A letter to the Editor of the CR Review

I was extremely disappointed and angered that the Community of the Resurrection permitted an article to appear in its CR Review (“The bells are ringing” - edition 467) promoting the complete myth of “global warming”. This article was grossly inaccurate throughout and appeared to make, in particular, one heinous false assumption.

First, the article automatically assumes a “rise in global temperatures”. This is, in fact, the exact opposite of what is happening. Using a stable set of recording stations, the number of daily maximum temperature records peaked in the 1930s and they have been generally declining ever since. The frequency of very hot summer days shows the same pattern, as does the average summer daily maximum temperature.

Second, the way the article is worded implies that human activity - and human activity alone - is “affecting what is happening to our climate”. This is entirely disingenuous because the proportion of human activity which is resulting in changes to our atmosphere which might otherwise not have occurred naturally is comparatively small. For example, from pre-industrial times to the present, Carbon Dioxide has increased from three parts per 10,000 to just four parts per 10,000, 89% of which has come from natural sources such as volcanic eruptions.

This brings me to my third point. Despite the article’s implication, there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to suggest that Carbon Dioxide is determining, or ever has determined, global temperatures. A multitude of scientists are at one on this point. However, there is a real benefit of the slight increase in Carbon Dioxide, not least for - as the article calls them - "places where populations have contributed least to the problem" and that is the greening effect. Ecosystems are expanding: increased Carbon Dioxide increases foliage which, in turn, feeds more humans and animals. Indeed, the additional greening largely as a result of the slight increase in the trace gas Carbon Dioxide - which makes up only 0.04% of earth’s total atmosphere - is comparable in scale to an additional green continent twice the size of the USA. All this is helping many who have hitherto lived on the margins of subsistence.

Fourth, the article talks about a “Denial Movement” being “fuelled by oil and gas companies” but provides no evidence of this whatsoever. That is because no such evidence exists. Those who seek to challenge the alarmists’ fabrications and hype are individuals and organisations of all persuasions who have taken the trouble to investigate the true science for themselves and who have reached a reasoned conclusion, rather than merely recycling others’ climate scare stories (the vast majority of which, incidentally, originated with big businesses seeking to benefit from the “green movement” or politicians determined to push a specific political dogma).

Fifth, the article appears to promulgate an "end to our dependence of fossil fuels". This is insanity. Without fossil fuels, civilisation would collapse and billions would die. Dooming billions of people to poverty and death is an entirely unacceptable solution. Imaginary green energy (which is dilute, intermittent and much more costly to produce than energy from fossil fuels) cannot keep people warm, fed or able to travel or communicate. Quality of life worldwide has never been better than it is today: in the last quarter century, one billion people have been lifted out of poverty thanks, in large part, to fossil fuels and their derivatives. Since 1820 (in the same time period that the slight increase in carbon dioxide has been experienced) the number of people living in extreme poverty has reduced dramatically from 90% to 10%. By contrast, the activities of climate change activists in limiting energy consumption is responsible for the deaths of an estimated six million people a year.

Sixth, the article quotes those who are commenting on the weather and refers to “immense changes being brought about by climate change". However, weather is NOT climate. There are no “immense changes" being brought about by "climate change". It is simply untrue to state that cyclones are increasing in speed and strength. Of the ten deadliest Pacific cyclones, nine occurred with Carbon Dioxide levels below 350 parts per million. Two of the ten deadliest occurred in 1881. The third deadliest occurred in 1780 and killed 100,000 people. The deadliest Atlantic hurricane also occurred in 1780. Of the ten deadliest Atlantic hurricanes, nine occurred with Carbon Dioxide levels below 350 parts per million and three occurred during the American War of Independence. Further, it is a proven fact that modern-day heat waves are far smaller and less severe than those of the 1930's. The seemingly "extreme" heat waves of the last few years were actually no worse than those of the early 1900s or 1950s. Global annual death rates from natural disasters has plummeted since the 1920s from 28 per 100,000 of the population to fewer than two per 100,000. A staggering US$400 billion is spent pursuing false climate change goals every year. World hunger could be solved for less than a tenth of this, leaving a great sum over to solve real environmental problems like contaminated water and plastic in the oceans.

Seventh, the article speaks of the sea “getting warmer” whereas the truth of the matter is that the Southern Hemisphere’s and tropical latitude oceans currently have sea temperature anomaly measurements that are essentially the same as those found during the period of 1997-1999, some 20+ years ago. In the northern hemisphere, arctic sea ice has expanded 20% over the last seven years. The ocean contains a colossal 1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres of water. To heat it, even by a small amount, takes a staggering amount of energy. To heat it by a mere one degree celsius, for example, an astonishing 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy are required. To put this into perspective, if we all turned off all our appliances and went and lived in caves and then devoted every coal, nuclear, gas, hydro, wind and solar power plant solely to heating the ocean, it would take a breathtaking 32,000 years to raise the ocean temperature by just this one degree.

Eighth, the article lauds and even promotes the entirely politically led “climate strikes”. This is a disgrace and for a religious community - and one which has education as one of its objectives - to be seen, by inference, to be endorsing the exploitation of children to advance a political agenda, the sacrificing of their education and the promotion of massive civil disruption is reprehensible beyond words.

Ninth, the article states “the threat is real”. It is not; it is a complete fairy-tale, unproven by real science (as opposed to pseudo-science). “Global warming” is the biggest scam in science history and is driven by tens of billions of dollars in government funding which has corrupted the science. Within just a week of the Global Climate Intelligence Unit recently being founded it attracted some 500 signatures from leading scientists and professionals, declaring that "there is no climate crisis".

Tenth - and this is perhaps the most heinous false assumption - the article strongly suggests that anybody who, quite sensibly, denies there is a climate crisis cares not a fig for the planet. This is verging on the libellous. Nobody in his or her right mind seeks to add to the pollution of the world or to squander its precious resources. Advocating, based on science rather than emotion, that there is no climate crisis does not equate in any way with wishing to seek harm to the planet. To infer any such a suggestion is scurrilous. Indeed, a team of scientists has recently written to the Committee of Climate Change warning that if the 31.5 million cars in the UK alone are replaced by electric vehicles by 2050 this will require almost twice the current annual global supply of cobalt, almost the total amount of neodymium produced globally each year, three quarter’s of the world’s lithium and at least half of the world’s copper.

In summary, all proxy temperature data sets reveal that there have been cyclical changes in climate in the past 10,000 years and for millennia before that. There is not a single climate scientist who denies this well-established fact. Earth’s climate has always changed and it has changed in both directions, hot and cold. Until at least the 17th century, all changes whilst humans have inhabited the planet occurred when almost all of them were hunters, gatherers and farmers. Carbon Dioxide never has and still does not control the earth’s temperature. At present, the earth is not warming, deaths from natural disasters are at the lowest levels ever seen and the rise in sea levels globally (which started at least 20,000 years ago, an immense amount of time before industrialisation) shows no acceleration whatsoever; in fact it actually decelerated rapidly 8,000 years ago and is now only 1.1mm a year - about the thickness of a fingernail.

As multiple scientists and professionals now concur, there is no climate crisis.

Sources backing up all the above assertions can be found conveniently grouped together in two places, as follows: www.realclimatescience.com and https://tinyurl.com/y5aqv8lw

To reassure the Community of the Resurrection’s stakeholders, guests, supporters, donors and other benefactors that it is not prepared to pedal and promote misinformation, disinformation and downright falsehoods - which would be a completely unacceptable position - I look forward to seeing all the above published in full in the next CR Review by way of rebuttal.

An edited version of this letter was published in the Epiphany 2020 edition of the CR Review