by Vijay Jayaraj
In 2008 I was in my early twenties and about to finish my engineering degree. Even though we are in a remote part of Asia and we have no internet facility – other than internet cafes – the news of global warming still got through to most of us.
As a passionate environmental enthusiast and passionate conservationist, I have made a career in environmental science, especially given the “growing problem” of global warming.
Al Gore’s 2006 climate documentary An Inconvenient Truth made global warming a hugely popular topic around the world during those years.
Like millions of others, I trusted Gore’s predictions. I had no reason to doubt it. The thought of the end of the world of global climate and the call to avert it coincided with my passion for nature and nature conservation.
So I graduated from one of the world’s leading universities for climate studies, the University of East Anglia in the UK. The local Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is – together with the Hadley Center – responsible for the development of global temperature data sets known as HadCRUT data sets.
But my perception of global warming and the science around it should be shaken. When I was attending one of my lectures, we received an email from the university asking us to change our email passwords immediately.
A week later, I understood that the university’s email system had been breached and scientists of CRU email content had become public. The event is known as “Climategate”.
It took me a few more years to fully understand the implications of this email leak. Email exchanges between scientists from the CRU and other universities resulted in a deliberate attempt to exaggerate current warming and make it seem unprecedented.
Ross McKitrick, in Understanding Climatic Inquiries, showed how the evidence shows that “the scientists involved in the email exchange manipulated evidence at the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and WMO [World Meteorological Organization] Reports that have the effect of misleading readers, including policy makers. “
In response to forward-looking inquiries, the scientists also took steps, individually or in consultation, to block access to data or methods and to prevent their work from being audited externally.
McKitrick noted that Phil Jones – one of the CRU’s scientists – admitted deleting emails to prevent disclosure of information governed by freedom of information laws and had asked his colleagues to do the same.
Numerous investigations and bodies investigated the leak and found the scientists not guilty. Andrew Montford, author of the climate books Hiding the Decline and The Hockey Stick Illusion, summarized his results in two shorter, well-documented book length analyzes in a shorter article: “The Investigations into the Behavior and Integrity of Scientists at Climatic Research The unit was rushed, fleeting and largely unconvincing. “
Andrew Turnbull, who served as Permanent Secretary to the Environment Department (1994–1998) and Permanent Secretary to the Treasury (1998–2002) in the UK commented on Climategate: “Only if the integrity of science is restored and the strengths and weaknesses of the most important suggestions are recognized. Will there be a public trust base that policy makers need? “
However, this integrity was never restored.
For example, the work of the same scientists involved in air conditioning is considered to be the ultimate standard in climate science. Some of them, like Michael Mann, are among the most influential people in the IPCC and draw up the climate protection plan for political decision-makers, whose policies are then implemented in many countries.
The Climategate episode certainly made me question whether global warming was as dangerous as it should be.
The answer to my question slowly came in over several years. There were initial indications that scientists were seeing a large gap between the actual temperature data sets actually observed (from satellites) and these temperature predictions from computer climate models.
While these differences may not prove the allegations against the Climategate scientists, they confirm one thing: the computerized climate models exaggerate the future rate of warming due to their high sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, the models show an excessive and unreal rate of warming for the decades to come.
Despite abundant evidence, the IPCC continues to use these flawed model predictions to inform the public and policy makers of future temperature changes.
A steady stream of scientific studies has documented the evidence of the absence of dangerous warming – IPCC’s warming rate based on fifth and sixth generation models (CMIP5 and CMIP6) and the apparent lack of climate-induced ecological breakdown.
In 2020 alone, over 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers took a skeptical stance on climate alarmism. These papers – and hundreds from previous years – address various issues related to climate change, including problems with monitoring climate change, climate reconstructions, the lack of an anthropogenic / CO2 signal in sea level rise, and natural mechanisms that drive climate change (solar influence on the climate), ocean circulation, influence of the cloud climate, melting of the ice cover in areas with high geothermal heat flow), hydrological trends that do not meet the modeled expectations, the fact that corals thrive in warm environments with high CO2 emissions increased CO2 and higher crop yields, no increase trends in intense hurricanes and drought frequencies, the myth of mass extinction due to global cooling, etc.
The science is filled with scientific literature that contradicts the position of those who believe that climate change is unprecedented.
Also, over the past decade, it has been found that most of Al Gore’s claims in his 2006 documentary were false. Contrary to his claims, the polar bear population remained stable, the Arctic did not become ice-free in the summer of 2014, and the storms did not increase due to global warming.
In simple terms, Gore has led the world astray and promoted falsehood as a science, and he continues to do so while benefiting from a renewable industry sold as a cure for global warming. Nevertheless, it causes carbon dioxide emissions itself and is many times higher than those of the average family.
Therefore, not only are the predictions of models wrong, but also the interpretations of climate data and the propaganda of a climate doomsday were wrong.
Today we know that the modern rate of warming is not unprecedented. Such warming has occurred twice in the past 2000 years. In addition, the ice at both poles is at historic highs, even compared to the little ice age of the 17th century.
Also, extreme weather events have not increased due to climate change, and the loss of human life from environmental disasters has decreased dramatically over the past 100 years.
So I’m a climate realist. I admit that the global average temperature has gradually risen since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 17th century. I acknowledge that climate change can happen in both ways – warming and cooling. I understand that anthropogenic CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases could have contributed positively to warming from the middle of the 20th century.
I also acknowledge that the warming and the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributed has actually helped society. The current atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is nearly 50 percent higher than it was in the 17th century, and the warming, which has mainly occurred in winter, at higher latitudes and at night, increasing cold temperatures, but has little effect on hot temperatures Has. have actually led to optimal conditions for global plant growth and thus contributed to the flourishing of the agricultural sector.
Bengal tiger populations have returned, and polar bear populations are stable thanks to conservation efforts. The forest area in Europe is increasing year on year and countries are planting tree saplings at record rates. Life expectancy has reached all-time highs in many countries, with more people being pulled out of extreme poverty every year (although company closings to fight COVID-19 threaten to reverse that trend). Access to fresh water has improved and human productivity has increased dramatically.
So there is no actual climate emergency. Instead we have celebrities, activists, unelected political bodies like the UN and even some climate researchers who religiously advocate a popular belief in the end of the world.
The models do not know the future and neither do the Climategate scientists. However, an exaggerated view of future warming provides the ideal backdrop for policies to combat carbon-based fuels that will undermine the economic well-being of every society in the world. We can not permit that.
Be a climate realist.
Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc., Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England) is a research fellow for the Cornwall Alliance for the Management of Creation and lives in New Delhi, India.
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