Change debunked
cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). This strengthens the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002).
The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas lead to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).
Put simply, Antarctica is really complex. There are lots of different phenomena at work, and just because one part gains ice does not mean the world isn’t getting warmer.
7. ‘Tackling climate change has made poor people’s energy bills more expensive’
It is true to say that UK efforts to use green energy have hit the poor hardest.
Subsidising green energy and putting a carbon price on fossil fuel emissions have been hugely successful at reducing carbon emissions in the UK since 2010. But the cost has been spread equally between households through their energy bills – meaning the relative impact on poor households with limited disposable income has been much greater than the impact on wealthier homes.
Almost one-quarter of people in Wales live in fuel poverty (meaning they spend 10% or more of their income on energy costs).
However, the method of subsidising green energy is a political decision and not a reason to disprove or not act to tackle global warming.
In fact, the falling costs of wind and solar energy have made them the cheapest sources of electricity generation in nearly all major economies in the world.
In future it may well be that investing in cheap renewable energy like offshore wind power is an effective way of tackling fuel poverty – not a means of causing it.
8. ‘The polar bear population is stronger than ever’
Afraid we have to go back to President Trump again for this one. Five years ago the then-reality TV star said that the “POLAR BEAR population had never been stronger”.
Unfortunately for both Donald and the polar bears, this was not true. Polar bears are listed as vulnerable by the World Conservation Union.
The myth comes from a claim that their numbers have increased since the 1950s but have now stablised.
However, nobody really knows how many bears there were in the 1950s and 1960s. Estimates then were based on anecdotal evidence provided by hunters or explorers and not by scientific surveys.
Also polar bears are not just affected by climate change and can also be impacted by issues like hunting.
The introduction of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears in 1973, which restricted or even banned hunting in some circumstances, resulted in an increase in polar bear numbers.
But what do the numbers say now? According to a 2009 report by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, of the 19 recognised subpopulations of polar bears, eight are in decline, one is increasing, three are stable and seven don’t have enough data to draw any conclusions.
Anne-Marie Blackburn, from SkepticalScience, said that changes in sea ice affect polar bears in several ways:
The early retreat of summer sea ice means that bears have less time to hunt and therefore less time to build up fat reserves.
The fragmentation and reduction in sea ice has several impacts. It forces the bears to swim longer distances, using up some of their fat reserves. It also reduces the number of seals, which are the bears’ main source of food, and impedes travelling and den making. And it also forces the bears to spend more time on land, with increased interactions with humans potentially leading to higher mortality.
If we want polar bears to be seen in more places, we need to act.
9. ‘Our emissions have gone down so we don’t need to act’
It is true that our emissions have dropped 40% since 1990. We now burn far less coal, but there are some things to bear in mind.
This figure excludes imported goods. All the products and services we get from abroad – and the carbon produced through making them and importing them are not taken into consideration. Some people compare this to “offshoring” our emissions to other countries.
10. ‘They told us there would be a new ice age in the 1970s so they are probably wrong now’ A myth we often hear is that scientists predicted we were going into an ice age in the 1970s and they were proved wrong. The logic then follows that we should not therefore believe them about this current crisis.
There is one problem with this argument – most scientists didn’t think we were going into another ice age.
In the 30 years leading up to the 1970s, available temperature recordings suggested that there was a cooling trend. As a result some scientists suggested that the current inter-glacial period could rapidly draw to a close, which might result in Earth plunging into a new ice age over the next few centuries.
However, at the same time as some scientists were suggesting we might be facing another ice age, a greater number published contradicting studies. Their papers showed that the growing amount of greenhouse gases that humans were putting into the atmosphere would cause much greater warming – warming that would exert a much greater influence on global temperature than any possible natural or human-caused cooling effects.
By 1980 the predictions about ice ages had ceased, due to the overwhelming evidence contained in an increasing number of reports that warned of global warming. Unfortunately, the small number of predictions of an ice age appeared to be much more interesting than those of global warming, so it was those sensational ice age stories in the press that so many people tend to remember.
In 1970 there were six times as many scientists predicting a warming rather than a cooling planet.