In 1998, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) released a list of 31,000 people with science degrees who had signed a petition rejecting the theory of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. This proves that the so-called ‘scientific consensus’ is actually no such thing. Fact: In 2006, Scientific American published a study which found that the list compiled the OISM contained flaws so glaring as to render it all but meaningless. In the first place, no verification was done by OISM to check that the names on the list were real, or that the people really had science degrees. [In fact, pranksters managed to get Charles Darwin, a member of the Spice Girls and characters from the movie Star Wars included on the list.]  Secondly, the journal contacted people on the list and found that a majority either no longer supported the petition, couldn’t remember signing it or were dead.  Thirdly, while 31,000 sounds like a lot of people, it is actually only about 0.3 percent of the total number in the US who gained a science degree over the previous 40 years.  Finally, and most importantly, only 39 of the 31,000 people on the list were actually working in climate science. The rest were working in fields unrelated to climate and could therefore be expected to have little real knowledge on the subject.  It should also be noted that the petition did not just declare climate change to be a myth, but also that “there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” In other words, it actively encouraged the use of fossil fuels, as does the OISM.

Climate activists claim that 97 percent of climate scientists accept that global warming is real and is caused by fossil fuel emissions. This so-called ‘consensus’ is just an invention of the media and has no basis in reality. Fact: The figure of 97 percent was always correct and has now reached 99.9 percent! Climate ‘scepticism’ is quite literally dead – in the scientific community at least. Two decades ago, a number of major studies generated the 97 percent figure. Two of the best known were done by academics at Princeton University and the University of Illinois. Peer-reviewed articles in respected climate science journals were reviewed to see if the authors supported the notion of anthropomorphic (human-induced) climate change. Those authors were also given the opportunity to reject the conclusions reached by the reviewers. The figure each of these studies came up with was 97 percent. By contrast, no studies were done suggesting anything different. In addition, it should be pointed out that not all of the 3 percent of scientists who indicated that they did not accept the consensus were deniers of anthropomorphic climate change. Many simply had not reached a conclusion.  Since the Princeton and Illinois studies were done, a lot has changed. All eight of the famous climate ‘sceptical’ scientists have now accepted the reality of climate change, after decades of claiming the opposite, and four of them have also accepted the role of CO2 and methane in causing the observed temperature increase. The others do not know what is causing it. So, the scientific consensus is much higher than 97 percent now. A 2021 study by Cornell University looked at 88,125 scientific papers published on the topic of climate change since 2012 and found that only 0.1 percent were sceptical of the notion that humans were causing global warming. In other words, the scientific consensus is now 99.9 percent! It is only non-scientists who are still sceptical about climate change.

How can a colourless, odourless gas like CO2 that only makes up 0.04 percent of the atmosphere (or 427 parts per million, as of 2026) have an effect on global temperatures?  Fact: This argument sounds plausible, however is it completely fallacious, as the quantity of a substance is not the only factor determining its impact. For example, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) make up just 1,190 parts per trillion of the atmosphere (or just over one part per billion), yet threatened to destroy the ozone layer (with extremely deleterious repercussions for life on Earth). Similarly, just 35 parts per billion of arsenic in drinking water is hazardous to health, and 800 parts per million of alcohol in the bloodstream is enough to render a person intoxicated. Finally, the painkiller ibuprofen works at just 3 parts per million. So, of course CO2 can have an impact at just 427 parts per million.

On January 8th, 2024, Arctic sea ice reached its highest level in 21 years. How can global warming be real if this is so? Fact: It’s true that Arctic sea ice did briefly reach a 21 year high on January 8th 2024, but unfortunately this was an anomaly, not a trend. Over the past 45 years sea ice cover has actually been in steady decline. In February 2024, it covered 14.61 million square kilometres of the Arctic – 4.6 percent less than the 1981-2010 average of 15.30 million square kilometres.  Of course, the real problem is not the level of sea ice in winter, but the level in summer. Studies suggest that even if greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced, the Arctic will be ice-free during September in just a few decades’ time. If they are not reduced, this could happen as early as the 2030s. In either case, it will be disastrous for the animals that make the region their home.  So no, Arctic ice cover is not on the rise. Claims to the contrary are just cherry picking. Shrinking Arctic sea ice, 1984-2012 [Source: PICRYL]

If the Earth was warming, why did the amount of sea ice in the Antarctic increase rather than decrease between 1979 and 2014?  Fact: It is true that Antarctic sea ice did increase by about 3.5 percent between 1979 and 2014, but it began shrinking again in 2015 and has now reached the lowest level ever recorded. [We don’t have figures for before 1979, as this was when satellite monitoring began.]  One reason for the rise in sea ice levels prior to 2014 is that the winds that blow off the continent increased, carrying more cold air out to sea, where ice forms. Another reason is that increasing meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheets led to an increase in ice formation, as fresh water freezes at a higher temperature (0°C) than salt water (-2°C). Finally, higher temperatures increased the amount of snowfall over both the continent and the surrounding oceans, thereby increasing sea ice cover. [This is because warmer air holds more moisture.]  The problem, however, is not the loss of sea ice in Antarctica but the loss of land ice. Between 2002 and 2025, that loss averaged 135 billion tonnes a year, causing sea levels to rise by 0.4 millimetres per year. The science suggests that the rate of loss is only going to increase as the Earth’s atmosphere heats up. [It takes approximately 360 billion tonnes of ice to produce one millimetre of global sea-level rise.]

Global warming cannot be real because some glaciers increasing in size. Fact: A few glaciers are advancing, but the vast majority of the world’s 200,000 glaciers are shrinking. The reason a few are expanding is that in a few places, warmer winter air can lead to more snowfall (as warmer air holds more moisture), thereby increasing the mass balance of glaciers. [The mass balance is the difference between the total gains and losses of ice over a year.] In most glaciers, the extra snowfall does not add to the glacier’s mass, as it melts quickly. Only in a few places does it get incorporated into the glacier. If global warming continues, however, this process will cease completely, and all glaciers will shrink. Non-polar glaciers are currently losing about 150 billion tonnes of ice each year. [This is more than the entire weight of Mount Everest.] To put that in perspective, it takes approximately 360 billion tonnes of ice to produce one millimetre of global sea-level rise. Frighteningly, in 2019 the Greenland ice sheet lost about 500 billion tonnes of ice. Loss of Greenland’s ice is the major cause of global sea level rise at present. If the entire ice sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise by 7.3 metres. Of course, it would take thousands of years for this to happen.] Shrinking glaciers in the US, 1952-2019 [Source: Our World in Data]

In 2010 there was a fall in global sea levels. How could this have happened if global warming were real? Fact: It’s true that sea levels fell marginally in 2010, but this was because very heavy rain fell over Australia and South America, transferring a significant amount of water from the oceans to these two land masses. It took two years for that water to fully drain back into the sea. Once that had happened, sea levels rose again, and have continued to rise ever since.

If climate change is real, why aren’t sea levels rising by much, and why aren’t those rises happening evenly across the globe?  Fact: Sea levels are not even across the globe. Factors like winds, currents, river discharges, and variations in temperature and gravity make sea levels different in different parts of the world. It’s the same with sea level rises. For example, Sydney harbour has only risen by about 10 cm in the last century – about half the global average of 21 cm since 1880 – but in other places, like Micronesia, the sea level has risen by more the global average.  Worryingly, sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. For the first seven decades of the 20th century, they rose at an average of 1.3 millimetres per year. However, between 2006 and 2018, they rose at 3.7 millimetres per year – an increase of 185 percent.  In fact, we are only in the early stages of sea level rise. Around 400,000 years ago, when global temperatures were about 2°C warmer than the average for the past 8,000 years, sea levels were 6-9 metres higher than they are today. At current rates of warming, we are headed for a rise of up to one metre by the end of the 21st century. Some scientists believe the eventual rise will be as much as 3 metres. [It should be noted that tides are not uniform across the globe either. In some places, there is barely any difference between high tide and low tide at certain times of the year. In other places, such as the Bay of Fundy in Canada, the difference is as much as 16 metres!] One city that is particularly threatened by sea level rise is New York, where levels have risen by 22 millimetres since 1950. The problem is being exacerbated by the fact that the city is sinking – at the rate of 1-2 millimetres a year, with some parts sinking at twice this rate. This is due to some of its skyscrapers having been built on sand and clay rather than solid rock. As a result, the city has faced two recent inundations – one in 2012 and the other in 2021 – when hurricanes caused whole areas to be flooded. These ‘once in a century’ events are now happening with alarming frequency. Other cities facing the threat of inundation include Miami, New Orleans, Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok, Lagos and Alexandria.  Global sea level rise, 1880-2020 [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Scientists came up with the term ‘climate change’ to cover for the fact that the world stopped warming in 1998. Fact: Climate sceptics have this completely the wrong way round. The term ‘climate change’ is actually much older than ‘global warming’ in the scientific literature. It dates back to the 1850s, and refers to “changes in a particular climate variable over a given area.” ‘Global warming’, by contrast, refers to changes in the Earth’s overall temperature. It is just one of various types of climate change. The term was first used in the 1960s but was popularised by Professor Wallace Broecker in a 1975 article in the journal Science.

Climate science is too new a discipline to be taken seriously. It only started in the 1970s. Fact: Climate science is not new at all. In fact, it’s been around for almost 200 years.  The French physicist Joseph Fourier, who developed the Law of Heat Conduction, first postulated the idea of a greenhouse effect in 1824, as a way of explaining why the Earth was not a ball of ice. Something in the atmosphere was trapping infrared radiation, but he did not know what. Another French physicist, Claude Pouillet, demonstrated that some infrared radiation was not returning to space. In 1838 he speculated that this might be because it was being trapped by CO2 and water vapour.  Then, in 1856 the American scientist Eunice Foote demonstrated that CO2 was responsible for trapping heat in the atmosphere. Six years later, the Irish physicist John Tyndall reached the same conclusion, adding that methane was also a greenhouse gas. In 1896, the Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius concluded that human activity was heating up the planet. Ten years later he calculated that a doubling of CO2 would result in a 4°C increase in global surface temperatures – a figure that is very close to modern day predictions. [Arrhenius won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903.] Finally, in the 1930s the English meteorologist Guy Stewart Callendar gathered global CO2 and temperature measurements from around the world over a 50-year period and demonstrated that both were rising, and that the likely cause of the latter was the increase in the former. His experiments suggested that at least half of the temperature rise to that point was attributable to human activity. This was the first time anyone had suggested that humans were causing global warming. Callendar calculated that a further temperature increase of 2°C might act as a ‘tipping point’ for increases that would be irreversible. [It was another 40 years before scientists had the instruments needed to prove Callendar right.] Hence, climate science is not a recent development. It has been a part of modern science for as long as Darwin’s theory of evolution and longer than Einstein’s theory of relativity. Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius [Source: PICRYL]