Please don't offer me opinion disguised as fact
John Happs - 10th November 2025
I was President of the WA Skeptics for over 25 years before we wound up a few years ago. During this time, we offered a substantial amount of money for any proven claim involving the paranormal and junk science. None was demonstrated. Before we wound up the WA Skeptics, we distributed 750,000 AUD to various skeptical groups and science research projects we deemed appropriate. The Perth Skeptics has never had any link with the WA Skeptics and I’m not surprised they believe in anthropogenic global warming, or is that now climate change or extreme weather.
When referring to climate alarm, I use the term “fraud” with confidence since I am well-qualified to judge. Now retired from academia and consulting work, I have respectable qualifications in the geosciences (M.Sc. 1st Class; D.Phil.) including climate and paleoclimate and, should the NZ Skeptics be right about anthropogenic global warming, then I have been teaching thousands of university students in Australia and the USA false climate science.
I feel confident about providing opinions about climate and paleoclimate and, it is always prudent these days to add that I have never been employed by, or have had any financial interest, in any energy provider.
I note your position that: “The New Zealand Skeptics Society supports the scientific consensus on Climate Change. There is an abundance of evidence demonstrating global mean temperatures are rising, and that humans have had a considerable impact on the natural rate of change.”
So, “The New Zealand Skeptics Society supports the scientific consensus on Climate Change.” So where is that consensus? I sincerely hope you are not embracing the “97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and human-caused” nonsense that has been thoroughly de-bunked. Look at this response. One of many:
You say: “There is an abundance of evidence demonstrating global mean temperatures are rising.”
No mention by you, of the fact that temperatures have always fluctuated throughout geologic time, with no link to atmospheric carbon dioxide:
To understand why carbon dioxide has never driven global temperature, you might want to reflect on some basic physics. If proxy data are not convincing enough, we should turn to laboratory, empirical data to appreciate that absorption spectra for atmospheric gases show how carbon dioxide is “swamped” by water vapour and has little, if any, input into global temperature:
We are currently living in the interglacial period of an ice age and the planet, (with many temperature fluctuations) has continued to cool, albeit with a number of up-ticks, over the last 10,000 years:
You say: “The Society will adjust its position with the scientific consensus.”
Consensus carries no weight in science but, should the NZ Skeptics believe it does, you might want to consider the fact that, not only have many IPCC contributing scientists resigned because of the fraud they witnessed, but there are now thousands of scientists who have signed petitions to say there is no climate emergency. They know that the meme of dangerous anthropogenic global warming is political, alarmist and without foundation but you will not see that reported by the media or politicians.
More than 4,000 scientists, including 70 Nobel Laureates have signed the Heidelberg Appeal to say there is no climate emergency.
More than 31,000 scientists, including geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, signed the Oregon Petition to say there is no climate emergency. More than 1,500 scientists, including 200 with expertise and qualifications in climate science signed the Manhattan Declaration to say there is no climate emergency. These petitions can easily be located on line, as can this petition from NASA engineers, scientists and astronauts:
NASAAdministrator
NASAHeadquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.
The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.
As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.
For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.
Thank you for considering this request.
Sincerely,
Attached signatures can be located at:
file:///Volumes/HARD%20DRIVE/CLIMATE%20CHANGE/10.%20Petitions%20from%20scientists/NASA%20petitions/NASA%20petition.html
Climate activists and others in the climate industrial complex have claimed that we are experiencing more extreme weather. These claims have been rejected, even by the political/ideological Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If any of your members were to read and understand the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report, Chapter 11 on Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate, they would see the following summary chart:
NOTE: No detection of more extreme weather and no attribution to human activity.
Of course, facts such as these will be ignored by the media, climate activists, along with those UN officials who deliberately omit such findings in the Summaries for Policymakers, sent out to the media, gullible politicians and those who are part of the climate industrial complex.
Scientific fraud is part and parcel of the IPCC’s modus operandi and this was evident from their first report when contributing scientists concluded:
“None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”
“While some of the pattern-base discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”
“Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.”
“While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution conclusions, for which there is little justification.”
These statements were ignored and replaced by IPCC Lead Author and activist Ben Santer with:
“There is evidence of an emerging pattern of climate response to forcing by greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols … from the geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of temperature change … These results point toward a human influence on global climate.”
“The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.”
This is just one example of blatant IPCC fraud and I am happy to supply many more examples on request. In fact, the ongoing IPCC exaggerations and outright fraud led to many of the IPCC contributing scientists resigning and I have many statements from those scientists, including the following:
Dr. Vincent Gray was a climate consultant and long-standing member of the New Zealand Royal Society and expert reviewer for the IPCC. He described the IPCC’s climate change statements as: “An orchestrated litany of lies.”
Former Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Tim Ball was equally explicit: “The argument that global warming is due to humans, known as the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) is a deliberate fraud. I can now make that statement without fear of contradiction because of a remarkable hacking of files that provided not just a smoking gun, but an entire battery of machine guns.” He added: “Carbon dioxide was never a problem and all the machinations and deceptions exposed by these files prove that it is the greatest deception in history, but nobody is laughing. It is a very sad day for science.”
Dr. Christopher Kobus said:
“In essence, the jig is up. The whole thing is a fraud. And even the fraudsters that fudged data are admitting to temperature history that they used to say didn’t happen…Perhaps what has doomed the Climategate fraudsters the most was their brazenness in fudging the data.”
Physicist Dr. Dirck Hartmann said:
“Our mainstream media uses every opportunity to hype the hoax of man-made global warming by repeated reporting of data and events that appear to support it and ignoring those that contradict it. Hopefully man-made global warming will come to be recognized for the hoax it truly is.”
Russian glaciologist and geomorphologist, Dr. Andrei Kapitsa also considered the Kyoto Protocol as: “The biggest ever scientific fraud.” Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado University, states: “I am of the opinion that (global warming) is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.”
I consider it unlikely that the NZ Skeptics position on anthropogenic global warming is correct when tens of thousands of scientists reject it outright. Additionally, you might want to browse the 80+ papers I have posted on the following website:
Should you wish to disprove any of the points I have raised here with empirical evidence, or in the many papers and books I have written, I would be most interested to hear from you.
Please don’t offer me opinion disguised as fact.