If global warming really were a problem, governments would be taking it more seriously. The fact that they are not suggests that there is nothing to worry about. Fact: This myth is based on the idea that governments always act rationally and in the best interests of society. Were that the case, the Second World War would never have happened, as the British and French governments would have recognised Hitler as a threat and put an end to his ambitions before they got out of hand. Instead, they believed what they wanted to believe, which was that the Hitler had only limited objectives and was not a threat to world peace. This was strange, given that he had never made a secret of his intentions. [They were published in Mein Kampf in 1925, fourteen years before the start of the war.] Another problem is that politicians often do realise that action is needed but would rather postpone it until a later time – preferably when they are no longer in office. A good analogy would be with smokers. Most know that cigarettes are bad for them, and that it would be better if they quit, but they cannot bring themselves to do it just yet. The benefits they gain now by continuing their habit are greater than the dangers they may face in the future. Besides, they tell themselves, that danger may never eventuate. After all, doesn’t everyone know someone who spent a lifetime smoking and lived into old age? And isn’t a cure for cancer just around the corner? Finally, it should be pointed out that in recent years, governments have been taking climate change more seriously and have begun introducing policies to combat it. This is particularly so in Europe, the United States and China.

Scientists are propagating the notions of climate change and global warming just to make money and become famous.  Fact: This myth is simply ridiculous. If anyone could prove definitively that global warming was not happening or was not a problem, he or she would become the most famous and decorated scientist since Einstein. Scientists become famous by overturning paradigms, not by reinforcing them. Besides, if you want to make a lot of money, you don’t go into science as a profession. 

The Earth’s atmosphere is becoming ‘carbon-saturated’, meaning that as the level of CO2 increases, its impact on global temperature will decrease. (In mathematics, this is known as the ‘logarithmic effect’.) As a result, we can happily go on emitting CO2 without causing significant increases in temperature.    Fact: This view has been propounded by two of the most famous sceptics in the scientific community – Professor William van Wijngaarden and Professor William Happer. They claim that a doubling of CO2 levels from 400 ppm to 800 ppm will only increase global temperatures by 1°C. [We are currently at 427 ppm, up from 270 ppm prior to the industrial revolution.] To get an additional 1°C warming, CO2 would have to increase to 1,600 ppm, according to Wijngaarden and Happer.  It would be nice to believe that the Earth has a built-in stabiliser to save us from catastrophic climate change. However, the science doesn’t bear that out. Although it is true that the warming impact of CO2 decreases as its prevalence in the atmosphere increases, this effect is nowhere near as strong as Wijngaarden and Happer claim. The main reason for this is that as the concentration of CO2 increases, there is a corresponding reduction in the capacity of the Earth’s carbon sinks (mainly its forests and oceans) to absorb CO2. This means that more of our emissions finish up in the atmosphere than would otherwise have been the case. Another reason is that higher concentrations of CO2 result in feedback effects that increase global temperature. These include a reduction in snow and ice cover (which reduce albedo) and the melting of permafrost (which increases CO2 and methane emissions). So no, ‘carbon saturation’ will not save us from ourselves. Professor William Happer [Wikimedia Commons]

In 2009, a series of emails between two prominent climate scientists were hacked. These showed a conspiracy on the part of the pair to fudge the climate data. This completely discredited climate science. Fact: The hacked emails didn’t discredit anything. Climate sceptics totally misrepresented what the scientists were discussing in those emails. They were talking about the so-called ‘divergence problem’, which was a minor issue in climate science. [It referred to the relationship between temperature and the width of tree rings in Arctic regions. That relationship changed after 1960, and at the time the emails were written scientists did not fully understand the reason why. The problem has now been largely resolved.] In one of the hacked emails, Professor Phil Jones (Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia) said that he had come up with a ‘trick’ to reconcile an aspect of the divergence problem. Climate sceptics used this as evidence that Professor Jones and his fellow correspondent (Professor Michael Mann) were perpetrating fraud. Nothing could be further from the truth. In science, a ‘trick’ is jargon for a solution, not a falsehood. Professor Jones was proposing a solution to an aspect of the divergence problem. His words were taken completely out of context. Professor Michael Mann [Source: Professor Michael Mann]

We should hold off acting on climate change until every single climate scientist accepts that climate change is real and that human activity is the cause. Fact: The fact that 99.9 percent of climate scientists accept the reality of climate change and that greenhouse gas emissions are the cause suggests that the scientific debate is now over. As for the 0.1 percent who still do not accept the scientific consensus, that is not uncommon in science. For example, after Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein published their theories, there was a lot of scientific resistance. More recently, there are still researchers who don’t accept the link between cigarettes and cancer (many of them working for tobacco companies, it should be noted). But that does not mean we should abandon efforts to discourage smoking.  Think of it in terms of aviation. If 99 engineers declared that a plane was unsafe, and one said the opposite, how many people would still make the flight? Probably none.  Another analogy relates to insurance. Statistics show that the chance of a house burning down in a particular year is about 1 in 3,000 – i.e. extremely small. Yet most people still insist on having home insurance, even though it is far from cheap. The reason is that they are unwilling to put their major asset at risk, however small that risk might be. Yet some of the very same people will take enormous risks when it comes to the security of their celestial home – the Earth. It doesn’t make sense.

The fact that some scientists still reject the so-called ‘climate consensus’ shows that there is still debate on the issue. Fact: There is no longer any debate over the reality of global warming. All the prominent sceptics in the scientific community have now accepted that the Earth really is heating up, despite having spent most of their academic careers arguing the opposite. Those sceptics include Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, John Christy, Steven Koonin, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, William Happer and William van Wijngaarden.  Instead of challenging the temperature record, they are now claiming that greenhouse gases are either not primarily responsible for the observed warming or that the warming itself will be benign.  Steven Koonin, for example, claims that it is impossible to determine the respective contribution of CO2 emissions and other factors (like solar activity) due to “the deficiencies of climate data”; hence, he says, we would be better off adapting to climate change rather than trying to stop it.  Roy Spencer blames the observed warming on “natural factors” like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, although he provides no evidence for this. He seems genuinely surprised and confused about the fact that his earlier predictions turned out to be wrong. John Christy, by contrast, does attribute most of our current warming to CO2, but does not believe future temperature rises will be hazardous.  Patrick Michaels agrees, despite estimating that those temperature rises will be as much as 3°C by 2100.  Finally, William Happer believes that increased CO2 levels will be good for the world. In 2014, he famously said that the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”  So, while there is consensus among 99.9 percent of the world’s climate scientists, there is no consensus whatever among the other 0.1 percent. All they can agree on now is that global temperatures really are on the rise.

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]