This four-year-old presentation by Dr. John Robson investigates the unsound origins and fundamental inaccuracy, even dishonesty, of the claim that 97% of scientists, or “the world’s scientists”, or something agree that climate change is man-made, urgent and dangerous.
There are so many empty slogans out there I wish we could tackle all of them at once. But the “97% of scientists agree” is surely the elephant in the room. Lots of people have tried to rebut it by dismissing the notion of consensus itself, or by praising the historical examples of renegade scientists who went against a prevailing consensus and turned out to be right. But that unnecessarily concedes the major claim itself, which the evidence shows is simply not true. I hope you enjoy the video, and that you’ll share it widely. -JR
Narrator
The claim that 97% of the world’s scientists agree is pretty much the ace of trumps in the whole climate debate. After all, who’s going to argue against a consensus that strong, backed by so many experts. But what exactly are they supposed to agree on? If you look behind the curtain, no one seems sure what the experts actually said. Or who they are. Or… anything.
John
At first glance it seems straightforward enough. In 2013 President Barack Obama famously tweeted that “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”
In 2014, his Secretary of State John Kerry said 97% of “the world’s scientists tell us this is urgent.” And that same year, CNN said “97% of scientists agree that climate change is happening now, that it’s damaging the planet and that it’s manmade.”
Narrator
That’s pretty much what most people think when they hear the 97% slogan: Every scientist believes man-made climate change is an urgent crisis.
But there are millions of scientists in the world. How many exactly were surveyed? When were they surveyed? Who did it? And what exactly did they agree on?
John
Let’s find out. I’m John Robson and this is a Climate Discussion Nexus Fact Check on the 97 percent consensus slogan.
To begin with, there are some ideas that pretty much all scientists accept. For instance that birds are descended from dinosaurs, though that idea was once dismissed as highly eccentric. And when it comes to climate, you don’t need a poll to tell you that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, meaning it likely has some overall warming effect. That’s been known since the mid-1800s. And if you did do a survey, you would find overwhelming scientific agreement on that point.
Also, there are lots of indications that the world is somewhat warmer now than it was in the mid-1800s, the end of a natural cooling period called the Little Ice Age.
Finally, virtually nobody disputes that humans have changed the environment of our planet, by releasing emissions into the air, changing the land surface, putting things in the water, and so forth.
These aren’t controversial ideas, and they’re accepted even by most climate skeptics. What we don’t accept is that any of them prove that humans are the only cause of global warming, or that climate change is a dangerous threat.
If 97% of scientists believed that, it would be troubling. Though even so, we’d still have to find some plan whose benefits outweighed its costs. In any event, that level of consensus that the problem was manmade and urgent would certainly be noteworthy. But the thing is, they don’t agree on that.
A close look at what survey data we have, and there isn’t much, tells us, yes, there is a great deal of agreement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas to some degree, that the Earth has warmed in the last 160 years, and that humans affect their surroundings. But that survey data also tell us there’s far less agreement on everything else including whether we face a crisis.
So where did this 97% claim come from and why is it so widely repeated?
Narrator
The 97% claim seems to have begun with a historian of science named Naomi Oreskes who, in 2004, claimed she’d looked at 928 articles about climate change in scientific journals, that 75% of them endorsed the “consensus view” that “Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities” and that none directly disputed it.
By 2006, in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, this finding had somehow morphed into “a massive study of every scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal written on global warming for the last 10 years and they took a big sample of 10%, 928 articles, and you know the number of those that disagreed with the scientific consensus that we’re causing global warming and that it’s a serious problem? Out of the 928, zero.”
John
That was a fib. Gore took a study that found 75% endorsed the idea that humans have some effect on climate and turned it into proof that 100% of scientists believe it’s a serious problem. It does no such thing.
Narrator
And nor do the handful of other surveys on the subject. For instance five years later, in 2009, a pair of researchers at the University of Illinois sent an online survey to over 10,000 Earth scientists asking two simple questions: Do you agree that global temperatures have generally risen since the pre-1800s? and Do you think that human activity is a significant contributing factor? [Note: They asked some other questions too, but didn’t report the questions or results in the publication.]
John
They didn’t single out greenhouse gases, they didn’t explain what the term “significant” meant and they didn’t refer to danger or crisis. So what was the result?
Narrator
Of the 3,146 responses they received, 90 percent said yes to the first question, that global temperatures had risen since the Little Ice Age, and only 82 percent said yes to the second, that human activity was a significant contributing factor.
Interestingly, among meteorologists only 64 percent said yes to the second, meaning a third of the experts in the study of weather patterns who replied didn’t think humans play a significant role in global warming, let alone a dominant one.
What got the most media attention was that among the 77 respondents who described themselves as climate experts, 75 said yes to the second question. 75 out of 77 is 97%.
John
OK, it didn’t get any media attention that they took 77 out of 3,146 responses. But that’s the key statistical trick. They found a 97 percent consensus among 2 percent of the survey respondents. And even so it was only that there’d been some warming since the 1800s, which virtually nobody denies, and that humans are partly responsible. These experts didn’t say it was dangerous or urgent, because they weren’t asked. [Note: or as noted above, if they were the results weren’t reported.]
So far the claim that 97% of “world scientists” are saying there’s a climate crisis is pure fiction. But wait, you say. There must be more. Yes, there is. But not much.
Narrator
Another survey appeared in 2013, by Australian researcher John Cook and his coauthors, in which they claimed to have examined about 12,000 scientific papers related to climate change, and found that 97% endorsed the consensus view that greenhouse gases were at least partly responsible for global warming. This study generated headlines around the world, and it was the one to which Obama’s tweet was referring.
John
But here again, appearances were deceiving.
Two-thirds of the papers that Cook and his colleagues examined expressed no view at all on the consensus. Of the remaining 34%, the authors claimed that 33% endorsed the consensus. Divide 33 by 34 and you get 97%. But this result is essentially meaningless, because they set the bar so low.
The survey authors didn’t ask if climate change was dangerous or “manmade”. They only asked if a given paper accepted that humans have some effect on the climate, which as already noted is uncontroversial. It could mean as little as accepting the “urban heat island” effect.
So a far better question would be: How many of the studies claimed that humans have caused most of the observed global warming? And oddly, we do know. Because buried in the authors’ data was the answer: A mere 64 out of nearly 12,000 papers! That’s not 97%, it’s one half of one percent. It’s one in 200.
And it gets worse. In a follow-up study, climatologist David Legates read those 64 papers and found that a third of them didn’t even say what Cook and his team claimed. Only 41 actually endorsed the view that global warming is mostly manmade. And we still haven’t got to it being “dangerous”. That part of the survey results was simply invented, by politicians and activists.
Other researchers have condemned the Cook study on other grounds too. For instance economist Richard Tol showed that over three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsing even the weak consensus actually said nothing at all on the subject. And evidence later emerged that the authors of the paper were drafting press releases about their findings before they even started doing the research, which indicates an alarming level not of warming or of consensus but of bias.
The reality is that neither this study, nor a handful of others like it, prove that 97% of scientists believe climate change is mostly manmade, let alone that it’s a crisis. The fact that people who claim to put such stock in “settled science” accept such obvious statistical hocus pocus is both astounding and disappointing.
Narrator
So what do climate experts really think? The year before Obama sent out his tweet, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) surveyed its 7,000 members. They got about 1,800 responses. Of those, only 52% said they think global warming over the 20th century has happened and is mostly manmade. The remaining 48% either think it happened but is mostly natural, or it didn’t happen, or they don’t know. And while it’s possible that the three-quarters who didn’t answer split the same way as those who did, it’s also possible that committed alarmists are more likely to answer such surveys. In any case, it’s a small sample, even of AMS members, let alone of the world’s scientists.
John
There was one more survey a few years later by the Netherlands Environment Agency that claimed 66% of climate experts believed humans were mostly responsible for warming since 1950. Which falls far short of 97% even if it outperforms the other studies.
A social psychologist named Jose Duarte, who specializes in survey design, published an analysis of that one, pointing out that they diluted the sample by including large numbers of psychologists, philosophers, political scientists, and other non-experts, making their results meaningless as a measure of what scientists think. Just as you’ll find that the people who cite that 97% number are overwhelmingly not trained scientists, certainly not trained statisticians.
Narrator
So we’re no farther ahead than when we began. Most experts agree on the basics, namely that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and probably causes some warming and that humans have some impact on climate probably including some warming. But they actively debate the rest: How much warming will there be? Is it a problem? Should we try to stop it, or adapt, or wait and see? These are all important questions and we need good answers.
John
And there’s the claim that many of the world’s national science academies, representing hundreds of thousands of scientists across the globe, have issued statements supporting the consensus about global warming and demanding government efforts to cut emissions. The problem is, not a single one of those societies took a survey of their members before issuing their statements in the name of their members. The statements were put out by a small number of activists using their committee positions to make it look as though their views are shared by all the world’s experts. But if they are, why didn’t these authors survey their members before publishing the statements?
There are a couple of other studies that claimed to prove a consensus. But they run into the same problems. All they show is wide agreement on the uncontroversial bits. They offer no information about whether a majority of scientists think global warming is a crisis. And then they’re spun wildly by non-scientists to tell us things they don’t begin to say, often about questions they didn’t even attempt to investigate .
The problem isn’t just that we don’t know what percentage of scientists agrees with this or that statement about global warming. It’s something much worse. All this talk of a 97% consensus amounts to a dishonest bullying campaign to stifle scientific debate just when we need it most because the question looms so large in public policy.
As physicist Richard Feynmann once said, “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” And that’s especially true when we’re asked to take drastic action based on those answers.
Not long ago that survey expert I mentioned earlier, Jose Duarte, warned his fellow scientists about the negative consequences of claiming consensus. He said:
“It is ill advised to report a consensus as though it is an aggregation of independent judgments. Humans are an ultrasocial species, and dissent is far costlier than assent to a perceived majority… A scientist who contests the prevailing narrative on human-caused warming, or merely produces smaller estimates, will likely end up on a McCarthyite blacklist of ‘deniers’. Self-described mainstream climate scientists refer the public to such lists, implicitly endorsing the smearing of their colleagues. This is disturbing, and unheard of in other sciences.”
The unfortunate truth is that there is strong political pressure for climate experts not to question claims of impending doom. Those who do so face steep personal and professional costs, including a barrage of abuse that can be highly unpleasant for people who mostly wanted to devote their lives to the quiet pursuit of knowledge not to noisy polemics. And that means we should listen carefully to them when they feel compelled to speak out anyway.
Whether they represent 50%, or 10%, or 3% of experts, what matters is the evidence they bring and the quality of their arguments.
And on that, I would hope we have 100 percent agreement.
For the Climate Discussion Nexus, I’m John Robson.
The pontiff also told the COP28 summit that ‘the destruction of the environment is an offense against God’
“I am relaunching a proposal,” Francis’ statement continued, “with the money used on weapons and other military expenditure, we will set up a global fund to finally eliminate hunger.” It added that the “sustainable development of the poorest countries” must be actively promoted if these states are to have a solid foundation from which to fight climate change.
The Pope has called on world leaders to divert money being used to support conflicts across the globe into a fund to help eliminate world hunger, and also sounded the alarm about the impact of climate change, in an address to the COP28 summit in Dubai.
Pope Francis’ comments, delivered by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, cast a dire long-term outlook on the effects of climate change. In the wide-ranging statement, he called for an end to the fossil fuel industry and for debt forgiveness to be introduced for poorer nations struggling to adapt to the impacts of a deteriorating environment.
As well as the proposed global fund to fight world hunger, the statement by the head of the Catholic Church, made in absentia as the 86-year-old is unwell, also signaled that the COP28 summit must be a turning point for major political change and a shift towards renewable energy.
“How much energy is humanity wasting in the many ongoing wars, such as in Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine and in many regions in the world: conflicts that will not solve the problems, but increase them,” the Pope asked the leaders through Cardinal Parolin.
“I am relaunching a proposal,” Francis’ statement continued, “with the money used on weapons and other military expenditure, we will set up a global fund to finally eliminate hunger.” It added that the “sustainable development of the poorest countries” must be actively promoted if these states are to have a solid foundation from which to fight climate change.
According to global data firm Statista, the United States was – by a wide margin – the biggest military spender in 2022 at about $877 billion, followed by China ($292 billion) and Russia ($86.4 billion).
Despite being unable to attend in person at the Dubai conference, the Pope stressed in his speech that “I am with you because now, more than ever, the future of us all depends on the present that we now choose. I am with you because the destruction of the environment is an offense against God.”
He added that the largest carbon-emitting countries are “responsible for a deeply troubling ecological debt.”
Pope Francis, a long-standing advocate of climate issues, has made the environment a central topic of his decade-long papacy. He has published two major papers on the subject, including one in October in which he argued that humanity has played a major role in worsening climate problems.
An absolutely massive volcanic eruption in Russia has created a cloud of dust and ash that is a thousand miles long. Yeah, that is “normal”. In recent days we have also seen a spectacular eruption of lava at Mt. Etna in Italy, volcanic activity has caused a brand new island to emerge off the coast of Japan, and thousands of people have been forced to evacuate in Iceland as volcanic magma races to the surface near the town of Grindavik. If you understand the period of world history that we are living in, then you already know that what we are experiencing now is just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population is completely and utterly unprepared for the apocalyptic “Earth changes” that are rapidly approaching.
Personally, I was stunned when I heard about what was taking place in Russia.
I knew that there had been an eruption, but I didn’t know that it had actually created a cloud of dust and ash that is 1,000 miles long…
Eurasia’s tallest volcano has violently erupted, throwing a 1,000-mile-long (1,600 kilometers) cloud of dust and ash into the air, new NASA satellite images show.
Klyuchevskoy, sometimes referred to as Klyuchevskaya Sopka, is an active stratovolcano in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, which is home to more than 300 other volcanos. Klyuchevskoy’s peak stands at 15,584 feet (4,750 meters) above sea level, making it taller than any other volcano in Asia or Europe, according to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT).
Eruptions of this magnitude have the potential to dramatically affect the climate of the entire planet.
On November 1st, the cloud of dust and ash from this eruption actually reached a maximum height of seven and a half miles…
Klyuchevskoy has been continually erupting since mid-June. But on Nov. 1, a massive volcanic explosion released a torrent of smoke and ash, which reached a maximum height of 7.5 miles (12 km) above Earth’s surface, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
This is serious.
But because it is happening in Russia, most people in the Western world simply do not care what is happening.
A huge nine-mile long magma intrusion, just northwest of Grindavik, has formed and is growing, according to experts, with magma thought to be as close as 500 metres from the surface.
Just a few days ago, experts were saying that magma was accumulating three miles below ground, but it has now risen much closer, if estimates are correct.
‘At this stage, it is not possible to determine exactly whether and where magma might reach the surface,’ the Meteorological Office said.
I hope that everyone is long gone from that area by now because it appears that a major eruption could be imminent.
Prior to being evacuated, local residents could literally hear “thunder in the ground” as rapidly moving magma caused earthquake after earthquake to happen right under their feet…
Residents in Iceland fear homes in the evacuated town of Grindavik could be ‘frozen in time like Pompeii’ should they be covered in lawa.
British Expat Anne Sigurdsson, 66, moved to Iceland from Carlisle seven years ago with her husband Siggi, 63. She told the Mirror: ‘This island could be ripped apart. We fear Grindavik could end up frozen in time like Pompeii.’
She said she could hear the heavy earthquakes plaguing the area before she could feel them, describing them as ‘thunder in the ground’.
Unfortunately, this could be just the beginning of Iceland’s problems.
According to one volcanologist, what we are currently witnessing could be part of “a new eruptive phase” which could possibly last for hundreds of years…
Iceland’s looming volcano blast is just the beginning of a new era of volcanic eruptions that will last for centuries, with the build-up of magma beneath the coastal town of Grindavik signalling that more is to come, scientists have warned.
The Fagradalsfjall volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula is threatening to erupt, with Iceland’s Met Office saying that the ‘likelihood of a volcanic eruption is high’ and could happen at anytime in the coming days.
After 800 years of inactivity, a 2021 eruption marked the start of a new cycle of volcanic activity, and now Cambridge volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer, says that blast may have kicked off ‘a new eruptive phase’ which could last centuries.
Of course, it isn’t just Iceland that is seeing unusual seismic activity.
According to the Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program, 19 volcanoes are erupting all over the globe right now, but that list “doesn’t include all erupting volcanos”…
The Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program tracks new eruptions and updates its list of currently erupting volcanos on Wednesdays. The most recent update shows three new eruptions, bringing the list’s total to 19 eruptions at once. The list doesn’t include all erupting volcanos.
The new volcanic eruptions have some people voicing their concerns on social media.
“Volcanoes erupt simultaneously in Italy, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Philippines, etc. Below is a volcanic activity map of 2013 vs 2023. Totally normal, right?” one person posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Sadly, the changes that are happening to our planet will greatly accelerate during the months and years that are ahead of us.
So are you ready?
Are you prepared for truly cataclysmic Earth changes?
One recent survey discovered that 34 percent of Americans “believe they can be the sole survivor of the apocalypse”…
A third of Americans (34%) believe they can be the sole survivor of the apocalypse, a new survey reveals. The poll of 2,000 U.S. adults looked at how this would be the case and found that these respondents believe they’d outlast everyone because of their strong survival skills (54%) and adaptability (53%).
Three in 10 see themselves as the “underdog” of the apocalypse, while more respondents believe they’re the “top dog” who would undoubtedly survive it all (33%). According to Americans, the ideal “survival team” they would build to get through the apocalypse includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (43%), Chuck Norris (36%), Superman (33%), John Cena (26%), and MacGyver (23%).
To me, that survey makes it very clear that Americans have been watching way too much television.
This isn’t a game.
This is the real world, and the cold, hard reality of the matter is that our planet is becoming very unstable.
So I would encourage everyone to get prepared while they still can because much greater natural disasters are on the way.
“It is my belief that there is no climate crisis.”
John Clauser reveals significant errors in UN climate research.
14 Nov 2023
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.
The main greenhouse gases that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example. Clearing land and cutting down forests can also release carbon dioxide. Agriculture, oil and gas operations are major sources of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main sectors causing greenhouse gases.
So-called historic wildfires in the U.S., Greece, and Canada filled corporate media headlines while blaming “global boiling.” However, the annual number of wildfires for 2023 remains average.
In Greece, the annual average did increase moderately, and arsonists were to blame. Social media was flooded with convincing points and speculations, blaming the globalist psychos’ minions for starting the fires in order to spread fears of man-made climate change to push Net Zero policies throughout the Western world, and also, to take advantage of the aftermath to buy land at a fraction of their original price.
Accusations of land-grabbing grew even louder after the Lahaina fires when private companies “generously” offered to buy the affected land. But then, Governor Josh Green, said he would not allow the land to end up in private hands, but that the government could buy them. Is this good news for the people of Lahaina? Or will the land, once handed over to the government, end up in the hands of private companies anyway? That remains to be seen. But whether it was natural, man-made, or both, the official death toll from the fires is 115. Considering the population of Lahaina, that’s a huge death toll.
In addition, Maui’s major reported that 850 people were still reported missing, and suddenly the number went down to 60. There are many things to blame for this tragedy: – Government incompetence. – Laughable budget for wildfire safety. – Exceptionally flammable grass was introduced in 2020. – Extreme winds. – No warning sirens. – State officials refused to release water. – High voltage cables cut and laid over dry grass. – Police blockades that kept people from fleeing the deadly fires. – Utility trucks blocked roads as people tried to flee.
Later, the government erected a fence around the affected areas, and fire survivors were not allowed to return to what was left of their homes and businesses. For “their protection”, they said. Or is there something else they want to hide? In early August, the warm-mongers were still pushing the “world is boiling” nonsense, while the US had a cooler-than-average summer, and northern Italy, the Dolomites, and the Pyrenees were hit with summer snow!
Then they change the narrative a bit and blame global warming for the extreme flooding around the world, yet, as we have shared before, it’s all part of natural cycles, pointing out a shift to colder global temperatures. And again it has nothing to do with CO2: Recent research suggests carbon dioxide molecules have little consequential impact on outgoing radiation, and that today’s climate models assign fundamentally erroneous global temperature effects to CO2. But that doesn’t matter because the goal of the globalist psychos and their minions – the corporate media and paid “experts” – is to fuel the fires of fear and hysteria.
However, it seems that fewer and fewer people are buying into their lies, as reality sometimes reveals itself quite dramatically.
Another concept that I am trying to figure out. Is the world really overpopulated? It is time to destroy all unscientific myths that are ruining our lives. Lou
The investments of just 125 billionaires emit 393 million tonnes of CO2e each year – the equivalent of France – at an individual annual average that is a million times higher than someone in the bottom 90 percent of humanity.
Nov 8, 2022
I’m so just as shocked as you are. A billionaire is responsible for a million times more greenhouse gas emissions than the average person… And now these same billionaires, CEOs, and politicians are currently discussing at GOP27 in Egypt, how they could tax us more to fund their CO2 diminution plans… How ironic, isn’t it? FY!
The below article shows that the richest are more toxic and destructive to the environment than regular people through their investments and oh-so-secret ways of life. Runaway capitalism is in full swing and the lifestyles, ways of life, and total debauchery will lead to the destruction of the Earth.
Oxfam has reported that the wealthiest people are responsible for about a million times more emissions than the world’s lowest earners when taking into account their investments. In other words the 125 wealthiest people-Musk, Walton, Buffet, and Gates included, have a combined carbon footprint that is equivalent to the entire country of France. The investments themselves continue dirty industries and lead to the creation of more emissions added to the existing whole.
Oxfam first pulled together a list of the world’s 220 people, and identified the corporations that they hold investments in, and currently have a 10% equity stake in. Naturally, it should be known that most of the research itself may not be accurate. The reason being there is an overall lack of transparency that has come from the world of billionaires.
The transparency comes down to the wealthiest actual investments and additionally a lack of transparency around corporate emissions, meaning that the numbers are likely way higher than reported by Oxfam. Based on the research this means 3.3 million tons for the richest people, followed by about 25.4 for an average person in the UK, and then followed by the world’s 10% poorest at around 3 tons per person.
The influence of the few and the wealthy continues to show the runaway effects of capitalism and continues to sow the world’s destruction. The numbers themselves reported here aren’t accurate and are way higher. It also isn’t a final list, with no mention of Bezos, etc.
According to the Oxfam website:
Billionaire investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement double the average for the S&P 500
The investments of just 125 billionaires emit 393 million tonnes of CO2e each year – the equivalent of France – at an individual annual average that is a million times higher than someone in the bottom 90 percent of humanity.
Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people, is a report published by Oxfam today based on a detailed analysis of the investments of 125 of the richest billionaires in some of the world’s biggest corporates and the carbon emissions of these investments. These billionaires have a collective $2.4 trillion stake in 183 companies.
The report finds that these billionaires’ investments produce an annual average of 3m tonnes of CO2e per person, which is a million times higher than the average for people living in the bottom 90 percent (2.76 tonnes of CO2e).
The actual figure is likely to be higher still, as published carbon emissions by corporates have been shown to systematically underestimate the true level of carbon impact. Further, billionaires and corporates who do not publicly reveal their emissions (and are therefore not included in the research), are likely to be those with a high climate impact.
“These few billionaires together have ‘investment emissions’ that equal the carbon footprints of entire countries like France, Egypt or Argentina,” said Nafkote Dabi, Climate Change Lead at Oxfam. “The major and growing responsibility of wealthy people for overall emissions is rarely discussed or considered in climate policy-making. This has to change. These billionaire investors at the top of the corporate pyramid have a huge responsibility for driving climate breakdown. They have escaped accountability for too long.”
“Emissions from billionaire lifestyles – due to their frequent use of private jets and yachts – are thousands of times the average person, which is already completely unacceptable,” said Dabi. “But if we look at emissions from their investments, then their carbon emissions are over a million times higher.” said.
Contrary to average people, studies show the world’s wealthiest individuals’ investments account for up to 70 percent of their emissions. Oxfam has used public data to calculate the “investment emissions” of billionaires with over 10 percent stakes in a corporation. The study allocates billionaires a share of the reported emissions of the corporates in which they are invested, in proportion to their stake.
The study also found billionaires had an average of 14 percent of their investments in polluting industries such as energy and materials like cement. This is twice the average for investments in the S&P 500. Only one billionaire in the sample had investments in a renewable energy company.
“We need COP27 to expose and change the role that big corporates and their rich investors are playing in driving the climate crisis by profiting from pollution,” said Dabi. “They can’t be allowed to hide or greenwash. We need governments to tackle this urgently by publishing emission figures for the richest people, regulating investors and corporates to slash carbon emissions and taxing wealth and polluting investments.”
The choice of investments billionaires make is shaping the future of our economy, for example, by backing high carbon infrastructure – locking in high emissions for decades to come. The study found that if the billionaires in the sample moved their investments to a fund with stronger environmental and social standards, it could reduce the intensity of their emissions by up to four times.
“The super-rich need to be taxed and regulated away from polluting investments that are destroying the planet. Governments must put also in place ambitious regulations and policies that compel corporations to be more accountable and transparent in reporting and radically reducing their emissions,” said Dabi.
Oxfam has estimated that a wealth tax on the world’s super-rich could raise $1.4 trillion a year, vital resources that could help developing countries – those worst hit by the climate crisis – to adapt, address loss and damage and carry out a just transition to renewable energy. According to the UNEP adaptation costs for developing countries could rise to $300 billion per year by 2030. Africa alone will require $600 billion between 2020 to 2030. Oxfam is also calling for steeply higher tax rates for investments in polluting industries to deter such investments.
The report says that many corporations are off track in setting their climate transition plans, including hiding behind unrealistic and unreliable decarbonization plans with the promise of attaining net zero targets only by 2050. Fewer than one in three of the 183 corporates reviewed by Oxfam are working with the Science Based Targets Initiative. Only 16 percent have set net-zero targets.
Ahead of the deliberations at COP27, Oxfam is calling for the following actions:
Governments to put in place regulations and policies that compel corporations to track and report on scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 GHG emissions, set science-based climate targets with a clear road map to reducing emissions, and while at it ensuring a just transition from the extractive, carbon-intensive economy by securing the future livelihoods of workers and the affected communities.
Governments should implement a wealth tax on the richest people and an additional steep rate top-up on wealth invested in polluting industries. This will reduce the numbers and power of rich people in our society, and drastically reduce their emissions. It will also raise billions that can be used to help countries cope with the brutal impacts of climate breakdown and the loss and damage they incur and fund the global shift to renewable energy.
Corporations must put in place ambitious and time-bound climate change action plans with short-to-medium term targets in line with global climate change objectives in a view to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
“We should care deeply about the unraveling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life,” said the World Wildlife Fund’s global chief scientist.
A sweeping report published Thursday by one of the world’s largest conservation groups finds that Earth’s vertebrate animal populations experienced an average decline of nearly 70% between 1970 and 2018, a staggering drop that experts attribute to the worsening climate crisis, pollution, the large-scale destruction of forests, and continued human exploitation of wildlife.
The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF)Living Planet Report 2022, which the group calls its most comprehensive study to date, estimates that tens of thousands of monitored mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, and fish populations have seen an average 69% decline in relative abundance over just a 50-year period, a blaring signal that the planet is in the midst of a devastating biodiversity crisis.
“When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on.”
“The message is clear and the lights are flashing red,” states the new report, which examines nearly 32,000 species populations across the planet—from the oceanic whitetip shark to the Amazon pink river dolphin to Darwin’s frog—to spotlight what it describes as the twin emergencies of climate change and species decline.
“Climate change is having a dramatic impact on our natural environment,” the report notes. “Some species are dying out while others are having to move where they live due to changes in air temperature, weather patterns, and sea levels. As well as being a direct driver of biodiversity loss, climate change also worsens the other drivers.”
WWF warns that animal populations in its freshwater Living Planet Index “have been hit the hardest, declining by an average of 83%” thanks to myriad factors, including pollution and massive species exploitation. Regionally, Latin America—home to the rapidly deteriorating Amazon rainforest—has seen the largest decline in average population abundance at 94%.
“These plunges in wildlife populations can have dire consequences for our health and economies,” said Rebecca Shaw, WWF’s global chief scientist. “When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on. We should care deeply about the unraveling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life.”
As Vox‘s Benji Jones explains, WWF’s topline figure of 69% average animal population decline “does not mean there are two-thirds fewer animals today compared to 50 years ago.”
“It’s not counting all the animals lost in each group and adding that up; it’s measuring the relative size of the decline in each population and averaging it,” Jones notes.
Still, WWF’s findings paint a dire picture of the global wildlife emergency as scientists warn Earth may be in the midst of a “Sixth Mass Extinction,” this one caused by the degradation of the natural world by the fossil fuel industry and other human activity.
The New York Timesnotes that some experts believe WWF’s report “actually underestimates the global biodiversity crisis, in part because devastating declines in amphibians may be underrepresented in the data.”
WWF’s report comes as world leaders are set to gather for the second phase of COP15 talks in Montreal, Canada to negotiate a global framework to mitigate and reverse the accelerating biodiversity crisis. The first phase of the COP15 negotiations ended in disappointment, with climate campaigners decrying world leaders’ lack of urgency in the face of plummeting species populations.
In a statement, WWF said the upcoming Montreal talks represent “a once-in-a-decade opportunity to course-correct for the sake of people and the planet.”
“The U.S. government can help ensure that COP15 and the emerging 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework are successful through its diplomatic engagement and by bringing new resources to the table to help developing countries protect their biodiversity,” the group argued.
Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US, urged Congress to “finalize this year’s funding bills with significant increases for global conservation programs.”
“Doing so,” Roberts said, “would empower the federal government to drive greater progress in conserving and restoring nature, and send a signal to other countries that it expects other actors to do the same.”
In this Coming Collapse Q and A session, a highly credentialed scientist from a top 10 science testing facility joins us for a shocking front-line report. Recent testing has now confirmed that the highly toxic element graphene is in our precipitation, along with an already long list of toxins including aluminum nanoparticles. Surfactants have also been confirmed in recent precipitation testing. Climate intervention operations are ubiquitously contaminating the entire planet and every breath we take. How long do we have if the human race remains on the current course? Please join us for this front-line report on the direst and immediate threats we collectively face. All are needed in the critical battle to wake populations to what is coming, we must make every day count. Share credible data from a credible source, and make your voice heard. Awareness-raising efforts can be carried out from your own home computer. Dane Wigington
Fire in the sky! Meteor/fireball sightings and barely detected asteroid flybys surely got our attention this past month. What is the cosmos trying to tell us?
Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, US, Canada, and China were witness to some of the most important meteor sightings in October, while NASA was put to shame by so many undetected NEOs, making it clear that we are defenseless against a possible ‘out of the blue’ hit by one of these rocks.
Severe storms and floods continued to wreak havoc around the world, leaving a trail of destruction in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, India, Japan and Spain.
Hurricane season continued with Japan seeing its strongest storm in 60 years with the arrival of super-typhoon Hagibis and Korea suffering the effects of typhoon Mitag. The UK and Ireland also saw torrential rains in advance of, and in the aftermath of, hurricane Lorenzo, which severely damaged the Azores on its path northward.
In the Philippines, several were killed and many injured as the country was hit by not one, but three earthquakes registering over M6 in a two week period.
Snow in October is now becoming the norm. So much for less ice at the poles, dying polar bears, and record heat. October left a month’s worth of snow in a single day in the Southern Yukon; 10 inches of snow in Washington; unexpected cold and heavy snow in Texas as well as parts of Russia and Canada… and it’s still Autumn.
To understand what’s going on, check out our book explaining how all these events are part of a natural climate shift, and why it is taking place now: Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection
Check out previous installments in this series – now translated into multiple languages – and more videos from SOTT Media here, here, or here.
The earth is about to get much cooler and so too is the earth’s economy.
“Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” (Thus passes the glory of the world). This phrase was used at the papal coronations between the early 1400s and 1963. It was meant to indicate the transitory or ephemeral nature of life and cycles.
As we are now facing the end of a major economic, political and cultural cycle, the world is likely to experience a dramatic change which very few are prepared for. Interestingly, the peak of economic cycles often coincide with the peaks in climate cycles. At the height of the Roman Empire, which was when Christ was born, the climate in Rome was tropical. Then the earth got cooler until the Viking era which coincided with the dark ages.
THE PROBLEM IS “THE ECONOMY STUPID” AND NOT THE CLIMATE
Yes, of course global warming has taken place recently as the effect of climate cycles. But the cycle has just peaked again which means that all the global warming activists will gradually cool down with the falling temperatures in the next few decades. The sun and the planets determine climate cycles and temperatures, like they have for many millions of years, and not human beings.
The climate activists are spending their efforts on the wrong issue. The big disaster looming for the world is not climate change but “the economy stupid” (phrase coined by Clinton).
So let’s instead look at the real coming disaster that the world needs to focus on and a number of facts that are self-evident even though very few are aware of them.
Instead of worrying about global warming, which we humans cannot effect, we should instead issue a GLOBAL WARNING about the coming economic cataclysm so that the world can be prepared for the extremely serious problems that will hit us all in the next few years.
Below I outline a potential scenario for the next 5-10 years:
BIGGEST ECONOMIC DISASTER IN HISTORY
The world is heading for an economic disaster of a magnitude that is much greater than the 1930s depression. There is really nothing to compare with in history since the world has never been in a similar situation before when every single major economy is at risk.
GLOBAL DEBT WILL KILL THE WORLD ECONOMY
Never before in history have all major countries lived above their means for such an extended period. And never before has global debt been almost 4X global GDP.
$2 QUADRILLION DEBT AND LIABILITIES
In addition, unfunded liabilities, like medical care and pensions, are at least $300 trillion globally. If we add gross derivatives of $1.5 quadrillion, which are likely to turn into real debt as counterparties fail, the total debt and liabilities are above $2 quadrillion.
DEBT AT 30X GLOBAL GDP CAN NEVER BE REPAID
$2 quadrillion is almost 30X global GDP. Who is going to repay this debt? Certainly not the current generation which has incurred most of it. And certainly not future generations which will neither have the means, nor the inclination to pay for the sins of the previous generation.
DEBT IS GROWING AT AN EVER FASTER RATE
Most major economies are continuing to spend money they haven’t got and thus to print money and expand credit at an ever faster rate. The US for example has increased debt by $800 billion since June. As the US economy falters, annual deficits of $1-2 trillion will increase manifold in the coming years. And when the banking system comes under pressure, which is happening right now, money printing will accelerate at an ever faster pace. As the global economy falters, most major countries will see deficits and debts rising quickly.
NEGATIVE RATES – A RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Negative rates are a disaster for the world. Over $17 trillion debt now carries negative interest. Firstly, it kills the incentive to save. A fundamental economic principle is that savings equal investments. The world cannot grow soundly with investments financed solely by debt or printed money. With no savings, most banks do not have funds to lend to businesses. Thus investments will slow down dramatically. Negative rates also lead to investors chasing ever riskier investments to get a higher return. Also, pension funds will not achieve adequate returns to cover outstanding liabilities.
DEBT AND ALL BUBBLE ASSETS LIKE STOCKS AND PROPERTY WILL IMPLODE
Like the climate virtually all asset classes are overheated. The bubbles that the credit expansion has created will implode in the next few years together with the debt that created the bubbles. Central banks around the world will make a desperate attempt to save the world economy by printing unlimited amounts of money.
ALL CURRENCIES WILL GO TO ZERO – DEFLATION WILL FOLLOW HYPERINFLATION
As money printing accelerates, paper money will become worthless and a depressionary hyperinflation will hit the world. Hyperinflationary periods on average last for around 1-3 years and are followed by a deflationary implosion of all asset values in real terms. At that point substantial parts of the financial system will cease to function properly or go bankrupt.
GOVERNMENTS WILL LOSE CONTROL
Before new financial and political systems emerge, there will be social upheaval and unrest. Criminality will be widespread as desperate and hungry people will do what they can to feed themselves and their children. In many countries, immigrants will be blamed for the misery of the people. Right and left wing radicals will fight immigrants. There are likely to be periods of anarchy as governments lose control. I do not believe that an elite will control the world at that point. The disorderly unwinding of asset bubbles and the world economy will be uncontrollable.
GLOBAL MARKETS ON THE CUSP OF CRASHING
The above scenario could start at any time. In many respects it has already started. The world will only be aware of the next phase when global markets start the first severe phase of the coming secular downtrend. We could see this already in October which is a notorious crash month. Or it could start as late as in early 2020. We will also start to see increased pressures in the financial system including problems in many European banks as well as US banks.
Once bubbles burst, the course of events could be very rapid. The above scenario could all happen over a few years and probably not more than five. This doesn’t mean that the economy will start recovering rapidly in five year’s time. It just means that markets and the worst problems reach a bottom. But after that the world will crawl along that bottom for many, many years.
There is no absolute protection against this scenario since it will hit all aspects of life and virtually all people. Obviously, people living off the land in remote areas will suffer less whilst people in industrial and urban areas will suffer considerably.
The best financial protection is without hesitation physical gold and some silver. These metals are critical life insurance. But there are clearly many other important areas of protection to plan for. A circle of friends and family is absolutely essential.
Cut down the trees. Kill the wild animals. Burn the bush. Pollute the rivers. Pave over the grass. Raise more beef, pigs and poultry in cages.
That’s the credo of the new right. Hatred of Nature is an integral part of its politics. President Donald Trump is the high priest of such environmental vandalism. In his narrow land-developer mind, Nature is a left-wing liberal conspiracy.
Trump’s Brazilian wannabe, President Jair Bolsonaro, is now doing his mentor one better: he encouraged Brazilian farmers, loggers and miners, all key Bolsonaro constituencies, to accelerate their destruction of the Amazon rain forest, which provides 20% of the Earth’s oxygen.
The farmers, miners and loggers responded to his call by burning the irreplaceable forest, the world’s largest, at a rate over 80% higher than last year. Rarely has the world seen a more horrifying example of humans destroying the small planet on which they live.
Bolsonaro and his fellow Brazilian vandals say they lack the means to stop this incendiary epidemic. Nonsense. The Brazilian president is a former army officer. He must deploy the entire Brazilian Army to protect his nation’s most important resource, the Amazon. Neighboring Bolivia, Columbia and Paraguay should join in. Here is a perfect example for the UN Security Council to take action by declaring the 75,000 man-made fires a threat to all humanity and threaten to sanction Brazil’s exports if its does not take decisive action.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron put it right at the current G7 meeting at Biarritz, ‘our house is on fire.’ France, Spain and Portugal all have their very serious dry season fires, but they send small armies to combat them. Climate change is playing a major role in sparking the raging fires. Unlike Bolsonaro, the European nations don’t absurdly claim the fires were begun by NGO’s (non-governmental environmental organizations).
Brazil’s army numbers 222,700 men, backed by reserves of 1,980,000. Mobilize them. Bolsonaro has been eager to send special paramilitary militia groups into slums in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Send them to the Amazon, which has three million species of plants and animals, and one million indigenous people.
The Amazon’s forests are being burned primarily to create more grazing land for cattle, one of Brazil’s most important exports. Producing meat is not only cruel, it uses up inordinate amounts of land and water. All those who adopt ‘meatless Mondays’ or purchase new plant-based burgers are directly fighting the destruction of the Amazon.
The slow death of the Amazon is an alarm call to us all of the importance of trees to mankind. I’ve been to many nations – such as India and Haiti – where most of their original trees were cut down – and the result has been an environmental disaster for mankind and animals.
We are wanton and prodigal in our over-use of wood. Trees must be protected – as the city of Toronto has so wisely done by fencing off trees in construction zones. I hope that a way will be found to convert plastic waste into building materials.
The wide-scale destruction of the great North American boreal forest is a crime that must end now. Fly over the ‘clear-cut’ zones of tree destruction in Canada and the US to see the full horror of the industrialized massacre of our trees. Brazil is not the only killer of forests.
Recycling all wood is the first step. Banning open-air camp fires is another sensible step. Those who make a living by killing trees and animals must be advised to find other work at a time when labor is short.
Trump and Bolsonaro are modern-day vandals. The gutting of America’s wildlife and environmental laws by the Trump administration is a shameful act of ignorance. But one supposes that our president, who appears to live on burgers and diet Coke, has zero interest in wetlands, trees, birds, animals or rivers.
Even Adolf Hitler was an arch conservationist and vegetarian who hated smokers and loved birds and trees. The Mongols destroyed every city in their bloody path to free up more grazing for their ponies. Bolsonaro and Trump would feel right at home with Genghis Khan and his boys.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone