{"id":318639,"date":"2024-04-17T20:47:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T18:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=318639"},"modified":"2024-04-17T20:47:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T18:47:05","slug":"the-amazing-tale-of-how-three-billionaires-plunged-the-world-into-climate-catastrophism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=318639","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cAmazing Tale\u201d of How Three Billionaires Plunged the World into Climate Catastrophism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0CHRIS MORRISON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you think that the constant catastrophising of weather and climate in the mainstream media, politics and science has just appeared by accident? Over the last few years, the BBC and the Guardian<\/em>, as of one mind, decided to float improbable \u2018tipping point\u2019 scares under cover of \u2018scientists say\u2019, while UN officials concluded that we had two years to save a \u2018boiling\u2019 planet and the ubiquitous \u2018Jim\u2019 Dale has been given free rein<\/a> to make it up as he goes along on Talk TV and GB News. Of course all this didn\u2019t suddenly happen. Each of these examples is testament to an extraordinary corruption of the true scientific process \u2013 an \u201camazing tale<\/a>\u201d according to political science writer Roger Pielke Jnr., \u201ca story of how wealth and power sought to shape climate science in pursuit of political goals\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main culprit in this amazing tale will not be unknown to regular readers of the Daily Sceptic<\/em> and it is the improbable scenario of RCP8.5. This has been promoted as a \u2018business as usual\u2019 set of scientific, economic and societal assumptions and it suggests temperature rises up to 4\u00b0C in less than 80 years. Although downgraded by the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of late as \u201clow likelihood<\/a>\u201d, it is still estimated to be behind about 50% of the climate modelled \u2018impacts\u2019 highlighted over the entire scientific literature. Almost all the claims of climate Armageddon and economic disaster peddled by those identified in our first paragraph are based on RCP8.5 input. It is a tale of how three wealthy men bankrolled a project to promote an extreme scenario to guarantee that the economic impact of climate change they projected into the future would be \u201ceye-poppingly large\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also not be a surprise to learn that the billionaire green activist Michael Bloomberg has played a key role over the last decade in lifting this implausible pathway to underserved prominence. Notes Pielke: \u201cIt\u2019s a story of privilege and conceit \u2013 the privilege in American democracy that accompanies being mindbogglingly wealthy, and the conceit that climate policies can best be pursued by corrupting the scientific literature on climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, three wealthy men, Bloomberg, hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and former CEO of Goldman Sachs Hank Paulson chipped in $500,000 each to fund a project \u201cmaking the climate threat feel real, immediate and potentially devastating to the business world\u201d. An early funded report was part-titled \u2018Risky Business\u2019 and it focused on RCP8.5 \u201cas the pathway closest to a business-as-usual trajectory\u201d. The pathway was said to be \u201cclosest to a future without concerted action to reduce future warming\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Pielke\u2019s view, the authors of the \u2018Risky Business\u2019 report made two significant methodological mistakes. They characterised the extreme RCP8.5 scenario as \u2018business as usual\u2019 and suggested the world could move from one scenario to another.  As Pielke notes, the four different scenarios are independent with, for instance, RCP2.5 assuming a world with three billion people fewer than RCP8.5. Both of the mistaken methodological choices were said to be contrary to the appropriate use set by the people who created them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cgenius\u201d of \u2018Risky Business\u2019 was it undertook a \u201csophisticated campaign\u201d to introduce its methodological ideas into mainstream scientific literature, \u201cwhere they would take on a life of their own\u201d. In 2016, a paper from the \u2018Risky Business\u2019 project was published in the prestigious journal Science<\/em> featuring the erroneous notion of moving from one RCP scenario to another. Despite the obvious methodological flaw, notes Pielke, the paper passed peer-review with little or no criticism, and to date has been cited more than 1,100 times. \u201cHundreds, maybe thousands of papers followed similarly in adopting the same assumption of moving between incommensurate scenarios\u201d, observes Pielke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, Science<\/em> published another study from \u2018Risky Business\u2019 with the bizarre suggestion that the United States would see a 10% hit to its economy under the most extreme version of RCP8.5, with an incredible 8\u00b0C rise in temperature by the end of the century. This prominent paper has been cited more than 1,100 times in other studies and, noted Piekle, the 10% GDP loss would become the top line conclusion of the U.S. National Climate Assessment the very next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublishing papers in the academic literature based on the flawed \u2018Risky Business\u2019 methods was a formula that would be repeated time and time again. Like the introduction of a virus, the misleading reinterpretation of climate scenarios expanded throughout climate science,\u201d states Pielke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work begun by Bloomberg-Steyer-Paulson was subsequently taken up by a group called Climate Impact Lab, a collaboration of \u2018Risky Business\u2019 leaders and several universities. According to Pielke, Climate Impact Lab has thrived on using RCP8.5 to generate a steady series of media-friendly studies projecting extreme climate impacts. Among them are stories suggesting rising sea levels could swamp major cities and displace almost 200 million people, while a rise in climate related deaths will surpass all infectious disease. All backed, of course, by \u2018scientists say\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pielke concludes that there is no hidden conspiracy \u2013 \u201call of this is taking place in plain sight\u201d. The political advocacy was \u201cabsolute genius\u201d \u2013 a well-funded effort to fundamentally change how climate science was reported in the media, and ultimately how political discussion and policy options are shaped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis effort has been phenomenally successful,\u201d says Pielke \u2013 or as we might put it, complete Dale-ification of most climate and Net Zero debate has been achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Morrison is the<\/em>\u00a0Daily Sceptic\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Environment Editor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you think that the constant catastrophising of weather and climate in the mainstream media, politics and science has just appeared by accident? Over the last few years, the BBC and the Guardian, as of one mind, decided to float improbable \u2018tipping point\u2019 scares under cover of \u2018scientists say\u2019, while UN officials concluded that we had two years to save a \u2018boiling\u2019 planet and the ubiquitous \u2018Jim\u2019 Dale has been given free rein to make it up as he goes along on Talk TV and GB News. Of course all this didn\u2019t suddenly happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":318643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691824697,691819134,691818153,691818381,691818154,691828202],"class_list":["post-318639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-billionaires","tag-climate-alarmism","tag-climate-models","tag-ipcc","tag-net-zero","tag-roger-pielke","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/0sun-1.webp?fit=1358%2C1038&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1kTl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":265642,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=265642","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":0},"title":"Catastrophising Summer\u2013The Birds","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Adam Hart is yet another of the young breed of journalists who would rather just write stuff because it fits their worldview, rather than actually do a bit of research.","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-121.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-121.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-121.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-121.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-121.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":276436,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276436","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":1},"title":"Retraction of Paper Saying There is No Climate Emergency Illustrates How Dependent Climate Activists Are on Scaremongering","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/30\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00a0recent cancellation\u00a0of Alimonti\u00a0et al\u00a0shows clearly that catastrophising bad weather events and attributing them to a collapse of the climate is now the main weapon deployed to scare populations into embracing the Net Zero agenda.","rel":"","context":"In \"Apocalypticism\"","block_context":{"text":"Apocalypticism","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=apocalypticism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-30-213821.png?fit=1156%2C828&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-30-213821.png?fit=1156%2C828&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-30-213821.png?fit=1156%2C828&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-30-213821.png?fit=1156%2C828&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00Screenshot-2023-08-30-213821.png?fit=1156%2C828&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":417224,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=417224","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":2},"title":"Government Bodies Humiliated by Promoting Junk Climate Scares from Retracted Nature Paper","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/13\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The old academic putdown \u2018it\u2019s not even wrong\u2019 comes to mind in considering the disgraced and now retracted science paper Kotz et al. The science writer Jo Nova has speculated on how the paper was even published in Nature, \u201cgiven how awful it was\u201d. With its unfalsifiable claims of $38\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Bank of England\"","block_context":{"text":"Bank of England","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bank-of-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMKOFqfR1oWWV5Udj71TNj-AAl6hOrRCe_0ldMgnrYP6iirGLOBOY2xSOCh6vTL_tcsNd4IWK58fzg-9AxXoxUB0FRy3DtDDLPHmB9rU8tc3ahuVD3JBQ1BecznaQE.jpeg?fit=1200%2C695&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMKOFqfR1oWWV5Udj71TNj-AAl6hOrRCe_0ldMgnrYP6iirGLOBOY2xSOCh6vTL_tcsNd4IWK58fzg-9AxXoxUB0FRy3DtDDLPHmB9rU8tc3ahuVD3JBQ1BecznaQE.jpeg?fit=1200%2C695&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMKOFqfR1oWWV5Udj71TNj-AAl6hOrRCe_0ldMgnrYP6iirGLOBOY2xSOCh6vTL_tcsNd4IWK58fzg-9AxXoxUB0FRy3DtDDLPHmB9rU8tc3ahuVD3JBQ1BecznaQE.jpeg?fit=1200%2C695&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMKOFqfR1oWWV5Udj71TNj-AAl6hOrRCe_0ldMgnrYP6iirGLOBOY2xSOCh6vTL_tcsNd4IWK58fzg-9AxXoxUB0FRy3DtDDLPHmB9rU8tc3ahuVD3JBQ1BecznaQE.jpeg?fit=1200%2C695&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AQMKOFqfR1oWWV5Udj71TNj-AAl6hOrRCe_0ldMgnrYP6iirGLOBOY2xSOCh6vTL_tcsNd4IWK58fzg-9AxXoxUB0FRy3DtDDLPHmB9rU8tc3ahuVD3JBQ1BecznaQE.jpeg?fit=1200%2C695&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":416664,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=416664","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":3},"title":"EXCLUSIVE: UK Office of Budget Responsibility\u2019s Latest Climate Fear Mongering Claims Based on Junk Findings from Retracted Nature Paper\u00a0","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/09\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the biggest scandals so far in climate science publishing has suckered in a number of government policy advisers around the world including the UK Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Last July, the British Budget-leaking bunglers estimated that the country\u2019s Gross National Product (GNP) would be 7.8% less in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"climate activists\"","block_context":{"text":"climate activists","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-activists"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Firefly_A-dramatic-composite-showing-a-cracked-dry-earth-globe-juxtaposed-with-a-blurred-re-493234.webp?fit=1200%2C933&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Firefly_A-dramatic-composite-showing-a-cracked-dry-earth-globe-juxtaposed-with-a-blurred-re-493234.webp?fit=1200%2C933&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Firefly_A-dramatic-composite-showing-a-cracked-dry-earth-globe-juxtaposed-with-a-blurred-re-493234.webp?fit=1200%2C933&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Firefly_A-dramatic-composite-showing-a-cracked-dry-earth-globe-juxtaposed-with-a-blurred-re-493234.webp?fit=1200%2C933&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Firefly_A-dramatic-composite-showing-a-cracked-dry-earth-globe-juxtaposed-with-a-blurred-re-493234.webp?fit=1200%2C933&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":293433,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=293433","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":4},"title":"Speaker on BBC Verify Correspondent\u2019s Six Month Sabbatical Course Has Called for Jailing Climate Contrarians","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/02\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Further and better particulars have emerged about the\u00a0green billionaire-funded course\u00a0run by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), which has to date attracted over 400 participants from around the world. It recently signed up Marco Silva, the climate \u2018disinformation\u2019 specialist employed by BBC Verify.","rel":"","context":"In \"BBC Verify\"","block_context":{"text":"BBC Verify","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bbc-verify"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-00.47.15-1.png?fit=1200%2C670&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-00.47.15-1.png?fit=1200%2C670&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-00.47.15-1.png?fit=1200%2C670&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-00.47.15-1.png?fit=1200%2C670&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-00.47.15-1.png?fit=1200%2C670&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":265043,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=265043","url_meta":{"origin":318639,"position":5},"title":"Catastrophising Summer Weather","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/02\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Met Office\u2019s press release is all of course part of a very well organised conspiracy to catastrophise summer weather. The Met Office are at the forefront, with the media in full support. Think about all of the silly Heat Alerts we are given nowadays, and how weather maps that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"1884\"","block_context":{"text":"1884","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=1884"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0ocean-summer-sunset-3.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0ocean-summer-sunset-3.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0ocean-summer-sunset-3.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0ocean-summer-sunset-3.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0ocean-summer-sunset-3.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318645,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318639\/revisions\/318645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/318643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}