X Close

Wikipedia and UK Government move to censor climate debate

Extinction Rebellion members protest in central London this month. Credit: Getty

July 24, 2023 - 10:00am

A communications project has quietly been launched in the last few weeks, under the auspices of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13), to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. 

This amounts to a concerted effort to police Wikipedia’s most viewed entries related to climate change, predominantly reflecting UN-approved perspectives and information on the subject. According to the official PR, the online encyclopaedia’s editors will work in tandem with “content experts” drawn from and handpicked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Western government-funded Stockholm Environment Institute, among others.

The groups will, until mid-2024, monitor and amend Wikipedia articles with “significant daily page views”. Noting the site’s entries “usually appear at the top of internet search results”, Wikipedia is set to play a “key role in helping promote climate change knowledge”. While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum panel discussion on “tackling disinformation” last autumn, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming boasted about her employer’s narrative control wizardry. She revealed that the UN had “partnered” with major search engines and social media platforms to influence what content users do and do not see related to climate change. “We’re becoming much more proactive,” Fleming explained. “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Wikipedia editing is therefore just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war. And there are disturbing indications that the British Government is carrying out similar activity. In March, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) commenced work on a three-month Government contract, awarded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to “analyse climate related mis/disinformation on social media”. 

ISD receives funding from a large collection of Western governments, foundations and tech giants, ostensibly to root out “disinformation” on particular topics. Tellingly, throughout the pandemic the Institute published alarmist reports on coronavirus “disinformation”. These publications framed any critics of Whitehall’s Covid-19 response as “anti-vaxxers”, while “anti-vaxxers” themselves were portrayed as a vast, far-Right, potentially terroristic fifth column. 

Every step of the way, these dubious pronouncements were amplified by the BBC, as well as by the corporation’s “specialist disinformation reporter” Marianna Spring. Spring took up her role in March 2020, precisely when ISD began its investigations into Covid “disinformation”. 

Then, in November 2021, the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee published a report on “behaviour change for climate and environmental goals”. It examined mechanisms by which British citizens could be willed into compliance with preventative measures, which can purportedly achieve Net Zero by 2050.

The report argued that ISD’s analysis of “disinformation” published on Facebook during the COP26 conference that same month necessitated the highly controversial Online Safety Bill’s expansion to cover climate change. The Institute concluded that during the two-week conference, “sceptic content garnered 12 times the level of engagement of authoritative sources on the platform”. Shocking stuff, one might think — except much of this so-called “disinformation” took the form of criticism of Greta Thunberg and the hypocrisy of attendees arriving on environmentally destructive private jets.

Meanwhile, Steve Smith, an “expert witness” consulted by the Committee, argued that “traditional broadcasters” such as the BBC “must play an important role as trusted sources in a landscape of disinformation online.” Elsewhere, he suggested the British Government should repurpose communications techniques deployed during the Covid-19 pandemic for the fight against climate change:

Very effective messaging came from Covid and there are lessons that we can learn from it — the sense that, when we really think something is a crisis, the government can change overnight. But with climate change, we are still not doing that, are we?
- Steve Smith

Smith is a senior staffer at Picture Zero, a film and TV production company specialising in “human climate change stories”. He was one of several “experts” with no environmental science background — including marketing specialists, green activists, and pollsters — whose testimony heavily informed the report’s findings and recommendations. One after another, they urged the committee to “apply lessons of the Covid pandemic for bringing about widespread behaviour change.”

It seems that governments deploying information warfare against their own citizens did not end with the Covid-19 reopening: influencing the public on the climate agenda is the next area of focus.


Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist.

Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

29 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago

Truly terrifying, practically as chilling as any religious/ideological fundamentalist movement that would excommunicate, imprison or execute any heretic. Now it is reputations, businesses and careers built over a lifetime that get razed to the ground in a matter of moments if the heretic dares to speak rather than executions but if we allow that how far away are the gulags and disappearances?
Recently the Nobel Physics Laureate, Dr John Clauser, derided the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a ‘dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.”
Due to give a talk at the IMF on climate models the page announcing that talk on the IMF website has been removed and the talk cancelled. HE was daring to ask, “How much can we trust IPCC climate predictions?”
The swift cancellation of the talk gives all the answer we need.
I do not deny climate change – how can anyone. It has been going on for millennia, what I question is the ability of humans to realistically control it. Yes we must stop rampant pollution, deforestation, the ruination of soils, the continuous degradation of the oceans but it seems none of that is being addressed by this madness.
Why are they so afraid of debate?

Last edited 1 year ago by Glyn R
Paul Curtin
Paul Curtin
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Completely agree on all points.
The green washing of ill defined science and data is rife to engineer social change by the back door.
Get rid of all media and academics that question anything and/or cancel those that digress from the one party line.
If you raise any queries at all then you’re a denier/delusional/ultra religious/right wing/fascist loon.
Please see also applied to critical race theory, trans, education, digital centralised currency etc.
”The sun has just come out and it’s July. My god, my god we’re all going to die”.
No wonder the west has become neurotic. This is of course insidious and it’s the same in the UK and US.

Last edited 1 year ago by Paul Curtin
jim peden
jim peden
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Thank you for the heads-up! Cancellation of dissenting views is but one of the tools of totalitarianism. Our democratic governments seem to have discovered that totalitarianism is a much easier option for them following the marketing and propaganda triumphs of the Covid interventions.
I expect the overwhelming majority of the British people will say and do nothing whatever they may think of it. Until reality comes home to roost, anyway.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  jim peden

Indeed. This is being replicated around the world, Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, throughout the EU. The net is closing and being tightened rapidly.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  jim peden

Indeed. This is being replicated around the world, Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, throughout the EU. The net is closing and being tightened rapidly.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Follow the Money!
I have a degree in ecology and lots of the present issues were being talked about back in the late 1970’s. Margaret Thatcher highlighted concerns over the environment in the 1980’s which was roundly poo poo’ed. Increasing pollution and land degradation coupled with pollution of the seas in an industrial scale have been being highlighted for decades.
And I have tried to manage my life around some of these issues for decades (food miles, waste management, trees, care on purchasing etc.)
In my view it wasn’t until some businesses realised there was lots of money to be made that the ramping up of the hysteria started. Electric cars as a world saviour was irrelevant until big manufacturers worked out how to sell them. Same with solar, wind and other alternative (to fossil fuel) power sources. The whole climate emergency rhetoric revolves around selling expensive “alternatives” to a gullible (but scared and well meaning) middle class with little thought from the mainstream media about impact on poorer people both in the developed and the developing world.
Cynicle? Moi? Yes!

James S.
James S.
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Part of their fear of debate may stem from the massive wealth transfer that they hope to derive from the “climate emergency.” For the WEF types, there’s boatloads of money to be made, as well as power to be wielded.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Because debate can not be controlled after it starts.
Debate would include questions about what can really West do to control GLOBAL warming?
Answer is not very much.
Reality is that global warming (assuming it is caused by humam activity) is mostly caused by overpopulation and pollution in Asia and Africa.
But that is taboo subject.

Paul Curtin
Paul Curtin
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Completely agree on all points.
The green washing of ill defined science and data is rife to engineer social change by the back door.
Get rid of all media and academics that question anything and/or cancel those that digress from the one party line.
If you raise any queries at all then you’re a denier/delusional/ultra religious/right wing/fascist loon.
Please see also applied to critical race theory, trans, education, digital centralised currency etc.
”The sun has just come out and it’s July. My god, my god we’re all going to die”.
No wonder the west has become neurotic. This is of course insidious and it’s the same in the UK and US.

Last edited 1 year ago by Paul Curtin
jim peden
jim peden
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Thank you for the heads-up! Cancellation of dissenting views is but one of the tools of totalitarianism. Our democratic governments seem to have discovered that totalitarianism is a much easier option for them following the marketing and propaganda triumphs of the Covid interventions.
I expect the overwhelming majority of the British people will say and do nothing whatever they may think of it. Until reality comes home to roost, anyway.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Follow the Money!
I have a degree in ecology and lots of the present issues were being talked about back in the late 1970’s. Margaret Thatcher highlighted concerns over the environment in the 1980’s which was roundly poo poo’ed. Increasing pollution and land degradation coupled with pollution of the seas in an industrial scale have been being highlighted for decades.
And I have tried to manage my life around some of these issues for decades (food miles, waste management, trees, care on purchasing etc.)
In my view it wasn’t until some businesses realised there was lots of money to be made that the ramping up of the hysteria started. Electric cars as a world saviour was irrelevant until big manufacturers worked out how to sell them. Same with solar, wind and other alternative (to fossil fuel) power sources. The whole climate emergency rhetoric revolves around selling expensive “alternatives” to a gullible (but scared and well meaning) middle class with little thought from the mainstream media about impact on poorer people both in the developed and the developing world.
Cynicle? Moi? Yes!

James S.
James S.
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Part of their fear of debate may stem from the massive wealth transfer that they hope to derive from the “climate emergency.” For the WEF types, there’s boatloads of money to be made, as well as power to be wielded.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

Because debate can not be controlled after it starts.
Debate would include questions about what can really West do to control GLOBAL warming?
Answer is not very much.
Reality is that global warming (assuming it is caused by humam activity) is mostly caused by overpopulation and pollution in Asia and Africa.
But that is taboo subject.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago

Truly terrifying, practically as chilling as any religious/ideological fundamentalist movement that would excommunicate, imprison or execute any heretic. Now it is reputations, businesses and careers built over a lifetime that get razed to the ground in a matter of moments if the heretic dares to speak rather than executions but if we allow that how far away are the gulags and disappearances?
Recently the Nobel Physics Laureate, Dr John Clauser, derided the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a ‘dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.”
Due to give a talk at the IMF on climate models the page announcing that talk on the IMF website has been removed and the talk cancelled. HE was daring to ask, “How much can we trust IPCC climate predictions?”
The swift cancellation of the talk gives all the answer we need.
I do not deny climate change – how can anyone. It has been going on for millennia, what I question is the ability of humans to realistically control it. Yes we must stop rampant pollution, deforestation, the ruination of soils, the continuous degradation of the oceans but it seems none of that is being addressed by this madness.
Why are they so afraid of debate?

Last edited 1 year ago by Glyn R
Saul D
Saul D
1 year ago

Controlling the narrative has been going on since at least 2006 (when the Climate Denier tag was promoted across the activist media). Unfortunately, it’s precisely the attempt to control the narrative that leads to the distrust, particularly when it’s combined with religious fervour and hypocrisy.
There is continual media manipulation – skeptics became deniers, became conspiracy theorists; climate change became the climate emergency or climate crisis; and the framing of peak hot points as ‘look its happening’ while cold points are dismissed as ‘weather’ (parts of the US had record cold earlier this year); and hounding out of intelligent counter-opinions instead of engaging with them – science as a belief system, not an exploration system.
The IPCC does try to take a balanced approach, but it’s not enough for the hardline activists who are certain we’ll have metres of sea level rise by 2100, so we get crazy hyped stories a long way from the official picture.
The reality is that most people know very little about the state of the climate other than the ‘we’re-all-going-to-die’ message. What is the current temperature compared to pre-industrial times? What does 1.5C and 2.0C refer to when experts talk of temperature thresholds? What’s the current rate of sea level rise and how is this changing? What is the relationship between CO2 and temperature, and how much did temperature go up from 300 to 400ppm, and from 400 to 500ppm and from 500 to 600ppm? At what rate is CO2 increasing in the atmosphere, and what timescales are we talking about here?
Unfortunately sensible data gets buried by activists looking to amplify the message who only want to tell bad-news stories. The same activists who refuse to see nuclear power as a solution, or who demand austerity (and so a return to poverty) as the only corrective action.
If it really is an emergency, then switch to nuclear power now – expedite the programme – make electricity cheap. Sink the superyachts, ban private jets, cancel the fashion industry and ditch organic farming (too unproductive). Instead, a lot of investors are getting rich selling carbon credits and raising the price of energy.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Saul D

I wouldn’t say the IPCC takes a balanced approach. Its very existence depends on maintaining the hysterical narrative. I think it’s fair to say that its reports do have some balance and contain some worthwhile science, but the executive summaries of these reports are hysterical nonsense.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  Saul D

Ditch organic farming? I would say that I return to real farms and not factories – either for intensive farming or lab meats – is the best way forward.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

I wouldn’t ditch organic farming either. They are great for people interested in that market, but we need large-scale intensive farming to feed the world.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Glyn R

I wouldn’t ditch organic farming either. They are great for people interested in that market, but we need large-scale intensive farming to feed the world.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Saul D

I wouldn’t say the IPCC takes a balanced approach. Its very existence depends on maintaining the hysterical narrative. I think it’s fair to say that its reports do have some balance and contain some worthwhile science, but the executive summaries of these reports are hysterical nonsense.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  Saul D

Ditch organic farming? I would say that I return to real farms and not factories – either for intensive farming or lab meats – is the best way forward.

Saul D
Saul D
1 year ago

Controlling the narrative has been going on since at least 2006 (when the Climate Denier tag was promoted across the activist media). Unfortunately, it’s precisely the attempt to control the narrative that leads to the distrust, particularly when it’s combined with religious fervour and hypocrisy.
There is continual media manipulation – skeptics became deniers, became conspiracy theorists; climate change became the climate emergency or climate crisis; and the framing of peak hot points as ‘look its happening’ while cold points are dismissed as ‘weather’ (parts of the US had record cold earlier this year); and hounding out of intelligent counter-opinions instead of engaging with them – science as a belief system, not an exploration system.
The IPCC does try to take a balanced approach, but it’s not enough for the hardline activists who are certain we’ll have metres of sea level rise by 2100, so we get crazy hyped stories a long way from the official picture.
The reality is that most people know very little about the state of the climate other than the ‘we’re-all-going-to-die’ message. What is the current temperature compared to pre-industrial times? What does 1.5C and 2.0C refer to when experts talk of temperature thresholds? What’s the current rate of sea level rise and how is this changing? What is the relationship between CO2 and temperature, and how much did temperature go up from 300 to 400ppm, and from 400 to 500ppm and from 500 to 600ppm? At what rate is CO2 increasing in the atmosphere, and what timescales are we talking about here?
Unfortunately sensible data gets buried by activists looking to amplify the message who only want to tell bad-news stories. The same activists who refuse to see nuclear power as a solution, or who demand austerity (and so a return to poverty) as the only corrective action.
If it really is an emergency, then switch to nuclear power now – expedite the programme – make electricity cheap. Sink the superyachts, ban private jets, cancel the fashion industry and ditch organic farming (too unproductive). Instead, a lot of investors are getting rich selling carbon credits and raising the price of energy.

David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago

This is intolerable. I encourage every reader to spend 10 mins writing an email to his or her MP, deploring this direction of travel in the strongest terms. 10 mins is not much to ask, when our basic freedoms are at stake.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

I have written on all sorts of matters to my MP – a decent man but a political dunce; moreover he is wholly signed up to the great climate scare. Worse still, he is a careerist who might have worn any colour of rosette provided that it helped him into office. I don’t say “power” as chaps like him don’t want power and – indeed – do everything they can to funnel the authority delegated from us, the voters, to supranational totalitarians. If, however, one were to pick through the banal salad of his wittering speeches, a ghastly task, I feel that his real political profile would stand revealed as wholly opposed to the traditions and history of the party he joined. And for that we must blame Cameron who recruited such people in battalions.

Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Yet you describe him as a “decent man”. It seems to me he is potentially no better than all the “decent men” in Germany in the 1930’s who said nothing while Hitler built his national empire.

Last edited 1 year ago by Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Yet you describe him as a “decent man”. It seems to me he is potentially no better than all the “decent men” in Germany in the 1930’s who said nothing while Hitler built his national empire.

Last edited 1 year ago by Kent Ausburn
Simon Denis
Simon Denis
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

I have written on all sorts of matters to my MP – a decent man but a political dunce; moreover he is wholly signed up to the great climate scare. Worse still, he is a careerist who might have worn any colour of rosette provided that it helped him into office. I don’t say “power” as chaps like him don’t want power and – indeed – do everything they can to funnel the authority delegated from us, the voters, to supranational totalitarians. If, however, one were to pick through the banal salad of his wittering speeches, a ghastly task, I feel that his real political profile would stand revealed as wholly opposed to the traditions and history of the party he joined. And for that we must blame Cameron who recruited such people in battalions.

David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago

This is intolerable. I encourage every reader to spend 10 mins writing an email to his or her MP, deploring this direction of travel in the strongest terms. 10 mins is not much to ask, when our basic freedoms are at stake.

David Pogge
David Pogge
1 year ago

Once again, authoritarianism rears its ugly head, always under the guise of protecting us from some danger that we cannot otherwise defend ourselves against. I am more afraid of censorship than I am of ‘disinformation’.

David Pogge
David Pogge
1 year ago

Once again, authoritarianism rears its ugly head, always under the guise of protecting us from some danger that we cannot otherwise defend ourselves against. I am more afraid of censorship than I am of ‘disinformation’.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Nice to see an article like this, but it’s almost a dollar short and a day late. Censorship in the climate debate has been an established practice for more than a decade.

The BBC is on the record saying it won’t platform skeptical voices, as have hundreds of regime news outlets across the globe. If the science is so settled, why do the alarmists always lose debates when they take place?

John Stossel sued Facebook for deleting three of his videos. Facebook defended itself, not by arguing that his videos contained misinformation – they didn’t – but by admitting that fact checks are merely opinion. The list of skeptics censored on all the big tech platforms and in the regime media is almost endless.

The dreaded Trusted News Initiative for Covid was modeled after Climate Central, an organization created in 2008 that boasts membership of 500 media organizations. It’s nothing more than a well-funded alarmist organization that churns out copy for regime media. The information is always alarmist and is a main source of the hysterical information we see in the media.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Nice to see an article like this, but it’s almost a dollar short and a day late. Censorship in the climate debate has been an established practice for more than a decade.

The BBC is on the record saying it won’t platform skeptical voices, as have hundreds of regime news outlets across the globe. If the science is so settled, why do the alarmists always lose debates when they take place?

John Stossel sued Facebook for deleting three of his videos. Facebook defended itself, not by arguing that his videos contained misinformation – they didn’t – but by admitting that fact checks are merely opinion. The list of skeptics censored on all the big tech platforms and in the regime media is almost endless.

The dreaded Trusted News Initiative for Covid was modeled after Climate Central, an organization created in 2008 that boasts membership of 500 media organizations. It’s nothing more than a well-funded alarmist organization that churns out copy for regime media. The information is always alarmist and is a main source of the hysterical information we see in the media.

Howard Gleave
Howard Gleave
1 year ago

Words matter, and the very phrase “climate emergency” could be used by the British government to invoke the Emergency Powers Act. I wonder how long it might be before caps on the monthly mileage of private vehicles are imposed?

Howard Gleave
Howard Gleave
1 year ago

Words matter, and the very phrase “climate emergency” could be used by the British government to invoke the Emergency Powers Act. I wonder how long it might be before caps on the monthly mileage of private vehicles are imposed?

0 0
0 0
1 year ago

Chilling passage that should concentrate all our minds:
“We’re becoming much more proactive,” Fleming explained. “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Yes, I noticed that too. It was no surprise then that when I looked her up I saw that she is an agent of ‘SPECTRA’: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/melissa-fleming

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Ours is the only age when anyone would listen to that woman.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Yes, I noticed that too. It was no surprise then that when I looked her up I saw that she is an agent of ‘SPECTRA’: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/melissa-fleming

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Ours is the only age when anyone would listen to that woman.

0 0
0 0
1 year ago

Chilling passage that should concentrate all our minds:
“We’re becoming much more proactive,” Fleming explained. “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Peter Gray
Peter Gray
1 year ago

While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.”
Not only that.  There are now numerous scientists and solid scientific theories regarding climate dynamism and its causes.  
Dr. R. Lindzen, a former professor at MIT, thinks that it is utterly ridiculous to believe that (relatively) minute changes in CO2 can affect the climate and calls the peer review, employed in publishing the AGW papers, a pal review.
Dr. S. Koonin, a current professor at NYU, a member of the IPCC, and a former Obama administration Undersecretary of Science in DOE, openly questions the basis for the AGW theory disaster scenario and calls the science on topic unsettled.
Dr. Patrick Moore, the founder of Greenpeace, convincingly suggests that the increase in CO2 concentration may have saved the life on Earth and will continue to help, not harm, the environment.
I can name a dozen more, all of whom strongly disagree with the IPCC orthodoxy and seriously question the foundation of the AWG theory and particularly its prognosis.
Let’s remember that:
None of the 40 IPCC climate models have been able to accurately predict the changes we have seen so far;
Atmospheric concentration of CO2 used to higher by two orders of magnitude while the life on Earth thrived;
None of the predictions made by the AWG supporters in the 1990’s came to be;
Replacing current energy sources with (almost exclusively, as it being proposed) wind and solar is economically and physically impossible without seriously degrading the standard of living and lifespans;
The hostility to nuclear energy by the AGW crowd is a strong indicator that fossil fuels are not at the core of the controversy but industrialization, which gave us today’s civilization.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Gray
Peter Gray
Peter Gray
1 year ago

While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.”
Not only that.  There are now numerous scientists and solid scientific theories regarding climate dynamism and its causes.  
Dr. R. Lindzen, a former professor at MIT, thinks that it is utterly ridiculous to believe that (relatively) minute changes in CO2 can affect the climate and calls the peer review, employed in publishing the AGW papers, a pal review.
Dr. S. Koonin, a current professor at NYU, a member of the IPCC, and a former Obama administration Undersecretary of Science in DOE, openly questions the basis for the AGW theory disaster scenario and calls the science on topic unsettled.
Dr. Patrick Moore, the founder of Greenpeace, convincingly suggests that the increase in CO2 concentration may have saved the life on Earth and will continue to help, not harm, the environment.
I can name a dozen more, all of whom strongly disagree with the IPCC orthodoxy and seriously question the foundation of the AWG theory and particularly its prognosis.
Let’s remember that:
None of the 40 IPCC climate models have been able to accurately predict the changes we have seen so far;
Atmospheric concentration of CO2 used to higher by two orders of magnitude while the life on Earth thrived;
None of the predictions made by the AWG supporters in the 1990’s came to be;
Replacing current energy sources with (almost exclusively, as it being proposed) wind and solar is economically and physically impossible without seriously degrading the standard of living and lifespans;
The hostility to nuclear energy by the AGW crowd is a strong indicator that fossil fuels are not at the core of the controversy but industrialization, which gave us today’s civilization.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Gray
Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago

Very sinister. What a horror show the seedy corrupt UN has become. But far worse is the total capitulation of British Science, the weasly cowardly scam artists ‘Formerly known as the Scientists’, to this eco mania and its poisonous Groupthink. No link to the Wuhan Lab right,?? What a joke. How easily you have sacrificed the pursuit of Truth and debased a profession we depend on for empirical virtue. What is the point of you? We know the way you work. The now familiar ‘Imperial formula’ the State has deployed with Scotland, Brexit, then Covid/Lockdown and on up to Climate GroupFunkThunk. Avoid present tense facts, debate & nuance. Always use Speculation & long term Models that go for Max (they cannot be disproved!). Go Emo – go Project Fear. Bully sceptics into silence. Then sort the public too. Deploy an equally debased State Broadcaster and let it amplify that fear, battering the minds of kids with images of fiery imminent Armaggedon like deranged End Of Timers. No one of independent mind will EVER again respect, trust or believe in ‘State Science’ after its role in the censorship and abuse of our liberties during lockdown. What to do? Somehow or other, we MUST now hear more from the Professor Clausers of the world. Come on Unherd; lead the charge. Give us more of this debate!!!

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago

Very sinister. What a horror show the seedy corrupt UN has become. But far worse is the total capitulation of British Science, the weasly cowardly scam artists ‘Formerly known as the Scientists’, to this eco mania and its poisonous Groupthink. No link to the Wuhan Lab right,?? What a joke. How easily you have sacrificed the pursuit of Truth and debased a profession we depend on for empirical virtue. What is the point of you? We know the way you work. The now familiar ‘Imperial formula’ the State has deployed with Scotland, Brexit, then Covid/Lockdown and on up to Climate GroupFunkThunk. Avoid present tense facts, debate & nuance. Always use Speculation & long term Models that go for Max (they cannot be disproved!). Go Emo – go Project Fear. Bully sceptics into silence. Then sort the public too. Deploy an equally debased State Broadcaster and let it amplify that fear, battering the minds of kids with images of fiery imminent Armaggedon like deranged End Of Timers. No one of independent mind will EVER again respect, trust or believe in ‘State Science’ after its role in the censorship and abuse of our liberties during lockdown. What to do? Somehow or other, we MUST now hear more from the Professor Clausers of the world. Come on Unherd; lead the charge. Give us more of this debate!!!

Andrew Holmes
Andrew Holmes
1 year ago

It is obscene that supporters cite “effective messaging” respecting Covid as a model. In the US, the number of conscious lies, successful plots to suppress truths, and the range of destructive policies that may have been changed had the public been informed, undoubtedly resulted in more death and disruption than was necessary consequent to the epidemic. You have to have the mindset of a dictator to assert that a repeat is the proper course.

Andrew Holmes
Andrew Holmes
1 year ago

It is obscene that supporters cite “effective messaging” respecting Covid as a model. In the US, the number of conscious lies, successful plots to suppress truths, and the range of destructive policies that may have been changed had the public been informed, undoubtedly resulted in more death and disruption than was necessary consequent to the epidemic. You have to have the mindset of a dictator to assert that a repeat is the proper course.

Trish Castle
Trish Castle
1 year ago

Here in NZ we have the “Disinformation Project” (which describes itself as independent – as we say here “yeah right”) and now the Department of Infernal Affairs has recommended that a regulatory body be set up to monitor and manage online content, despite the fact that we already have perfectly adequate (and probably too adequate) legislation to deal with it. It’s going on everywhere.

Last edited 1 year ago by Trish Castle
Trish Castle
Trish Castle
1 year ago

Here in NZ we have the “Disinformation Project” (which describes itself as independent – as we say here “yeah right”) and now the Department of Infernal Affairs has recommended that a regulatory body be set up to monitor and manage online content, despite the fact that we already have perfectly adequate (and probably too adequate) legislation to deal with it. It’s going on everywhere.

Last edited 1 year ago by Trish Castle
Kevan Hudson
Kevan Hudson
1 year ago

So criticism of individuals like Bill Gates who refuse to ditch their private jets while claiming they want to reduce emissions, and all the other elites flying to COP or the WEF on private jets is anti climate change?
Looks like the anti climate change side is going to be very wide and will include many environmentalists including those who believe climate change is real.
These times are truly authoritarians versus anti authoritarians.

Kevan Hudson
Kevan Hudson
1 year ago

So criticism of individuals like Bill Gates who refuse to ditch their private jets while claiming they want to reduce emissions, and all the other elites flying to COP or the WEF on private jets is anti climate change?
Looks like the anti climate change side is going to be very wide and will include many environmentalists including those who believe climate change is real.
These times are truly authoritarians versus anti authoritarians.

joe hardy
joe hardy
1 year ago

Did anyone ever stop to think about why China has no climate alarmists?
It’s because they are already a communist nation.

joe hardy
joe hardy
1 year ago

Did anyone ever stop to think about why China has no climate alarmists?
It’s because they are already a communist nation.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago

It’s a welcome development if talented marcomms folk are going to play an increasing role in shaping the climate narrative & building concensus for needed action.
Sadly, involvement of IPPC scientists on Wikipedia actually leads to articles being edited in a pro skeptical direction, at least regarding specific articles I’m aware of. I understand why even a good journalist might assume the contary. But if one has inside knowledge of such matters, one would know that IPPC experts are often way more conservative than climate scientists advising even some of the more skeptical goverments like Australia. Occaisonally, IPCC preditions understate those of more reliable scientists by over 100%!
Interested folk can search for “This problem persists, notably in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” and should find several good sources on IPCC understament of the climate risk.
Fortuneatly, the IPPC experts are given no special rights on Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are free to correct their over cautious takes. The problem is more working out how to present the high page view articles in a way that promotes effective action, has the desired effect on the political unconcious, etc. Too much doomism, even too much climate science reality, can easilly be self defeating. Few of the active climate editors have the right skillset to make such calls, which is why it’s great to hear folk like Steve Smith are getting involved, even if just at strategy level rather than getting down in the trenches and helping with the actual presentation of content.

Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

It’s true that the Apparatchiks that write the IPCC summaries are government lackeys and that many of the real scientists who write the technical portions have very different and more nuanced views.
However, any attempts at censorship or control within Wiki or elsewhere are wrong. And it doesn’t get much worse than:
“We’re becoming much more proactive,” Fleming explained. “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Rocky Martiano
Rocky Martiano
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

You didn’t understand the point this piece is making at all, did you?
And before editing Wikipedia articles maybe you ought to learn to spell.

Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

It’s true that the Apparatchiks that write the IPCC summaries are government lackeys and that many of the real scientists who write the technical portions have very different and more nuanced views.
However, any attempts at censorship or control within Wiki or elsewhere are wrong. And it doesn’t get much worse than:
“We’re becoming much more proactive,” Fleming explained. “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Rocky Martiano
Rocky Martiano
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

You didn’t understand the point this piece is making at all, did you?
And before editing Wikipedia articles maybe you ought to learn to spell.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago

It’s a welcome development if talented marcomms folk are going to play an increasing role in shaping the climate narrative & building concensus for needed action.
Sadly, involvement of IPPC scientists on Wikipedia actually leads to articles being edited in a pro skeptical direction, at least regarding specific articles I’m aware of. I understand why even a good journalist might assume the contary. But if one has inside knowledge of such matters, one would know that IPPC experts are often way more conservative than climate scientists advising even some of the more skeptical goverments like Australia. Occaisonally, IPCC preditions understate those of more reliable scientists by over 100%!
Interested folk can search for “This problem persists, notably in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” and should find several good sources on IPCC understament of the climate risk.
Fortuneatly, the IPPC experts are given no special rights on Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are free to correct their over cautious takes. The problem is more working out how to present the high page view articles in a way that promotes effective action, has the desired effect on the political unconcious, etc. Too much doomism, even too much climate science reality, can easilly be self defeating. Few of the active climate editors have the right skillset to make such calls, which is why it’s great to hear folk like Steve Smith are getting involved, even if just at strategy level rather than getting down in the trenches and helping with the actual presentation of content.