Climate alarmists ‘crying wolf’ are finally losing credibility

In the 1950’s and 1960’s there were between 5,000 and 10,000 polar bears. Today there are between 15,000 and 25,000.  Hunting, not climate change, has been the primary historical threat to the species.

Another area of false claims of doom relates to alarmist predictions of increasingly severe weather, such as tornados, cyclones and severe storms, droughts etc, leading to more natural disasters.  Scientists suggest that there is no specific consensus to this effect.  Quantifying historical trends in tropical cyclone activity is said to have proved difficult, but a recent reconstruction reveals a clear global decline over the past century, driven by an increasingly cyclone-hostile environment in the troposphere.

Al Gore, the left’s prominent climate crusader, two decades after his film An Inconvenient Truth was launched, has himself lost credibility.  Critics are highlighting conflict between Gore’s warnings and subsequent data that contradicts them.  The documentary’s most spectacular predictions about the imminent vanishing of Arctic sea ice, the disappearance of snow from Mount Kilimanjaro, and the collapse of Glacier National Park’s glaciers simply have not happened.

Calls by alarmists for urgent emissions reductions have led to costly policies, that have had almost no effect, except for lining the pockets of millionaires and sections of business.  Despite trillions being spent on climate initiatives, global emissions have set records nearly every year.  In 2025, fossil fuels supplied 86.2 per cent of the world’s total energy.  Oil provided 33.5 per cent, coal 27.7 per cent, and natural gas 25.1 per cent.

Electricity itself (Mr Bowen please note) is only about a fifth of the world’s final energy use. Most oil is burned in cars, trucks, planes and ships.  The production of hardware for wind and solar generation itself contributes significantly to increased use of fossil fuels (mostly in countries like China).

The intermittent nature of solar and wind power is a core reason why electricity grids require fossil fuel backup.  Consumers of wind and solar-generated energy end up paying twice: once for “renewables”, and once again for the baseload infrastructure to back up intermittent power.  Australia (with its abundant cheap coal) is indulging in economic madness by switching to expensive intermittent energy.  Meanwhile, developing nations like China and India won’t forgo the cheap fossil-fuel energy that drives their growth.  

The claims of impending climate catastrophe have now been with us for decades.  Essentially, they involve gross exaggeration but have gained popular support through a combination of fear, people’s desire to do good, and a small core element of truth. 

A key truth is that over the last century, the world’s average temperature has indeed risen.  The rise has been a modest 1.2 degrees Celsius or so, not the extremes predicted by alarmists.  Carbon dioxide (CO2), which is only a trace gas, has also increased over the last 100 years from about 300 ppm to maybe 420 ppm.  Moreover, the world’s geological history over millennia is replete with naturally occurring eras of far more acute warming and cooling than experienced in the past one hundred years.

With all the attention given to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by humans, it is interesting to note that CO₂ is not the most important greenhouse gas affecting the Earth’s atmosphere.  That honour belongs to water vapour.  While concentrations of water vapour can vary from almost nothing in dry locations to as much as 4 per cent by volume in humid areas, water vapour can also dissipate by falling from the air as rain or snow.  It can also evaporate from the ground to become gas again.

Increased levels of (the vilified) CO2 have positive aspects also.  CO2 can significantly enhance plant growth by boosting photosynthesis, and increased levels in the atmosphere are associated with higher yields and faster maturation.  World food output has been increasing in recent decades, not declining.

Overall, while climate alarmism is losing credibility, there is still a long way to go, as many of the developed world’s “planet-saving” governments continue their policies.  The UK parliament, for example, declared a “climate change emergency ” in 2019, phased out coal power in 2024, and remains prominent in international cooperation on climate change.  A difference, however, is that most countries promoting net-zero policies don’t have Australia’s resources of coal and natural gas, and don’t ban nuclear power either.