Do you think that the constant catastrophising of weather and climate in the mainstream media, politics and science has just appeared by accident? Over the last few years, the BBC and the Guardian, as of one mind, decided to float improbable 'tipping point' scares under cover of 'scientists say', while UN officials concluded that we had two years to save a 'boiling' planet and the ubiquitous 'Jim' Dale has been given free rein to make it up as he goes along on Talk TV and GB News. Of course all this didn't suddenly happen. Each of these examples is testament to an extraordinary corruption of the true scientific process - an "amazing tale" according to political science writer Roger Pielke Jnr., "a story of how wealth and power sought to shape climate science in pursuit of political goals".
The main culprit in this amazing tale will not be unknown to regular readers of the Daily Sceptic and it is the improbable scenario of RCP8.5. This has been promoted as a 'business as usual' set of scientific, economic and societal assumptions and it suggests temperature rises up to 4°C in less than 80 years. Although downgraded by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of late as "low likelihood", it is still estimated to be behind about 50% of the climate modelled 'impacts' highlighted over the entire scientific literature. Almost all the claims of climate Armageddon and economic disaster peddled by those identified in our first paragraph are based on RCP8.5 input. It is a tale of how three wealthy men bankrolled a project to promote an extreme scenario to guarantee that the economic impact of climate change they projected into the future would be "eye-poppingly large".
It will also not be a surprise to learn that the billionaire green activist Michael Bloomberg has played a key role over the last decade in lifting this implausible pathway to underserved prominence....<<<Read More>>>...