By Robert Bradley Jr.
“… far too many climate scientists have tilted toward or surrendered to exaggeration and hyperbole, making false predictions along the way. Little wonder why the general public has climate fatigue.”
Bill Gates has joined the reset of the climate agenda heading into COP30, scheduled to begin next week in Belém, Brazil. Gates will not be there; neither will Trump nor anyone from the federal government in their official capacity.
Instead of alarmism, immediate relief from extreme weather and adaptation are the order of the day (see here). COP activists might not realize it yet, but the multi-decade push for mitigation has peaked. Fossil fuels won despite the best (worst?) efforts of governments around the world to prop up inferior energies, the dilute, intermittent, fragile kind.
What is a climate alarmist to do? Hope and pray for extreme weather events to keep the narrative going? (How perverse!) For example, the big bet this year was many super hurricanes to keep the narrative going–and last year to counter Trump at the polls. Neither panned out with ambiguity about the anthropogenic effect on cyclones (number, intensity).
Alarm? Or Hope?
What is the messaging between alarm and hope? Between passivity and climate disobedience to ‘wake up’ the unconvinced public? Between exaggeration and attention? Remember what global-cooling-to-warming Steven Schneider stated at the beginning of the global warming debate?
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change.
With that assumption (CO2 alarmism) came a license to exaggerate.
To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. [1]
A false premise leading to a Hobson’s choice. And far too many climate scientists have tilted toward or surrendered to exaggeration and hyperbole, making false predictions along the way. Little wonder why the general public has climate fatigue.
Michael Mann Navigates ‘Doomism’
The story has to be grim–but not too grim. Michael Mann himself is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He argues all-bad-things from rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and concentrations. His other side warns against “doomism“, believing that inaction will result from a discouraged (if not disbelieving) public. [2]
Climate civil disobedience? Mann has rejected that too. [3]
A Recent Example
Consider this complaint from Rohit P, (“Sharing Stories of our planet and its Species | Responsible Tourism Advocate”), titled 𝐁𝐁𝐂, 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐣𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭.
“Seriously,” he begins, “what on earth are ‘last-chance tourism’ pieces? What’s even ethical about it?
I’ve written before about tourism to Antarctica and other polar regions, this whole idea of rushing to see a place “before it’s gone.” Tour companies deliberately tap into this space, fueling FOMO and capitalizing on people’s fear of missing out on places that may soon disappear. How can something branded as “ethical” tourism also be “last-chance tourism”? It accelerates the very disappearance it claims to mourn….
The article essentially suggested: Yes, last-chance tourism is harmful but if people travel responsibly maybe their emotional grief can be channeled into climate action…. To me, it feels like an oxymoron of the highest order.
It is hard being green.
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[1] Schneider. Quoted in Jonathan Schell, “Our Fragile Earth.” Discover (October 1989), pp. 45–48.
[2] Stated Mann and Peter J. Hotez in their new book Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World:
Doomism produces viral social media content — what’s been termed ‘climate doom porn,’ marked by dramatic but unsupported claims of collapsing ice sheets, runaway warming, and imminent extinction.
Doom porn sells, and it has surely borne fruit for the polluters, petrostates, and plutocrats who are fanning its flames. Consider the vitriol directed at Katharine Hayhoe and Mike [Michael Mann] by ostensible climate advocates who insist it’s too late to act and dismiss our messaging on urgency and efficacy as ‘”‘hopium,’ the implication being that we are selling ‘hope’ in the way, say, junkies on the street might sell drugs.”
… the doomers have risen from relative obscurity to prominence in a political economy where extreme claims and vitriolic attacks go viral and create huge, almost cultlike followings that are indeed — as we will see shortly — readily monetized.
Authentic users soon get entrained into the fracas and join in on the pile-on. As a result, climate Twitter today is filled with toxic doomist messaging and assaults on leading climate communicators who are subject to an endless onslaught of ‘hopium’ accusations from ostensible climate advocates anytime we dare claim that it’s not too late to do something about the climate crisis. This may be the most successful gambit yet in the attack on climate action.
[3] Michael Mann on climate disobedience (Mann. “Throwing Soup at Art Shifted People’s Views of Climate Protests—But Maybe Not In The Right Way,” November 15, 2022) wrote:
My fears were realized…. The public outrage was palpable…. The painting protest, by contrast, seemed bizarre and pointless, with no obvious message about the climate crisis. Who was the target? Van Gogh? Oil paintings (get it)? From a communications standpoint, the protest seemed like an even bigger mess than the soup-splattered painting.
The public, overall, just doesn’t like this sort of stuff. A plurality of [survey] respondents (46%) reported that these tactics decrease their support for efforts to address climate change. A whopping 27%, in fact, said they greatly decrease their support. Only 13% reported increased support…. If we are to win the battle against polluters and their enablers, we will need public opinion on our side not theirs.
Bill Gates is going to find some other cause with which to terrorise humanity…AND HE’LL STILL BE WRONG !
You’re right.
It turns out that people don’t really want to eat fake meat and crickets either. I wonder what else he has up his sleeve.
There are imo only 3 options that can be used on a global scale with a real chance to succeed.
Another Bio Weapon.
An economical crisis .
A war.
I’d say the economic crisis will be the first step.
CBDC’s don’t install themselves (and The Economist predicted a global currency back in 1988 – something Gates was not aware of back then.But the owners of the Economist were).
I think all the options are on the table; possibly sequential or even all at once. Dark times.
Me too – they will start the pressure with one thing and increase until everything has been accepted by the plebs – including full digital control and surveillance.
If the demoralization impact ain’t high enough the 2nd door will be opened.
We had a test run with Covid.
We had the economic testrun on an isolated island with massive military presence – Cyprus bank crisis.
The digital testrun happened in Ukraine – DiiA(Ukraine only got all the money because they accepted DiiA – Samantha Power, UN,wife of Baracks prof)
The nuclear testrun was so effective to turn an undefeated nation of 3000 years and its culture into an American caricature where every 5th word sounds English somehow.
You’re forgetting the meth/fent test run. Meth alone has done far more damage to the US than Covid. It kills slowly but induces insanity right way. The sidewalks of all our cities are swarming with drug induced zombies.
Insect pie, anyone?
Who knew that one day, when the alarmist are forced to “eat crow”, they would consider it to be a delicacy? 😎
Likely another vaccine!!
Gates probably changed his climate-doom story because he can no longer make big money from it.
He’s probably already lined up some other abuse to exploit his way to further riches.
I see him as unprincipled, rapacious, and cynical.
I knew that back in the day when he pirated a disk operating system, repackaged it as DOS and build a computer software empire.
But he really hasn’t moved much on “climate.” If you read what he wrote in the first post on WUWT about his supposed “epiphany,” he’s still blabbing on about “climate change” being “serious” and about the non-existent “need” to “get to zero emissions.”
A proclamation that “doom” is a few blocks further down the road as opposed to just around the corner doesn’t mean much when you’re still preaching the same nonsense otherwise.
And the fact that even that minor increment of soft-pedaling has gotten him so much flak shows the religious rigidity of the climate cult.
far too many climate scientists have tilted toward or surrendered to exaggeration and hyperbole
Egged on by a doom addicted media. Scary headlines grabbed long before the paper, study etc has even been reviewed. And if they crash and burn no correction to the record is ever made. It stands.
Gates and some others may be sensing that the ride is on the last stretch and, as they say, they are mitigating and adapting to a changing environment. In their way. The absurd and the counterintuitive no longer have the traction they did not so long ago. But the media hasn’t given up one bit, the absurdity goes on:
“For decades, “stopping climate change” has been the singular goal of climate politics.”
Who decides how we adapt to climate change? – The Guardian
Even the aim is utterly bonkers; stopping climate change.
Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral campaign – which links climate to the cost-of-living crisis, arguing that rent freezes, universal childcare and free public transit will prevent New Yorkers from fleeing for more affordable, but energy-intensive, life in the suburbs – makes its case through an emissions reductions framework.
This guy is on pretty much the same page as Labour – and you’ve seen what’s happening here….
BBC’s bias ‘pushed Hamas lies around the world’
The BBC’s Arabic news service chose to “minimise Israeli suffering” in the war in Gaza so it could “paint Israel as the aggressor”, according to an internal report by a whistleblower… – The Telegraph
That on top of the Trump ‘edit’ and…. The climate.
New Yorkers, welcome to our world…
Sadiq Khan celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral victory: ‘Just like in London, hope won’ – The Independent
Hope that will be crushed in due course.
In deference to Johnny Cash, it can run on for a long time.
After eating chillies he had a ring of fire. What we need are miracles out of nowhere…
Coming of age song. Good memories. Haven’t listened to it in a long long time. Cheers
“This guy is on pretty much the same page as Labour – and you’ve seen what’s happening here….”
Luckily for the U.S., Mamdani can only screw up New York City. Good luck running a city where all the people with money have moved to Florida.
There are a lot of ignorant people in the United States. Tens of millions of them. And they have a Leftwing Media that is determined to keep them that way. Have you seen one of those “Man on the Street” interviews lately. It’s a pathetic demonstration of just how ignorant many Americans really are. And they can vote.
Good luck New York City. You get what you vote for. If you are too ignorant to keep a good thing going, then that’s your fault. You have to live with the consequences of your actions.
Khan can only mess up London. But the media remains onside and revels in it. It might be one city, but it will hurt an awful lot of people.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Mamdani isn’t going to be the dictator of NYC. He’s got to deal with existing laws and a city council. He’ll push for some minor changes and declare victory.
Could he lose out and then play the victim card?
If anything, the city council is further to the left than is Mamdani. The courts have already been captured by the far left, especially the city and state courts.
They voted for more SNAP and more of other federal goodies, but Trump will reduce the flow of $$$$$$$
‘Talks’ are already ongoing to reopen the Federal government. If history is any indicator, I don’t see any reduction in the flow of $$$$$$$ forthcoming.
The best we can hope for is for the taps to be opened a little bit less than the Democrats want.
Revelations of an “EBT/SNAP mom”, from X
If y’all was really smart you’d understand “kids is the biggest hustle out there”.
I don’t clock into no job,
I let Uncle Sam and baby daddies cut me a check every month. 5 kids = 5 bags. Food stamps, free rent, free healthcare, and child support on top of that.
My bills paid before I even wake up.
Everybody keep asking why I had 5 kids at age 26, because every single one come with a check attached.
My life secured while y’all stressing over 9 to 5s.
Don’t be mad at me, be mad at you ain’t catch on to the hustle.
.
Food subsidies have had the unfortunate side effect of helping to destroy the nuclear family, creating generations of fatherless children and skyrocketing crime rates.
.
Around 23% of all US households have single mothers.
Among black families, 47% are single mother households, 25% in Hispanic households and 12% in white households.
Approximately 7% of white families use SNAP, while 27% of black families and 23% of Hispanic families.
.
There is a clear trend here: Single mothers and minority families are the largest contingent of welfare beneficiaries per capita and the system is almost designed to reward their dependency.
.
They aim for that “dependency”, as revealed by the EBT/SNAP mom
Examine the census. The examine how census demographics are used to channel tax payer money.
Now you know why Democrats want everyone counted in the US census.
That gives them more votes in the House and that gives them more votes of “dependency” folks at the ballot box, if they would bother to get off their asses to vote.
Al that while normal folks are “stressing over 9 to 5s”
We are being soooooo screwed by Democrats.
The Constitution requires that everyone be counted for apportionment of House Seats. What is going on is more nefarious. Non-citizens voting.
While the current perceptions are the Democrats are the worst of the lot, there is enough on both sides to be seriously concerning.
The problem is that Democrat cities are declaring themselves sanctuary cities, so that lots of people who aren’t in the country legally are in those cities and end up being counted in the census.
They don’t want these people to be removed from the country because that means more weight to these cities when political districts are drawn next time.
Mamadani will apparently concentrate on ‘affordable housing’. Good luck w that in NY
He could of course be concentrating on affordable energy..which he obviously wont. Oh wait, going green WAS going to be that road, right?
It will be affordable for the “dependency” folks living in them, with the tab being picked up by us screwed over folks.
That will only last so long. New York (state)’s Climate Fascism has rental building owners being “required” to install worse-than-useless electric heating systems. Pile on “frozen rents,” and buildings will start getting abandoned ala the south Bronx in the 70s.
Maybe the UN building could be made available. 😉
“You have to live with the consequences of your actions.”
That is how I was raised.
Today? Nah. The Government will take care of everything.
Yes, keep bailing that water furiously out of the sinking S.S. Climatanic. Need more popcorn.
And a more comfortable lawn chair, I’m starting to wear this one out.
Beer. We need more beer with all that popcorn.
If it’s CO2 then what’s gonna stop the rise of the Keeling curve? Nothing. All climate ‘control’ is futile
Reduce the population, reduce the CO2 exhaled.
Then the termites will take over.
From the article: Michael Mann: “Doom porn sells, and it has surely borne fruit for the polluters, petrostates, and plutocrats who are fanning its flames.”
This is a classic case of projection.
It is Michael Mann and his cronies who are spreading “Doom Porn” with their lies about CO2 and the Earth’s weather and climate, and their claims that disaster is in the offing, if we don’t do something about CO2..
Skeptics spread hope. Hope that the Doom Pornsters, like Mann, are wrong about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW).
Mann and his cronies are wrong. There is no evidence that CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth. And this, after 50 years of looking for evidence.
This is the reason you are having so much trouble, Michael Mann: You can’t prove your case, no matter what you try. That’s because you have no evidence to back up your claim. The only “evidence” for a correlation between CO2 and temperatures is your bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick global temperature chart, which was created in your computer specifically to sell this CAGW hoax. You sir, are the problem. You should be ashamed of youself for the climate lies you have spread, and are still spreading, and the fear you have generated from those lies.
A Disgrace to the Profession, is the proper description for you. And A Disgrace to Humanity should be added.
Mann should man up and come to WUWT and confront his critics. Not gonna happen of course.
Or, he could go on the Joe Rogan show!
That would be a flame war I would choose to avoid, thank you very much.
It would be a flame war here but I don’t think so on Rogan. He’s pretty smooth at handling oddball characters.
I wonder if New York Mayor elect Mamdani will be there? Beam me up, Scotty………
If he’s anything like Sadiq Khan… NYers have my sympathy. But one should recall Khan got a little over half of the vote – but only 40% voted, so he has 1/5 or 20% of the London vote.
I don’t know the stats for NY, maybe they have yet to tire of a muslim mayor – our mayor deep down is an islamist.
Khan’s job has always been to temporize until Islam can take over.
Steven Schneider contradicted himself, perhaps without even recognizing it. He said:
1) “On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…” and
2) “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Being “effective” has nothing to do with science; nothing whatsoever.
He contradicted himself by going first with the global cooling scare – see In Search of The Coming Ice Age* – and then jumping on board the global warming scare. The quotes you gave are from APS Online, Aug./Sep. 1996
How the weather changes… go to 19:30
Reykjavík received a record 40 cm of snow in late October 2025, an amount not seen in the city in October since measurements began in 1921.
The snowfall was part of an early winter storm, with 27 cm falling in just one day, October 28th.
This broke the previous October record of 15 cm from 1921.
Record-breaking snowfall: The 40 cm of snow was the most that the city had experienced in October since official measurements started in 1921
I do not think he contradicts himself.
He just admits that there is a choice to be made between science(honest ) and propaganda (effective).
And it is obvious that 97 % of them have chosen to be effective.
Btw -I do think that science has to do with effectivity.
It can be structured in an effective way to reduce the waste of time and money.
And it can lead to optimize a process in an effective way.
“He just admits that there is a choice to be made between science(honest ) and propaganda “
No scientist should even be considering a propagandist approach. You gave that a free pass. Not good.
I’m NOT excusing it.
I’m just “nitpicking” the fact that he is not contradicting himself.
Every scientist, just like any other human, will contradict themselve at one point.
This maybe result of bias,superficial thinking,recklessness,incompetence etc.
That can happen and is usually harmless or irrelevant.
What Schneider did was an intentional crime in scientific terms.
This is way worse.
Just as with politicians doing evil and getting away with it because we think they are stupid,
we must not make the mistake to categorize a call for manipulation as contradiction.
We must not make the Hanlon-Razor mistake to trivialize a massive violation of norms.
He did contradict himself – see above. You can’t be cooling and warming.
I was referring to Denis’ comment.
Your vid came later on.
I know that Schneider like the rest of the early AGW prophets (Ehrlich, Holder)
were ice agers .
Btw – every AGW scientist will contradict himself -sooner than later.
That’s the natural result of a lie – and the number of contradictions grows exponentially.
Well, he basically stated exactly what they are doing. It is strategic. The problem w that is that people will find out. And if they don’t experience ‘climate change’ that is a lethal mix, except for the people in the bubble.
And most importantly, without the alarm there is no ’emergency’ and no funding.
I wish we had a Trump figure here in Europe. Just to stop the climate alarm stuff.
Science should have no agenda, no bias or strategy to promote an agenda or bias – being effective implies any or all of the things science should not be.
Being efficient or effective in conducting science is not the same thing.
Being efficient or effective in touting your favoured brand of imaginary science is not science.
“Steven Schneider contradicted himself, perhaps without even recognizing it. He said:
1) “On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…” and
2) “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Being “effective” has nothing to do with science; nothing whatsoever.”
To this Layman, the only way a scientist can be effective is to be honest in their research.
“Cause” or no cause.
I’ll take that a step further. A “scientist” with a “cause” is no scientist. You cannot conduct objective scientific inquiry while pushing a “cause.” The “cause” pollutes everything you do.
Oh but there’s more and bigger contradictions for Schneider. I saw somewhere (maybe on here) an old article where Schneider was among “scientists” opening about the “Global COOLING ‘crisis'” in the 1970s.
Where he said global COOLING was going to make the weather “more extreme.” Sound familiar?! Exactly what they say about “global WARMING” now.
Apparently what we’re supposed to believe is that somewhere around 1945, the “climate” was PERFECT, and that any departure from that will make the weather “more extreme.”
COP30 – The end of an Error.
Marginally….
Googling “Has COP31 been announced?” comes up with:
[Edited]
AI Overview
COP31 hasn’t been announced due to a standoff between Australia and Turkey.
Here’s the current situation:
Blah blah blah blah blah…
Adelaide, South Australia, is the proposed venue if Australia is successful.
I expect that the shock troops are going to decide that violence, up to and including murder, will be their only option, now that they have been abandoned by the politicians. Those on the left don’t just disagree with those who oppose them, they hate them.
The AG elect for the state of Virginia declared a desire to kill his political opponent and his opponents family. This declaration was met with a resounding wall of silence on the part of prominent Democrats across the country, most of whom continued to enthusiastically support him.
Anyone who expects Republicans to get a fair shake in Virginia state courts, probably also believe that this time, socialism will work.
Michael Mann is the perfect example of those types who for years have tried to leverage climate fiction exaggeration to further their own personal gain. The current correct view of climate realism is long over due. Sooner these types gone and done with completely the better.
Their own personal gain plus ‘The Cause”.
The most important step winning people to your view or cause is to do honest work and communicate in an honest and transparent manner. For the most part the climate extremists have done none of this. If they were honest they would admit that none of their work has shown that more CO2 will cause runaway global warming.
More to the point, they have never shown that a warmer climate is worse.
For good reason. WARMER IS BETTER.
THERE IS NO “CRISIS.”