The human race seems to be marching – or possibly racing – towards an apocalyptic climate disaster, right? You’d certainly think so from the mainstream media, not to mention Greta Thunberg and protest groups like XR – their website says “Our world is in crisis. Life itself is under threat.” According to the media, everyone on the planet agrees, bar a few nasty (and nutty) climate change sceptics.
As with most things, it’s a bad idea to simply believe everything you hear about climate change in the mainstream media – especially when it’s painted as black-or-white or overly simplistic. But where to find some information that isn’t just following the main narrative?
We were recently recommended the Watts Up With That? (WUWT) website, which Wikipedia calls “a blog promoting climate change denial”.
The site responds to mainstream media articles about climate issues. For example, an article in the Guardian last week (5th May 2023) asserted that extreme temperatures are rising faster than climate models, particularly citing a heatwave across Spain and Portugal. In response, a post on wattsupwiththat.com reviews the Guardian article and points out some contradictory facts, including a recent study in the Lancet that showed more people die from cold than heat in Spain.
As well as daily articles, the site has a bunch of reference pages with charts, for example giving global temperature. They also review climate science books. One of the most useful features is a list of bookmarks linking to other useful sites and articles.
WUWT seems very well written, and interestingly, its author Anthony Watts (who has a science and blogging background) was not a climate sceptic until the mid-1990s. We think it’s definitely worth a look.
WUWT links to Everything Climate for a variety of information on “the data and the theories” regarding climate change and “claimed dangers”, although most of the pieces here seem to be undated, which is a bit unhelpful.
Jennifer Marohasy’s blog is also worth reading – I found her via a link from WUWT – and her information about coral reefs is extremely interesting.
If you’re interested in climate-sceptic writing, you could consider reading Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) which is available on Kindle Unlimited. (Disclaimer: we haven’t read it yet.)
And for balance, here are some sites with a more mainstream point of view:
The IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – is the United Nations (UN) body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. You can find all its reports on the website.
The climate area of NASA’s site has a piece on global warming versus climate change, and a section on scientific consensus which says that “evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and it’s ocean basins”. They do note later on the page that “… climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities”. (Those are my italics for emphasis.)
Yale Climate Connections has a list of resources to “help you understand the key facts about human-caused climate change”.
Skeptical Science says it’s “getting skeptical about global warming skepticism” and the site includes a handy guide to skepticism.
Happy researching, and as always – make up your own mind.