Section topics: Science and theology (climate alarmism and the Green movement in general are “profoundly religious movements” and must be responded to at that level); Climate complexity; Panic-porn; Excerpts on the radiative influence of CO2; Good fear, bad fear; Patrick Moore on the Agenda of fear; Bill Rees still pushing limits fear, and more…
Below is a reposting as climate alarmists continue to stir hysteria over natural climate change…
A brief summary of the basic issues of the climate debate (list of alarmist claims/facts just below)
These cover areas of disagreement between alarmists and skeptics.
Skeptics do not deny climate change but know that credible evidence challenges the extent of the ‘manmade’ element. Good evidence shows that we contribute very little to Earth’s Carbon cycles and that CO2 contributes very little to climate change in general (“A bit player”). Further, more warming and more CO2 will not be catastrophic to life but will be mostly beneficial, as increasing CO2 levels have already resulted in a significant greening of the planet with a 10-15% increase in green vegetation over just the past 4 decades. The outcome of this greening has been much more food for animal populations and increased crop production for humanity.
The climate issue concerns the future of our children and our civilization. Climate alarmism has become an apocalyptic movement that demonizes the basic food of all life- CO2- and wants to diminish that food supply with a destructive ‘salvation’ plan- “save the world” by decarbonization. That will be “The suicide of industrial civilization”, according to Richard Lindzen, atmospheric physicist and former MIT professor.
Posts on climate- evidence versus alarm
The following points are taken mainly from the “alarmist claim rebuttal update” posted at Wattsupwiththat.com Jan.14, 2021 https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ef-cpp-alarmist-claim-rebuttal-overview-021118.pdf. Other sources are from ‘Everythingclimate.org’ and other sites.
1. Alarmist claim: We have just experienced the hottest years on record.
Fact: For most of the past 10,000 years it has been hotter than today (i.e. Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period). The hottest years of the past century were in the 1920s and 1930s.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/ac-rebuttal-heat-waves-070920.pdf
2. Alarmist claim: The rate of warming is becoming catastrophic.
Fact: The recent (1970s to 1990s) warming was mild and natural. There has been only 1 degree Centigrade of warming over the past century.
Climate Change is Causing Accelerated 21st Century Surface Warming.
3. Alarmist claim: Global warming is causing more severe storms.
Fact: The long-term trend in severe storms has not been increasing.
Climate Change is Increasing the Strength and Frequency of Hurricanes
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/ac-rebuttal-hurricanes-091820.pdf
4. Alarmist claim: Global warming is causing more and stronger tornadoes.
Fact: “Strong tornadoes have seen a drop in frequency since the 1950s.”
Climate Change Will Increase the Number and Severity of Tornadoes
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/ac-rebuttals-tornadoes-110520.pdf
5. Alarmist claim: Global warming is increasing the magnitude and frequency of droughts and floods.
Fact: “Our use of fossil fuels to power our civilization is not causing droughts or floods. NOAA found there is no evidence that floods and droughts are increasing because of climate change.”
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/ac-rebuttals-droughts-and-floods-062020.pdf
6. Alarmist claim: Droughts are getting worse.
Fact: Droughts are not getting worse. The worst droughts have occurred over the distant past.
California drought: Past dry periods have lasted more than 200 years, scientists say
7. Alarmist claim: Global Warming has increased U.S. wildfires.
Fact: “These data show that the trend in the number of fires is actually down while the trend in the acreage burned has increased.” Globally wildfires have declined.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/ac-rebuttal-wildfires-122620.pdf
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/30/forget-the-hype-forest-fires-have-declined-25-since-2003-thanks-to-economic-growth/?sh=202ae592163d
8. Alarmist claim: Global warming is causing snow to disappear.
Fact: The opposite is occurring with unprecedented snowfalls.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/ac-rebuttal-snow-091919.pdf
9. Alarmist claim: There is a 97% consensus that carbon dioxide from human activity is driving runaway climate changes.
Fact: “The 97% consensus claim is shown here to be simply a convenient fiction to bypass the scientific method and any inconvenient facts that arise to drive policies.” Note also that almost 32,000 scientists signed the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine ‘Protest Petition’ stating “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, 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.”
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/ac-the-97-consensus-.pdf
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/09/Warming-consensus-and-it-critics1.pdf
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/10/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle/
10. Alarmist claim: Carbon pollution is a health hazard.
Fact: “The term “carbon pollution” is a deliberate, ambiguous, disingenuous term, designed to mislead people into thinking carbon dioxide is pollution.” CO2 is the basic food of life and has been at dangerously low levels over the past millions of years. See Patrick Moore’s new book ‘Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom’.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/ac-rebuttal-health-impacts-02019-.pdf
11. Alarmist claim: Global warming is resulting in rising sea levels.
Fact: “All data from tide gauges in areas where land is not rising or sinking show instead a steady linear and unchanging sea level rate of rise near 4 inches/century (3.6 mm per year), with variations due to gravitational factors.”
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/ac-rebuttal-sea-level-122620.pdf
12. Alarmist claim: Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland ice loss is accelerating due to global warming.
Fact: “Satellite and surface temperature records and sea surface temperatures show that both the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are cooling, not warming and glacial ice is increasing, not melting.” Arctic ice extent has been measured from the end of the 1940-79 cold period which gave a misleadingly large baseline from which to evaluate Arctic sea ice extent. The extent of Arctic ice was previously smaller during earlier warm periods.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/ac-rebuttal-arctic-antarctic-and-greenland-110220.pdf
13. Alarmist claim: Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are causing ocean acidification, which is catastrophically harming marine life.
Fact: The ocean acidification alarm is false.
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/ac-rebuttal-ocean-ph-020319.pdf
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php
14. Alarmist claim: Coral reefs are dying.
Fact: Coral reefs are thriving.
15. Alarmist claim: CO2-induced climate change is threatening global food production and harming natural ecosystems.
Fact: “Far from being in danger, the vitality of global vegetation in both managed and unmanaged ecosystems is better off now than it was a hundred years ago, 50 years ago, or even a mere two-to-three decades ago.” Earth is greener today (a worldwide 15% increase in green vegetation since 1980) because of more basic plant food- i.e. CO2- in the atmosphere. Over recent years we have broken crop production records and now produce enough food to feed 10 billion people (25% more than humanity needs).
https://alarmistclaimresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/ac-rebuttal-agriculture-and-naturalecosystems_idso020619-1.pdf
16. Alarmist claim: Humanity faces increasing threat from extreme weather.
Fact: Long-term data indicate that global death rates from all extreme weather events have declined by 99% since the 1920s.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/05/LancetCountdown-1.pdf
17. Alarmist claim: The warming influence of CO2 on climate increases exponentially with rising levels of CO2.
Fact: The warming influence of CO2 decreases dramatically- i.e. logarithmically- with rising levels of CO2. Conclusion? There is no “climate crisis”- no reason to fear or to halt rising CO2 in the atmosphere.
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/study-suggests-no-more-co2-warming
Science and theology?
This site mixes theological comment with climate science. Why? Because the climate alarm has become history’s latest apocalyptic movement. Along with strands of ideology and science, climate alarmism also exhibits the features of a profoundly religious movement that is driven by primitive mythical themes like apocalyptic. The dominant idea behind apocalyptic is that of a punitive, destroying deity that punishes people’s mistakes through the natural world (i.e. natural disasters, disease, or predation).
Varied public figures have recently affirmed this nonsense of punitive deity behind natural disasters: Nancy Pelosi (2020) stated the California wildfires showed that “Mother Earth is angry”; Bette Midler (2021) said the Texas cold disaster was divine retribution for her political opponents; and once again the Japanese lady (2011) speculating that the tsunami was divine punishment for enjoying life too much.
Climate alarmism situates itself well within the larger narrative/complex of apocalyptic themes. Those themes include: (1) original paradise corrupted by greedy humanity and thereby lost, (2) life declining toward disastrous ending/apocalypse, (3) the need to enact a salvation scheme- to make some sacrifice and purge the threat to life in order to “save the world”, and (4) the hope of restoring the lost paradise. But again, the core idea of punitive, destroying deity is the foundation of these related myths.
This site doggedly goes after that root idea of punitive, destroying deity because it still dominates the belief systems of the world religions and has now also been embraced by the “secular” ideological traditions of Declinism and environmental alarmism. The consequences of this threat theology have been immensely destructive across history.
I have repeatedly affirmed the fact that inherited mythical/religious themes continue to shape the larger public narratives (religious, secular) that shape most people’s personal worldviews.
This site presents the stunning alternative to punitive, destroying deity- arguing that there is no divine threat behind the natural world. This is a pet project of mine- to bring down, or at least deliver a blow to, the monster that is threatening deity, humanity’s oldest monster.
Recognizing that most people continue to hold deity theories as their highest ideal and authority and will speculate on the nature of deity, I offer a better alternative to the threatening gods of religious traditions. My alternative: There is only love at the core of reality (as to the nature of that love see ‘Another Theological Tidbit’ below). The intention here is to overturn/replace the mythical pathology of threat theology that has long been embedded at the root of human thought/consciousness, emotion, and response/behavior.
This is just one part in the larger mix of responses that are needed to counter apocalyptic alarmism movements. I would argue that resolving this theological element is critical to responding to the emotional element in the human psyche (i.e. the unnecessary fear that is incited by subconscious impulses and primitive old narrative themes). The emotional element in the human makeup is too often oriented to inherited bad ideas which then overwhelm rational thinking in many people.
Dealing with this theological element is also my response to climate scientist Roy Spencer’s frustration that science by itself was not changing many minds over climate alarmism.
While climate science is always critical to respond to climate alarmism/environmental apocalyptic, the theological element is also required to get to the theological/mythical pathology still present in the belief systems of alarmism movements. We have much better alternatives today.
Note: The apocalyptic pathology was embedded in Western consciousness at the very beginning as an inheritance from the Zoroastrian apocalyptic that shaped Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Paul’s apocalyptic Christ (Thessalonian letters and elsewhere) is mainly responsible for re-enforcing the myth of apocalypse in our modern consciousness, both religious and secular (i.e. Declinism). If we are ever to solve alarmism movements then these facts must be confronted and resolved.
Climate complexity
When you familiarize yourself with something of the complexity of natural factors that influence climate change (i.e. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/27/climate-dynamics-the-true-control-knob-of-climate-change/ by Jim Steele) you then realize how irrational it is to focus on CO2 alone as the main climate driver and in response to embark on radical schemes to decarbonize our societies. That is madness and will have significant negative costs, mostly for the poorest people.
There is far too much unquestioning acceptance of the basic assumptions of the alarmist narrative- that rising CO2 levels are somehow bad and portend catastrophic outcomes despite there being no evidence aside from discredited models that over-emphasize the role of CO2. There is far too little public attention on the massive benefits of more CO2- i.e. the immense greening of the planet with more food for animal life and record-breaking crop production for humanity (now producing 25% more food than we need, enough for over 10 billion people).
The common sense conclusion from the best climate science: There is no “climate crisis” and no need to decarbonize our societies, no need for carbon taxes and other measures intended to prevent CO2 emissions. As climate physicist William Happer said, “We should have the courage to do nothing” in response to the hysteria over CO2 emissions.
Where are the courageous people/politicians willing to face the cancel outrage of climate apocalyptics and tell the public the truth regarding these facts?
Another theology tidbit (theological reasoning)
Many have argued that consciousness is the most fundamental reality, the foundational reality that creates all other reality. The greater creating Consciousness has been termed “God” by mythological and religious traditions across history. And one of the central features of deity has long been love. With insights from the Near-Death Experience movement, I would take that feature of love further and argue that it is a stunning “no conditions” love. Scandalously and inexpressibly unconditional.
This means then, if God is the Source of all reality, the Ultimate Consciousness that creates all else, and if that Ultimate Consciousness is Love- no conditions Love- then unconditional love is the most essential nature of reality. This makes no conditions Love the most fundamental reality of all, and the proper orienting center for human understanding of reality and life, the central element/feature that should shape the human impulse for meaning.
Ponder how putting unconditional love at the core of understanding will revolutionize human thought, emotion, and response/behavior. It overturns the worst of inherited features from mythical and religious God theories across history and nullifies the horrific influences and outcomes of those features on humanity.
Change the foundational bad idea in religious traditions and you sever the nourishing root of all other bad ideas and their influence.
Panic porn
Politicians, in a renewed surge of panic-mongering, are pushing countries across the world to embrace rapid decarbonization, a salvationist response (i.e. “save the world”) to climate-apocalypse extremism that has gone from madness to lunacy on the hysteria scale. Think Chicken Little.
Few understand the complexity of climate, the many natural factors that influence climate change, and the “bit role” that CO2 plays in climate change. For perspective, see this excellent summary of “climate dynamics” by scientist Jim Steele at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/27/climate-dynamics-the-true-control-knob-of-climate-change/
Many politicians, celebrities, along with mainstream news media, have thoughtlessly accepted the apocalyptic narrative that climate change is “human caused and will be catastrophic”. Climate science demolishes that exaggeration entirely by closely examining the underlying assumptions of the climate alarm movement.
Further, the net benefits of more CO2 have been overwhelmingly affirmed- notably, in the massive greening of our planet over just the past 40 years with the addition of green vegetation equal in mass to twice the continental US. Animals and human populations are benefitting immensely from more food.
Excerpts below on the greenhouse or radiative effect from https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/29/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-448/
“The Greenhouse Effect – Happer: In a 25-minute presentation for the Shiller Institute, William Happer gives an outstanding presentation on the greenhouse effect, which is poorly understood by those claiming that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing dangerous global warming. Happer is a distinguished professor in Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics – the field of physics that encompasses the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation, radiative transfer.
“Happer considers the proclamations of a climate crisis a form of hysteria and they have no scientific backing. Unfortunately, governments and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are promoting climate hysteria. Among the tricks they use is “bait and switch.” Photos of air in China polluted by soot, dust, etc. are passed off as pollution from CO2, N2O (Nitrous oxide), and CH4 (methane). These gases are invisible, transparent, but propagandists, including those in government, do not care…
“Happer points out that the 800-pound gorilla is the sun. About 30% of sunlight is reflected to space and about 70% heats the earth. Through convection in the oceans and the atmosphere this heat is transported from the tropics to the poles and to the top of the troposphere. The radiative effect primarily takes place above the troposphere where the atmosphere is very thin and there is little water vapor remaining. (Water vapor freezes out at the tropopause, about 20,000 feet- 6000 meters- above the poles and 60,000 feet- 18,000 meters- above the equator.)
“[To TWTW, many of the problems of “solving climate change” encountered by climate modelers and others occurs because they fail to separate the issues of heat transport, by convection, from the issue of greenhouse effect, radiative transfer.]…
“What is clearly shown is that the influence of CO2 on warming the planet is pronounced when the CO2 goes from zero to 400 ppm (parts per million- actually in volume). But there is little influence going from 400 ppm to 800 ppm. Based on HITRAN, Happer estimates that going from 400 to 800 ppm will decrease radiation to space by about 3 W/m2, which is insignificant.
“Happer’s review is based on rock-solid physics. He states there is no climate emergency…
“Happer then discusses the benefits of adding CO2 to the atmosphere, stating the Earth has been in CO2 famine for several tens of millions of years and our primate ancestors lived in an atmosphere far richer in CO2 than today. In recognizing that his view is opposed to a supposed “consensus of scientists,” Happer points out that so was the theory of continental drift. What is important is that it agrees with observation and experiment.
“Happer concludes by stating:
“Policies to slow CO2 emissions are based on flawed computer models which exaggerate warming by factors of 2 or 3.
“More CO2 is an overall benefit, so costly ‘mitigation’ schemes are harmful. We should have the courage to do nothing about CO2 emissions.”
Good fear, bad fear (that is- exaggerated, baseless, excessive fear)- Wendell Krossa
The emotion of fear has been critical to human survival across the millennia. People have rightly feared natural disasters, disease, and predation from humans and animals. But then our ancestors long ago added another layer to fear. They were motivated by their impulse for meaning, to explain why bad things happened in life. In response to that fundamental impulse, they created myths of monster gods venting punitive justice through natural disaster, disease, and predation. They claimed that through the imperfections of the natural world angry gods were punishing people for their imperfection and mistakes (e.g. Enki in Dilmun, Adam in Eden).
We have never been able to accept our imperfection and many still believe that human imperfection is something that deserves to be punished, even to eternal extent (i.e. hell myths). We are far too harsh on ourselves.
The above combination of “angry deity punishing bad people” has been the worst combination of two bad ideas in history, adding an immense psychic burden to already unbearable physical suffering. And such thinking has pushed people to do insane and destructive things to appease the angry spirits- including sacrificing adults and children like the Aztecs. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/feeding-gods-hundreds-skulls-reveal-massive-scale-human-sacrifice-aztec-capital
Did we abandon that primitive thinking as we moved into the modern world? No. We changed our expression of those old themes and gave them new “secular” expression in ideologies like 19th Century Declinism. And we re-named the threatening monster gods, giving them names like “vengeful Gaia, angry Planet, angry Mother Earth, retributive Universe, and payback karma”. But it was all the same old, same old mental pathology.
The Japanese lady spoke for many people when she re-affirmed the old myth of angry gods punishing bad people in her question after the 2011 tsunami, “Are we being punished for enjoying to good life too much?” So Nancy Pelosi and Better Midler have more recently affirmed the same mythical nonsense with their statements (Pelosi, 2020, “Mother Earth is angry”; Midler, 2021, the Texas storm is God’s retribution against Ted Cruz for taking a vacation).
Today, both religious and ideological traditions continue to promote that unnecessary burden of psychic fear. 85% of humanity affiliates with the main world religions that all hold some variant of threat theology and apocalyptic mythology (yes, even Hinduism has its great cycles of rise and then decline to catastrophic ending, and Lord Shiva “The Destroyer”). Most of the other 15% of humanity that are “unaffiliated” still hold some form of “spiritual but not religious” belief, similar to religious themes.
A repeated argument on this site:
To properly liberate humanity and human consciousness you have to go to foundational inherited ideas/themes, the deeply embedded mythical/religious themes that still dominate the human collective subconscious realms, as well as our consciously held worldviews. This involves a radical transformation of worldviews, replacing the bad ideas that continue to incite primal fears. It involves probing the subconscious impulses and related themes that influence daily awake consciousness. We should be careful of just tinkering at the periphery and not fully transforming the deeper roots of our fears.
Earlier in life I made the mistake of thinking that I had abandoned my apocalyptic religion, believing that I had made a major transformation of my worldview. But what I had really done at that time was exchange a religious worldview for a secular version with the very same set of ideas/themes. I had moved from Christian apocalyptic thinking to environmental apocalyptic thinking. I then realized that the core themes of my religious past still dominated my new “secular” environmental religion.
Recognize that with environmental alarmism you are dealing with a religious movement, a profoundly religious movement. It is rightly called “Green religion”. And it is just another in a long history of apocalyptic movements. The religious nature of such movements explains why science alone is not changing many alarmist minds. There are much deeper issues involved, subconscious even, and factual evidence often does not touch those things.
Further, while fear has been useful across history for human survival, unnecessary fear has repeatedly proven to unleash harmful outcomes. The exaggeration of natural threats with prophesies of apocalyptic ending, along with claims that we have angered the forces/spirits behind nature, incites dangerous emotions and responses in populations.
Environmental fear-mongering incites the survival impulse in populations, stirring subconscious dread/anxiety of the age-old myth of angry gods punishing bad people. When people like Nancy Pelosi add the nonsense about an “angry Mother Earth” she only exacerbates unwarranted fear more. She exaggerated a disastrous annual threat to cosmic scale, taking it to “existential crisis” status. She did not tell us the true state of wildfires, that globally they have been declining over past decades: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/. Pelosi’s comment, like similar statements from many other public figures, affirmed the apocalyptic narrative of environmental alarmism.
Exaggerated fear then pushes people to take desperate action to save themselves, to save the world that they believe is facing the threat of an apocalyptic ending. People then become willing to embrace salvation schemes that, with unintended consequences, cause immense harm in life like the salvation scheme that demonizes the food of all life- i.e. CO2- and pushes for “decarbonization” of our societies. This is insanity as fossil fuels have enabled humanity to rise out of poverty and achieve all that we value today in the improved human condition and improved life in general.
More CO2 in our “CO2 starvation era” has blessed life with vast amounts of new green vegetation- 15% more green vegetation on Earth just since 1982. That is additional green vegetation twice the size of the continental US. Demonizing this basic food of life as a pollutant/poison, and then banning it, will cause immense harm to life.
Other examples of destructive outcomes from exaggerated fear: Rachel Carson’s use of an apocalyptic narrative in Silent Spring that influenced the consequent DDT ban which resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths, many children. Or the Biofuels fiasco that harmed the poorest people with rising food prices. So also, many have pointed out that excessive alarmism over Covid fed the severe lockdown response that has caused harm in terms of unemployment for the poorest people, with excess deaths from delayed treatment of other diseases, and added suffering from suicides, abuse, and more. Some have estimated that deaths from lockdowns may exceed Covid deaths though those deaths will occur over longer time frames (i.e. neglected or postponed treatment of disease due to fear of visiting hospitals or doctors).
And who can forget the destruction (50-60 million deaths) that came from Hitler’s exaggeration of the threat from Jewish Bolshevism. Or the destruction (100 million deaths) that resulted from Marxist exaggeration of the capitalist threat. Exaggerating threats and promoting fear in the public realm unleashes the potential for immensely harmful consequences.
Good fear pushes us to properly understand threats and take appropriate action to prevent harm. Bad fear exaggerates threats and pushes populations to engage destructive “salvation” responses in response to those exaggerated threats.
(Further on the comment above re Aztec sacrifice: The Abrahamic religions- Judaism, Christianity, Islam- are all rooted in the story of child sacrifice as necessary to appease a deity- i.e. Abraham told to sacrifice Isaac. That foundational myth pointed to the ultimate child sacrifice in the myth of the Christ child sent to die to appease the wrathful God as per Romans and other Biblical material.)
Site project:
Break the grip of primal fears- go to the root ideas/themes that have long incited unnecessary fear, ideas/themes that we have inherited from our primitive past. Those themes continue to dominate world religions and have also been reframed in “secular” versions such as the ideology of Declinism. Replace those pathologies with better alternatives (see Old Story Themes, New Story Alternatives in sections below). This is a most basic form of cognitive therapy that goes to the subconscious archetypes (impulses and related themes) at the foundation of human consciousness, emotion, and response/behavior.
This is an anti-fear site. While there are legitimate things to fear in an imperfect world, too many today are promoting exaggerated fears, apocalyptic-scale fears and that is irresponsible and harmful.
Patrick Moore and the Agenda of Fear, a book review by Janet Levy, March 22, 2021
“Politically motivated climate alarmists are using fear to gain control of human behavior and environmental resources and undermine free, prosperous societies. Dr. Patrick Moore, an ecologist and disillusioned cofounder of Greenpeace, exposes their agendas and false claims in his recent book ‘Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom’.
“As a young scientist, Moore was committed to promoting conservation — the responsible use of the earth’s resources — and participated in Greenpeace’s initial campaigns against underground H-bomb testing, whale hunting, and polar bear culling. The disillusionment was gradual. Face to face with activists ostensibly seeking a balance between environmental, social, and economic priorities (“sustainable development”), he was struck by how the then-nascent concept took no consideration of any impact on humankind, and also by how it fiercely inculpated normal human activity. He parted ways with Greenpeace when it promoted “sustainable development” with a fear-mongering, anti-science, anti-human ideology designed to maximize fundraising. In a previous book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, he explains how the coup de grace came over Greenpeace’s fight for a ban on chlorine. Moore views chlorination of water as the biggest advance in public health.
“His latest book gives example after example to demonstrate that the “climate crisis” is fake news driven more by ideology than real science. He demolishes fallacious doomsday prophesies one by one. A chief characteristic of these scares is that they conveniently use data related to invisible (CO2, radiation) or remote (coral reefs, polar bears, walruses) entities that average citizens cannot validate through independent observation. For explication, the public is forced to rely on activists, the media, scientists, and politicians — all of whom have huge financial or professional stakes in propping up dubious catastrophic scenarios.
“Moore’s first chapter calls the bluff on the bogus claim that “old” Baobab trees are dying because of increased CO2 levels. He reasons that ultimately that any old life-form — whatever the species — dies. Dissecting the “unprecedented rate” of the Baobabs’ death, he points out there is no previous measure of their death for comparison. Apart from using the Baobab as an attention-grabbing example, activists add drama by publicizing photographs of Baobab trees in their annual leaf-shedding phase. Readers seeing these photos in conjunction with spurious reports of “death by CO2” are likely to assume the trees are dead.
“Another chapter debunks the equating of the bleaching of corals — a harmless, natural occurrence — with the death of coral reefs. This is another example of alarmists hyperbolizing something simple into a mammoth crisis created by human activity. Moore explains that bleaching of coral is evidence of periods of natural warming and cooling of water, not of coral death. Temperature changes prompt colorless, transparent polyps living in the corals to eject the plankton that give corals their bright colors. Their whitening is no measure of their health, but a normal phenomenon linked to changes in ocean temperature.
“Moore explains that purveyors of global warming deliberately ignore the fact that the Earth is at the tail-end of a 50-million-year cooling period, which means temperature is bound to go up. They instead focus on the last 300 years, too brief and irrelevant a time-frame from the evolutionary-adaptation perspective. He posits that the climate has never stopped changing and that it has never been proven that carbon dioxide controls temperature. In fact, temperatures rise before carbon dioxide increases, with a significant lag time in between. The basic fallacy, he says, is the belief that humans are emitting too much CO2 and this will result in a planet too hot to sustain life.
“Moore asserts that CO2 level should be celebrated as a critical life force: for 150 million years, CO2 level had been declining, and a rise in CO2 had had markedly beneficial effects on the growth of food crops, trees, and many wild environments because higher CO2 levels result in less water loss and cause plants to become more efficient in their use of water. As for “global warming,” he presents two counterpoints: life flourished during warmer as opposed to colder times; and in the past 50 million years, the Earth has in fact been cooling steadily, and is colder than it has been during most of life’s existence. The serious problem isn’t CO2, it is the environmentalists’ push for wind and solar energy, the maligning of the most economical source of reliable energy, and the jeopardizing of poor populations impacted by carbon reduction programs.
“The polar bear extinction myth tops Moore’s list of fake news worth discrediting. Contrary to the scare, the polar bear population all around the Arctic has increased in recent decades, from an estimated 6,000-12,000 in 1973, it stands at 22,000-31,000 in 2020. Declining sea ice is not harmful, as the scaremongers allege. During warm periods, when there is less sea ice, the food chain is maximized. Phytoplankton populations grow in abundance, leading to the growth of zooplankton, which feed on them. This continues up the food chain through fishes and seals, ultimately benefiting polar bears, which feed on seals. Polar bears are so plentiful now, Moore says, that in places like Nunavut, a territory in northeastern Canada, they have become a safety hazard for residents. Global biodiversity of species is higher now than it has ever been in the history of life on earth and naturalists’ efforts in the last 100 years have caused extinctions to decline by about 80%, he says.
“The “great Pacific garbage patch,” mostly plastic and twice the size of Texas, is another photoshopped faux disaster. Moore writes that, much like the vilification of carbon energy, the damning of plastic is fallacious. He says plastic is a sterile, versatile, and useful product that helps protect food from contamination and spoilage. It’s no more toxic than driftwood. Ocean life has adapted to plastic: many marine species live in cocoons of plastic trash; many species lay eggs on plastic, feeding fish and birds. In fact, research has shown that birds swallow bits of plastic to help aid digestion in the gizzard, much like they swallow tiny stones and bits of wood, which are then regurgitated. Besides, plastic constitutes only a small amount of the indigestible material birds ingest.
“Moore calls the brouhaha over genetically modified food the most serious environmental hoax. Genetic modification has contributed immensely to agricultural productivity, and there’s not a single verified case of harm caused by it. Besides, gene flow between species is not unnatural; it is the stuff of evolution, producing hardy, competitive, and viable species. He reports that almost every major scientific, medical, and nutritional organization says genetically modified food is as safe as, or safer than, conventional food.
“There are chapters on nuclear energy, the key to reducing fossil fuel consumption, and how alarmists have spread misinformation about its safety. There are sections disproving activists’ claims that CO2 is responsible for forest fires and the acidification of oceans (which are alkaline, and have remained so, with minute variations that are unremarkable in the long-term perspective). The book also criticizes activists for ignoring the benefits of using non-timber wood — bark, sawdust, chips, forest-floor residue — as fuel for generating heat or electricity.
“Moore makes it clear that the fake catastrophes must be exposed. The earth is greening, animal species are prospering, and life-expectancy is rising. It’s the hysteria that must stop.”
Site shorts: Summaries of topics covered in sections below
1. There is no punitive, destroying force/spirit behind life, whether angry God, vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, retributive Universe, or payback karma. There is only love, no conditions love, at the core of all reality.
(Note: Ultimate Reality as no conditions love is the single most critical insight to embrace in order to counter the millennia of cruel God theories that have been beaten into human consciousness from the beginning- i.e. myths of deities that judge, exclude, punish, and destroy people. This pathology of punitive, destroying deity still dominates modern human consciousness with unnecessary fear/anxiety, shame/guilt, and despair.)
2. Humanity is not a “fallen, sinful” species. We are not the “cancer/virus” on the planet. We are most essentially good. Love is the essential nature of our human spirit and self. Unconditional love defines us as maturely and authentically human. This is about a radical transformation in human self-imaging.
(Note: Love as our essential nature is also a critical insight to embrace because from the beginning myths of corrupted humanity have been paired with the ‘threat theology’ above- i.e. that imperfect humanity deserves judgment, punishment, and destruction. This anti-human pathology has caused more psychic misery across history than any other element in mythology.)
3. We have not built a destructive civilization. Our industrial, technological society has made it possible for us to create immense wealth that enables us to better care for humanity and all life. We are far more creators than destroyers.
4. There is no decline of life toward looming apocalypse. Life continues to improve and rise toward something better than before. Evidence on the big picture and long-term trends affirms the rising/improving trajectory of life and civilization.
5. There is no “climate crisis”. Weather changes as it always has, and the mild warming of past decades has been good for life. Just as a few more degrees of warming will also, in net terms, enable life to prosper even more in this abnormally cold world still suffering the current ice-age era.
6. More CO2 is good for life in this “CO2 starvation era” with historically abnormal low levels of life’s basic food. Due to rising CO2 the Earth has greened immensely over the past four decades adding green vegetation comparable to twice the size of the continental US (a 30% increase over the past century).
7. Two ways of organizing human societies- individual freedom versus collectivism. Protecting individual rights and freedoms best defends against the centralizing impulse of totalitarianism and better promotes the greater good of all via protected human freedom and creativity. Our societies continue the tug between these two approaches- free individuals and common or collective good- and there are legitimate concerns on both sides that must be balanced.
8. The Jesus discovery of a non-retaliatory deity overturned all past mythical and religious theologies of retributive gods (retaliatory justice). But Paul rejected that Jesus discovery and with his apocalyptic Christ myth he retreated to the primitive theology of a vengeful deity. Paul’s views of wrathful deity (Romans) demanding blood sacrifice became the Christianity we have today.
9. Paul is most responsible for embedding the destructive myth of apocalyptic in Western consciousness and society.
10. The themes of the “hero’s journey” express some of the main insights from across history on human beliefs and spirituality.
11. New narrative themes overturn entirely the primitive myths of old narratives. Old narrative themes have been embraced by contemporary ideologies like environmental Declinism- the belief that life is declining toward something worse, toward some great collapse and ending.
And much more…
A necessary qualifier to the argument for unconditional Ultimate Reality
Affirming an unconditional Ultimate Reality does not lessen the responsibility to fight evil in this world of dualisms (i.e. good/bad). It is vital to human development and growth that we hold one another responsible for our behavior. There are natural and social consequences to behavior. And those unable or unwilling to restrain their worst impulses must be restrained by others (police, military), even imprisoned till they are able to self-control, and if not, then remain imprisoned (e.g. psychopathy). But in the light of an unconditional ultimate reality we are also responsible to treat all human failure restoratively. All will be safe and included in Ultimate Love in the end.
Another: I agree fully with atheists on the theism that they reject, theism that is oriented to conditional religious beliefs. But that is not an affirmation of dogmatic atheism. There is Mind, Consciousness, Intelligence, and Purpose behind reality and life. Therefore, some form of theism is the most logical conclusion to the human process of reasoning. The theism that this site affirms is entirely unlike any mythical or religious theism. I hold to an unconditional theism in contrast to the conditional theology of all religion- i.e. conditions of correct belief, demanded sacrifice/payment/punishment, required ritual, and obligatory religious lifestyle. This site argues for a stunningly different and entirely non-religious, no conditions theism.
Yes, theism still has a place in the overall scheme of human meaning.
Putting stuff in its place
Tackling theology issues on this site is not a push for an other-worldly orientation but is very much about offering better alternatives to some of the most dominant bad ideas that still influence human consciousness, emotion, and response/behavior. People are going to speculate about theism anyway, so at the least offer them better alternatives to the complex of bad ideas that we have inherited via the main world religions, along with “secular” versions of the same bad ideas as in Declinism and environmental alarmism.
God theories still tend to be the more foundational components of human worldviews and exercise an outsize influence on all other features in our worldviews. After all, God has long been humanity’s highest ideal and authority, demanding far too much attention across history.
My own view is that the greater Consciousness that we call “God” has incarnated in all humanity and is inseparable from the common human spirit that we all possess. And that means it is up to us to go out and engage life, offering some contribution to making life better in some unique, creative way, forgetting or remembering God as you wish.
Bill, you still pushing that falsehood of unsurpassable limits?
Ecologist Bill Rees, creator of the Ecological Footprint model, in an interview speaks of the economic paradigm today that is based on “perpetual economic or material growth” and ongoing technological development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DxpnQ9WQgg). He says that paradigm creates a world that is a complete mismatch with biological reality.
He then claims that “the scientific paradigm is the exact opposite. (The biological system) is composed of limits, lag, thresholds, and unpredictable systemic behaviors and (our economic growth) is likely to crash the system”. It was cringeworthy to hear Bill claim that his views represent “the science paradigm” when he really meant “his view of science”. A personal view dominated by concepts like limits, animal population ecology (very different from human populations), and apocalyptic mythology.
Bill continues, admitting that he brings his values and politics to his science and he is unashamedly a climate alarmist activist. During a personal email exchange years ago, I told Bill that his alarmist views were very apocalyptic. His response: “Well, apocalyptic is true, isn’t it?”
Julian Simon has pointed out that most of the well-known alarmists of past decades have been biologists/ecologists. Notable examples would include the apocalyptic prophet Paul Ehrlich (zoology, entomology) and marine biologist Rachel Carson who presented an apocalyptic narrative in Silent Spring. The fundamental mistake that biologists make is to assume that humans respond to natural limits in the same mindless manner as animal populations. Biologists discount human ingenuity/creativity and the human ability to solve problems and make adaptations to nature. We are not just dumb animals subject to random natural processes.
Thomas Malthus’ held the same view of people unable to adapt and creatively solve problems of apparently limited resources. He assumed that humanity, faced with food shortages, would just starve en masse. He did not live to see creative individuals like Norman Borlaug develop new strains of grain, along with other developments, that today have enabled humanity to produce enough food to feed over 10 billion people, far more than we need.
Humanity today, with the assistance of wealth created by our economic system, has done more to creatively improve the human condition and to protect the natural world than any past generation. Julian Simon summed our record well, stating that “we humans are more creators than destroyers”.
Bill, the limits are self-created and are only in your head.
Julian Simon rejected limits theory based on the long-term evidence of successful human response to scarcity of resources. He noted the following pattern of response: First, there will be a shortage of some resource. In response, prices will rise and that will incentivize exploration for more of the resource or to find alternatives to the limited resource. This response has successfully provided new supplies of the resource or a shift to alternatives and resource prices have then historically declined again. We saw this process operate recently with apparent oil shortages and price increases that then led to the fracking response and new massively expanded sources of fossil fuels.
Julian Simon understood that human minds with their unlimited capability to dream, to imagine, to explore, to create and innovate, to solve problems, human minds were the Ultimate Resource that could overcome all apparent resource limits and take us into an open and unlimited future.
Sources:
Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource; Greg Easterbrook’s A Moment On The Earth; Bjorn Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist; Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World; Ronald Bailey’s The End of Doom; Desrocher and Szurmak’s Population Bombed; Hans Rosling’s Factfulness; Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist; Bailey and Tupy’s Ten Global Trends; and Humanprogress.org, among others.
The Joe Rogan Experience
Joe Rogan answering the question of a guest- “What is cancel culture?”
Rogan’s response: “Its just people who are being bullies. Its political correctness. Once it gets established there’s things people want you to say, and don’t want you to say, then there’s people that are going to be bullies and when someone steps out of line or when someone says something that’s questionable, they are going to try to attack them. What it really is, is a bunch of really shitty human beings that just want an excuse to go after someone and pretend they do it because they are morally outraged but really they’re just shitty human beings without any empathy and without any forgiveness and they find an opportunity to attack someone.” (The Joe Rogan Experience, episode 1622).
And for mental/emotional health…
The single best piece of advice to give any human being: “Love your enemy/opponent”. What kind of love? No conditions love. That is- unlimited forgiveness, universal inclusion, respect for diversity, freedom for self-determination (non-dominating, non-controlling), and restorative/rehabilitative justice.
And one on climate alarmism as religion
Climate alarmist Michael Mann has stated that Australia’s recent bush fires and floods are due to human CO2 emissions.
Michael Mann: Reduce CO2 Emissions to Restore Climate Stability in Australia
Australian Bob Brinsmead responds to Mann:
“Is Michael Mann bad, mad, or both. In my almost 88 years, I have seen nearly as many droughts, floods and bushfires as I have had hot dinners. If Mann says they are caused by high CO2 emissions, then what caused them before the last 25 or so years? The problem with these woke climate scientists is that they have a strongly entrenched narrative (a religion) which they are dedicated to support. With them,” It is the narrative, Stupid”! They bend and search for every bit of evidence that might support that narrative. Their catastrophic alarmism is not something that derives from the evidence; it is the worldview they bring to the evidence.
“It is basic to understand that it is a certain narrative that holds nations, cultures and religions together. People are not moved by facts, by complex theologies or scientific data. They have come to believe a narrative. They believe a narrative that appears to explain the human condition and gives them a certain worldview. And once a narrative becomes a belief system, it is almost impossible to dislodge it with even the clearest facts or evidence. (Insert: Climate scientist Roy Spencer has also noted that scientific evidence does not seem to be changing many minds regarding climate alarmism.)
“Try to convince a Muslim that a ham sandwich is good nutrition! Or a Jehovah’s Witness that a blood transfusion is necessary to save life! Once people are locked into any belief system it is almost impossible to change it.
“The woke movement acts on people like a new religious opiate. Remember the Communist saying, “Religion is the opiate of the people?” Climate change alarmism is now the opiate to support the dismantling of true liberalism in favour of a new great socialist tyranny.”
And one from Jim Steele…
Someone please tell the politicians to stop blathering on about CO2 causing “dangerous global warming/climate change”, until they carefully read this excellent article by Jim Steele on climate dynamics, the varied natural factors that control climate change.