Dr Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist in a video interview shared by Citizens Free Press on Twitter refuted a claim that carbon emission is one of the causes of climate change, a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates.
Rather, Moore said, without carbon dioxide, the earth would be a dead planet. The ecologist, who is a co-founder of Greenpeace, an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971, concluded his argument on climate change with this claim:
“I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication.”
First shared by Wide Awake Media on April 25, the video has more than 1.6 million views, retweeted more than 18,200 times, and liked by 32000 Twitter users with 728 comments.
Greenpeace co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore:
“The scientific method has not been applied in such a way as to prove that carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm.”
“I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete… pic.twitter.com/1mbQt9H7xz
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) April 25, 2023
The video was that same day reshared by Citizens Free Press and has between then and April 27, garnered over 83000 views on the timeline of Citizens Press Freedom, 1250 retweeted, 2877 likes and and 49 comments.
Greenpeace co-founder:
“I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication.” pic.twitter.com/xg94otHKSL
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 25, 2023
VERIFICATION: Sceptics have begun to raise issues on the existence of climate change overtime But while there were no reasons to justify that climate change is a fabrication, there were studies to suggest changes in the temperature of the planet’s earth since the middle of 20th century.
One of such is a study by Julia Rosen, a journalist with a Ph.D. in geology, which was published on the New York Times website on April 19, 2021 and updated on Nov. 6, 2021. Rosen studied ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica to understand past climate changes.
Rosen found out that for more than a century, scientists have understood the basic physics behind why greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are causing global warming. These gases, according to her, make up just a small fraction of the atmosphere, but exert outsized control on Earth’s climate by trapping some of the planet’s heat before it escapes into space. The researcher said that this greenhouse effect is important, and attributed it to the reason a planet, so far from the sun, has liquid water and life.
The journalist explained, however, that during the Industrial Revolution, people started burning coal and other fossil fuels to power factories, smelters and steam engines, which added more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Ever since, Rosen claimed, human activities have been heating the planet.
“We know this is true, thanks to an overwhelming body of evidence that begins with temperature measurements taken at weather stations and on ships starting in the mid-1800s.
“Later, scientists began tracking surface temperatures with satellites and looking for clues about climate change in geologic records. Together, these data all tell the same story: Earth is getting hotter.
“Average global temperatures have increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.2 degrees Celsius, since 1880, with the greatest changes happening in the late 20th century.
“Land areas have warmed more than the sea surface and the Arctic has warmed the most — by more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit just since the 1960s. Temperature extremes have also shifted. In the United States, daily record highs now outnumber record lows two-to-one,” Rosen reported.
Corroborating the findings of Rosen, the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which has changed the earth’s climate.
The US agency noted that though natural processes, such as changes in the sun’s energy and volcanic eruptions, also affect the earth’s climate; these, it said, do not however, explain the warming observed over the last century.
The Earth Science Communication Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology also cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as saying that “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal”. The NASA researchers agreed that there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate and human activity is the principal cause.
The team explained that ancient evidence for climate change could be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient evidence, according to the study, revealed that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age.
It added that Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about the planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, it said, revealed the signs and patterns of a changing climate.
CONCLUSION: The claim by Patrick More that climate change is a fabrication is FALSE. As against his position, researchers have demonstrated how the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels (CO2 emissions).
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.