?
It seems to me that to deny climate change is man-made means to deny at least one of three things, which is it:
That a global mean temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius has not happened?
That the mean average temperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius but the rise in carbon dioxide emissions and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has absolutely nothing to do with it?
That a rise in the global mean average temperature of 1 degree Celsius does not affect the climate?
If you reply in the negative, that these things are true, then everything else is selective presentation of the facts and plain BS. And perhaps you should put aside your political biases and do sth about it.
I’m not sure what that has to do with David Attenborough telling lies?
Louis, it doesn’t matter one iota. CO2 levels were fourteen times higher than today during the Ordovician ice age and eight times higher during the Jurassic/ Suliman. Today’s bogus CO2 causation is based on Arrenhuis’s disproven 19th century CO2 theory. In summary ice ages had higher CO2, so CO2 is not the smoking gun, it’s just the tax raising hoax which has fooled the gullible: people like you.
It has everything to do with David Attenborough ‘telling lies’.
It’s quite evident you are distorting facts. You pick a fact, say, fewer wildfires in West Coast US vs early 20th century, then claim that disproves climate change. There could be any number of reasons why there has been a decrease/increase in the frequency of wildfires in the West Coast. But hotter summers would indisputably raise the baseline risk of a wildfire. Would it not? To deny this would be like one day claiming water doesn’t freeze at 0 degrees Celsius but -1 degree Celsius. It’s just nonsense.
As for the Medieval Warm Period – the extent/causes of this remains disputed and clearly there’s less data /clear historical evidence of the causes. By comparison, the body of data and evidence that shows the planet is warming and is warming because of man-made carbon emissions is growing every day. And if Attenborough says in his documentary the evidence is now beyond doubt I believe him. He is a scientist and has staked his reputation on it; don’t forget he also faced criticism for NOT coming out earlier on the issue of climate change.
Yet people believe what you’re saying, and give it a platform, such as The Spectator. Extraordinary. Then again, right-wing dogma (which on principle resists taxing fossil fuels) does reach the highest echelons of this country. I’m no anti-capitalist, but I would have thought even the most strident right-wing ideologues can accept private enterprise cannot solve all the world’s problems.
Don’t be pathetic.
I have not claimed that “fewer wildfires” disproves climate change.
Do you think it acceptable for Attenborough to be telling a pack of outright lies?
He said the global average temperature increased 1 degree that was not a lie.
He said wildfires have increased – I believe that was not a lie depending on what time period you look at where you look at. And what time periods / regions are relevant here?
Also, how much less forest coverage is there for fuel for fires/ what about increased precipitation due to climate change. These were all mentioned in the documentary.
You continually cherry-pick data and misrepresent what was said. Climate change, similar to medicine, requires a holistic empirical analysis; look at the whole picture.
Just as the other poster commented, i cannot believe people like you are not on the payroll of oil companies; I’d bet Exxon given their growth plans.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/02/09/exxonmobil-gambles-on-growth
From a Royal Society paper in 2016 (already linked in my original post):
Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined. Global predictions for increased fire under a warming climate highlight the already urgent need for a more sustainable coexistence with fire. The data evaluation presented here aims to contribute to this by reducing misconceptions and facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2015.0345
What he said about storms, floods and droughts were also blatant lies, as they even contradict what the IPCC say.
I suggest you go away and check your facts before you make a bigger fool of yourself
Louis – accepting that CO2 causes warming & that the surface temps are 1C higher than a hundred years ago, there is still a large jump to catastrophe from there. How far apart do two towns have to be to have a 1C average difference in temps? One also has to prove that the medicine is not worse than the disease.
Louis Stroud: climate change is nothing new, and historically not man-made.
Questions such as ‘do you deny climate change?’ are meaningless. Have a look at this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnidejoch
Described in the above link is the uncovering of medieval artefacts in a pass which was open in medieval times, but became frozen over and covered by a glacier, which is now melting.
The question as to whether carbon dioxide is bringing about catastrophic changes in the world’s climate is the subject of debates such as take place on this website. You refer to ‘political biases’ and suggest that readers should ‘do something about it.’
Instead of throwing out vague generalities and references to ‘BS’, why not read through the points raised above in response to the Attenborough programme and offer some evidence-based comment on these? Have any of the commentators made comments you disagree with or consider incorrect? If so, why?
Louis,
You premise with a 1 degC rise in temps over the 20thcentury and the implication this is all caused by CO2 and therefore is anthropogenic. There are multiple arguments that show this is wrong. I’ll point out two here.
Firstly the rise of temperature of 1 degC refers to the whole 20th centry. The UN IPCC forcings show that the first half of the century warming cannot be anthropogenic in origin because the forcings in the climate models are too weak until the 1950’s. The IPCC themselves only refer to AGW being post 1950’s and even then only state 50%+ caused by man. Ie not 100%. The 1 degC claim in the Attenborough program is therefore incorrect.
The second line of evidence that warming in the first half of the 20th century is natural is trivial to demonstrate from the climate model results. If the mean CMIP5 model result is subtracted from the global temperature series HADCRUT4 the warming up to 1940 can still be seen in the residuls and is at least 0.35 degC. This clearly demonstrates the following:
(A) The warming to 1940 is natural not anthropogenic
(B) The climate models do not include all natural causes of temperature variation even though they claim to do so
If there are unexplained natural variations then it also implies a significant likelihood that the modellers are conflating natural and anthropogenic mechanisms in the latter half of the 20th century. I have a paper in preparation describing exactly this, with the possibility that the current temperature plateau is the same origin as the (former) cooling from the 1940’s through to the 1970’s.
Current temperature plateau? I don’t think so. Global mean temperatures in 2015 and 2016 were the highest in over a hundred years and have not plateaued.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2016
I believe he said temperatures have risen 1 degree Celsius, which they have. Given the strong evidence of AGW I don’t believe it was required to go into all other reasons which could or could not be partly behind increases, including how much ants burp and fart, after all, the focus of the documentary was AGW.
Brilliant! Avoid the main points of my argument and then use a strawman!
Global teperatures peaked 2016, during the current plateau in temperature, due to an El Nino event.
El Nino’s are entirely natural. They are also not predictable and certainly not by climate models. The natural el nino was what stopped the real temps from falling out of the bottom of the climate model 95% confidence interval! In other words, climate models were saved by a natural event they are unable to predict!
Meanwhile, all my previous points still stand and you are unable to refute them.
I’m sure you won’t publish my reply but I’m astonished by your arrogance in contradicting thousands of honourable scientists.
I don’t know if you are one of the many who have received cash or favours for denying climate change over the last 40 years, but it’s clearer every day that such people will have the blood of millions of us on their hands.
It’s a pity to miss out on your investigative posts but I now switch off my feed and stop following of your website. goodbye.
Bye
Name the thousands of ‘honourable’ scientists???
I make the current average global temperature for 2019 1.1 degrees above the 1861-1900 level (which I am taking as the pre-industrial period).
This compares with a rcp 2.6 mean prediction of 1.37 degrees.
In fact, 1.1 degrees was the predicted level for 2009, so you could say, the models are 10 years behind.
Does anyone know whether anyone else is monitoring these figures, because I would appreciate verification.
The cause of tropical cyclones is the solar wind, not so-called alleged “carbon pollution.”
Some of the (recent) scientific literature makes this plain:
P Prikryl, L Nikitima, V Rinsin: “Rapid intensification of tropical cyclones in the context of the solar-wind-magnetosphere-ionsphere-atmosphere coupling.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar Terrestrial Physics. 2018.
Prikryl et al, “Tropospheric weather influenced by solar wind through atmospheric vertical coupling downward control.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 2017
Prikryl et al. “A link between high-speed solar wind streams and explosive extratropical cyclones.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 2016
Somebody at the Beeb did not do a thorough literature search. Their problem.
Enjoy.
Whatever we do (1% of world population) it will make no difference producing only 2% of world emissions.
Pretty good account, thank you very much. There’s need for proofreading the text. And don’t say “then” when you mean “than”.