On reading the latest CR Review (481, Lady Day 2023) I became incandescent with rage to learn that CR is still clearly fixated on and actively promoting the completely false gospel of climate change.
I have written to you on five previous occasions, at length and with detailed supporting facts, explaining manifestly that in promulgating this topic you are doing nothing more than proclaiming barefaced lies and are guilty of outright scaremongering. For reference, this previous correspondence may be viewed here:
http://rfmaulden.co.uk/letter.htm
http://rfmaulden.co.uk/letter2.htm
http://rfmaulden.co.uk/letter3.htm
http://rfmaulden.co.uk/letter4.htm
and
in my e-mail of 12 January, 2022 (the content of which is pasted below)
It therefore seems that I must, yet again, write to you at length taking each point in this latest article (“St Benedict and climate change”) one by one to demonstrate the utter folly - many might say sin - you are committing in allowing mendacious articles such as this to be circulating in the public domain.
First, though, I note that - as with previous articles - this particular one - making expansive statements (not a single one of which is supported factually) about “climate change” - is sneakily disguised as an article about the environment. You appear to be incapable of separating these two totally different topics, instead continuing to conflate environmental concerns, about which no sane person would gainsay, with changes to the climate, over which mankind has no impact. This is, at best, deceitful.
The article states “St Benedict knew nothing about climate change”. This is a facile and fatuous statement and, actually, could not be further from the truth. During the time Benedict was alive, earth’s temperatures were falling quite sharply to some of the lowest they were to be in many centuries. Thus, there is every reason to believe that St Benedict was mindful of the changing climate around him. However, even with these changes, the significantly lower temperatures Benedict would undoubtedly have experienced were still WELL ABOVE those seen during the “Little Ice Age” of c1400 to 1825.
The article goes on to state “The climate is changing”. As I have repeatedly stated in my previous correspondence, yes: EARTH’S CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED AND ALWAYS WILL CHANGE. It appears it is necessary for me to append, yet, again, crbd1 to evidence this FACT and to put to bed once and for all the FACT that changes in climate have nothing - I repeat, NOTHING - to do with the miniscule atmospheric levels of Carbon Dioxide, 97% of which is emitted naturally. Given that you appear incapable of actually learning, marking and inwardly digesting this, I am also attaching another depiction of such fundamentally important temperature information (crbd2). You will readily see from this that the world has been without polar ice caps for the vast majority of its existence.
The article makes the following, completely unsubstantiated statement: “The earth is heating up”. NO, IT IS NOT - REPEAT NOT - HEATING UP. Please see crbd3. This shows the global mean temperature change from July 2014 to March 2023. You will see that there has been NO warming for the last eight and three quarter years: actually, the trend is slightly downward. This, incidentally, is further proof - for those who believe in such ridiculousness - that the gradually increasing, although still infinitesimally small, amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere (just one molecule out of every 2,500) does not and cannot possibly cause any warming.
Attachment crbd4 depicts the average temperature anomaly going back further, to January 2005. Again, it is blatantly obvious that there has been no warming trend whatsoever over this period. Starting at an even earlier date, a recent study published in the “Journal of Climate” evidences that there has been no warming in Greenland going back as far as 1994.
The slight cooing trend mentioned above is borne out in real data from around the world. There are many graphs I could send in support of this; crbd5 is just one such example, going yet further back to 1980. This covers the south polar region and is important because it is to the poles that the climate alarmists look to try and claim a warming earth, whereas crbd5 - and many like it - reinforces the fact that that there has been no warming and that, indeed, the trend is a slight cooling one.
In my previous communications to you I have provided reliable data evidencing that maximum temperatures in multiple locations around the world happened many years and, often, many decades ago. That data still holds good and I hereby add to it with the record of one particular area of the world, that of Australia. You will see from crbd6 that not a single one of the extreme maximum temperatures for the various regions of this continent has occurred since 1979 and, in fact, two of the highest ever recorded temperatures happened in 1906, one in 1889 and one in 1877.
Thus, to print the statement that “The earth is heating up” is actually tantamount to libel against that which the article describes as “a planet created by God” - it is a total and utter LIE.
If you still seriously believe, in direct contradiction to the scientific evidence presented herewith, that “the earth is heating up”, I would be very interested to hear your explanation of each the following, all of which have taken place in the last few weeks (these are just a selection of many such examples I could have provided):
· Coast-to-coast snowfalls across the United States have beaten all previous records, being well above the average. Indeed, ski seasons have been extended to their lengthiest ever
· Hundreds - yes HUNDREDS - of daily and monthly low temperature records have been broken this year alone. For example, Denver reached seven degrees below its year-to-date average, Bismark in North Dakota reached a new low of minus thirteen degrees (the previous record was minus seven degrees set in 1964) whilst Aberdeen in South Dakota reached a low of minus fourteen degrees, comfortably usurping the previous record of minus nine degrees set in 1969. Salt Lake City reached well over six degrees below normal in March. America is a vitally important measurement area because it is the largest landmass on the planet to have accurately recorded temperatures dating back to some of the furthest periods in history
· San Francisco attained a maximum winter high of 52 degrees, which was the lowest winter high reached in records dating back to 1875
· Lake Tahoe in California recently froze over for the first time in decades
· In fact, temperatures throughout the USA as a whole for March were almost three degrees below the multidecadal norm
· The area around Saskatchewan, Canada broke seven low temperature records in one day, including record lows reached in 1982, 1979 and 1975
· Australia has been having anomalous cold for months with swathes of the country suffering their coldest winters, springs and summers in decades, in some cases ever. The month of March held minus 0.2 degrees below the multidecadal norm across Australia, which saw summer overall close to minus 0.5 degrees below the norm. Over the Easter long weekend just a few days ago, south-eastern Australia experienced its coldest weather in 70 years. There was even summer snow in New Zealand this year
· In Antarctica, November 2022 to February 2023 was the second coldest for that period on record
· Siberia has experienced an historically cold winter, Scandinavia has seen record cold March temperatures, whilst Spain has so far seen its coldest April ever
· Swathes of the Sonoran Desert, which spans 100,000 square miles across Mexico, Arizona and California, saw an incredibly rare four inches of snow in March
· In Argentina, Santa Cruz City set three March low temperature records, all below the previous low of minus four degrees set in 1972
· Finland in March was exceptionally cold, particularly in the north, where average temperature anomalies for the month were over five degrees cooler than the multidecadal norm
· There has been recent record snow levels in the Balkans whilst in Austria every single weather station recorded temperatures below zero degrees on the same day, the first time this has happened in April since 2003
· Iceland has just experienced its coldest March since 1979
· Only last weekend, the Greenland ice sheet gained 13 gigatons of snow and ice, these being record highs for the time of year in records dating back to 1981.
It is absolute impossible for all the above - and much more in similar vein - to occur on a warming planet and for you to make the broad, sweeping, completely false and unsubstantiated statement that “the earth is heating up” is nothing short of gross irresponsibility.
The article makes the - again entirely unsubstantiated - statement that “the UK is getting warmer and winters are less cold”. This is yet another totally false assertion, evidenced by the Central England Temperature Record, the longest series of monthly temperature observations in existence. This clearly shows that the hottest winter happened in 1868/69 and that the warmest months of January, February and March were, respectively, in 1916, 1779 and 1957. Indeed, seven of the warmest months on record all occurred before 1995 and the hottest year ever recorded was actually no less than twenty years ago.
So, the UK is NOT getting warmer. Winters are NOT less cold. No responsible writer or publisher would ever just invent from thin air the ridiculous statements such as those which appear in the article, none of which - I repeat - has a shred of scientific evidence in support.
Further, no responsible individual or body of persons would use fear tactics to try and bolster its vacuous statements, as this article does.
It asks “Why should we be concerned” and my reply is “Why ideed?” because, first (as I have evidenced in detail), the stated warming is NOT taking place and secondly - and this is extremely important - even if it were there would be absolutely no cause for fear or alarm.
Again as I have evidenced previously, referring to thoroughly researched science which appeared in The Lancet, a cold climate is responsible for more deaths worldwide than a hot climate.
Humans evolved in warm environments. The human body is better equipped to handle heat than it is cold because it can regulate temperature through sweating and other mechanisms. However, in cold weather, human bodies must work harder to maintain a normal temperature, which can lead to a variety of health problems. For example, heart attacks induced by shovelling snow are common in northern climes because when exposed to cold temperatures, the body’s blood vessels constrict to conserve heat, which in turn increases blood pressure and strain on the heart. As a further example, the relative dryness of cold air is irritating to airways, causing inflammation and making breathing more difficult, particularly for those with pre-existing respiratory conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Thus, it is no wonder that civilisations flourished when temperatures were higher, especially when home heating was primitive or non-existent. Some of the earliest civilisations, such as those in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley, developed in warm, arid regions with fertile soils and abundant water resources. They were able to support large populations which developed sophisticated technologies, such as irrigation systems which made agriculture possible in dry lands. Further, warmer temperatures are associated with higher crop yields, particularly for staple diet plants like wheat, rice and maize. Greater warmth increases the length of the growing season and improves the rate of photosynthesis.
In
contrast, colder regions like northern Europe and Asia were historically less
hospitable to human populations. In these regions, food production was more
difficult and the risk of famine and disease higher. The only time when life in
colder regions was favourable was when there were centuries-long warming phases.
An example of this is the Vikings, who developed a thriving civilisation in
Scandinavia and grew food in Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period. Charred
grains and waste from threshing grain have proven that barley was cultivated in
Greenland by medieval Norse farmers. As summer and winter temperatures decreased
with the waning of medieval warmth, Vikings abandoned their struggling farming
and turned to the sea for food before finally abandoning their settlements.
Even in moderate parts of Europe, the 16th century Little Ice Age was horrific. It was reported by the diarist Pierre de l’Estoile that “All things which grew above the ground died and starved. The cold was so extreme and the freeze so great and bitter that nothing seemed like it in the memory of man”. Then, a gradual warming which began in the seventeenth century and which continued until the twentieth century restored more bountiful harvests and a measure of food security which allowed time and energy for innovation and the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Since then, the human population has increased ten-fold.
So, the notion strongly inferred in the article that any warming would kill the planet and its inhabitants is complete and utter nonsense. To put this into context, please see crbd7. This shows that, whilst the measured temperature in New York rose slightly in the forty years from 1880, primarily due to the Urban Heat Island effect, New Yorkers have long had to deal with a wide range of temperatures, from below minus twenty degrees to above plus forty degrees. Do you seriously believe any rise in temperature by one, two or even three degrees would cause the doomsday scenario implied in the article? Indeed, outside New York, humans are inhabiting this planet right now in locations where the temperatures fall as low as minus 67 degrees Celsius and reach maxima above 41 degrees Celsius.
It is worth remembering that back in the Early Holocene period (when, incidentally, CO2 levels were half the present level), areas of the Arctic were warm enough to accommodate abundant numbers of warmth-demanding species. Only remnants of these species and their habitat exist in today’s much colder Arctic, parts of which are the most glaciated it has been in the last 10,000 years. This region is today about six degrees colder than it was during the early Holocene (10,000 to 8,000 years ago). The sea surface temperatures in the western Barents Sea then were as warm as thirteen degrees and, accordingly, ice free. In contrast, today’s sea surface temperatures in this region are as cold (two to four degrees) as they were during the last period of glaciation. In the 1500s, the Western Arctic was sea ice free for about four to five months of the year whereas today - and steadily since 1800 - the Western Arctic is sea ice free only about two weeks of the year. I have provided similar evidence of earth’s constantly changing climate in my previous communications.
The article talks about “30 years time”. So CR has turned into a scientific forecaster now? You should be only too aware that today’s professional forecasters cannot even predict tomorrow’s weather accurately, let alone in 30 years time. Why does the article even attempt to extrapolate (a) a future trend, when it is extrapolating from a base which is actually non-existent and (b) extrapolating an apparent linear trend, childishly assuming that what happened yesterday will automatically happen again the next day? All this is total nonsense. The TRUTH is that scientists actually say - and they are starting to be proved right as evidenced above - that the earth will cool over the next 30 years. This is because in June 2020 the planet officially entered the modern “Grand Solar Minimum”. Like the Milankovitch Cycles and any of the other, measurable, astronomical and orbital cycles which impact the climate on earth (and which the article totally ignores), a Grand Solar Minimum is a recognised, periodic, measurable event. The one we have recently entered, which scientists say will give rise to a noticeable reduction in terrestrial temperatures, is due to last until 2053. Accordingly, the implication in the article that the (non-existent, as proven) warming will continue unabated for 30 years could not be more wrong.
The article states that “Pacific islanders are losing their lands to rising seas”. This is the very lowest kind of fear-mongering and to a very large extent is simply untrue. I have discussed sea levels and rebutted this particular, absolutely ridiculous, assertion in my previous communications at length but it seems that I have to do so yet again. The reality (rather than invented fantasy) is that nothing unusual is happening to these islands. In fact, data looking at no less than 600 islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans confirms that 89% of them are stable, of which 40% are actually growing, some by as much as 8%. In truth, recent shoreline changes (both up and down) are dwarfed by the shoreline changes (again both up and down) which occurred through previous centuries. Further, no island larger than 10 hectares has decreased in size. Atoll and island stability is a global trend, whatever the rate of sea-level rise. I have stated numerous times previously that sea levels have been rising steadily since the last ice age, uninfluenced entirely by the absence or presence of humans on the planet. The important point is that the rate of such rise, at just under 1.5mm a year (about six inches a century, a tiny amount compared to the rise and fall of the daily tide), has NOT ACCELERATED AND IS NOT ACCELERATING. How many more times do I have to say this before you actually understand? Perhaps you should read this: http://www.sealevel.info/avgslr.html).
The article speaks of people in Africa “finding their land turned to desert” and “Catastrophically irregular” rains in Zimbabwe. Again, this is pure scaremongering, because flood and drought is exactly what makes up the climate in this part of world. Zimbabwe experiences its rainy season and relatively high temperatures roughly from October to March, whilst its dry seasons and lower temperatures take place roughly from June to August. After the cold and dry season, the average temperature of the country ranges between 15 and 25 degrees (a very large difference in the average and thus, of course, even larger extremes). During the same period, the mean monthly precipitation varies from 2mm to 160mm (again, a huge difference in the average, with even larger extremes).
Zimbabwe tends to receive less than average rainfall during the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. It often experiences more than average rainfall during the cool phase of ENSO (also known as La Nina) during the rainy season. In addition, the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (an equatorial zone where trade winds converge) plays a vital role in driving rainfall seasonality and inter-annual variability. The country receives more rainfall when the ITCZ moves further south and vice versa. Furthermore, a scientific study has revealed that a positive Indian Ocean Dipole/Zonal Mode (a well-known phenomenon with an inter-annual variability over the Indian Ocean, causing a pronounced impact over East Africa, western Indonesia, Australia, India and other regions) is strongly associated with rainfall deficits (i.e. droughts) in that country.
All these powerful processes are entirely natural, are completely unaffected by humans and are variable, sometimes combining, sometimes working in opposition. THIS is what drives changes to the climate in Zimbabwe and other sub-Saharan African countries. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you or I are exhaling Carbon Dioxide at ten times the percentage in the atmosphere thousands of miles away.
Actually, a report published in 2021 in the journal Nature Food finds that while droughts routinely cause food insecurity in Africa, their contribution to hunger has remained steady or has even shrunk in recent years. Whilst there has been some natural (NOT man-made) warming in Zambabwe up to 2020, this has been very slight. For example, average temperatures have risen just over half a degree Celsius in 120 years (1901 - 2020) but there have also been some cripplingly cold conditions. Only last year, large areas of the country lost 25% of the cotton crop due to the cold, which also impacted livestock grazing as the low temperatures led to cotton balls failing to split in time, resulting in animals eating them.
It is also worth pointing out that failure in Zimbabwe to invest in such things as irrigation, forecasting and seed resilience has also impacted the country and its inhabitants. For example, average crop yields per hectare in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique are three tonnes, compared to just 0.8 in Zimbabwe, poor irrigation exacerbating any drought. Just 25% of the country’s 1,400 weather stations actually work and in a country with an estimated 10,000 dams, basic water storage systems have been neglected. Despite these tremendous difficulties, Zimbabwe produced a record 375,000 tons of wheat in 2022, making the country self-sufficient. This new record is 13% higher than the previous year and surpasses 50-year-old records.
In Zimbabwe, only around 40% of the population has access to electricity, yet the country is sitting on vast and diverse energy resources. These include about 12 billion metric tonnes of coal, 8.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and 247 million barrels of condensate. It is important to emphasise here that nature does not give us a stable, safe climate which we make dangerous, it gives us a dangerous climate which we make safe and tolerable by the use of energy resources. The real problems in Zimbabwe getting in the way of access to electricity are social, political and economic. These structural factors reproduce electricity social scarcity, which in turn perpetuates social injustice, because electricity is essential for development.
None of these impacts is as a result of “climate change”. Zimbabwe’s weather has nothing whatsoever to do with us, as the article states, “treating the planet badly” and to make such a dangerous assertion is outrageous.
The article makes sweeping and entirely inappropriate political statements such as “our governments always favour the rich…especially the present UK government” and seeks strongly to influence readers’ voting decisions “at the next election”. This is absolutely unforgivable - it is NOT CR’s place to endeavour to influence electoral choice, particularly when local elections are only a matter of days away in many parts of the country. I would also point out that CR, with assets of £15 million and an annual income of almost £1.5 million, is not exactly “poor”. Further, to say that “judgement is already coming on us and on our children, a judgement we are bringing on ourselves” is completely without any scientific or other foundation and is pure and utter SCAREMONGERING.
Contrary to what the article states, a changing climate has nothing whatsoever to do with “human greed, wastefulness or extravagance”. Whilst these of course exist and some may impact the environment, what is actually impacting the environment the most - right now - is the relentless pursuit of the misnamed “green” or “renewable” technologies which you so favour. I went to some lengths at point seven in my second communication mentioned above to set out some examples of why going down the path of these technologies is so destructive for the planet and, particularly, its poorer citizens (for example, 40,000 children are currently mining for cobalt in the Congo, some as young as six years old). The fantasists promoting “net zero” will do more to cause destruction on this planet than any before them. To the list must now be added the many whales and other marine species being killed thanks to the installation of offshore wind turbines.
Going all-in on batteries, solar and wind would require 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminium and 4.8 billion tons of iron. The planet simply does not have these kinds of resources or ways of extracting them without causing irreversible damage. Further, the tens of millions of wind turbines, solar panels and electric batteries are not re-usable and are not biodegradable. Thus we will have the most prominent energy graveyard with toxic pollutants that will be 100 times larger than any nuclear waste storage.
Also, land space is needed for the windmills and solar panels. Bloomberg reports that getting to zero carbon by 2050 would require in America alone a land area equal to five South Dakotas to develop enough clean power to run all the electric vehicles, factories and more. A nuclear plant takes up at most one square mile of land whereas wind and solar farms require hundreds of thousands of acres. To provide enough electric power to keep Manhattan lit up at night would require paving over the whole state of Connecticut with windmills and solar farms. All this is absolute madness.
“Human greed, wastefulness or extravagance” do NOT impact the climate one jot or tittle and to suggest they do is nothing short of puerile. The statements made in this article and, thus, CR’s position (for I see no statement that opinions in CR Review articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the Community) is alarmist, fatalistic, pessimistic, doom-laden, unsupported, unscientific, dangerous propaganda of the worst possible kind, not least because CR Review finds its way into the hands of (and is read on-line by) many vulnerable and fragile individuals. In addition, other Religious Communities who receive the CR Review unwittingly propagate the baseless content contained therein, further enlarging the pool of recipients of these utter LIES.
It is patently obvious to me that CR is out of control. No matter how strongly or passionately you may feel about a particular subject, you CANNOT - and cannot be allowed to - print and publish complete and utter entirely unresearched, invented falsehoods, promote totally unsubstantiated scaremongering and seek to influence how individuals should vote.
This constant fixation by CR on proactively promoting the totally false gospel of climate change, based on nothing but dreamt-up falsehoods, MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY.
At this stage, I have not sent this communication, or any of my previous ones, to your Bishop Visitor, or to the Bishop of the Diocese, or to the Advisory Council for Religious Communities or to other Church Authorities but I fear I may be forced to do so if you do not quickly and completely reign in these feral, uninformed, baseless opinions and immediately cease and desist in promoting and publishing lies, deceits and entirely unsubstantiated, unscientific alarmist scaremongering.
Most important of all, once again I must insist that, in the next CR Review, a full rebuttal appears without fail of all the scurrilous and manifestly UNTRUE statements in the article in question, in an attempt to redress some of the very real damage caused by it. Indeed, it would be good to see an apology for the FACT that the article contains NUMEROUS inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Can you really not see how far you have strayed from the true word of God and your commitment to proclaim the world made new through Christ’s resurrection? THAT is what you should be doing. Please, please, please stick to that, a subject you actually know about, far more than most.
------------
Date: 12
January 2022 at 16:05:03 GMT
Subject: CR
Review 476
I
open my latest CR Review (No 476) and once again find the Community attempting
to promote the completely false gospel of “climate change”.
The
article on page 20 by The Revd Dr Catherine Reid (who, I note, is not actually
accorded her due title) is actually about “the environment” and ways of
living more in tune with it. However, it is quite apparent that you (or she, or
both) cannot pass up the opportunity to present what is a largely sensible and
thought-provoking article under the title of “climate change”.
In
fact (other than in the first sentence) the climate is not referred to at all in
the article. As I have pointed out to you previously, the climate (which
is simply a measure of weather over the long term) and the environment (which
encompasses the surroundings or natural world in which we live) are not
definitions which can be haphazardly interchanged.
Mrs
Reid’s article in no way proposes “Seven responses to Climate Change”, as
the completely misleading title states. What she is suggesting is, as she
clearly lays down, “a series of models of caring for creation”. Indeed, in
her very first sentence she points out that there is “a crisis in our
understanding of how we relate to nature” and it is this which she then goes
on to seek to address.
It
is highly unfortunate that her first sentence includes the expression “the
reality of climate change” without expounding that (i) since the earth was
created the climate has always changed (see diagram already provided to you) and
it will continue to change in the future, hence the “reality” but (ii)
mankind’s presence on the earth has made infinitesimally little, if any,
change to the climate and certainly the currently minute percentage of CO2 in
the atmosphere plays absolutely no part in any change (again, see diagram).
Perhaps this is why Mrs Reid in no way seeks to suggest ways in which mankind
can change the climate in the future, perchance because she knows this is not
possible.
The
sooner CR (i) grasps this reality, (ii) stops aligning itself with totally
misinformed and scientifically illiterate alarmists, (iii) stops its incessant
promulgation of this false climate gospel and (iv) ceases to disguise sensible
articles like this one from Mrs Reid under the banner of climate alarmism, the
better.
I
look forward to this being published, in whole or in part, in the next CR Review
and, as always, I commend you to the following by way of a starting point for
understanding the real science:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/680720179063150/
Twitter:
@ClimateThere
Gab:
@Kevin158
Truth Social: @ClimateThere