How science can combat climate change conspiracies - Whose Truth? The Documentary, BBC World Service

Nobel Prize laureate Sir Paul Nurse wants science, not politics, to guide the debate surrounding climate change. But how do you convince the denialists?

Babita Sharma takes us through the evolving strategies of those who claim climate change isn’t real, and speaks to two young people who are trying to make a difference. UK climate activist Phoebe L Hanson founded Teach the Teacher, which gives school children the resources to engage with their teachers on climate change.

Ugandan Nyombi Morris set up a non-profit organisation, Earth Volunteers, to mobilise young people like him who wanted to promote the fight against the climate crisis.

00:00 Fleeing the floods
00:50 A climate crisis
02:20 Teach the Teacher
05:48 Climate change disinformation
09:16 Sir Paul Nurse on tackling conspiracy theories
12:41 Climate refugees taking action
15:08 Education is crucial to tackling climate change

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[ceeemm]

If you are a science teacher in school then you have to be clued up about CC. It's a science dilemma that is taking place right here, right now, as Norman Cook would say. So it should be the most relevant topic in the science class.

[larrydugan]

What's weird is that NASA reports the earth as greening and clearly crop yields are up. How strange is that?

[OldScientist]

There has been a 10% decline in natural disasters since 2000 (CRED). Normalised disaster losses have decreased since 1990 and human mortality due to extreme weather has decreased by more than 95% since 1920, so you're 50 times less likely to die from a climate-related disaster in a world that's 1°C warmer than 100 years ago (EM-DAT, CRED/UC). Deaths from drought have declined by 99%!
As an example of good news, Climate Change saved 555, 103 lives in England and Wales between 2001 and 2020 (ONS, 2022).

[PSA]

Both sides need to take responsibility, the green movement hasn't exactly made themselves believable all the time.
There's a lot of money (trillions?) in polarising and then greenwashing.

[milespostlethwaite]

The official figures published by the UN IPCC and even the British met office show that there is NO increase in extreme weather events. If anything they are decreasing.

[This.Island.Earth]

Maybe Paul Nurse should stand up in a nationally televised debate against 2022 Nobel Prize winner John F Clauser who has publicly denied the existence of a climate crisis?

[DelusionalDoug]

In 1950, the population of Africa was estimated to be between 220 million and 240 million people. Today it’s almost 1.5 billion. The birthrate is over 4.3 children/woman; twice as high as the rest of the world.

[Neekamhakane]

Your positive energy radiates through the screen!

[OldScientist]

There is no climate crisis.
The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that certain severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change:
Pages 1761 - 1765, Table 11.A.2 Synthesis table summarising assessments
Heavy Precipitation: 24 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (12 medium confidence), 43 out of 45 low confidence in human attribution.
Agricultural Drought: 31 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend
(14 medium confidence. No high confidence assessment). 42 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (3 medium, no high confidence).
Ecological Drought as above.
Hydrological Drought: 38 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend.
43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (2 medium confidence, no high confidence).
So the IPCC are saying we didn't cause droughts and we didn't make it rain. How surprising!

[OldScientist]

This video lacks scientific foundations.
Quotes from the UN's IPCC AR6 WG1:
Flooding -
“the assessment of observed trends in the magnitude of runoff, streamflow, and flooding remains challenging, due to the spatial heterogeneity of the signal and to multiple drivers”
"Confidence about peak flow trends over past decades on a global scale is low."
"In summary there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale. Confidence is in general low in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence"
So in absence of detected trends, there won’t be much ability to attribute to humans. You can't say floods are caused by, driven by, or intensified by climate change. The evidence doesn’t support that.
Drought -
"There is low confidence that human influence has affected trends in meteorological droughts in most regions"
So no real evidence we changed the weather to cause periods of dryness.
Tropical Cyclones (TC) -
"Identifying past trends in TC remains a challenge...There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multidecadal to centennial) trends in TC frequency - or intensity based metrics"
So we can't spot a trend and therefore we can't really attribute that unknown trend to us humans.
Storminess - outside the tropics (ETCs) -
"There is overall low confidence is recent changes in the total number of ETCs over both hemispheres"
"Overall there is low confidence in past-century trends in the number and intensity of the strongest ETCs"
So we don't know what's happening with winter storms, so we can't say it's us that changed them.
Tornadoes, hail, lightning, thunderstorms, extreme winds -
"It is not straightforward to make a synthesizing view of trends in severe connective storms [thunderstorms] in different regions. In particular, observational trends in tornadoes, hail and lightning associated with severe connective storms are not robustly detected"
"the observed intensity of extreme winds is becoming less severe in lower to mid latitudes"
That's between 60°N and 60°S, so pretty much where everyone lives.

[teyhoonboon]

Countries are badly hit by climate disasters may aware the critical issue of climate change. On the contrary, country with little impact from climate change may take climate issue lightly . Therefore, the tropic of climate change may become a long-term issue for the world to overcome of it.

[OhYeah]

With the push for population growth in the uk that can’t be good. 12 million from overseas and millions more to come means concreting over the greenbelt and building on carbon storage areas. Yet the media doesn’t latch on more concerned about Katie Prices new hair do. 😢😢😢😢😢

[OldScientist]

The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change:
Increased Flooding: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Meteorological Drought: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Hydrological Drought: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Tropical Cyclones: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Winter Storms: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Thunderstorms: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Hail: not detected, no attribution.
increased lightning: not detected, no attribution.
Increased Extreme Winds: not detected, no attribution.
There is no climate crisis.

[LuciannaG]

I call all science sceptics flat earthers now. Some of them actually get quite stroppy .
Hopefully, they will re-evaluate their daft attitude.

[OldScientist]

There are over 5 million excess deaths per annum globally due to abnormal temperatures from the 2000-2019 study led Prof. Guo of Monash University. It found that over 90% of excess deaths were caused by excess COLD rather than excess heat. So, in a world with increasingly mild temperatures, there will be less excess death. Lives will be saved. Warming is good not bad.
A 2022 Lancet study reported 791 heat-related excess deaths and 60, 753 cold-related excess deaths in England and Wales each year during the years spanning 2000-2019. That’s an excess death ratio of about 85 to 1 for cold vs. hot temperatures.
Due to warmer urban temperatures, the number of premature cold-related excess deaths avoided averaged 447 per year from 1976-2019 in the city of London alone (Hajat et, 2024).

[paal]

What a stupid animated graphics BBc have come up with here... Why not just film the people speaking ?

[andrewtrip]

Still one of the coldest June’s in the U.K. .as much as I want to believe it’s getting warmer it’s just not happening !

[bingpz]

The climate stats started at the end of the mini ice age. Do you think the planet would get colder when an Ice age finishes??

[OldScientist]

It is estimated that 5.1 million people annually die in association with non-optimal temperatures. 4.6 million are link to the cold, so over 90% (Zhao et al, 2021). And it is worst in the warmer parts of the world. 98% of temperature related deaths in SubSaharan Africa are due to the cold. Temperature events may be linked to upto 10% of human deaths annually. In a warming world there will be less death.

[johnmorgan]

Paul Nurse says " Understanding Climate is complex " and he's right. So what about the thousands of scientists who have worked in and around climate associated sciences for 30 40 some 50 years and are called "deniers " when they disagree ? And I mean scientists who have been or are part of the IPCC .