Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The North Sea flood of 1953 (also called the Big Flood, East Coast Flood in the UK, or Watersnoodramp in the Netherlands) was a catastrophic storm surge on the night of 31 January- 1 February 1953.
It remains the deadliest natural disaster of the 20th century in the UK and the worst in the Netherlands since the Middle Ages.
A severe European windstorm (an intense extratropical cyclone) developed south of Iceland, deepened significantly (central pressure around 964- 968 hPa), and tracked across the North Sea.
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The North Sea flood of 1953 (also called the Big Flood, East Coast Flood in the UK, or Watersnoodramp in the Netherlands) was a catastrophic storm surge on the night of 31 January- 1 February 1953.
It remains the deadliest natural disaster of the 20th century in the UK and the worst in the Netherlands since the Middle Ages.
A severe European windstorm (an intense extratropical cyclone) developed south of Iceland, deepened significantly (central pressure around 964- 968 hPa), and tracked across the North Sea.
Strong, prolonged northwesterly and northerly winds that drove water southward into the narrowing, relatively shallow southern North Sea.
Low atmospheric pressure that raised sea levels further.
This produced a storm surge exceeding 5.6 m (about 18.4 ft) above mean sea level in places, the highest recorded for the North Sea in many locations. Waves were also exceptionally high.
Sea defences (dykes, sea walls, and embankments), many weakened by wartime damage or inadequate maintenance, were overtopped or breached extensively.
Warning systems were limited: radio broadcasts often ended at night, telephone lines failed, and there was no coordinated national flood- warning network in the affected countries.
1,836 deaths (most in Zeeland province; high tolls on islands like Schouwen-Duiveland and Goeree- Overflakkee, e.g., 305 in Oude- Tonge alone).
Roughly 1,365–1,650 km² (about 9% of Dutch farmland) flooded; water reached up to 40 miles inland in places.
~47,300 buildings damaged (around 10,000 destroyed); ~30,000– 187,000 animals drowned (figures vary by source); tens of thousands evacuated.
Damage estimated at about 1- 1.5 billion guilders. Large areas of low- lying polders (20% of the country below mean sea level) were inundated after ~150 dyke breaches.
United Kingdom:
307 deaths in England (mainly Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex) and 19 in Scotland.
~160,000- 180,000 acres (65,000- 73,000 ha) flooded; over 1,600 km of coastline damaged with ~1,200 breaches; ~24,000 properties damaged; ~30,000- 40,000 people homeless or evacuated.
Damage ~£50 million (1953 values; equivalent to over £1 billion today). Saltwater contaminated farmland for years.
At sea:Over 200- 230 additional deaths, including 133- 134 from the sinking of the MV Princess Victoria ferry in the North Channel and losses from numerous fishing vessels and other ships.
Total land deaths exceeded 2,000; overall (including sea) often cited around 2,400- 2,551 depending on exact inclusions.
Rescue efforts involved local volunteers, national forces, international aid (including U.S. Army helicopters from Germany, British and other support), and amateur radio operators who maintained critical communications. Queen Juliana and others visited the Dutch disaster zone quickly. Relief funds received massive domestic and international donations.
The disaster transformed flood management:
Netherlands: Led directly to the Delta Works (Deltawerken), a massive system of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, and storm- surge barriers (including the iconic Oosterscheldekering) completed over decades. It dramatically raised protection standards for the vulnerable southwestern delta.
United Kingdom: Prompted the Waverley Committee inquiry, improved coordination between meteorological and tidal services, a national tide- gauge network, better forecasting and warning systems, and major defences such as the Thames Barrier (operational 1982) and upgrades along the east coast and Humber.
The event highlighted the vulnerability of low- lying North Sea coasts to rare but extreme combinations of weather and tides.
It is still commemorated annually (especially in the Netherlands on 1 February), and its lessons continue to influence coastal resilience planning amid rising sea levels and climate change. Primary sources include official reports, contemporary news, meteorological analyses, and historical studies from both Dutch and British authorities.
The North Sea flood of 1962 (also known as the Hamburg flood or Sturmflut 1962) was a major storm surge disaster on the night of 16- 17 February 1962.
It primarily struck the North Sea coast of West Germany (especially Hamburg and areas along the Elbe and Weser rivers), with some effects in the Netherlands. It remains one of the most severe natural disasters in modern German history.
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The North Sea flood of 1962 (also known as the Hamburg flood or Sturmflut 1962) was a major storm surge disaster on the night of 16- 17 February 1962.
It primarily struck the North Sea coast of West Germany (especially Hamburg and areas along the Elbe and Weser rivers), with some effects in the Netherlands. It remains one of the most severe natural disasters in modern German history.
An intense extratropical cyclone (theVincinette low– pressure system, also known as the Great Sheffield Gale) moved across the North Sea.
It had already caused significant damage and nine deaths in Sheffield, UK. Peak winds reached about 200 km/h (with gusts of Beaufort force 10- 12).
Prolonged northwesterly gales drove a large volume of water into the German Bight. This coincided with high tide, producing an extreme storm surge.
Water levels set records at many gauges. In Hamburg (roughly 100 km inland on the Elbe), the peak reached 5.70 m above Normalnull (NN) at the St. Pauli gauge, about 3.5- 3.6 m above mean high water and the highest then recorded.
Dykes (many not yet fully upgraded after the 1953 North Sea flood) were overtopped or breached in dozens of places (over 50- 60 major breaches reported, especially along the lower Elbe and its tributaries).
Sea dykes generally held better than river dikes. Warning systems of the era (limited forecasting technology, telephone, siren failures, power outages, and restricted radio and TV hours) delayed effective alerts to inland areas.
Impacts
Casualties: Approximately 347 deaths overall (315 in Hamburg, with the rest mainly along the North Sea coast of Schleswig- Holstein and Lower Saxony; a few soldiers and helpers among the dead). Most victims drowned, many while asleep in low- lying districts.
Flooding and damage in Hamburg: About 120 km² (one- sixth of the city) flooded. Hardest- hit areas included Wilhelmsburg (especially the Reiherstieg quarter and areas behind the Klütjenfelder Hauptdeich), Neuenfelde, Finkenwerder, and other southern and eastern districts. Roughly 6,000 buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged; around 20,000 people were left homeless (homes of up to ~60,000 affected). Tens of thousands were temporarily isolated by floodwaters. Infrastructure (roads, railways, power, supplies) was severely disrupted. Damage in Hamburg alone was estimated at around DM 3 billion (or several hundred million euros in later equivalents).
Wider coastal effects: Significant dyke damage, dune erosion, and some flooding and evacuations in Schleswig- Holstein and Lower Saxony (including islands and Halligen). Livestock losses were high in places. The Netherlands experienced milder effects.
Helmut Schmidt (then Hamburg’s police senator) led rescue coordination, mobilizing the newly formed Bundeswehr (despite constitutional limits at the time), NATO helicopters, and international aid. Radio amateurs helped maintain communications.
The disaster prompted major improvements in coastal and river flood defenses: dyke raising and strengthening, shortening of some waterways, better maintenance, improved warning systems, and emergency planning.
It also highlighted urban planning and administrative shortcomings in Hamburg’s low- lying areas (including temporary post- war housing).
Memorials and annual commemorations continue in Hamburg. Greece notably donated 500 tonnes of raisins as aid.
This event is distinct from the far deadlier 1953 North Sea flood (which mainly devastated the Netherlands and eastern England). Reliable contemporary and later sources (German Hydrographic Institute reports, official chronologies, and historical analyses) form the basis of these details.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that atmospheric concentrations of the major long-lived greenhouse gases reached new record highs in 2025.
According to the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No. 22 (released around 27 October 2026), the globally averaged surface concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in 2025 was 426.8 parts per million (ppm). This is about 153% of the 1750 pre- industrial level (a roughly 53% increase). Methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) also hit new records.
Key figures for 2025
CO₂: 426.8 ppm (up 2.8 ppm from 2024). This annual rise was above the recent decadal average but lower than the exceptional jump in 2023- 2024. Growth rates of CO₂ have roughly tripled since the 1960s (from ~0.8 ppm/year to ~2.4 ppm/year in 2011- 2020).
Methane: 1,948 parts per billion (ppb), or 267% of the 1750 level.
Nitrous oxide: 339.1 ppb, or 126% of the 1750 level.
WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett stated: “Another year, another new record. Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies. The past 11 years have been the warmest on record and this trend is set to continue. CO₂ has a very long lifetime and so will affect the global climate not just for years but for decades and even centuries.”
The bulletin tracks concentrations (the amount accumulated in the atmosphere), not annual emissions. Roughly half of emitted CO₂ stays in the atmosphere; the rest is absorbed by land ecosystems and oceans. The somewhat slower 2024-2025 CO₂ rise is linked to recovery of land carbon sinks and fewer fire emissions after the strong 2023/2024 El Niño. A powerful El Niño developing in 2026 is expected to drive another surge in concentrations, alongside ongoing fossil fuel emissions.
Radiative forcing (the warming effect) from long-lived greenhouse gases rose about 56% from 1990 to 2025, with CO₂ responsible for roughly 81% of that increase (per the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index).
The report also flags concerns about sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆, used in electrical equipment), which saw a record increase in 2025. It has an atmospheric lifetime of over 1,000 years and a global warming potential roughly 24,300 times that of CO₂. Hydrogen (H₂) levels have also risen and can have indirect warming effects.
The findings are intended to inform discussions at COP 31 (Antalya, Türkiye, 9- 20 November 2026). The data come from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch network of monitoring stations.
The Missoula Floods (also called the Spokane Floods or Bretz Floods) were a series of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (jökulhlaups) at the end of the last Ice Age.
J Harlen Bretz originally proposed a single enormous “Spokane Flood” in the 1920s to explain the Channeled Scablands. By the 1950s, evidence (including Pardee’s work on Lake Missoula) supported catastrophic flooding, and Bretz himself later recognized multiple events.
The modern multiple- flood view was formalized by Richard B. Waitt Jr. in 1980 (often called the “forty floods” hypothesis), with strong support from Brian Atwater and later workers.
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The Missoula Floods (also called the Spokane Floods or Bretz Floods) were a series of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (jökulhlaups) at the end of the last Ice Age.
They repeatedly inundated parts of western Montana, northern Idaho, eastern Washington, and northern Oregon, flowing down the Columbia River to the Pacific.
During the late Pleistocene (roughly 20,000- 14,000 years ago), a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (the Purcell Trench lobe) advanced south into the Idaho Panhandle near present- day Lake Pend Oreille. It dammed the Clark Fork River with an ice barrier up to about 1 km (roughly 2,000- 3,000 and more feet) thick.
Meltwater backed up behind this dam, forming Glacial Lake Missoula in the valleys of western Montana. At its maximum, the lake covered roughly 3,000 square miles (about 7,800 km²), reached depths of ~2,000 feet (600 and more m) at the dam, and held an estimated 500- 530 cubic miles (roughly 2,100–2,200 km³) of water, comparable to the combined volume of Lakes Erie and Ontario.
When the water deepened enough, the ice dam failed (likely via flotation, subglacial tunneling, or related processes). The lake drained catastrophically in a matter of days. The ice dam then re- formed, the lake refilled over decades, and the cycle repeated dozens (likely 40 to more than 100) of times over a period of about 2,000- 4,000 years (primarily ~20- 14 ka).
Peak discharges for the largest floods are estimated in the range of several million to over 10- 17 million cubic meters per second (orders of magnitude larger than the Amazon River’s flow). Water speeds reached tens of meters per second (up to ~50- 80 and more mph in places), with walls of water potentially hundreds of feet high.
The floods:
Scoured the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington, an anastomosing network of coulees, dry cataracts, and scoured basalt over ~30,000 km².
Carved features like the Grand Coulee, Dry Falls, and parts of the Columbia River Gorge.
Deposited giant gravel bars, current ripples, ice- rafted erratics (including car-sized boulders carried hundreds of miles), and thick slack water sediments (rhythmites).
Temporarily ponded large temporary lakes (e.g., Lake Lewis in the Pasco Basin) and back- flooded the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
Transported sediment far downstream into the Pacific, with deposits on the abyssal plain.
Early floods often followed the Columbia valley route; later ones were diverted southward into the scablands after the Okanogan lobe blocked the northern path and formed Glacial Lake Columbia
In the 1920s, geologist J Harlen Bretz proposed that the unusual landscape of the Channeled Scablands resulted from a single enormous flood (“the Spokane Flood”).
This was highly controversial because it challenged gradualist views. Joseph T. Pardee later identified Glacial Lake Missoula as the source (via shoreline evidence and giant current ripples).
Multiple floods became widely accepted through stratigraphic evidence (rhythmites, intervening soils, ash layers, varves) in the mid- to- late 20th century. Modern reviews (e.g., O’Connor, Baker, and others, 2020) synthesize the evidence for dozens to over a hundred events.
The multiple flood hypothesis for the Missoula Floods holds that Glacial Lake Missoula did not empty in a single cataclysmic event. Instead, the ice dam failed repeatedly, producing dozens (and likely more than a hundred) separate outburst floods over several thousand years near the end of the last Ice Age.
J Harlen Bretz originally proposed a single enormous “Spokane Flood” in the 1920s to explain the Channeled Scablands. By the 1950s, evidence (including Pardee’s work on Lake Missoula) supported catastrophic flooding, and Bretz himself later recognized multiple events.
The modern multiple- flood view was formalized by Richard B. Waitt Jr. in 1980 (often called the “forty floods” hypothesis), with strong support from Brian Atwater and later workers.
The strongest support comes from stratigraphy:
Rhythmites (Touchet Beds and similar deposits): In slack water areas (e.g., Burlingame Canyon in the Walla Walla Valley and other back- flooded valleys), sequences of 40 or more graded sand- to- silt beds occur. Each rhythmite is interpreted as the deposit of one flood. Intervening layers of windblown dust (loess), soil development, mud cracks, animal burrows, and volcanic ash (tephra) indicate significant time gaps between events rather than continuous deposition from a single flood.
Mount St. Helens tephra: A particularly compelling example involves two layers of Mount St. Helens ash separated by thin non- volcanic silt between successive rhythmites, demonstrating that years to decades passed between floods.
Varves in glacial lake deposits: In former Glacial Lake Missoula and Glacial Lake Columbia basins (e.g., Ninemile Creek, Sanpoil Valley), packages of 20– 55 annual varves (typically averaging ~30- 40) overlie individual flood beds. These record lake refilling periods of decades between outbursts.
Other indicators: Disconformities, paleomagnetic data, radiocarbon ages, and offshore sediment packages at the mouth of the Columbia River (thick sequences deposited over millennia) align with repeated events.
Waitt estimated ~40 floods with average recurrence of ~40- 55 years (later refined to intervals possibly as long as ~100 years early on, shortening to just a few years near the end). Atwater’s work in northern areas suggested even higher counts in some sections (approaching 80- 90 or more in places).
A comprehensive synthesis (O’Connor, Baker, Waitt and colleagues) concludes there were dozens, likely more than a hundred, separate Missoula floods between roughly 20- 14 ka (mainly concentrated ~18.5- 15 ka). Roughly ~75 floods preceded the ~16 ka Mount St. Helens Set S tephra, with 30 or more afterward.
Not every flood was equally large; the biggest ones had peak discharges exceeding 10 million m³/s, while many were smaller. Routing also changed as ice lobes advanced and retreated (e.g., diversion into the scablands after the Okanogan lobe blocked the northern Columbia valley).
The ice dam repeatedly reformed after each failure because the Cordilleran Ice Sheet remained active. Lake Missoula would refill until hydrostatic pressure (or related processes such as tunneling) caused another breach.
While a minority of researchers have occasionally argued for fewer (or even single) major events, the overwhelming stratigraphic, sedimentologic, and chronological evidence supports the multiple- flood interpretation. This framework reconciles the catastrophic landforms with uniformitarian principles by showing repeated, self- dumping jökulhlaups over a multi-millennial period.
“The Great Flood” most commonly refers to the biblical flood narrative (Noah’s Flood in Genesis 6- 9), in which God floods the entire Earth to wipe out humanity (except Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark). Similar flood myths appear in many cultures, including the much older Mesopotamian accounts (Epic of Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and Sumerian stories of Ziusudra and Utnapishtim).
There is no geological evidence for a single global flood that covered all the Earth’s mountains within the last several thousand years (or at any time in human history).
Key reasons include:
There is not enough water on Earth (in oceans, ice, groundwater, and atmosphere combined) to cover the highest mountains.
The rock record, ice cores (Greenland and Antarctica), tree rings, lake sediments, and continuous cultural records (e.g., Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations) show no interruption consistent with a worldwide inundation.
Stratigraphy shows gradual deposition, multiple periods of erosion, soil formation, and distinct fossil sequences over vast timescales, not a single chaotic global layer.
Flood geology (the young- Earth creationist attempts to explain most of the geologic column via Noah’s Flood) is rejected by the scientific consensus in geology, paleontology, and related fields as inconsistent with the evidence.
Regional Catastrophic Floods and Possible Myth Origins
Many cultures have flood stories, which are often explained as memories of real, large local or regional disasters. Candidates that have been proposed (with varying degrees of support) include:
Post- glacial sea- level rise (~20,000- 7,000 years ago): Global sea level rose ~120 meters as Ice Age glaciers melted, flooding vast coastal plains and forcing human migrations worldwide.
Black Sea deluge hypothesis (Ryan & Pitman, 1990s): Mediterranean seawater catastrophically flooded a lower- level freshwater Black Sea lake around 7,500-8,400 years ago. This is controversial; many researchers argue the reconnection was more gradual, with less dramatic impact. Some have speculated it could underlie Near Eastern flood myths, though the link remains unproven.
Other regional events: Catastrophic flooding of the Persian Gulf region, Chinese “Great Flood” along the Yellow River (~1920 BCE, linked to the legendary Xia dynasty and Emperor Yu), the Storegga tsunami (~8,200 years ago off Norway), and various glacial lake outburst floods.
Relation to the Missoula Floods
The Missoula Floods (the subject of our earlier discussion) were real, repeated mega floods in the Pacific Northwest ~20,000- 14,000 years ago.
They were enormous by any standard (peak discharges many times the combined flow of all modern rivers) and left dramatic landscape features, but they were strictly regional, confined to parts of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. They have no direct connection to the biblical narrative or Near Eastern flood myths, which are geographically and culturally distant. People were present in the Americas by then and may have witnessed the later Missoula events, but these floods do not match the global description in Genesis.
In short, the Missoula Floods are one of the best- documented Ice Age mega flood systems on Earth. The biblical “Great Flood” is a powerful cultural and religious story shared across traditions, but it does not correspond to a single global geological event.
Real catastrophic floods have occurred many times in Earth’s history (especially during deglaciations), and some of them likely inspired local flood legends.
A recent article from CBC News, titled “Climate change brings unpredictability, and it’s haunting the pumpkin harvest in N.L.,” claims that unusually wild swings between weather extremes in recent years in Newfoundland and Labrador is endangering pumpkin harvests, both being symptoms of climate change. This is false. Pumpkin production is doing just fine, weather variations from one year to the next are the norm and are not unusual, nor is there evidence in the local station data that there is a trend towards greater weather variability.
A recent article from CBC News, titled “Climate change brings unpredictability, and it’s haunting the pumpkin harvest in N.L.,” claims that unusually wild swings between weather extremes in recent years in Newfoundland and Labrador is endangering pumpkin harvests, both being symptoms of climate change. This is false. Pumpkin production is doing just fine, weather variations from one year to the next are the norm and are not unusual, nor is there evidence in the local station data that there is a trend towards greater weather variability.
The CBC piece is not a particularly scientific article, despite quoting one climatologist from Memorial University. It relies largely on farmers claiming that climate is clearly changing because the weather of one season can be “so different” from the previous. Farmers have dealt with changes in the quality of growing seasons from one year to the next forever, literally since the humans have been intentionally growing and harvesting crops.
They focus on the past two years, where “this past summer was particularly cold and wet, especially compared to 2025 when the province experienced record high temperatures and not a lot of rain.”
Because of the weather, pumpkin harvests for some farmers were either behind or the yields suppressed. In a change from the usual pumpkin doom and gloom articles we normally get this time of year, the CBC article admits that “both farmers said that the pumpkins that did grow were great quality.”
CBC News goes on to talk to climatologist Joel Finnis, who they paraphrase as saying “the drastic weather difference between summer 2025 and summer 2026 is evidence of a changing climate — because the warmer the climate gets the more variation in weather conditions.”
This is incorrect. It is surprising that a climatologist would make such a claim when data shows no emerging weather trend of worsening or inconsistent weather. It’s possible this is a misquote or oversimplified to the point of being somewhat ridiculous, but two years of very different weather are not evidence of a trend of any kind. They cannot be, especially with regards to climate change, which is a long-term phenomenon occurring over decades.
Regional weather naturally has at times very large variations from one year to the next, these variations can be the result of natural patterns like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and more directly for Eastern Canadian provinces, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the influence of the Gulf Stream.
When it comes to summertime temperature, the IPCC doesn’t even predict large changes in variability for the entire world in its AR6 report. Models attempting to predict changes in Newfoundland especially show low agreement, and what estimates that exist there show little to no change. That is using RCP8.5 – a since-abandoned scenario that overestimated warming to an impossible degree.
Using Environment and Climate Change Canada’s adjusted temperature record for St. John’s, which goes back to 1874 and up to 2020, comparing mean summer temperatures over the decades shows no trend whatsoever in temperature swings from one year to the next. I focused on a station nearest to where the most pumpkins are grown in Newfoundland, the St. John’s Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD) station, (downloaded here, then processed using Claude.ai). If there is any trend, it is declining. (See figure below)
When it comes to precipitation, again relying on RCP8.5 because it is the only scenario that reaches the very high warming levels that the IPCC wants to fearmonger over, the IPCC does claim that eventually there will be an increase in year-to-year variability. Under lower and more realistic emissions pathways, that change will take a whole lot longer.
Again we should anchor the model-based predictive estimate to real world data. The fact of the matter is that the station data representing St. John, which has been tracked 1874 to 2011, show absolutely no trend towards increased variability in summer rainfall. If there is a trend in that period, there is a downward trend in so-called “weather whiplash” from one summer to the next. (See figure below)
Note the swing between 1967, the hottest and driest summer in this record, and the following summer, 1968, which was the coldest. This is very similar to the 2025-2026 pattern which CBC and their climatologist claimed was evidence of climate change.
This is data from just one station, mind, but it should give anyone trying to claim that recent weather patterns are evidence of increasing volatility some pause.
Much of the northern hemisphere has seen a slight increase in average annual precipitation, but again this is a very mild trend. Still, the CBC article itself quotes a farmer as saying that good precipitation in summer is great for the pumpkin quality.
If all of this wasn’t enough, data from the Canadian agriculture statistics service show no trend in Newfoundland and Labrador pumpkin harvests declining amid climate change. The data only goes from 2007 to 2025, but it certainly shows no evidence that the pumpkin industry in the province is in any danger. Production saw its lowest year in 2010, its highest in 2013, and second highest tied repeatedly in each of the most recent three years on record.
Similarly, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization data show Canadian pumpkin, squash and gourd production has been fairly stable over the past decade, after having risen gradually since the 1990s. (See figure below)
Data provides no reason for Canadians to fear that pumpkins in Labrador and Newfoundland, nor Canada more generally, and definitely not globally, are endangered by climate change. CBC should have had done a little more homework and showed more discernment when making claims about long term climate change based on two years of pumpkin harvests.
On September 23, the autumnal equinox, villagers in Dongjiao, a farming community on the edge of Xiangyang in central China, set out crayfish, peaches, and banquet bowls for the country’s ninth Farmers’ Harvest Festival. They had earned the feast.
But where are the headlines? Had the harvest fallen by a few percentage points, a dozen stories would have linked the decline to a “climate breakdown.”
A harvest of such unprecedented size by the world’s most populous grain producer does not fit the fable of a dying planet. Crisis merchants dominating the media have invested decades in a story of scorched fields and starving millions. A nation of farmers celebrating abundance is an embarrassment. Here’s the truth:
On September 23, the autumnal equinox, villagers in Dongjiao, a farming community on the edge of Xiangyang in central China, set out crayfish, peaches, and banquet bowls for the country’s ninth Farmers’ Harvest Festival. They had earned the feast.
With more than a fifth of the autumn crop area already harvested, Agriculture Minister Zhang Zhu said the country was on track for another bumper harvest for the full year. In 2025, annual grain production exceeded 700 million tons for a second straight year, giving every Chinese citizen more than 500 kilograms of grain, well above a benchmark for food security.
The science behind the harvest is not mysterious. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the raw material of photosynthesis. Wheat and rice, the staples of China, respond positively to elevated CO2.NASA reports that up to half of Earth’s vegetated lands greened significantly over a 35-year period, with 70% of that greening attributed to rising atmospheric CO2 acting as a plant fertilizer. Another NASA analysis showed that China and India dominate this planetary greening. China alone accounts for a quarter of the global increase in leaf area despite covering but a fraction of the world’s vegetated land.
Warmth has helped, too. Longer frost-free seasons in the northeast have allowed rice and corn to spread across Heilongjiang, China’s largest grain-producing province. It is fitting that three driverless harvesters opened this year’s festival in Harbin, the provincial capital. China saw more flooding than drought this year, with the worst confined to local pockets, but overall conditions favored farming.
But where are the headlines? Had the harvest fallen by a few percentage points, a dozen stories would have linked the decline to a “climate breakdown.” Positive reports get a shrug. The industrial emissions of carbon dioxide elevating the gas’s atmospheric concentration are producing undeniable benefits that those demonizing CO2 refuse to acknowledge.
The human consequence of this agricultural ascent should end claims of a planet in terminal decline. China’s per capita food supply rose from 2,328 kilocalories a day in 1980 to 3,029 in 2000, a 30% jump, with average intake near 2,830 kilocalories by the early 2010s. Meat consumption quadrupled between 1980 and 2009, from 14.6 kilograms to 58.2 kilograms per person.
Behind those rising calories stands affordable energy. About 70% of the ammonia produced from natural gas and coal is used to make fertilizers that help to make possible China’s crop yields. Tractors, pumps, and combines run on diesel. This is the production chain the net-zero lobby and crisis propagandists pretend does not exist.
Western lenders and diplomats addled by climate dogma are urging governments of developing nations to reduce the use of fertilizers and fossil fuels. Sri Lanka tried a version of this when it banned synthetic fertilizers in 2021. Rice output collapsed within a season, and the country slid into economic crisis. China took the opposite road and now celebrates record harvests.
The media’s silent treatment of these facts is a necessary tactic of keeping alive the apocalyptic climate narrative. Every acre of global greening, every rising calorie, every record harvest chips away at the claim that humanity faces a climate emergency requiring the surrender of affordable energy and industrial agriculture.
The climate industrial complex depends on the specter of a failing biosphere and is threatened by grain-production records and thriving ecosystems. So, editors skip the hopeful stories and gin up ones about receding glaciers that have been melting since the end of the last great glacial advance more than 10,000 years ago.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at theCO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
A popular new charity movement is raising billions of dollars and directing a lot of that into “saving the world” from AI. Much of the “human extinction” rhetoric seems to be coming from this strange source.
For a lot more on this situation, there is a dynamite blog called AI Panic. One particularly detailed article is: “The “AI Existential Risk” Industrial Complex.”
Saving humanity from extinction is obviously going to come out as a top priority. If one believes the popular scares, there are at least two big things to save us from: namely, pandemics and AI. Of these, the easiest to address is AI. So what is euphemistically called “AI safety” has become a major cause in the EA community.
A popular new charity movement is raising billions of dollars and directing a lot of that into “saving the world” from AI. Much of the “human extinction” rhetoric seems to be coming from this strange source.
The movement is called “Effective Altruism” or simply EA to its followers. The basic principle sounds attractive namely that charity dollars should maximize their benefits. The idea is that giving should be based on global systems analysis not feelings. How and where can each dollar do the most good?
Saving humanity from extinction is obviously going to come out as a top priority. If one believes the popular scares, there are at least two big things to save us from: namely, pandemics and AI. Of these, the easiest to address is AI. So what is euphemistically called “AI safety” has become a major cause in the EA community.
We are talking about large sums of money. EA has a certain cult-like quality in that followers are supposed to commit to giving an ongoing fraction of their income with 10% being a standard figure. Thus, the EA movement creates an ongoing flow of funds. Reportedly the movement has generated billions of dollars, and it is growing. Much of this money flow is going into the AI-human extinction machine.
This flow has a structure. There are organizations that collect the EA funds and distribute them to worthy action groups, many of which are into “AI safety.” These action groups then raise the alarm they are being funded to address. Raising the alarm is part of fundraising. This is a familiar pattern throughout the environmental movement, which “AI safety” is sort of part of. The bigger the scare, the more money you can get.
For example, AI Panic says that an outfit named Coefficient Giving is a huge funder of “AI safety” action groups.
It gives a list of 36 groups, with links, that collectively have received almost half a billion dollars from Coefficient.
Funding a push for global governance of AI development is not altruism — it is crazy.
There is a lot more going on than this Effective Altruism cash push. AI is a global phenomenon, so policing or stopping it would require an international effort.
Not surprisingly, the UN is very interested. Late last year, the UN Security Council had a meeting that featured the supposed threat of AI development. The Security Council engaged in an open discussion on “artificial intelligence and international peace and security.” At least three efforts came from that event.
First, there is now a “Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance” — a new forum for all UN member states, as well as private-sector companies and civil society organizations. It had its first meeting last July.
This is basically an international petition for global policing of AI development. It boasts and lists over 90 signatory action groups.
The irrational push for global governance of AI development is well funded and widespread. We need to push back. We do not want UN AI police overseeing every AI startup and laboratory in America.
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