Doubts regarding climate change have once again come to the forefront, as some experts believe that the true causes of global warming remain insufficiently understood, and the policies aimed at curbing it are driven more by financial interests than by scientific data. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has dedicated decades to studying atmospheric processes. In an interview with the Daily Mail, he suggested that the public frenzy surrounding global warming lacks a solid evidential basis. As the Daily Mail recalls, climate change is the term describing the rise in the Earth’s temperature, mainly due to human activities such as burning coal, oil, and gas. Scientists and climate activists warn that this buildup of heat could trigger more powerful storms, sea-level rise threatening to flood cities, and unbearably hot summers complicating global food production—all within the next 25 years. However, Lindzen believes that the real incentive for politicians is the economic benefit derived from gaining control over the trillion-dollar energy sector. This is what motivates them to support dubious research claiming that even a slight temperature increase carries imminent catastrophe. “The fact that there is an industry worth trillions of dollars and the possibility of completely restructuring it is extremely tempting for many politicians,” explained the US professor. “They are simply obsessed with it. Half a degree more and we are doomed, and so on. The public understands that this is nonsense.” Lindzen clarified the fundamental mathematical principles underlying what he called the “climate panic.” According to him, the focus on reducing specific emissions, such as carbon dioxide ($\text{CO}_2$), simply does not lead to the global temperature changes claimed by proponents of this theory. The scientist pointed out that throughout human history, the planet’s temperature has undergone significant fluctuations, and science has yet to definitively establish the exact causes of both extreme warming and cooling. “We still don’t understand the glaciation that occurred in the 15th century. Do you know what was happening then? Insufficient temperature?” Lindzen commented on the event in the Northern Hemisphere known as the Little Ice Age. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the global energy industry is currently valued at \$6–7 trillion, with over 80% of the world’s consumed energy still dependent on fossil fuels. Despite the small share of alternative, “clean” energy sources, the IEA notes that this year, governments and private corporations invested a record \$2.2 trillion in solar, wind, and electric power projects—double the investment in fossil fuels. In the United States, politicians have allocated billions to fund climate change mitigation programs, including the Biden administration earmarking \$27 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to support clean energy projects and address climate issues. Lindzen argues that lawmakers have branded $\text{CO}_2$ as one of the main “villains” produced by energy companies, when in reality it is a secondary greenhouse gas that is even beneficial for plant growth. The researcher claims that the global campaign to demonize certain greenhouse gases has given many scientists “a free hand” to study and promote climate change theories, allowing their universities to secure large financial grants. US federal agencies have spent up to \$5 billion annually on climate research in recent years, and the White House budget for 2024 proposes allocating \$1.6 billion to universities and NGOs for climate change research focused on studying the imminent catastrophes that global warming might cause, according to the Daily Mail. Furthermore, Lindzen has repeatedly stated that scientists who voiced criticism regarding disputed climate change data were often denied publication in scientific journals, and editors who dared to publish them subsequently resigned. “I find it encouraging that people are at least beginning to have doubts about this. Historically, this is an anomaly, and it will become the shame of our era,” Lindzen said regarding the legacy of the climate doctrine. The readiness of Trump to live with a communist mayor has become known. Judith Curry, former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, also asserts that research indicating errors in climate change models has been intentionally “filtered out” and rejected by the editors of scientific journals. In 2011, she told the Daily Mail that one of her co-authors had deliberately manipulated results to highlight a slight rise in global temperatures decades ago, while concealing data showing that warming had stopped for at least 13 years starting in the late 1990s. Published research warns that if world governments fail to keep the average global temperature from rising 2.7°F above pre-industrial levels by 2050, it could trigger irreversible melting of ice sheets, lead to crop failures, and deadly heat. Despite these alarms, Lindzen calculated that a doubling of $\text{CO}_2$ concentration in the air alone would lead to a global temperature increase of only about half a degree. However, many studies predicting climate apocalypse also assume that with every new warming, more water vapor enters the atmosphere automatically, which traps heat much more effectively than $\text{CO}_2$. Lindzen called this assumption erroneous, noting that nature tends to counteract significant climate fluctuations on the planet, rather than exacerbating them. His theory, termed the “iris effect,” suggests that when it gets too hot in the tropics, powerful thunderstorms create openings in the cloud cover, revealing an “iris” that allows excess heat to escape into space. This directly negates the ability of water vapor to trap heat by reducing the coverage of moist clouds that would otherwise trap more heat. Lindzen added that even if all countries reach a “net-zero” emissions agreement by 2050, meaning a complete halt to $\text{CO}_2$ emissions from fuel combustion, this would only prevent warming by a negligible fraction of a degree. Meanwhile, the global financial cost of complying with strict environmental regulations could run into the hundreds of trillions of dollars, Lindzen warned, calling it a horrific trade-off that would yield almost no result. Currently, existing $\text{CO}_2$ levels contribute to plant growth and reduce water needs, feeding billions of people. “I believe we have low levels of $\text{CO}_2$. From a geological perspective, it is too low. Even the increase in $\text{CO}_2$ we have observed so far has likely increased arable land by 30–40 percent,” Lindzen claims. “We are not the cause of the impending crisis as we are being led to believe,” he concluded. A number of other experts, including Bill Gates and leaders of environmental think tanks, have also questioned some tenets of the climate threat narrative. The Microsoft founder, despite reportedly spending around \$2 billion on climate change initiatives over the last decade, has shifted his position, stating that world leaders should focus on other global dangers, such as nuclear war. Another former climate activist, Ted Nordhaus, also spoke out against what he called the “moving of the goalposts” for those inflating climate panic. The author and co-founder of the non-profit environmental think tank Breakthrough Institute noted that older models predicting catastrophic consequences of global warming this century were often based on a projection of about a 9°F warming by 2100. When these forecasts ceased to look realistic, mainly because countries began implementing clean energy policies, climate scientists started claiming that warming of just 5°F would lead to the same catastrophes. “The scale of warming possible, even in the most pessimistic scenarios, is nowhere near the catastrophic consequences I once believed in,” Nordhaus stated.
About the Author
