Retracted by Nature, Traduced by Michael Mann – Gianluca Alimonti is Back and He’s Taking No Prisoners

I’m calling it the ‘Revenge of Alimonti’. In 2023 a group of activists including ‘hockey stick’ inventor Michael Mann, Attribution Queen Frederike Otto and Marlowe Hood and Graham Readfearn from AFP and the Guardian respectively managed to get a paper led by Professor Gianluca Alimonti retracted by Nature because it had spoken the obvious truth that there was little scientific evidence that extreme weather events were getting worse. It was the high point of ‘settled’ science, a time when it was acceptable to trash the cherished free speech principles of the scientific process. But as the Net Zero fantasy starts to collapse and most of the shonky science backing it is facing increasing ridicule, Alimonti 2 is back, bigger and better. In his latest paper on the non-existent climate ‘crisis’, he shows there has been no statistically worsening trends of climate impacts. Indeed there have been many improvements in humans adapting to whatever nature has thrown at them

The publication of the paper is well timed. It should be pinned on the wall of every climate reporting room in mainstream media, starting with the hopelessly biased BBC. Perhaps not the Guardian though, sadly a lost cause beyond redemption. In considerable but easily understood detail, the paper debunks many of the extreme weather claims that remain the mainstay of grossly misleading climate science reporting.

Professor Gianluca Alimonti of the University of Milan is a leading expert in high energy particle physics. Michael Mann can try to repeat his original Guardian-published attack along the lines that it was another example of scientists from “totally unrelated fields” coming in and naïvely applying inappropriate methods to data they don’t understand. How we laughed then, but even more so today. The new Alimonti blockbuster shows it is not difficult to find all the relevant climate data, while the education needed to understand it relies mainly on an ability to read words and comprehend numbers. This climate paper is not breaking new barriers of scientific understanding, rather it is a work of investigation and compilation from freely available sources, many of them to be found in the published output of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Most extreme weather events are not getting worse, with or without human involvement, whatever alarmists from the climate comedy turn Jim ‘jail the deniers’ Dale to the BBC say. Inconveniently, the IPCC says more or less the same thing.

For lovers of fiction, there is much to admire in the constantly evolving art of fearmongering practised by climate activist ‘journalists’. It is mostly accepted that the strength and frequency of tropical cyclones and hurricanes are not getting worse. The ‘boiling’ oceans are not playing along but – wait – the speed of storms is slowing, meaning they can cause more damage when they hit land. This often reported scare arises because the IPCC has observed that hurricane speeds have likely slowed over the USA since 1900, but the IPCC also noted that evidence of similar trends in other regions “is not robust”. The jury is still out on changing wind speed since the available data are often incompatible, while new satellite-era results could skew the picture either way.

Drought and water shortages are another widespread scare story. Alimonti draws attention to the IPCC findings that there is low confidence in the emergence of drought frequency “for any type of drought, in all regions”. Results from a recent paper are quoted that find droughts had shown little change on a global scale over the last 120 years. A few years ago there were fanciful media reports blaming drought migration pressures on the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Claims of ‘billions’ of future so-called climate refugees are also commonplace, although the IPCC notes that weather extremes are more likely to cause short-distance movements to urban areas, “rather than permanent or international migration”. Far from being driven overseas by changes in the weather, hundreds of thousands of people are drawn to the open borders of the UK by the prospect of four-star accommodation, cash handouts and generous state benefits.

Other work is quoted to show that there is little evidence to support claims that any of the increase in global economic losses is attributed to human-caused climate change. Despite bad weather, global crop yields are up 305% from 1961 to 2023, with staples rising by 381%. It could be worse. Massive floods struck Europe from 1312 to 1320 causing the complete failure of the European cereal harvest in 1315-1316. Around this time, as temperatures cooled, the Black Death arrived and it remained endemic for most of the 500-year Little Ice Age. In the first 20 years of the 21^st century, net temperature-related deaths are reported to be down 0.3%, with cold fatalities accounting for 91% of the total – far outpacing deaths from the heat.

One of the most reliable purveyors of climate tosh, and by extension wasters of substantial amounts public money, is the UK Health Security Agency. Who can forget its 2023 effort to cause mass climate psychosis by suggesting that climate change could lead to endemic dengue fever in London by 2060. Garbage in, garbage out computer modelling suggesting temperatures could rise by 4-5°C within 80 years was behind this particular bunkum. Now, thanks to climate change, these crackpots suggest many of us could be driven to blot out mental anguish by firing up our own crackpots. I could go on and report more of the findings from this daft 80 page report. but I fear losing the will to live with such a task. Suffice to say that a key finding is that a rise in ‘eco-anxiety’, including perceived or anticipated environmental threats, could lead to higher consumption of drugs and alcohol. The report calls for the usual spending of more public money to mitigate mental health impacts. Defunding the Health Security Agency along with the BBC climate department might be a cheaper option.

There is of course no climate ‘crisis’ or ‘emergency’, or at least not one that is evident from current scientific observations. Compared to recent historical experience, the current climate is relatively benign. Slightly warmer, more carbon dioxide leading to higher biomass and no increase in most types of bad weather. The fear of some sort of ‘crisis’, usually prophesised for an ulterior purpose, is ubiquitous in human history. Hysteria rises and falls dramatically, sometimes over long sustained periods, and in the case of climate this is displayed by an interesting graph compiled by Alimonti.

Google searches for climate ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ reveal two recent hysteria peaks, namely at the time of the Al Gore agitprop film An Inconvenient Truth featuring the infamous Michael Mann temperature hockey stick, and the Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion-led lunacy at the turn of the current decade.

Professor Alimonti proposes a data-focused toolkit to cut through the hype around a ‘climate crisis’. Instead of the alarmism, it is suggested that clear trackable metrics such as economic damages and health effects are tied to the key climate trends and events. Analysing these metrics shows no strong worsening trends. Any adaption plans for a changing climate should be based on real evidence, not one-size-fits-all panic.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.