CLAIM: A video is trending on Twitter, a microblogging site that allows sharing of short videos, pictures and messages of no more than 280 characters. In the video, an Australian geologist, Ian Plimer engaged in a climate discussion on Wide Awake Media, an online Television platform, where he claimed that information about climate change is misleading and specifically cooked to make a story that the world is in a crisis.
According to him, the world is not in a crisis; therefore, there is no climate emergency. Plimer claims living creatures are living in the best times they could ever live on planet Earth.
“We are being misled with information which is either cooked or very, very specifically plucked out, to make the story look as if we are in a crisis. We’re not in a crisis. There is no climate emergency.
“We are living in the best times you could ever live on planet Earth. And we are so fragile and we are so protected and we’re so wealthy that if someone drops a feather, we panic,” quoted from the eight-minute video recording.
This claim suggests that climate change is not only a scam, but non-existential.
Australian geologist, Ian Plimer:
“We are being misled with information which is either cooked or very, very specifically plucked out, to make the story look as if we are in a crisis. We’re not in a crisis. There is no climate emergency.”#ClimateScam #ClimateCult #ClimateHoax… pic.twitter.com/Yv9GdkAbkY
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) April 14, 2023
The video, shared on April 14, has been retweeted 2,789 times, liked by 4,436 tweeps, with more than 83,000 views and 80 comments, as of April 24, 2023.
VERIFICATION: Climate change is embroiled in controversies overtime. Climate change is defined as a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.
The variations in the temperatures over time, according to the United Nations, are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature. This poses many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth.
Why climate change is a crisis
There have been several studies on climate change’s existence and its consequences on the planet Earth. For instance, the United Nations, the world’s intergovernmental organisation, describes climate change as a crisis of “our time”, which is happening even more quickly than feared. To underscore the threat posed by climate change, UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres in September 2019 pointed out that “the climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win”.
Corroborating this stance, the Environmental Defense Fund said global warming, resulting from the effect of climate change, is causing a crisis that is already having dire consequences.
In just the past few decades, it said rising temperatures have worsened extreme weather events; chunks of ice in the Antarctic have broken apart, wildfire seasons are months longer, coral reefs have been bleached of their colours, and mosquitoes are expanding their territory, able to spread disease.
The United States’ Fund said no corner of the globe is immune from the devastating consequences of climate change.
Rising temperatures, the scientific organisation said, are fueling environmental degradation, natural disasters, weather extremes, food and water insecurity, economic disruption, conflict, and terrorism.
“Sea levels are rising, the Arctic is melting, coral reefs are dying, oceans are acidifying, and forests are burning. It is clear that business as usual is not good enough. As the infinite cost of climate change reaches irreversible highs, now is the time for bold collective action,” EDF claims in its findings.
The UN proves how climate change is a major threat to international peace and security; the effects, which is heightened competition for resources such as land, food, and water, thereby fueling socioeconomic tensions and, increasingly often, leading to mass displacement.
“Climate is a risk multiplier that makes already existing challenges worse. Droughts in Africa and Latin America directly feed into political unrest and violence. The World Bank estimates that, in the absence of action, more than 140 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia will be forced to migrate within their regions by 2050,” said the global organisation.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), a body concerned with people’s well-being globally, testifies that climate change is impacting human lives and health in a variety of ways.
It said it threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter – and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health.
Between 2030 and 2050, WHO said climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone.
The direct damage costs to health are estimated to be between US$ 2–4 billion per year by 2030. Areas with weak health infrastructure – mostly in developing countries – will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.
CONCLUSION: The claim that climate change poses no global crisis is FALSE. There is overwhelming evidence to prove the impact of climate change on human existence.
This fact-check was produced by BONews Service with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network, and African Fact Checking Alliance network.