Archives mensuelles : novembre 2025

climate-debate

The Paris Agreement Delusion: What Emissions Data Actually Reveal

by R. Pielke Jr, Nov 24, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The touted achievements of global climate initiatives aren’t rooted in reality.

Eiffel tower in Paris degrees
In 2015 in Paris, countries from around the world agreed to accelerate the decarbonization of their economies in response to climate change. [emphasis, links added]

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), implementation of the Paris Agreement over the past decade has been a runaway success story, moving the world away from what would have been a global catastrophe.

At the opening of COP30 earlier this month, U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell hailed the purported achievements of the initiative:

Over three decade [sic] ago in Rio, humanity set a new course of global climate cooperation. Ten years ago, in Paris, we took a major step forward. Without that act of collective courage, we would still be headed for an impossible future of unchecked heating, of up to 5 degrees. Because of it, the curve has bent below 3°C – still perilous, but proof that climate cooperation works.

The media amplified the victory lap.

Take, for instance, CNN’s reporting on the summit:

Ten years ago, humanity was burning so much fossil fuel that Earth was on track to overheat by a catastrophic 4 degrees Celsius by century’s end. But then came Paris, when nearly 200 nations agreed to wean themselves off of oil, gas, and coal; protect more nature; and hold the global warming line at 1.5 [degrees Celsius]. The Paris Accords led to innovation and market forces that now make sun, wind, and storage cheaper and more popular than ever.

The world was headed for a climate apocalypse, and thanks to climate advocacy and an international agreement, the worst has been avoided. We simply need to stay the course to finish the job.

That’s the story that climate advocates and the media are now telling about global climate policy. Unfortunately, that narrative is not rooted in reality.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

A Sobering Reality: Global Fossil Fuel Demand Continues to Rise

by P. Gosselin, Nov 23, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Bkackout News here reports that despite ambitious international climate targets and the promise of a rapid energy transition, we are witnessing a paradoxical development: Global demand for fossil fuels has not fallen, but continues to increase.

The world economy’s growing hunger for energy directly clashes with political expectations, and the so-called “Peak Demand” for oil and gas, once predicted by experts, is currently not in sight.

Just a few years ago, there was optimism when the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced an impending peak in fossil fuel demand. This confidence supported many climate strategies. However, rising economic risks and political headwinds led many governments to revise their strategies. The consequence: The energy transition lost momentum while real demand increased.

Earlier forecasts thus have become obsolete, and the expected rapid electrification of the economy is progressing more slowly than planned.

Fossil fuels are not being replaced

A central problem is that renewable energies are currently not replacing conventional sources, but merely supplementing them. We are in a Phase of Addition. Although solar and wind power are being expanded massively, this is not enough to meet the strongly growing global energy demand.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

The Transition That Never Transitioned: Fossil Fuels Still Powered 86% of the World in 2024

by Dr. M. Wielicki, Nov 20, 2025 in IrrationalFear

It’s November 2025. We are exactly a quarter century removed from the millennial panic, the Kyoto Protocol hype, and the first waves of “irrevocable tipping points” that were supposedly coming in 10 years (i.e., 2010).

We were told that fossil fuels had to be phased out immediately, or the planet would warm by 5–6°C by 2100. 25 years, multiple trillions of dollars, millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and countless “last chance” climate summits later…

Fossil fuels supplied ~88% of global primary energy in 2000.
In 2024, they supplied 86%.

Let that sink in.

 

 

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Global energy supply increased 2% in 2024 driven by rises in demand across all forms of energy, with non-OECD countries dominating both the share and annual growth rates. Fossil fuels continue to underpin the energy system accounting for 86% of the energy mix. Source: https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/home
climate-debate

Just How Good Were the Early Climate Models?

by D.R. Legates, Nov 20, 2025 in WUWT

An article by Nadir Jeevanjee, a Research Physical Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recently published in The Conversationand reprinted by Space.Com, suggests that climate models are being given a bad rap. It cites a recent Department of Energy report as using the complexity of climate models as the primary reason why these models cannot be trusted. The article protests, “But the history of climate science tells a different story” because early climate models were instrumental in shaping our understanding of the Earth’s climate.

Okay, let’s revisit history—because those who can’t remember history correctly are destined to get it wrong.

First, we need to get one fact correct. The recent Department of Energy report did not simply cite the complexity of climate models as the primary reason they cannot be trusted. It goes into detail as to why current climate models cannot be trusted: namely, they cannot reproduce current conditions.

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For example, models are not capable of determining the equilibrium climate sensitivity to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. As shown in this graph from the DOE report, they tend to “run hot,” or overstate surface warming.

 

better to know...?, climate-debate

Icy Silence From Climate Doomers As Controversial Study Warns Of Possible Ice Age

by S. Kent, Nov 13, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

A controversial study warns a collapsing Atlantic current could trigger a new ice age in the EU and US.

Frozen EU USA
Forget threats of “global boiling.” A possible new ice age and attendant sea level changes could be ushered in as a result of shifts in a key Atlantic current, climate scientists set out in a controversial new study as reported by multiple outlets. [emphasis, links added]

The forecast appears in the journal Communications Earth & Environment and, at face value, runs counter to the incessant cries of “global boiling” that dominate the climate debate.

The apocalyptic predictions came as a result of a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego.

They have been published just a matter of weeks after one-time climate doomer Bill Gates publicly downplayed the impact of temperature fluctuations on the planet and urged humanity to instead focus on other threats to our future.

The NY Post makes clear what is at stake per the new findings in a story headlined: “Climate scientists’ controversial claim Gulf Stream could be near collapse — predicting a new ice age”

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climate-debate

Decades of Crying ‘Fire!’ in the Climate Theatre Have Left the BBC with Net Zero Credibility

by C. Morrison, Nov 13, 2025 in WUWT

Let us travel back to April 2012 and revisit an important milestone in BBC climate reporting – what is thought to be the last recorded sighting of genuine journalistic inquiry. Richard Knight noted an extremist claim that up to 150 mostly animal species are lost every day, but then went on to observe that if the claim was really true, should we not expect the International Union for Conservation in Nature to list more than 801 extinct species in the last 512 years. Fast forward 10 years and Esme Stallard was honking without any alternative view that “the extinction of species is now happening between 1,000 and 10,000 times quicker than scientists would expect to see”. Humans could be causing the “sixth mass extinction”, scientists are said to have warned. Over the last two decades, climate science reporting at the BBC has been reduced to cherry-picking the worst ‘scientists say’ clickbait remarks to promote the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Debate has been abolished, the scientific inquiry process trashed and the intelligence of the British public insulted on a daily basis. It’s almost as if the BBC decided to convince everyone that a woman can have a penis.

In the wake of the BBC’s decision to mark its own homework by referring climate change reporting to its Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, we would do well to acknowledge the sheer enormity of the crime against investigative journalism that has been perpetrated for over two decades. It is an appalling story of journalists kowtowing to a prevailing narrative. They have been willing and able to take a central role in inducing a mass climate psychosis in the general public that has been designed for purely political purposes.

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climate-debate

About COP30, selection of articles (list subject to change)

COP30_ NOV 10-NOV21/2025 Belém, Brazil

Shock COP Dirty Secret: At Least Half the Balsa Wood in Wind Turbine Blades is Illegally Logged in Amazonian Rainforests
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/11/shock-cop-dirty-secret-at-least-half-the-balsa-wood-in-wind-turbine-blades-is-illegally-logged-in-amazonian-rainforests/

COP30: President Lula Calls for an End to Climate Denialism
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/11/cop30-president-lula-calls-for-an-end-to-climate-denialism/

COP30 In Belém Exposes Climate Elites’ Rank Hypocrisy
https://climatechangedispatch.com/cop30-belem-climate-hypocrisy/

Absurdity Reigns At COP30 As Leaders Gaslight On Climate And Energy
https://climatechangedispatch.com/cop30-climate-gaslighting-energy-hypocrisy/

Poll Shows Voters Skeptical Of COP30 Climate Talks In Brazil
https://climatechangedispatch.com/us-adults-no-confidence-cop30-climate-poll/

German Energy Professor: COP 30 Is A Failure…”Only Europe Remains Committed”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/12/german-energy-professor-cop-30-is-a-failureonly-europe-remains-committed/

Claim: COP30 “Vibe Shift” Wrecking Climate Progress
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/13/claim-cop30-vibe-shift-wrecking-climate-progress/

At COP30, UN Declares War On Free Speech To Silence Climate Dissent
https://climatechangedispatch.com/cop30-orwellian-information-integrity-climate-dissent/

White House Shreds Newsom Over ‘Disrespect’ Remark At COP30 Climate Summit
https://climatechangedispatch.com/white-house-blasts-newsom-cop30-climate-summit/

COP30 Dispute Erupts over the Legal Definition of a Woman
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/13/cop30-dispute-erupts-over-the-legal-definition-of-a-woman/

Ten Years After the Paris Climate Agreement, Climatism is Crumbling
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/14/ten-years-after-the-paris-climate-agreement-climatism-is-crumbling/

Did Bill Gates Really Drop a Bomb on Climate Catastrophism?

Un Official Orders Brazil To Get It Together Over Absolute Climate Fest Dumpster Fire

At COP30, Countries Sign First-ever Declaration to Control info on Climate

Live at 1pm ET : Worst COP Ever? – The Climate Realism Show #182

Absurdity Reigns At COP30 As Leaders Gaslight On Climate And Energy

German Energy Professor: COP 30 Is A Failure…”Only Europe Remains Committed”
Claim: COP30 “Vibe Shift” Wrecking Climate Progress
At COP30, UN Declares War On Free Speech To Silence Climate Dissent

White House Shreds Newsom Over ‘Disrespect’ Remark At COP30 Climate Summit

COP30 Dispute Erupts over the Legal Definition of a Woman
Ten Years After the Paris Climate Agreement, Climatism is Crumbling
Climate Alarmist Backlash And COP30 Declaration Show Cancel Culture Isn’t Over
Did a Battery Fire Just Kill the COP30 Climate Conference?
Freedom Melts Faster Than Glaciers: COP30’s Declaration on ‘Information Integrity

more articles will be added….

climate-debate

Alarmists play long game at COP30

by D. Wojick, Nov 11, 2025 in WUWT

Climate alarmism has been seriously stalled by a combination of President Trump and unfavorable economic conditions. So, the diplomats laboring at COP30 are working on long-term issues, hoping for better “weather,” as it were. They are still very busy negotiating the future.

Major policy initiatives often take a decade or more, so while subdued, the work has not slowed down. Rumors of the death of alarmism are greatly exaggerated. The greens are just biding their time.

Most of the issues are about money, of course, although the call for increased 2030 emission reduction targets is also on the table. The money issues mostly have to do with long-term objectives and mechanisms. This includes various global taxes such as on shipping emissions and airfare.

An unavoidable, immediate money issue is raising the supposed $100 billion annual payment by “developed” countries to “developing” countries. (This distinction between donor and recipient countries is based on two lists from 1992 that are long out of date.)

But even here, what was once talk of trillions has moderated to a mere hundreds of billions in the short term. Instead, they are supposed to develop a roadmap to get to $1.3 trillion a year some time from now.

On the new emission targets, there has been a distinct lack of ambition. Many developing countries have yet to submit theirs. One reason may be that these grand plans are all written as being contingent on funding from the “developed” countries. Raising these numbers could be a bad move politically.

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climate-debate

The Curious Case of the Missing Data

by I. Williams, Nov 09, 2025 in WUWT

I shall end with two unanswered questions. The reason for that lies in a story with eight decimal places of recondite mystery and scarcely believable deductions. One last glimpse of reality: the mean temperature of the world at the moment (early November) is hovering around 14 deg C, which is never used because it does not convey a sufficient element of danger in the global warming message. Fourteen degrees Celsius or fifty-seven Fahrenheit are not messages of imminent doom. Either one is the annual mean temperature of Bordeaux, San Francisco or Canberra.

Therefore the Wise Ones have decided that any global temperature given to the masses must always be shown as a difference from the mean of the half-century 1850-1900, which, they say, is representative of our world in smoke-free pre-industrial times. That period also happens to be towards the end of the Little Ice Age, which, the Met Office says, had ‘particularly cold intervals beginning in about 1650, 1770 and 1850.’ Cold spell beginning in 1850? Interesting.

Thus it was that on 10 January this year the Met Office told us that ‘The global average temperature for 2024 was 1.53±0.08°C above the 1850-1900 global average,’ This  is an extraordinarily accurate figure but the World Meteorological Organisation has much the same: ‘The global average surface temperature [in 2024] was 1.55 °C … ± 0.13 °C … above the 1850-1900 average, according to WMO’s consolidated analysis.’ Ignore the scarcely believable accuracy of those second decimal places, there’s worse to come.

The obvious question is: Why were those fifty years chosen as the fundamental reference period? The answer is easily found: ‘Global-scale observations from the instrumental era began in the mid-19th century for temperature,’ says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their Fifth Assessment Report (Section B, page 4.) An associated IPCC Special Report (FAQ1.2 para 4) explains that ‘The reference period 1850–1900 … is the earliest period with near-global observations and is … used as an approximation of pre-industrial temperature.’ Note the categoric statements that sufficient data is available in that nineteenth century fifty-year period to calculate the global mean temperatures.

In 1850, may I remind you, Dickens was writing David Copperfield, California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state and vast areas of the earth were still unexplored. 1900 brought the Boxer Rebellion (China), the Boer War (South Africa) and the Galveston hurricane (USA). There were still quite large areas awaiting intrepid explorers.

I was curious about how in olden times those global temperatures were actually measured, but after a painstaking search of websites and yet again proving that AI-derived information can be both wrong and misleading, I turned in despair to the Met Office enquiry desk. Their reply was long and very detailed. No actual data, but several clues as to where to search. Very interesting clues.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Consensus, likelyhood and confidence

by WUWT, Nov 10, 2025

Is the scientific confidence on climate change greater than 99% or less than 1%? And does the IPCC truly have confidence in its own conclusion? At first glance these questions may seem trivial and pointless. Even a bit embarrassing. Yet, upon closer examination, it turns out that only 0.6% of peer-reviewed scientific papers explicitly endorse the IPPC’s central position – namely, that there exists a consensus that human activities, especially by the emission of greenhouse gases,  are the dominant cause  of recent global warming. Yes, there is a general consensus that humans influence the climate, but only in an explicitly unquantified sense and probably rather small. And that is something quite different.

The IPCC deserves credit for indicating in most of its assessments, the degree of “likelyhood” of their statements and the degree “confidence” the author’s have in their own conclusions. However, those reported levels of likelyhood and confidence are notably low, and often fall below what might be considered appropriate for statements presented with scientific authority. It seems that for most of the author’s of the IPCC Assessment reports the science is not settled.

You probably don’t believe this right away. So please read the article below.  It is largely adapted from the paragraph’s 1 and 3 of Chapter 3 of my book “Crisis or Hoax”. Published by Bookbaby (printed) and Amazon (e-book). An earlier version of this article was published on the Dutch website “Climategate”.

Consensus, likelyhood  and confidence

 1. A consensus of 97%  or more?

On May 16, 2013, U.S. President Obama tweeted, “97% of scientists agree. Climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”

The tweet became extremely important and may have been the most quoted tweet ever. His successor, Twitter fanatic Donald Trump did not even come close. At first glance, it seems an odd time for such a tweet. In May 2013, the average global temperature had barely risen for 14 years. But Obama wasn’t reacting to the weather or the climate either; he was reacting to an article by John Cook (et al.) that had appeared the previous day (!), on May 15, 2013, in the peer-revied journal Environmental Research Letters It was entitled “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”. (J.Cook et al, 2013). The lead author was an assistant professor of communication sciences.

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climate-debate

2025 Hurricane Forecast Was Overly Alarmist (Again)…Atlantic Season Ending Near Normal

by P. Gosselin, Nov 08, 2025 in NoTricksZone

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that an above average Atlantic huricane seacon for 2025.

Now that the season is winding down, we are able to start concluding and summarizing the season: it’s going to come in as near normal activity. The forecast made earlier this year was a bit on the hyped side.

Huricane season forecasts have not really improved, despite all the claims that models are better than ever:

“In my 30 years at the National Weather Service, we’ve never had more advanced models and warning systems in place to monitor the weather,” said NOAA’s National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “This outlook is a call to action: be prepared. Take proactive steps now to make a plan and gather supplies to ensure you’re ready before a storm threatens.”

NOAA’s outlook for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which goes from June 1 to November 30, predicted a 60% chance of an above-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. The agency forecast a range of 13 to 19 total named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, 6-10 were forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3-5 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5; with winds of 111 mph or higher).

Near average season

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climate-debate

Greenland Continues To Defy Alarmist Warming And Ice Melt Narratives

by K. Richard, Nov 06, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

According to a new study, Greenland temperature stations indicate there was an abrupt 2.9°C warming trend from 1922-1932 (10 years) that was almost identical to the 3.1°C warming trend from 1993-2007 (14 years).

Between the two warming periods (identified as WP1 and WP2 in the study) was an overall ~3°C cooling from 1933-1992.

Thus, as the temperature charts from the study illustrate, there has been almost zero net warming across Greenland in the last century.

This temperature trajectory is consistent with the Box (2009) analysis that said “the annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”

“The course of the AT [air temperature] anomaly between 1900 and 2015 relative to the reference period (1986–2015) at the stations UPV, ILU, NUK, QAQ and TAS, the 20CRv3 area average for the globe, the Arctic, Greenland as well as 20CRv3 interpolated to WEG_L shows two distinguished WPs [warm periods]. These two periods are observed at all stations and show a continuous increase over more than 5 years. Based on this, we determine WP1 between 1922 and 1932, and WP2 between 1993 and 2007. During WP1, the AT anomaly increased on average by 2.9 °C across stations, while in WP2, it increased by 3.1 °C, though WP2 spans a longer period (14 years compared to 10 years for WP1). The average annual increase for both WPs across all stations is 0.2 °C yr−1.”

Interestingly, the authors estimate Greenland ice sheet (GIS) melt has added just 1.08 cm to global sea levels since 1900. This is too small to justify alarmist narratives about dramatic warming and ice melt contributions to sea level rise.

energy and fields

Unlocking America’s Rare Earth Riches Could Finally Break China’s Grip On Minerals

by P.  Driessen, Nov 03, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

China rare earth mining
You’d be crazy to buy a car based on its shiny exterior, dazzling instruments, and gorgeous leather interior – but without examining the engine or taking a test drive.

And yet that’s how America has handled the metals and minerals that are vital to our defense, medical, communication, automotive, aerospace, lasers, computer/AI/data centers, and every other sector of our economy. [emphasis, links added]

They’re worth multi-trillions of dollars and are the foundation for jobs, living standards, national security, “green” energy, and more.

In the Stone Age, humans relied on flint and obsidian. The Bronze Age utilized copper, tin, and lead, plus gold and silver. The Iron Age prioritized iron and carbon. Today, we need almost every element in the Periodic Table, plus countless non-metallic minerals.

However, without any attempt to determine what deposits might lie beneath, decision-makers have made hundreds of millions of acres of America’s “public lands” off limits to exploration and mining, primarily in Alaska and the eleven states west of the Dakotas.

They’re managed by federal agencies for nearly every activity and value except potential subsurface treasures.

In fact, well over two-thirds of those lands have been effectively placed under lock and key: an area larger than Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming combined!

Of course, some places are so unique, magnificent, or ecologically priceless that they should be off limits to resource extraction – from Arches to Zion National Park. But America cannot afford wide buffer zones around them, much less buffer zones around the buffer zones.

Moreover, countless other areas have also been closed off – some by acts of Congress, others by presidential or bureaucratic decree, or unending wilderness and wildlife studies. All with virtually no consideration of subsurface values.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The ‘Climate Crisis’ of 1695

by R. Barmby, Nov 03, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Centuries-old thermometer records show central England warmed 2°C in 40 years—twice the rate of modern warming.

Thames River Frost Fair
No one would fault you for believing that between 1980 and 2020, we experienced a warming of the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years. [some emphasis, links added]

That widespread claim is based on reconstructed (non-thermometer) temperatures up to 1850 and observed (thermometer) temperatures thereafter.

However, sealed thermometer technology predates 1850 by approximately 200 years, and when that data is used, the widespread claim melts away.

Take a close look at the chart below: it is the longest thermometer record in the world, dating back to 1659. The data were compiled by the MET Office, the United Kingdom’s national meteorological service.

With three and a half centuries of instrument data, it transcends being a weather record; it is a climate change record for central England.

The temperature readings were taken on multiple thermometers by many different people, who were probably considered the techies in their day, and none of whom were employed to prove that human influence was warming the planet.

Compare the 40-year temperature trends (black dashed line) of 1695 to 1735 to those of 1980 to 2020.

The warming trend from 1695 to 1735, 2°C over four decades, was double that of 1980 to 2020, at 1°C over four decades.


The earlier warming period was preindustrial—an era whose technology was epitomized by humans circling the globe in wooden sailing ships. Spaceships orbiting the planet, along with heavy manufacturing and prodigious energy production, mark the latter period.

Earlier Englishmen survived from 1695 to 1735, experiencing twice the warming of the last 40 years, and with much less technology.

Had King George II been asked if warming in central England during his reign by 2°C in 40 years was an existential threat to his kingdom, he might reply instead that it was a time of plenty that resulted in English domination.

George II chased Bonny Prince Charles out of Scotland, the French out of North America, and the Spanish around the globe just because they cut off an English naval captain’s ear.

There was no hysteria over the 2°C warming in the early 1700s in Great Britain, even though there were many cultural similarities to today’s global community.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Bill Gates, 893 Companies Ditch Climate Initiative…Call For “Return to Economic Rationality”

by P. Gosselin, Nov 1, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Nearly 900 companies—including dozens of large international corporations—have quietly withdrawn from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), reports Blackout News here.

The move is being touted as an “overdue return to economic common sense.”

The SBTi requires its members to set scientifically validated climate targets, essentially aligning their emissions goals with international standards.

The recent exodus of 893 firms signals a growing discontent. According to the reporting, many companies are questioning the practical feasibility of the initiative’s stringent requirements. The core argument?

Political climate policies that ignore technical and financial limitations end up jeopardizing long-term economic viability and weakening global competitiveness, stability and profitability as the bedrock for any meaningful long-term investment.

Great Britain, the USA, and China have seen the highest number of companies ending their participation.

The hundreds of corporate withdrawals mark a pivot toward economic realism and suggests that self-determined, pragmatic strategies are replacing politically mandated ones, asserting that a credible, long-term environmental policy must first respect economic strength.

Bill Gates calls off “humanity’s demise”

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climate-debate

Physician: Adaptation, Not Alarmism, Is The Most Effective Climate Solution

by G. Wightstome, Oct 30, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Real public health threats versus climate hysteria.

Relying on human ingenuity to coexist with a changing climate – either warmer or cooler – and tending to long-recognized public health threats are the best ways to ensure the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants, according to an Australian physician and expert in climate and public health. [emphasis, links added]

“The ingenuity of Homo sapiens at adapting to climate has permitted people to populate almost the entire globe from the freezing Arctic to the steamy tropics, notes Dr. D. Weston Allen, lead author of a paper supporting a proposed repeal of a federal designation of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant.

“If we stick to doing what we do best – adaptation – we will continue to thrive.”

Citing nearly 400 references, the paper was filed as a formal comment by the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in support of its proposal to rescind the regulation known as the Endangerment Finding.

Dr. Allen says that civilizations did well in past eras of relative warmth during Minoan and Roman times and the Medieval Warm Period.

And, he says, cool periods often brought suffering, the most recent being the Little Ice Age, which experienced “frequent widespread crop failures, mass starvation, disease and depopulation.”

“The Black Death of 1346-1353 wiped out 30%-60% of Europe’s population and up to 200 million people across Eurasia,” he writes.

However, natural changes in the climate and industrialization that spread in the 1800s and accelerated in the 20th century fostered unprecedented prosperity and health.

“Global rewarming since the 18th century, associated with increasing prosperity, better housing, sanitation, food and water supplies, has greatly benefited human health and wealth,” says Dr. Allen.

“Deaths from typhoid and tuberculosis declined dramatically during the pre-antibiotic 20th century warming (1910-1945). Mortality from all causes fell as temperatures rose. From a billion people in 1800, the global population doubled by 1927, doubled again to 4 billion in 1974, and again to 8 billion in 2022.”

Fuels for new technologies and industry – first coal, then oil and natural gas as well – made modern living possible.

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