The Climate Alarmism Grift is Dying

Last week, the BBC reminded us that we have just three years left to drastically reduce all CO2 emissions, or we risk crossing the dreaded 1.5°C warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. A persistent feature of the degreed managerial class is their arrogant refusal to learn from their past flawed predictions. Dire warnings of climate catastrophe have shaped global policy, media narratives, and public perception, resulting in the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on technology that does not work. Predictions by climate ‘experts’ of submerged cities, the end of snow, vanishing ice caps, and dead coral formations never materialize.

Thinking that highly credentialed Ivy League professors would use science and math to destroy the man-made climate change narrative was not plausible a year ago. Yet, in this new cultural zeitgeist created after the implosion of the Democratic Party, the impossible is now possible.

In a shocking display of academic integrity, two eminent professors published a masterfully complex paper that undermines the foundation of climate alarmism. MIT’s Richard Lindzen, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus, and Princeton’s William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, published a paper titled PHYSICS DEMONSTRATES THAT INCREASING GREENHOUSE GASES CANNOT CAUSE DANGEROUS WARMING, EXTREME WEATHER OR ANY HARM.

Their message is simple: CO2-driven warming poses no danger to the planet, while the net-zero policies designed to reduce CO2 do more harm than good. It takes a paper of serious complexity to validate such a simple message.

Climate experts tend to pronounce things to be so, and that’s the end of it. Yet, a basic understanding of the Earth’s atmospheric gases demonstrated that the foundation of climate alarmism was oversimplified and incorrect.

Before examining their paper, it is helpful to review a few of the forecasts that have not materialized.

In 1971, a new Ice Age was imminent

By 2000, the threat of a new Ice Age disappeared and was replaced by global warming.

Four years later, it was back to a new ice age, but this time caused by global warming.

By 2009, the event horizon was just 96 months away, prompting celebrity climate geniuses to issue hysterical, easily ignored warnings.

Four years later, the Climate Models ™ that had never been correct warned the Arctic would be ice-free in two years.

The topic demands a meme at this point.

Lindzen and Happer use physics to demonstrate that CO2’s warming effect is limited by its logarithmic absorption of infrared radiation. The warming effect of each molecule of CO2 decreases as its concentration increases. They estimate low climate sensitivity (~0.5–1.5°C per CO2 doubling), which is far below the IPCC’s range of 2.5–4°C.

They contend that Hurricanes, droughts, and floods exhibit no apparent increase in frequency driven by CO2, with natural variability dominating (e.g., NOAA’s stable hurricane frequency since 1980). They demonstrate that higher CO2 levels enhance photosynthesis, resulting in a 14% global greening trend (NASA, 1982–2015) and a 20% increase in crop yields (FAO, 2000–2020).

They then emphasize that phasing out fossil fuels, which supply 80% of global energy (IEA, 2023), will raise costs and harm developing nations, with minimal climate benefit. Their physics-based approach challenges high-sensitivity climate models, which have overestimated warming in periods such as 1998–2014. They also align with skepticism of alarmist policies, like EPA regulations, which they’ve called a “hoax” in prior work.

The premise of man-made climate change hinges on three key facts: CO2 traps heat, humans have increased CO2 levels (~420 ppm today vs. 280 ppm pre-industrial), and this drives global warming. Lindzen and Happer don’t dispute the first two but argue that the warming is minimal and benign.

They contend CO2 is not destroying the planet; it’s enhancing life on it. Across the globe, elevated CO2 levels are supercharging plant growth and delivering bountiful crop harvests at unprecedented rates.

They then explain that hypothetical climate models rest on a long sequence of assumptions, many of which are either weak, invalidated, or demonstrably false. As a result, the outputs of these models are of questionable value and cannot be taken as reliable evidence.

Climate activists reacted to this paper as expected: they want its authors arrested and jailed.

You would expect this well-researched paper to be big news, providing the rational cover politicians need to drive a stake through the heart of the climate alarmism scam. But that is not going to happen. The political class will ignore it, as they often do with inconvenient data. However, the momentum is shifting much faster than the political class can cope with.

Joe Rogan dealt the climate hoax a bigger setback than any Ivy League professor could hope to accomplish with a well-written, peer-reviewed study. Rogan spent a few hours talking to the hapless, profoundly ignorant Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie didn’t seem to know much about the topics he attempted to demagogue. Frustrated by Rogan’s effective counters to his preferred narrative, he grasped at something he thought would go unquestioned. “Some people think climate change is a hoax, but it ain’t a hoax.” He stated this as if that were a self-evident fact. His ignorance of contrary facts complemented the arrogance of his statement. Rogan used a WaPo article to school the old fool.

This is the story Joe used to alert Bernie to the fact that he’s behind the times.

Today, every dogma of the neo-liberal religion is being publicly put on trial. Something in the air changed after the COVID-19 saga. COVID was a tipping point, an unmasking of the true nature of our bankrupt professional-managerial class and their bought-and-paid-for “experts.”

The progress of unraveling the climate change scam is slow but steady. Yesterday, President Trump announced he will use an executive order to end tax subsidies for the wind and solar renewable energy grift. Finally, common sense and fiscal responsibility are now evident in Washington, D.C.. Yet, the question remains: how long will it take before the global professional managerial class realizes the gig is up?