Work conducted by highly respected NASA scientist Roy Spencer estimates a maximum increase of 1.54°C in global temperatures from greenhouse gases, less than half that estimated by the IPCC modellers.

Compounding this, a peer-reviewed piece on climate change finds the datasets used to develop climate models are not a valid representation of reality and, due to data adjustments that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature records.

Very detailed examinations of over 20 areas across the world have shown no increase in temperatures over the past 70 years and more. News followed about how penguins were going to be drastically reduced in numbers as a result of Antarctic warming. But according to the record, there is no such warming taking place.

It seems every few years there has to be another Professor Chris Turney piloting a “ship of fools” to the South Pole and being discredited for alarmism about the disappearance of ice in the southern continent.

The Arctic too has its doomsters with polar bears being emblematic. But detailed analysis by zoologist Susan Crockford has shown them to be thriving.

Groupthink about climate change is now recognised in academia where it claimed, among others, the tenure of leading world scientist Judith Curry. The syndrome is reinforced by self-interest in getting funding and promotion.

The undermining of academia’s scientific integrity is illustrated by James Cook University’s attack on Peter Ridd over the Great Barrier Reef, hyped up concerns about which may amount to scientific fraud. The University is motivated by its vested interest in receiving grants based on human-induced climate change being both real and a cause of the reef’s impairment.

This academic malady could be intensifying – as the Heartland Institute points out, alarmist scientists no longer debate the issues and instead prefer to scream “denier” at their protagonists.

Meanwhile, activist lawyers are tooling up for an intensified attack on mining, agriculture and industry with new university teaching syllabuses being offered to hogtie these productive activities.

Alan Moran is with Regulation Economics and is the author of Climate Change: Treaties and Policies in the Trump Era.

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