While COP 26 is drawing criticism for “failing” to “achieve” its goals, this conference is still pushing the world in the deadly direction of eliminating fossil fuel use.

Here are some key talking points centered around the pseudoscientific 1.5°C threshold of warming that is used to justify so much destruction.

Also: I did an interview about COP 26 on GB News that is getting some amazingly positive feedback. Please watch it and share it with others.

At COP 26, politicians and celebrities are calling for the world to rapidly eliminate fossil fuels because otherwise we will pass the dreaded 1.5°C threshold of warming.

But we should not fear 1.5°C--we should fear the genocidal consequences of eliminating fossil fuels. [Tweet this] [Email this]

A goal of limiting warming to 1.5° since the 1800s has no scientific basis whatsoever. The 1800s were a very cold time (Little Ice Age) and the 1°C warming since then has coincided with the greatest improvement in human life in history—in large part due to fossil fuels.1 [Tweet this] [Email this]
When people talk about 1.5°C of warming as catastrophic, it's even more absurd than it sounds because it's not 1.5°C warming starting now, it's 1.5°C total since the 1800s. Which means 0.5°C warmer than now--in a world where far more people die of cold than of heat.2 [Tweet this] [Email this]
A goal of slashing GHG emissions to levels that the UN claims are necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C means depriving billions of energy—because fossil fuels are by far the lowest-cost source of reliable energy for most of the world. Unreliable solar and wind can’t come close.3 [Tweet this] [Email this]
The main reason global GHG emissions are rising is because billions of people in the developing world are bringing themselves out of poverty by using fossil fuels to power factories, farms, vehicles, and appliances. This is a wonderful thing that we should not stop.4 [Tweet this] [Email this]
When you hear scary claims about a “climate crisis,” keep in mind that climate catastrophists have been claiming climate crisis for 40 years. For example, Obama science advisor John Holdren predicted in the 1980s that we’d have up to 1 billion climate deaths today.5 [Tweet this] [Email this]
After 40+ years of “climate crisis” predictions by climate catastrophists, human beings are safer than ever from climate. The climate death rate has decreased by 98% over the last century.6 [Tweet this] [Email this]
Fossil fuels were supposed to make climate far more dangerous in the last 40 years but they have actually made it far safer by providing low-cost power for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought.7 [Tweet this] [Email this]
Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild and manageable—1 degree Celsius, mostly in the colder parts of the world.8 [Tweet this] [Email this]
Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have not only contributed to mild and manageable warming, they have also caused the benefit of significant global greening. Thanks to fossil fuels the Earth is far greener than it was just 40 years ago.9 [Tweet this] [Email this]
If the world continues using fossil fuels to provide reliable, low-cost energy to billions of people, the result will not be a climate crisis but continued slow warming, significant greening, and a far better life for billions of people. [Tweet this] [Email this]
The head of the UN says “the world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7° of heating.” But 1) that really means 1.7°, since we’ve already had 1°, 2) that specificity of prediction is impossible, and 3) it would occur mostly in cold places during a cold time in Earth’s history.10 [Tweet this] [Email this]
The actual catastrophe we face that will, to use the head of the UN’s words, “be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods” is not slightly warmer temperatures but the banning of the fossil fuels that alone can provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people. [Tweet this] [Email this]
COP 26's goal of rapidly eliminating fossil fuel use is a crime against humanity, especially the poor, and should be condemned as pseudoscientific and genocidal. [Tweet this] [Email this]

1

UK Met Office HadCRUT5 dataset
Science Daily - Sea ice triggered the Little Ice Age
Ilyashuk et al. (2019)

2

Zhao et al. (2021)

3

Fossil fuels comprise over 80% of our energy use while solar and wind globally are less than 5%.
BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021

4

The largest increase in energy consumption and CO2 emissions is projected to come from non-OECD countries, but this might be underestimating future growth potential for the poorest regions in Africa.
U.S. Energy Information Administration - International Energy Outlook 2021, reference case

5

Alex Epstein - Talking Points on the So-Called Climate Crisis

6

For every million people on earth, annual deaths from climate-related causes (extreme temperature, drought, flood, storms, wildfires,…) declined 98 percent—from an average of 247 per year during the 1920s to 2.5 per year during the 2010s.

Data on disaster deaths come from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium—www.emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).

Population estimates for the 1920s from the Maddison Database 2010 at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen (for years not shown, the population is assumed to have grown at a steady rate).

Population estimates for the 2010s from World Bank.

7

Using the average world population in the 1980s (4.8 billion) and the 2010s (7.3 billion) and the average deaths per year from all meteorological, hydrological, and climatological disasters for both decades (66,697 and 18,342 respectively), the annual deaths rates per one million people from climate-related disasters has declined by over 80% from 13.8 to 2.5.

Disaster deaths from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium – www.emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).

Population estimates from World Bank Data.

8

U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate.gov - Climate change rule of thumb: cold "things" warming faster than warm things

9

Regional trends vary, but overall the world's leaf area increased by 5.4 million square kilometers, or an amazon rainforest worth of greening, between 2000 and 2017 alone with over 1/3 of vegetated land showing an increase while only 5% showed a loss of green vegetation.

“Long-term satellite records reveal a significant global greening of vegetated areas since the 1980s, which recent data suggest has continued past 2010.
…
Global vegetation models suggest that CO2 fertilization is the main driver of global vegetation greening.”
Piao, S., Wang, X., Park, T. et al. Characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening. Nat Rev Earth Environ 1, 14–27 (2020).

National Aeronautic and Space Administration - Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds

10

Euronews - U.N. sounds 'deafening' warning on climate change
Ross McKitrick - New Confirmation that Climate Models Overstate Atmospheric Warming
NOAA - Climate change rule of thumb: cold "things" warming faster than warm things

Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein

Talking Points on COP 26, 1.5°C pseudoscience