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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

To-do Skeptic Arguments

Here all all the skeptic arguments. Greyed out arguments have already been answered. Bold arguments are yet to be answered. Note: the focus is on the science-based arguments towards the top of the list. More policy-based arguments towards the bottom are not yet the focus of this website.

It's not happening

Scientists falsified data
- Phil Jones hid flaws in UHI study
  - Chinese station data is missing
- NASA emails show corruption
- New Zealand data was fudged
  - Australian BOM Data Fudged
- Darwin temperature adjustments
- CRU lost temperature data
- NASA blew up their own satellite
- Mid-century cooling was rewritten
- Ben Santer rewrote the 1995 IPCC report
- Scientists withheld data
Temp record is unreliable
- Hockey stick is broken
  - Briffa's hockey stick was broken
  - Tiljander was flipped upside down
  - Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
  - Temperature proxies are unreliable
  - Russian Kola data refutes hockey stick
  - McShane and Walters debunk the hockey stick
  - Ljungqvist broke the hockey stick
  - Principal components disprove hockey stick
  - Marcott's hockey stick is broken
- Dropped stations introduce warming bias
  - NASA exclude Arctic stations
  - Russian data was not included
- It's Urban Heat Island effect
  - Spencer finds less warming in US than CRU
  - Airports inflate warming trend
- Global temperature does not exist
  - Regional climate change is more important than global temperature change
- 1934 - hottest year on record
- It's microsite influences
- NASA GISS adjustments introduce warming bias
- IPR restriction invalidate climate research
- Increase in temperature is less than instrument error
- Mercury thermometers can't measure within tenths of a degree
- 3 of 4 temperature datasets are interdependent
- There's not enough weather stations
- Satellite error inflated Great Lakes temperatures
- Satellite temperature measurements are degrading
- Thermometer measurements are uncertain
- Satellite record is more reliable than thermometers
It's cooling
- We're heading into an ice age
  - Solar cycle 24 will stop global warming
  - Without CO2 emissions, we'd be in an ice age
- It's freaking cold!
  - It snowed somewhere
  - 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
  - Record snowfall disproves global warming
    - Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009
- Oceans are cooling
- It hasn't warmed since 1998
- The southern hemisphere hasn't warmed as much
- Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
- Radiative imbalance is negative
- Global warming stopped in ~~1998~~, ~~1995~~, ~~2002~~, ~~2007~~, ~~2010~~, ????
  - BEST hides the decline in global temperature
  - No warming in 16 years
- DMI show cooling Arctic
- We're heading into cooling
- There's been statistically-significant cooling since 2001
- Global warming has stopped so can't be causing Arctic warming
Ice isn't melting
- Antarctica is gaining ice
  - Antarctica is cooling
  - Antarctica is too cold to lose ice
  - Antarctic ice melt is falling
- Glaciers are growing
- Greenland is gaining ice
  - Ice Sheet losses are overestimated
  - Greenland has lost ice before
  - Greenland ice loss is slowing down
- Antarctica snowfall hasn't risen
- Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
  - Arctic sea ice has recovered
    - Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
    - Arctic sea ice loss in the 1940s was similar to today's
    - Arctic sea ice extent was lower in the past
  - Wind is causing Arctic sea ice loss
  - North Pole has been ice free before
  - Arctic ice melt is caused by underwater volcanoes
  - Northwest passage has been navigated in the past
  - Arctic Storm Caused the 2012 Record Sea Ice Minimum
- Global sea ice is increasing
- Southern sea ice is increasing
Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
- Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming
- Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature
- Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored
- Peer review process was corrupted
  - Climate science peer review is pal review
- Climategate was whitewashed
  - Oxburgh's trick to hide the trick
  - Muir Russell lied about deleted emails
- CRU tampered with temperature data
- Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC?
- Principal source of predictions is CRU
Sea level rise is exaggerated
- Pacific Islands are not drowning
  - Pacific Islanders aren't evacuating due to rising sea levels
- Maldives is not sinking
- Bangladesh sea levels aren't rising
- Arctic sea level is falling
- Sea level was high 81,000 years ago in Mallorca
- New Zealand sea level rise is not accelerating
- Sea level rise is decelerating
  - Sea level fell in 2010
- Sea level is not rising
  - New data sets on sea levels not rising
  - Scientists admitted faking sea level rise
- Tuvalu sea level isn't rising
There is no consensus
- IPCC is alarmist
  - IPCC were wrong about Dutch sea levels
  - IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers
    - Himalayan glaciers are not shrinking
  - IPCC overstated link to extreme storms
  - IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
  - IPCC exagerated African agriculture impact
  - IPCC overestimate temperature rise
    - Monckton shows the IPCC overestimated warming
  - Pachauri labelled Himalayagate as 'voodoo science'
  - IPCC were wrong about Antarctic sea ice
  - IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period
  - 1/3 of IPCC is not peer-reviewed
  - The IPCC consensus is phoney
  - IPCC relied on one solar physicist
  - IAC review of IPCC is devastating
  - IPCC overpredicts CO2 rise
  - UN predicted 50 million climate refugees
  - Uncertainties have been underestimated
  - IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
  - 28% of IPCC arguments are incorrect
  - IPCC edited out natural causes of climate change
  - IPCC admit they got it wrong
    - IPCC admits global warming has paused
  - IPCC human-caused global warming attribution confidence is unfounded
  - IPCC global warming projections were wrong
- Al Gore got it wrong
  - Al Gore is a hypocrite
  - Al Gore overestimated sea level rise by factor of 100
- Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming
- 500 scientists refute the consensus
- APS reversed its stance on climate change
- Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed
- The science isn't settled
  - Proponents don't attempt to falsify AGW
    - AGW is an argument from authority
      - Mainsream Media is biased against climate skepticism
  - It's not 100% certain
  - Statistics makes science like a crapshoot
  - AGW advocates wont debate with skeptics
- They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
- 900+ peer reviewed papers are skeptical of AGW
  - The Science Is Not Settled
- Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
- Institute of Physics doesn't support AGW
- Climate 'Skeptics' are like Galileo
- PNAS study publishes black list of skeptics
- Royal Society embraces skepticism
- The 97% of Scientists is a small sample
- US Senate Minority Report Debunks Concensus
- Consensus is not science
- Calling skeptics 'deniers' is equating them to Holocaust deniers
- The consensus is crumbling
- The 97% consensus on human-caused global warming is a robust result
- 97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
- Cook et al consensus study is flawed
  - Less than 1% of papers agree with consensus
  - 67% of 12,000 papers have no position on AGW
  - Deniers are part of the 97%
  - Many authors claim misrepresentation
  - Cook didn't release his data
  - Cook et al paper was a PR exercise
  - Self-raters are not representative sample
  - Cook et al used an unquantified definition of consensus
  - Classification asymmetry biased against rejection papers
  - Cook et al search parameters were too restrictive
- AMS survey found 52% consensus
Climate scientists are in it for the money
- It's all a socialist plot
- Global warming is money motivated
  - Climate scientists are manipulated by funding threats and promises
  - AGW science has been polticized
- It's an anti-capitalist political myth
  - It's environmentalist propaganda
  - It's a plot to set up a one world government
  - Nazis invented global warming
- Grants are awarded to consensus scientists
Deserts are retreating
Springs aren't advancing
Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
AGW is religion
Global warming does not cause volcanic eruptions
Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic
The stratosphere isn't cooling as predicted
Hurricane activity was low in 2010
Opinion polls suggest the public don't believe in Global Warming
Global warming is a hoax
IPCC needs improvement
European heat wave exaggerated

It's not us

There's no empirical evidence
- AGW is an argument from ignorance
- Warm nights are due to urbanisation
- Any warming will increase downward radiation
- Many forcings could explain stratospheric cooling
Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
- CO2 is just a trace gas
- Outgoing longwave radiation hasn't changed
- CO2 has a short residence time
- CO2 effect is saturated
  - Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
- Greenhouse effect has been falsified
  - Moon is warmer than expected
  - Robert Wood 1908 experiment disproved greenhouse effect
- CO2 is heavier than air
- 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
- CO2 cools as well as heats
  - CO2 cools according to adiabatic theory
- CO2 effect is logarithmic
- Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
- CO2 only causes 35% of global warming
- LWIR back radiation does not heat the oceans but causes evaporation and cooling
- Removing all CO2 would make little difference
- Water vapor masks CO2 effect
- CO2 is invisible, odourless, weightless, tasteless
Climate's changed before
- Medieval Warm Period was warmer
  - Boreholes show strong Medieval Warm Period
- Was Greenland really green in the past?
  - Greenland was warmer in 1940
- We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
  - We're coming out of an ice age
    - Sea level has been rising for millennia
  - Central England warmed more in the 18th century
  - Akasofu Proved Global Warming is Just a Recovery from the Little Ice Age
- CO2 was higher in the past
  - CO2 levels were high during Snowball Earth
  - CO2 was higher in the 1800s
  - CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician
  - Plant stomata show higher and more variable CO2 levels
- Glaciers have been receding since the 1800's
  - Glacier melt is natural
- Lake Chad has emptied before
- Arctic was warmer in 1940
- It's a 1500 year cycle
- It's a climate regime shift
  - It's a climate shift step function caused by natural cycles
- Wine grew in England in Roman times
- It's a natural cycle
  - It's internal variability
  - It's natural variability
  - Loehle and Scafetta find a 60 year cycle causing global warming
- Holocene Optimum was warmer
  - Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change
- Global temperatures have risen as fast in the past
- Thomas Jefferson wrote about warming winters
- It was warmer in the Roman Warm Period
- It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
- Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
- Droughts and floods have happened before
- Earth was warmer in past interglacials
- The Earth warmed 11 degrees in the last 10,000 years
- Humans survived past climate changes
- Heatwaves have happened before
- Bushfires have happened in the past
There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
- Polynomial cointegration refutes AGW
- It cooled mid-century
- CO2 lags temperature
  - Deglaciations ended while CO2 was rising
  - Warming causes CO2 rise
  - CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
- It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
- Temperature has fallen while CO2 was rising
- Constructal Law disproves global warming
- We didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution
- Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature
- An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature
It's the sun
- It's cosmic rays
  - It's cosmic-ray-driven ozone depletion
  - CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming
- Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
- It's SSCs
- The sun is getting hotter
- Water levels correlate with sunspots
- Solar cycles cause global warming
- It's the solar system
  - It's planetary movements
- Ultraviolet light increased since 1979
- Solar flare index and temperature are linked
- Low solar activity causes cold European winters
- IPCC's AR5 admitted it's the sun
- A grand solar minimum could trigger another ice age
Other planets are warming
- Neptune is warming
- Mars is warming
  - Mars is colder despite all the CO2
- Jupiter is warming
- Triton is warming
- Saturn is warming
- Pluto is warming
- Encaladus is warming
- Iapetus is warming
- Venus is hot due to internal heating
- Methane on Mars disproves AGW on Earth
- Venus is hot from a collision
It's the ocean
- It's El Niño
  - McLean's reply to Foster 2010 was censored
- It's ocean salinity
- It's the gulf stream
- It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
- It's Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)
CO2 is not the only driver of climate
- It's clouds
- It's soot
- It's the earth's orbit
  - It's Milankovitch cycles
  - The earth’s orbit is decaying
- It's dust
- It's aerosols
  - A drop in volcanic activity caused warming
  - Aerosols should mean more warming in the south
- It's ozone
- It's methane
  - Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
    - Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
- It's magnetic poles
  - Magnetic Polar Shifts Cause Global Superstorms
- It's ice crystals
- It's the Milky Way
- It's land use
- It's forests
- It's geothermal
- It's albedo
- It's God
  - God won't allow it.
- It's magma
  - Underground temperatures control climate
- It's Internal Radiative Forcing
- It's satellite microwave transmissions
- It's the moon
- It's wind
- It's waste heat
- It's overpopulation
- It's CFCs
- Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
  - Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming
- It's heat from combustion
- It's latent heat flux from increased plant water use efficiency
- It's gravity
- It's interstellar dust
- It's Nibiru/Planet X
- It's global brightening
- It's something we haven't thought of
  - Gravity causes global warming
- Kudzu causes global warming
Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
- Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
  - It's bushfires
  - It's earthquakes
  - It's bacteria
  - CO2 is coming from the ocean
    - Hemispheric timing show oceans are source of CO2
  - Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
    - Underwater volcanoes are warming the oceans
    - Ocean acidification is caused by underwater volcanoes
    - Mt Pinatubo eruption emitted more CO2 than all human CO2 emissions in history
  - CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
  - Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
  - Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural
- CO2 is not increasing
  - CO2 measurements are suspect
    - Mauna Loa is a volcano
    - Ice core CO2 measurements are uncertain
    - CO2 trajectory is uncertain
    - Carbon cycle uncertainty is high
    - Carbon isotope ratios are inaccurate
Models are unreliable
- Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted
- The upper troposphere is drier than the models had predicted
- Ice age predicted in the 70s
- Scientists can't even predict weather
- Aerosols provide too much uncertainty
- Models exagerate projected temperature rise
- There's no tropospheric hot spot
  - Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
  - Weather balloons show tropospheric cooling
  - The upper troposphere should warm 2 to 3 times faster than the surface
- Ozone theory is uncertain
- Increasing snowfall in Northern Hemisphere invalidates models
- Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
  - Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater
- Errors in model projections accumulate over time
- Clouds provide too much uncertainty
- Global warming is based on modelling
- Computer code isn't included in peer-review process
- There's too much uncertainty
- Models are rigged to produce desired results
- Finite-difference solving method don't work with a grid this large
- UAH atmospheric temperatures prove climate models and/or surface temperature data sets are wrong
Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
- Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
  - Global warming doesn't affect tropical cyclones
    - AGW doesn't increase hurricane intensity or frequency
- The 2003 heat wave was not caused by global warming
- Drought is not caused by global warming
- Pakistan flood was nothing special
- One-in-1,000-year events happen all the time
- Linking extreme weather to AGW is political opportunism
- There's no link between global warming and extreme weather
- 2010 Russian heatwave
- The connection between Hurricane Sandy and global warming
- Climate change isn't increasing extreme weather damage costs
Sea level rise preceded temperature rise in the past
Wildfires are not caused by global warming
Diurnal Temperature Range is not decreasing
Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use
It's geomagnetic activity
It's the clearing stratosphere
Hot Water Bottle Effect regulates temperature
It's wobble theory
Magnetic polar shift correlates to climate change
It's nuclear bombs
Nuclear testing is causing global warming
It's insects

It's not bad

Climate sensitivity is low
- Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected
- Infrared Iris will reduce global warming
- Negative feedbacks will stabilise climate
  - Growing forests can offset our CO2 emissions
    - Planting a trillion trees will solve global warming
  - Natural weathering will remove excess CO2
  - Early Faint Sun Paradox proves negative feedback
  - Extra plant transpiration-cooling negates CO2 warming
  - Thunderstorms regulate Earth's temperature
  - Negative feedback from vegetation will cancel out global warming
- Carbon cycle amplification less than thought
  - Ferenc Miskolczi proved that CO2 cannot cause runaway climate change
  - Soil microbes provide negative feedback
  - Permafrost feedback won't happen
- Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
- Monckton finds low climate sensitivity
- Chylek finds low climate sensitivity
- We don't need to cut CO2 emissions
- Positive feedback means runaway warming
- Humidity is falling
- Clouds provide negative feedback
- Warming in pipeline is small
- Non-CO2 forcings have higher efficacy
- Spectroscopic study finds low climate sensitivity
- Water vapour levels have fallen since the 1950s hence water vapour does not increase with temperature
- Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
- Schmittner finds low climate sensitivity
- Tropical thermostat limits sea surface temperature to 30°C
- No long tail means climate sensitivity is low
Animals and plants can adapt
- Mosquito migration is unrelated to global warming
- Polar bear numbers are increasing
- Extinctions have always happened and are natural
- Warming will bring more species diversity
- Global warming is actually good for rainforests
There's no such thing as an ideal climate
- Earth was warmer for most of its history
Greenland ice sheet won't collapse
CO2 is not a pollutant
- CO2 is plant food
  - CO2 increases vegetation
  - CO2 is good for plants
- Ocean acidification isn't serious
  - Corals are resilient to bleaching
Gulf stream is stable
Coral reef threat is exaggerated
- Corals survived during past periods of high CO2
- More CO2 increases coral calcification
- Great Barrier Reef is in good shape
Technological breakthroughs will fix global warming
- Better to innovate than mitigate
- Clean coal will save us
Cold spells kill more people than heat waves
Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
- Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising
- Coral atolls grow as sea levels rise
Amazon is not vulnerable to drought
Daily temperature change is much greater than long-term climate change
Major climate change only occurs over geologic time
Heat waves won't become more intense or frequent
Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass
It's only a few degrees
Glacier melt doesn't affect many people
God promised Noah no floods
Melting permafrost is a good thing
Diseases won't spread because of global warming
There is no tipping point
300,000 climate deaths estimate is flawed
Global warming is beneficial
Warmer is better

It's too hard

CO2 limits will harm the economy
- Climate change solutions are too expensive
- Mitigation costs too much
  - Mitigating would cost more than the damages it would prevent
    - Stern used low discount rate
- A carbon price would raise electricity prices
- Renewable energy is too expensive
  - Renewable energy investment kills jobs
  - Productivity Commission says renewables aren't cost-efficient
CO2 limits will hurt the poor
CO2 limits will make little difference
- Kyoto is useless
- CO2 limits won't cool the planet
- CO2 limits will move jobs overseas to less efficient countries
Renewables can't provide baseload power
- Solar panels contribute to global warming
- Wind turbines kill birds
- Nuclear power is the cleanest form of energy
- Gas emissions are 50% better than coal emissions
Efficiency leads to more energy use
Peak oil will make us reduce emissions anyway
Science should keep out of politics
It's not urgent
Electric cars accelerate global warming
Fukushima means fossil fuels are here to stay
Humanity needs energy
Our country shouldn't go first
- Europe pay less carbon tax than us
- Australia emits only 1.5% of global CO2 emissions
Can't accurately measure CO2 emissions
Electromagnetic fields from solar farms are harmful to human health
Toxic heavy metals leach out from solar panels and pose a threat to human health
Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
Clearing trees for solar panels negates any climate change benefits
Solar energy is worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels
Solar projects harm biodiversity
Solar projects will hurt farmers and rural communities
Solar development will destroy jobs
Reliance on solar will make the United States dependent on China and other countries
Utility-scale solar farms destroy the value of nearby homes
Solar energy is more expensive than fossil fuels and completely dependent on subsidies
Solar panels don’t work in cold or cloudy climates
Solar energy is unreliable
We do not have sufficient mineral resources for [large-scale] solar development
Electromagnetic radiation from wind turbines poses a threat to human health
Wind turbines are error prone and a threat to human health and safety
Low-frequency noise from wind turbines harms human health and causes
Shadow flicker from wind turbines can trigger seizures in people with epilepsy
Wind turbines are a major threat to birds, bats, and other wildlife.
Offshore wind development is harmful to whales and other marine life
Producing and transporting wind turbine components releases more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels
Wind turbines will generate an unsustainable amount of waste
Wind turbines take up too much land
Wind power - particularly offshore wind power - is too expensive
Wind turbines are bad for farmers and rural communities
Wind energy is bad for U.S. jobs
Wind turbines destroy nearby property values
Wind energy is unreliable
Wind turbines are very noisy
Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
Electric vehicles will cost the United States many automobile industry jobs
Electric vehicles are impractical due to range restrictions
Electric vehicles cannot function in hot or cold weather

It's too late

Better to adapt than mitigate
- Famine and disease are a higher priority
- CO2 limits take money away from real threats
China pollutes more
Better to geoengineer
It's unstoppable

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