‘Exposing Who Are the Real ‘Climate Deniers”

Written by Hannes Sarv on September 25, 2024. Posted in Current News

In 2020, Dr. Matthew Wielicki, then still an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Alabama, noticed a great deal of anxiety in his students.

On the one hand, this was understandable, as the world was just entering the Covid crisis and there was a lot of ignorance and fear about the disease in society at large.

However, the anxiety that Wielicki noticed among his students had another cause – fear of climate change and the climate crisis. “And they really were convinced that the planet was going to end in a decade or in 12 years or whatever the clock somewhere in New York on the side of a building said,” says Wielicki.

There were female students who were on the verge of tears, saying that even though they came from large families, they didn’t want to have children because of the climate crisis.

“They just couldn’t imagine bringing a child into a world that’s going to end at some point because there’d be too much CO₂ in the atmosphere,” Wielicki recalls. He admits that, as a father of two, it was very heartbreaking to hear.

“I couldn’t believe that the field that I was in, earth science, geology, was essentially tricking young students into believing that there was a crisis so big that it should be the number one thing that they think about when they’re planning the rest of their life, and whether or not they should have a family,” he says.

Climate crisis science: models predict the future

This is why Wielicki himself took a detailed look at climate-related issues and started explaining them to his students, as well as talking about them publicly on social media. For young people, the problem is that climate is only discussed in terms of crisis and disaster.

For example: what should a young person think when he hears the world’s political leaders like UN Secretary-General António Guterres claim that humanity is on the highway to climate hell? Wielicki says there is little reason to blame the young who attack artworks with tomato soup or glue themselves to the pavement when they hear this.

They’re passionate, and the constant proclamation of climate crisis and doom tells them that this is the right thing to do. They are also told that the same climate hell hypothesis is supported by ‘science’.

But the problem is that the actual scientific evidence does not support the catastrophe we are being told is happening.

The trouble with today’s climate science, says Wielicki, is that it relies primarily on predictions of the future or climate models. There are different models, some of which we can clearly see have been proven wrong to date, i.e., they predicted too much warming.

Wielicki points out that any model is only as good as the assumptions which it is based upon. “We can tweak these models to give us essentially any result we want. I always tell people, that look, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

I think models are useful for sure, but never will a model outweigh the observable data,” Wielicki explains. “You cannot convince me that the environment is in a crisis or an emergency until you show that to me in three metrics – severe weather occurrences, the cost in insurance and loss of life. We have not seen any increase in any of them,” Wielicki says.

According to Wielicki, since 1880 the average temperature of the Earth has risen by 1.2-1.5 degrees, based on various measurements. What impact has this had on society?

“If you look at that data, it’s very difficult to find any metric which would define the state of the planet as a crisis or an emergency or a catastrophe or anywhere near collapse – yet these are words that are used a lot in the media,” Wielicki says, adding that even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn’t actually use such words in its reports.

Fewer deaths due to weather

Wielicki cites the example of extreme weather events, which are constantly talked about as one of the inevitable consequences of climate change. In reality, we are not seeing an increase in extreme weather events or the associated increase in social damage. According to Wielicki, over the last quarter of a century, since around 2000, the number of natural disasters has decreased.

At the same time, however, mankind has been spewing record levels of CO₂ into the Earth’s atmosphere, mainly as a result of China’s rapid industrialisation.

Since mainstream climate science sees CO₂, especially the human emissions of the gas, as the main cause of climate damage, which should also bring us extreme weather events, there is an immediate and obvious contradiction there, but this is not being discussed or taken into account.

Secondly, Wielicki gives a simple example of how the number of people who have died as a result of bad weather and natural disasters has changed over the last 100 years.

“We’ve reduced the deaths associated with weather-related disasters by 96% or 98%,” he notes. On the one hand, this may show that the number of extreme weather events has decreased somewhat, but on the other hand, it certainly shows that humanity is better able to cope with such disasters.

The role of cheap and available energy in this coping, i.e., fossil fuels, should not be underestimated either. Stronger buildings, the ability to move people quickly away from the storm areas, the provision of effective material help or, for example, medical aid to the affected areas, etc. – all this can be achieved if you have the resource of energy to do it.

So, according to Wielicki, the data show that CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have gone up somewhat over the last century or so, and that the planet as a whole has warmed a little, but not that we are heading for a catastrophe.

“There’s no other metric that would argue that society is somehow being harmed right now by the 1.5°C or whatever degrees of warming we’ve had since 1880,” Wielicki says.

“We need to be resilient”

As a geologist, Wielicki undoubtedly has a better-than-average understanding of how our planet has evolved in the first place, and how its climate has been in a constant state of flux.

Today’s climate science, however, links climate change primarily to the increasing amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, especially its anthropogenic component. Scientists who doubt or dispute this are labelled climate deniers.

Wielicki points out that we know very well from Earth’s relatively recent history that major climate changes, such as the Medieval Warm Period (ca. 950-1250) or the subsequent Little Ice Age (ca. 14th to mid-19th century, precise timing depending on the location), occurred without any significant change in the proportion of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

“If there’s anything that I argue, it’s that we need to be resilient. We should stop pretending that if we changed or lowered our emissions the climate would stop changing. That’s the true denial of climate right there,” Wielicki says.

“What we need to accept is that regardless of the CO₂ in the atmosphere, we are going to have climate change and those shifts could occur over timescales of decades or centuries, and we should be prepared. And being prepared means we need access to cheap, reliable energy,” he adds.

But the world is moving in the opposite direction under the leadership of today’s political leaders. One of the main objectives is to fight CO₂ emissions and to do so by phasing out fossil fuels, among other measures.

However, according to Wielicki, the planners have not quite thought everything through. First of all, wind and solar power are unreliable substitutes because they can only be produced when the conditions are right, i.e., when the wind blows and the sun shines. In addition, they need constant support from the taxpayer, because when they can be produced, i.e., sold as energy to the grid, the price of electricity on the market will be low since there is a lot of it at that particular time.

So in order for investors to build up these capacities, they need price guarantees from governments or taxpayer support. And on top of that, you still need to additionally build up controllable capacity to ensure that electricity is always available.

Wielicki also says that we need to understand that fossil fuels are not just liquids that we put in our cars at the petrol station but are essential to many aspects of our lives. “About four billion people on the planet are being fed off of agricultural crops that are being fertilised with synthetic fertilizers that are being created from fossil fuels.

So you can’t just look at one side of a picture,” Wielicki explains, adding that the increases in atmospheric CO₂ levels have actually also increased yields.

In addition, Wielicki says, it is worth thinking that we need to replace many of today’s fossil-fuel-based materials in everyday use, such as plastics, lubricants, oils, chemicals, etc., with new ones if we really want to phase out fossil fuels.

“We have to ask what are the benefits that fossil fuels have given the society? And then let’s weigh that against the possible detrimental effects that these climate models argue will happen, but haven’t happened in the observable data yet,” he says.

The rise of the new green colonialism

Programmed into this whole Western orientation towards CO₂ reduction, Wielicki says, is hypocrisy on several levels. For a start, it’s worth recognising that by reducing CO₂ emissions in Europe or North America, we have effectively decided that we do not produce the goods we need here, but will produce them elsewhere in the world.

“We pat ourselves on the back and say: look, we’ve lowered our CO₂ emissions by this much! But all we’ve done is essentially offshored that industry to China and India, They do it dirtier. They have no regard for things like environmental policy. And so the global CO₂ is going up faster than ever,” Wielicki notes.

While the big Asian countries are ramping up the use of coal to satisfy their energy appetite, many African countries don’t have a similar option. According to Wielicki, this is directly linked to the UN’s policy of not wanting these countries to increase their use of fossil fuels.

This means, for example, that farm work that is done elsewhere by tractor still has to be done by many Africans with their hands. A large proportion of Africans also have little or no access to electricity. Food is cooked indoors on open fires, burning dung and wood.

The resulting smoke leads to respiratory illnesses and many people die as a result. All this could be easily avoided, according to Wielicki, by giving them access to propane bottles and gas cookers. “It might make them breathe easier at night.

It might make their health better. But it’s going to increase the atmospheric CO₂, and that is something we can’t have. These poor people must suffer and live in poverty because we need to save the planet. It’s so hypocritical,” Wielicki says.

What’s more, according to Wielicki, our hypocrisy lies in the fact that at the same time, we want to mine the minerals we need for our own energy transition, such as cobalt, in that very same Africa.

“We’re switching to very mineral and energy intensive technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles. And we’re taking all of these raw materials from Africa,” he says. “I think this is going to be, probably, the legacy of this green revolution. I call it the new green colonialism. It’s unfortunately going to keep hundreds of millions of poor people in developing nations in poverty for decades longer than they ever needed to be,” Wielicki adds.

Climate change as a game of money and power

Various examples like this suggest that it all is not being done to somehow increase human welfare and save the climate, but there are other reasons. According to Wielicki, this is illustrated by the fact that we are being offered ever more fantastic solutions to the climate crisis and global warming.

For example, the Bill Gates-backed plan to cool the Earth through geoengineering, the idea of spraying sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and reflecting the Sun’s rays back into space before they reach the ground. What could go wrong?

Gates is also an early investor in other well-known ‘climate technologies’. One of these involves using large fans to try to capture CO₂ from the air and then turn it into rock.

This is an extraordinarily expensive operation, but in reality the profits of the billionaire venture capitalists who develop it and initially invested in it are paid for by ordinary citizens – the U.S. taxpayer is already subsidising the CO₂ capture plants under construction to the tune of billions of dollars.

Wielicki says it is comical to listen to Gates himself boast that because he pays for CO₂ capture, it offsets the CO₂ emissions of his own private jet flights.

“Can you imagine if you came home and you’re like: ‘I know sweetheart, I cheated on you but look: I bought into this cheating capture, so it doesn’t count. Because I paid this guy and he’s not going to cheat on his wife, and that allows me to cheat on you.

So it’s all good.’ It’s so absolutely ridiculous,” Wielicki observes. He also points out that removing CO₂ from the atmosphere in this way is a complete waste of money.

“It’s like trying to empty the ocean one spoonful at a time. The amount that they’re capturing is so minuscule. And the amount that they’re spending to capture it – I mean, CO₂ is the new gold, platinum, because of the cost of that. What a waste of money. Plant some trees,” Wielicki says.

According to Wielcki, money is a major factor pushing the ongoing ‘green revolution’. But most of the money that is being made is not actually in such CO₂ capture technologies and similar projects.

It is in energy and transport. “The energy sector is one of the largest sectors in any country’s economy.

Transportation comes a close second a lot of times. Radically transitioning and reinventing the energy and transportation sectors has a huge amount of potential for money, for wealth,” Wielicki says.

In addition, governments can also raise tax revenue through climate policies. This in turn means, says Wielicki, that, alongside money, a key driver behind these processes is the empowerment of governments, whether through additional taxation or simply by increasing control over people’s lives.

“There is no process in the economy, including your bodily processes of just breathing and eating and breaking wind, unfortunately, that doesn’t produce a greenhouse gas,” Wielicki notes.

While normally most people would oppose a government plan to interfere more in their lives, now people are being swayed because it is supposedly about saving the planet. “This is the perfect tool for government to interject itself into people’s lives. What you buy, what you eat, what you drive, where you shop, the type of job you have, the type of furniture you buy, where you recreate,” Wielicki adds. The climate, he says, is like a front, a Trojan horse for building a system like socialism.

The politicisation of science

The collusion of money and power has also led to a situation in which climate scientists, irrespective of the actual data, are essentially being asked to tacitly acknowledge a climate crisis with catastrophic consequences. Failure to do so will have consequences – being labelled as a climate denier, loss of funding and jobs, etc.

Such scientists are also no longer welcome to publish their work in respected scientific journals, which is also a major setback for their scientific careers. The funding of universities and research institutions as a whole could also be at risk if the basic positions everybody needs to take today on climate issues tend to be denied by someone within the institution.

Wielicki calls such a situation “politicisation of science”, whereby a manufactured consensus is created on a particular issue and all scientists are required to accept this consensus.

Understandably, science, which is supposed to consist of the constant testing of different hypotheses and ideas, of arguing with each other, and of the pursuit of truth, becomes, in the course of such a process, unscientific, ideological or simply a matter of faith. On the other hand, creating such consensus is about the control of information, which allows the wider public to be offered a story that coincides with the aims of the powers that be.

The reputations of scientists who disagree with this story or with the adopted consensus can be destroyed by declaring them to be disseminators of misinformation. “We saw that with Covid. That was a rapid politicisation of science. And we’re seeing it with climate change. Climate change has been a little bit more slow in moving into politicisation of science,” comments Wielicki, who has also been publicly smeared for his scientifically sound positions on climate.

Wielicki’s resignation from his job at the university is also directly linked to this politicisation of science.

No one was directly driving him away, but in a situation where his own Chair and even the university President were receiving weekly emails and phone calls about his “unacceptable views on climate”, he saw no point in continuing – he would probably not have been given a tenured academic position anyway.

In addition, he had long been averse to the so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies implemented by the U.S. universities, which means that more attention is paid to a student’s racial or ethnic origin than to their skills, knowledge, commitment and effort, with those classified as ‘minorities’ being given an advantage in access to studies. Criticism of this policy also made him apparently uncomfortable for the university.

Although Wielicki comes from an academic family, grew up on campus and was destined to have a career like his parents, he says he has no regrets about leaving.

He says that his true vocation as a researcher or teacher is to share information, and he can now do this even more successfully than before through the articles he publishes on his Substack Irrational Fear.

He cites the example of how, in the past, he might have been happy if his published research had been cited 150 times, but now, thanks to social media sharing, some of his articles can be seen by 50,000 people in just a few hours.

Wielicki is also, of course, pleased that he was able to reassure his young students, to whom he started to explain climate change in a fact-based manner.

“This is the first generation, these young 20 year-olds, who have essentially been told that the planet is going to end since they’ve been old enough to understand and read and write. This has been pounded into their heads.

It must be just so exhausting to have been told that the planet’s going to end forever. What ambition do you have to sacrifice now and to do things that will ensure a better life for your future, like getting a good education or going to the gym and eating healthy? No, the planet’s going to end. Screw it.

I’m just going to eat chips and play video games and wait for the planet to end,” Wielicki says, describing the potential predicament of many of these young people. “We’re robbing them of their ambitions,” he adds, noting that bringing a perspective that didn’t tell young people about the imminent demise of the planet was refreshing to them.

“The idea that humans are like a parasite on the planet, that’s just not an idea that really tracks well with young people. They’re tired of that. They don’t believe that,” Wielicki says.

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