It’s astonishing that in 2025—when we’re seeing climate disruption play out across the globe in real time—we’re still getting served reheated denial from Toby Young and The Climate Skeptic. Floods, wildfires, glacier collapse, rising seas, ocean heatwaves, and shifting growing seasons are all accelerating. Yet here we are again, with another post dismissing it all as alarmism in service of a so-called “radical green agenda.”
Let’s take his claims point by point.
⸻
“What consensus?”
Toby casts doubt on the often-cited “97% consensus” among climate scientists, calling it a myth based on a debunked study. That’s simply false. The 97% figure comes from multiple independent studies—most notably Cook et al. (2013), which analyzed nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers and found overwhelming agreement that human activity is driving climate change. More recent research finds the consensus is even stronger—approaching 99% among publishing climate experts.
Cherry-picking criticisms of one paper doesn’t change the reality: the scientific consensus is robust, global, and growing. No alternative survey has shown anything remotely close to widespread dissent.
📌 Cook et al., 2013
📌 Powell, 2019 – 99% Consensus
⸻
“CO₂ is just a trace gas…”
Yes, and so is cyanide. Trace gases can have major effects. Despite comprising only 0.04% of the atmosphere, CO₂ is crucial to Earth’s energy balance. Its heat-trapping capacity doesn’t just vanish at higher concentrations—it follows a logarithmic curve, which is well understood and incorporated into physics, climate modeling, and satellite remote sensing.
The claim that its warming effect is “saturated” is outdated and has been debunked repeatedly. If that were true, Earth’s temperature wouldn’t be climbing in step with emissions—as it clearly is.
📌 NASA on CO₂
⸻
“But what about Happer, Curry, and Clauser?”
This is the tired “appeal to contrarian authority.” William Happer is a physicist, not a climate scientist. He’s promoted the idea that more CO₂ is good for plants and once compared climate science to Nazi propaganda. Judith Curry’s scientific work doesn’t deny human-caused warming; she questions the level of certainty and appropriate policy responses. John Clauser, a Nobel laureate in quantum mechanics, has never published peer-reviewed research on climate and openly admits to ignoring the foundational climate literature.
These are not leading voices in climate science—they’re fringe figures given amplified status by outlets with a political axe to grind.
📌 Scientific American on Clauser
📌 RealClimate on Happer
⸻
“Climate models are flawed…”
Models don’t drive the science—they reflect our best understanding of physics, chemistry, and feedback systems. They are constantly validated against observations and have successfully predicted decades-long trends, including polar amplification, stratospheric cooling, and increasing ocean heat content. No model is perfect, but the broad patterns are confirmed by real-world data again and again.
The uncertainties are not about whether climate change is happening—they’re about how fast and how bad it will get if we stay on our current path.
⸻
“Hundreds of scientists say there is no climate emergency”
This refers to the so-called “World Climate Declaration,” organized by Clintel—a climate denial lobby group, not a scientific body. The list is padded with non-climate scientists, engineers, lobbyists, and even the odd dentist. It’s not peer-reviewed science; it’s a PR stunt.
⸻
Bottom Line
Toby Young is using monetized contrarianism to sell subscriptions. That’s the game here. It’s not about engaging with evidence—it’s about positioning himself as a brave truth-teller standing against the mob, even as reality crashes through the door.
If there were no climate emergency, reality wouldn’t be doing such a good job showing us otherwise.
I wonder on what basis you base your assertion that 'climate disruption' is playing out in real time, other than from mainstream media propaganda and your overactive imagination? The IPCC's own reports continue to state 'low confidence' in any significant change in events such as floods, droughts, wildfires etc. Indeed, statistically wildfires are far less of a problem now than they were 50-100 years ago.
And as for your comparison of carbon dioxide with cyanide, that really is bonkers! CO2 is not a poison, it is beneficial to plant life, and the anthropogenic increase in the atmosphere is actually making the world greener, though you won't hear about that much amongst your righteous groupthink.
Hi Adam, I appreciate your response, but let’s get specific. Your claims repeat a number of popular talking points that don’t hold up when we actually look at the evidence.
⸻
1. “Climate disruption isn’t real—it’s media hype”
This isn’t about media headlines. It’s about hard data from global monitoring systems:
• Ocean heat content is at record levels—measured directly by the ARGO float network.
• Glacier loss is accelerating worldwide—seen in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, etc.
• Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense, confirmed by attribution science.
• Shifts in growing seasons and species migration are already being documented globally.
These aren’t projections—they’re happening now and tracked by agencies like NOAA, NASA, the WMO, and the IPCC.
4. “CO₂ is just plant food—comparing it to cyanide is bonkers”
The cyanide point wasn’t about toxicity—it was about scale of effect. Like many trace gases, CO₂ has a powerful impact on Earth’s energy balance despite being a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%). That’s how the greenhouse effect works.
Yes, CO₂ can stimulate plant growth under some conditions—but:
• Nutrient and water limitations often prevent those benefits from being realized.
• Elevated CO₂ can reduce nutritional quality (e.g., protein, zinc in staple crops).
• The “greening” trend is already showing signs of reversal due to heat and drought stress.
This isn’t about “groupthink” or mainstream media—it’s about thousands of scientists across disciplines observing the same trends independently. If you’re going to challenge that, it’s fair to ask: where is your evidence that holds up to scrutiny?
Good. We need a lot more straightforward scepticism of anthropogenic climate change, and especially the spin-off pseudoscience of extreme weather attribution - needed because long term global warming of just over one degree Celsius since 1850 was not scary enough. Climate zealots were boasting a while back that 'climate science denial' had been defeated once and for all, so settled was the Settled Science of Man Made Global Warming, and it was therefore just a matter of dealing with the delayers and deniers of climate mitigation. They were wrong. The fundamental 'science' of anthropogenic greenhouse gas driven global warming - and extreme weather attribution - has never looked so shaky and is coming under increasing challenge from real published science and data.
I suggest that Climate Skeptic (why 'k' not 'c'?) might establish a relationship (link?) with Climate Scepticism, a website that's been battling away in this area since about 2015. It has published a vast amount of useful and interesting material, comment and discussion over the years. And it's done it all without subscriptions or any other funding. Access here: https://cliscep.com.
It’s astonishing that in 2025—when we’re seeing climate disruption play out across the globe in real time—we’re still getting served reheated denial from Toby Young and The Climate Skeptic. Floods, wildfires, glacier collapse, rising seas, ocean heatwaves, and shifting growing seasons are all accelerating. Yet here we are again, with another post dismissing it all as alarmism in service of a so-called “radical green agenda.”
Let’s take his claims point by point.
⸻
“What consensus?”
Toby casts doubt on the often-cited “97% consensus” among climate scientists, calling it a myth based on a debunked study. That’s simply false. The 97% figure comes from multiple independent studies—most notably Cook et al. (2013), which analyzed nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers and found overwhelming agreement that human activity is driving climate change. More recent research finds the consensus is even stronger—approaching 99% among publishing climate experts.
Cherry-picking criticisms of one paper doesn’t change the reality: the scientific consensus is robust, global, and growing. No alternative survey has shown anything remotely close to widespread dissent.
📌 Cook et al., 2013
📌 Powell, 2019 – 99% Consensus
⸻
“CO₂ is just a trace gas…”
Yes, and so is cyanide. Trace gases can have major effects. Despite comprising only 0.04% of the atmosphere, CO₂ is crucial to Earth’s energy balance. Its heat-trapping capacity doesn’t just vanish at higher concentrations—it follows a logarithmic curve, which is well understood and incorporated into physics, climate modeling, and satellite remote sensing.
The claim that its warming effect is “saturated” is outdated and has been debunked repeatedly. If that were true, Earth’s temperature wouldn’t be climbing in step with emissions—as it clearly is.
📌 NASA on CO₂
⸻
“But what about Happer, Curry, and Clauser?”
This is the tired “appeal to contrarian authority.” William Happer is a physicist, not a climate scientist. He’s promoted the idea that more CO₂ is good for plants and once compared climate science to Nazi propaganda. Judith Curry’s scientific work doesn’t deny human-caused warming; she questions the level of certainty and appropriate policy responses. John Clauser, a Nobel laureate in quantum mechanics, has never published peer-reviewed research on climate and openly admits to ignoring the foundational climate literature.
These are not leading voices in climate science—they’re fringe figures given amplified status by outlets with a political axe to grind.
📌 Scientific American on Clauser
📌 RealClimate on Happer
⸻
“Climate models are flawed…”
Models don’t drive the science—they reflect our best understanding of physics, chemistry, and feedback systems. They are constantly validated against observations and have successfully predicted decades-long trends, including polar amplification, stratospheric cooling, and increasing ocean heat content. No model is perfect, but the broad patterns are confirmed by real-world data again and again.
The uncertainties are not about whether climate change is happening—they’re about how fast and how bad it will get if we stay on our current path.
⸻
“Hundreds of scientists say there is no climate emergency”
This refers to the so-called “World Climate Declaration,” organized by Clintel—a climate denial lobby group, not a scientific body. The list is padded with non-climate scientists, engineers, lobbyists, and even the odd dentist. It’s not peer-reviewed science; it’s a PR stunt.
⸻
Bottom Line
Toby Young is using monetized contrarianism to sell subscriptions. That’s the game here. It’s not about engaging with evidence—it’s about positioning himself as a brave truth-teller standing against the mob, even as reality crashes through the door.
If there were no climate emergency, reality wouldn’t be doing such a good job showing us otherwise.
I wonder on what basis you base your assertion that 'climate disruption' is playing out in real time, other than from mainstream media propaganda and your overactive imagination? The IPCC's own reports continue to state 'low confidence' in any significant change in events such as floods, droughts, wildfires etc. Indeed, statistically wildfires are far less of a problem now than they were 50-100 years ago.
And as for your comparison of carbon dioxide with cyanide, that really is bonkers! CO2 is not a poison, it is beneficial to plant life, and the anthropogenic increase in the atmosphere is actually making the world greener, though you won't hear about that much amongst your righteous groupthink.
Hi Adam, I appreciate your response, but let’s get specific. Your claims repeat a number of popular talking points that don’t hold up when we actually look at the evidence.
⸻
1. “Climate disruption isn’t real—it’s media hype”
This isn’t about media headlines. It’s about hard data from global monitoring systems:
• Ocean heat content is at record levels—measured directly by the ARGO float network.
• Glacier loss is accelerating worldwide—seen in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, etc.
• Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense, confirmed by attribution science.
• Shifts in growing seasons and species migration are already being documented globally.
These aren’t projections—they’re happening now and tracked by agencies like NOAA, NASA, the WMO, and the IPCC.
→ WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 Report:
https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=22291
⸻
2. “The IPCC has low confidence in floods, droughts, wildfires”
That’s misleading. The IPCC AR6 (2021) report assigns different confidence levels by region and hazard, but the overall pattern is clear:
• High confidence that heatwaves and hot extremes have increased.
• Medium to high confidence that heavy precipitation and flooding are rising in many regions.
• Medium confidence in more frequent/aggravated droughts in some areas.
• High confidence that fire weather has increased in key parts of all inhabited continents.
→ IPCC AR6 Working Group I Summary for Policymakers (2021):
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
⸻
3. “Wildfires are less of a problem than 100 years ago”
That statistic about total global burned area is misleading. Much of the decline is due to less savanna burning in Africa—not less wildfire risk.
Meanwhile, wildfire intensity and destructiveness have increased in key fire-prone regions:
• Western US and Canada – longer fire seasons, hotter, more destructive fires.
• Australia – the 2019–2020 “Black Summer” fires were the most catastrophic on record.
• Southern Europe – record wildfires in Greece, Portugal, Spain in recent years.
→ NASA: The Complex Relationship Between Climate and Wildfire:
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3312/
⸻
4. “CO₂ is just plant food—comparing it to cyanide is bonkers”
The cyanide point wasn’t about toxicity—it was about scale of effect. Like many trace gases, CO₂ has a powerful impact on Earth’s energy balance despite being a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%). That’s how the greenhouse effect works.
Yes, CO₂ can stimulate plant growth under some conditions—but:
• Nutrient and water limitations often prevent those benefits from being realized.
• Elevated CO₂ can reduce nutritional quality (e.g., protein, zinc in staple crops).
• The “greening” trend is already showing signs of reversal due to heat and drought stress.
→ NASA on CO₂ Fertilization and Greening:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
→ Zhu et al., 2016 (Nature Climate Change):
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
⸻
Final thought:
This isn’t about “groupthink” or mainstream media—it’s about thousands of scientists across disciplines observing the same trends independently. If you’re going to challenge that, it’s fair to ask: where is your evidence that holds up to scrutiny?
Good. We need a lot more straightforward scepticism of anthropogenic climate change, and especially the spin-off pseudoscience of extreme weather attribution - needed because long term global warming of just over one degree Celsius since 1850 was not scary enough. Climate zealots were boasting a while back that 'climate science denial' had been defeated once and for all, so settled was the Settled Science of Man Made Global Warming, and it was therefore just a matter of dealing with the delayers and deniers of climate mitigation. They were wrong. The fundamental 'science' of anthropogenic greenhouse gas driven global warming - and extreme weather attribution - has never looked so shaky and is coming under increasing challenge from real published science and data.
I suggest that Climate Skeptic (why 'k' not 'c'?) might establish a relationship (link?) with Climate Scepticism, a website that's been battling away in this area since about 2015. It has published a vast amount of useful and interesting material, comment and discussion over the years. And it's done it all without subscriptions or any other funding. Access here: https://cliscep.com.