For decades, top scientists said climate change threatened civilization. But the data never showed that. And now, the evidence is overwhelming that scientists and the media deliberately misled the public on fires, ice, food, floods, heat, islands, coral, sea level, & hurricanes. 
Climate change is an existential threat to civilization and humankind, according to top scientists, journalists, and policymakers. They say that planetary warming caused by human emissions is making forest fires, hurricanes, and floods more frequent, worse, and more widespread; reducing arctic ice and submerging atoll islands; killing the coral on the Great Barrier Reef; worsening heatwaves and reducing crop yields. Former President Biden said climate change is “an existential threat to all of us,” and scientists and environmentalists say “one billion” to “billions” will die from food shortages and other climate impacts.
But those claims are all nonsense. Climate change is real, but there was never any scientific evidence that it posed a threat to civilization and humankind. The area of Earth on fire has declined for decades, and what determines whether there are high-intensity fires is forest management and other forms of fire protection. There is no increase in hurricane frequency or intensity, and flood deaths and damages are determined by infrastructure and emergency preparedness. Nearly 90 percent of atoll islands have either increased in size or stayed the same in recent decades. Arctic ice did not decline from 2000 to 2024 and likely will not decline in the coming years. Coral on the Great Barrier Reef is at a 36-year high. Crop yields continue to climb, even with higher temperatures, aided in part by greater carbon dioxide. And heat waves were far worse in the 1930s, before significant human emissions, cold deaths outnumber heat deaths, and heat deaths are easily avoidable with access to air conditioning. The claims that billions will die and that climate change poses an existential risk are thus misinformation and, often, given that many scientists know they are lying, intentional disinformation. The best available evidence suggests nobody will die from climate change.
None of this means we should not worry about climate change and humankind’s contribution to it. The evidence that human emissions change the climate is overwhelming, and many climate skeptics simply go too far in dismissing rising temperatures and humankind’s contribution. We have good temperature measures on land and oceans. We have known for over a century that the accumulation of carbon dioxide traps heat and that it has increased by 50 percent since the pre-industrial period, and the fact that it is a small amount of Earth’s atmosphere by volume does not erase its contribution to warming. And, all else being equal, we should not want any change to average global temperatures since humankind created agricultural, urban, and environmental systems to function within today’s moderate temperature band.
But scientists, journalists, and activists have so wildly overstated the claims of climate change that they must at this point be considered lies, given their discrepancy with known scientific facts and highly visible realities. Sea levels have been rising since the mid-19th Century, and there is no scientific evidence that their rise has accelerated since emissions grew significantly after World War II, and the scientists who claim otherwise are manipulating their models to show acceleration when they can just as scientifically show deceleration. Given how clear the data are on climate change’s alleged impacts, the claims to the contrary by scientists, journalists, and activists cannot be attributed to ignorance.
Moreover, there is strong evidence of deliberate deception. I recently documented how a top sea level rise scientist, Robert Kopp of Rutgers, engages in deception. The leading global organization that tracks disasters abruptly and inappropriately changed its methodology after climate expert Roger Pielke, Jr. showed that they had declined from 2000 to 2021. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave the false impression that disasters that cost over $1 billion were increasing and then abruptly ended its “Billion-Dollar Disasters Database” after Pielke showed how it had manipulated the numbers.
Because the data clearly show that climate change is not an existential threat, scientists, politicians, and journalists have misrepresented practically every aspect of the issue. Carbon emissions are largely flat over the last decade and there is simply no conceivable way that humankind will produce high enough emissions to meet the wildly high “RCP 8.5” scenario upon which most of the alarmist predictions of future climate impacts show. What’s more, scientists know this perfectly well as Pielke and other scientists have documented abundant natural gas and slower than predicted economic growth and population growth will prevent it. “RCP8.5 is not simply ‘highly unlikely’” explained Pielke recently, “it is falsified, meaning that its emissions trajectory is already well out of step with reality. We showed this conclusively” in recent studies. And yet scientists continue to use the alarmist RCP 8.5 model for the simple fact that the other models simply aren’t alarmist enough.
Why have scientists, politicians, and journalists repeated false and often apocalyptic claims for so long? And how were they able to get away with it?
Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting, to read the whole article, and watch the full video!
Full version:
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But those claims are all nonsense. Climate change is real, but there was never any scientific evidence that it posed a threat to civilization and humankind. The area of Earth on fire has declined for decades, and what determines whether there are high-intensity fires is forest management and other forms of fire protection. There is no increase in hurricane frequency or intensity, and flood deaths and damages are determined by infrastructure and emergency preparedness. Nearly 90 percent of atoll islands have either increased in size or stayed the same in recent decades. Arctic ice did not decline from 2000 to 2024 and likely will not decline in the coming years. Coral on the Great Barrier Reef is at a 36-year high. Crop yields continue to climb, even with higher temperatures, aided in part by greater carbon dioxide. And heat waves were far worse in the 1930s, before significant human emissions, cold deaths outnumber heat deaths, and heat deaths are easily avoidable with access to air conditioning. The claims that billions will die and that climate change poses an existential risk are thus misinformation and, often, given that many scientists know they are lying, intentional disinformation. The best available evidence suggests nobody will die from climate change.
None of this means we should not worry about climate change and humankind’s contribution to it. The evidence that human emissions change the climate is overwhelming, and many climate skeptics simply go too far in dismissing rising temperatures and humankind’s contribution. We have good temperature measures on land and oceans. We have known for over a century that the accumulation of carbon dioxide traps heat and that it has increased by 50 percent since the pre-industrial period, and the fact that it is a small amount of Earth’s atmosphere by volume does not erase its contribution to warming. And, all else being equal, we should not want any change to average global temperatures since humankind created agricultural, urban, and environmental systems to function within today’s moderate temperature band.
But scientists, journalists, and activists have so wildly overstated the claims of climate change that they must at this point be considered lies, given their discrepancy with known scientific facts and highly visible realities. Sea levels have been rising since the mid-19th Century, and there is no scientific evidence that their rise has accelerated since emissions grew significantly after World War II, and the scientists who claim otherwise are manipulating their models to show acceleration when they can just as scientifically show deceleration. Given how clear the data are on climate change’s alleged impacts, the claims to the contrary by scientists, journalists, and activists cannot be attributed to ignorance.
Moreover, there is strong evidence of deliberate deception. I recently documented how a top sea level rise scientist, Robert Kopp of Rutgers, engages in deception. The leading global organization that tracks disasters abruptly and inappropriately changed its methodology after climate expert Roger Pielke, Jr. showed that they had declined from 2000 to 2021. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave the false impression that disasters that cost over $1 billion were increasing and then abruptly ended its “Billion-Dollar Disasters Database” after Pielke showed how it had manipulated the numbers.
Because the data clearly show that climate change is not an existential threat, scientists, politicians, and journalists have misrepresented practically every aspect of the issue. Carbon emissions are largely flat over the last decade and there is simply no conceivable way that humankind will produce high enough emissions to meet the wildly high “RCP 8.5” scenario upon which most of the alarmist predictions of future climate impacts show. What’s more, scientists know this perfectly well as Pielke and other scientists have documented abundant natural gas and slower than predicted economic growth and population growth will prevent it. “RCP8.5 is not simply ‘highly unlikely’” explained Pielke recently, “it is falsified, meaning that its emissions trajectory is already well out of step with reality. We showed this conclusively” in recent studies. And yet scientists continue to use the alarmist RCP 8.5 model for the simple fact that the other models simply aren’t alarmist enough.
Why have scientists, politicians, and journalists repeated false and often apocalyptic claims for so long? And how were they able to get away with it?
Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting, to read the whole article, and watch the full video!
Full version:
x.com/shellenberger/…
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