"Hold On a Sec! Is That Really Our Mate?" – Why We Should Be Asking Tough Questions About the Climate Hype, By James Reed
Ever felt like you're being told one thing, over and over, and if you dare to even whisper a doubt, you're instantly branded an outcast? That's kind of how the climate change conversation often feels these days. It's less a friendly chat and more a stern lecture, delivered with an almost apocalyptic certainty. So, when someone like the brilliant Dr. Richard Lindzen, a serious heavy-hitter from MIT, steps up and essentially says, "Hold on a sec, folks , I am not your mate, and neither is this narrative," it's worth leaning in.
Dr. Lindzen isn't just some guy with an opinion. He's an atmospheric physicist, an emeritus professor from MIT, with a career stretching back decades and nearly 250 scientific papers to his name. He's literally helped write parts of the UN's own climate reports (the IPCC). So, when he speaks, it's not from a place of ignorance, but from a deep, deep understanding of how our planet's climate actually works.
His recent interview, picked up by the Daily Sceptic, is a real eye-opener. He cuts right to the chase: all this talk about "Net Zero by 2050" and sacrificing trillions of dollars? Lindzen points out that even if the whole world pulled it off, we'd only avoid about a third of a degree of warming. And if it's just places like Europe and us in the Anglosphere? We're talking a tenth of a degree.
A tenth of a degree. Let that sink in.
Then he asks the obvious question: "Tens of trillions of dollars for a tenth of a degree of warming? Doesn't seem like a bargain to me." And honestly, who could argue with that? It sounds less like a sensible investment and more like throwing money into a symbolic bonfire.
You hear big shots like the UN Secretary-General saying a half-degree change means "we're finished as a species." Lindzen's response is priceless, and probably what many of us are thinking: "What the hell are they talking about?" It highlights the enormous disconnect between the wild, frightening predictions and the actual, measurable impact of the proposed solutions.
Lindzen goes even further, suggesting that all those dire predictions of climate catastrophe we've been hearing for years? They haven't come true. And he's pretty confident future ones won't either. "2030 will pass. 2050 will pass. Fifty years will pass. There will be no climate catastrophe," he states plainly. This isn't about denying that the climate changes, it always has, but it's a direct challenge to the idea that we're headed for an inevitable, catastrophic meltdown.
He unpacks so much of the climate alarmism we hear. He talks about how CO2, while a greenhouse gas, has a "limited capacity to warm the planet" and that its role is often exaggerated. He tackles the "misleading claims about the increasing frequency of extreme weather events," suggesting that maybe, just maybe, it's not all the climate's fault, and that things like better reporting and more people living in risky areas play a part. And he doesn't shy away from pointing out the "absurdity of climate policies," which often feel like sledgehammers trying to crack a nut.
This isn't some fringe contrarian, like me. Dr. Lindzen is a serious academic, recognised with prestigious awards from top scientific bodies. He's published on everything from how oceans influence weather to the causes of ice ages. When he says, "I am not your mate!" to the doom-and-gloom narrative, he's doing it from a place of deep scientific authority, not political ideology.
In a world where questioning the "climate crisis" can get you shouted down faster than you can say "renewable energy," Lindzen's calm, fact-based scepticism is incredibly important. It forces us to take a breath and ask: Are we really making these colossal sacrifices for something that offers such a tiny, almost symbolic, benefit? Is the emotional fear-mongering overriding clear-headed analysis?
For anyone who leans conservative, or just anyone who likes to think critically and demands evidence rather than just emotion, Dr. Lindzen's perspective offers a vital counter-balance. It's a reminder that genuine scientific inquiry isn't about groupthink or silencing dissent. It's about asking tough questions, challenging assumptions, and seeking the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. It's time we dropped the "mate" act and started having an honest conversation about climate change.
"If you reach Net Zero by 2050, if you do it worldwide, you avoid about a third of a degree of warming. If it's just Europe and the Anglosphere, it's closer to a tenth of a degree," says Dr Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "So you have avoided a tenth of a degree of warming at a cost of probably tens of trillions of dollars. Doesn't seem like a bargain to me," he adds. "How far will the population go in saying, we will sacrifice ourselves for a symbolic gesture?"
And who cares about a tenth of a degree of warming, Lindzen asks. "When somebody says the change of a tenth of a degree, or when (UN Secretary-General António – HS) Guterres says, if it changes a half-degree, we're finished as a species, this is an existential threat – people have to ask, what the hell are they talking about?"
According to Lindzen, all recent predictions of climate catastrophe have proven false, and future ones will be as well. "2030 will pass. 2050 will pass. Fifty years will pass. There will be no climate catastrophe," he says.
In the interview, Lindzen thoroughly discusses what climate scientists know about climate change and its processes, as well as the half-truths and outright lies propagated by those proclaiming a climate crisis. He addresses topics such as the limited capacity of CO2 to warm the planet, its actual role on Earth, misleading claims about the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, the absurdity of climate policies and the future of energy.
Dr Richard Lindzen is an internationally recognized American atmospheric scientist and MIT emeritus professor whose contributions to climate science are significant. Over the course of his career, Lindzen has published almost 250 scientific papers, exploring the greenhouse effect and other complex aspects of climate change, like dynamic meteorology, hydrodynamic instability, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres and hydrodynamic instability. His research has involved studies about the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes and has advanced the understanding of the role of small-scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other.
Lindzen has also contributed to the scientific reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He earned his doctorate from Harvard University in 1964. He served as a professor there until 1983 and as Director of the Center for Earth and Planetary Physics from 1980 to 1983. Lindzen has been affiliated with Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology, Paris, as a visiting professor during his academic career. In 1983 he joined MIT, where he became a professor of atmospheric sciences. Lindzen retired in 2013.
Lindzen has been recognized for his scientific contributions with several prestigious awards. The American Meteorological Society honoured him with the Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award (1968) and the Jule Charney Award (1985) for "highly significant research in atmospheric sciences". The American Geophysical Union awarded him the James B. Macelwane Medal (1969), and the Engineers' Council recognized him for outstanding achievements in engineering (2009), among other honours.
Lindzen is a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected in 1977) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected in 1977)."
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