This BBC presentation is as bogus as Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. CO2 does not track temperature, and the hockey stick in the last graph is a deliberate misrepresentation (a lie). A bit of a long thread below.

This is the reconstruction of global temperature based on ice core analysis from Antarctica. The present interglacial period is seen on the right. The preceding four interglacials are seen at about 125,000, 280,000, 325,000 & 415,000 years before now, with long glacial periods in between.

All four previous interglacials were warmer (1-3 degC) than the present. The typical length of a glacial period is about 100,000 years, while an interglacial period typically lasts for about 10-15,000 years. The present interglacial period has now lasted about 11,600 years.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations during all four (warmer) prior interglacials never rose above ~290 ppm. CO2 concentration today is above 400 ppm. Yet the present interglacial is about 2 degC colder than the previous interglacial, even though CO2 concentration now is +100 ppm higher.

During the last 4000 years, the Greenland record is dominated by a trend towards lower temperatures indicating the early stages of a coming ice age. In addition to this overall temperature decline, there have been a number of temperature peaks, with ~1000 year intervals.

The past temperature changes show little (if any) relation to the past atmospheric CO2 content as shown in the lower panel of the second graph. Initially, until around 7000 years before now, temperatures generally increase, even though the amount of atmospheric CO2 decreases. No net effect of CO2 on temperature can be identified. It is therefore obvious that significant climatic changes occur without being controlled by atmospheric CO2. Other phenomena have been the main control on global temperature for the last 11,000 years.

The global meteorological record begins in the final part of the Little Ice Age, and documents the temperature increase since about 1915. The temperature increase documented by meteorological records simply represents the temperature recovery following the cold Little Ice Age.

The climate debate is whether this a natural temperature recovery, or caused by atmospheric CO2. The temperature increase 1975-2000 is not unique when compared with past records, and the net effect on temperature by atmospheric CO2 is obviously very small or absent. Considering that an enormous amount of CO2 has been emitted in the last 25years, there’s been no warming.

We’re looking at tiny changes over a tiny period. If each year on Earth was represented by 1mm, the entire chart would be ~4600 km long. Modern humans would appear within the last 200m and the global meteorological record since 1850 would take up the last 16cm. Satellite observations would fit into the final 3 cm.

Note that they never talk about the Medieval Warm Period. For five centuries, Europe basked in warm, settled weather, with only the occasional bitter winters, cool summers and memorable storms. Summer after summer passed with long, dreamy days, golden sunlight and bountiful harvests. Compared with what was to follow, these centuries were a climatic golden age. Then came the Little Ice Age. Cold winters increased starvation and caused famine. Many people died of the cold because they couldn't adapt and many people struggled to find food. Crops failed as they weren't suitable or adapted to the environment of the Little Ice Age.

If CO2 is the driving force of global temperature, and ~80% of all human emissions have been made since 1980, why have we seen no warming since 1998? What we’ve seen is torturous data adjustments to cool the past and warm the present. I think a CO2 101 is necessary here so everyone understands why the sceptical case holds water and why you shouldn’t buy into the alarm. We know that adding more CO2 to a jar in a lab causes the air to retain more heat. That's measured and proven. But here's the rub: Doubling CO2 from, say, 300 ppm (parts per million) to 600 ppm will cause about 1.2 degrees of warming. To get a further degree of warming, you need to double again to 1200 ppm. That's fact, not theory. The 0.01% increase from 0.03% to 0.04% in atmospheric CO2 has demonstrably not caused any harm and is well within the natural variability. Therefore, the next 0.1% increase which is due by mid century is extremely unlikely to cause any harm either. The planet has run this experiment before. A doubling of CO2 cannot on its own produce dangerous warming. That's basic science not understood by almost everyone.

The entire global warming boondoggle rests on the hypothesis that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will cause a positive feedback of increased water vapour. But guess what? Empirical data and observations show that this theory falls flat and there might even be a negative feedback. Imagine that. Where we can measure an effect of additional CO2 is in the biosphere, which has been measured, and we now know that there has been a 14% increase in green vegetation over the last 30 years. That's because CO2 is plant food and more of that is good for life on earth.

It's pretty clear that 'catastrophic human-induced global warming' is nonsense and that any warming caused by our emissions cannot be reliably separated from natural variability. I think most genuine scientists actually understand that, which is why we hear so much talk about climate change instead. So let's look at that. Snow cover will fall. Nope. Cyclones will increase. Nope. Droughts will get worse. Nope. Arctic sea ice gone by 2013. Nope. Accelerated glacier retreat. Nope. Accelerated sea level rise. Nope. In 1988, Hansen said that by 2000 "the west side USA highway will be underwater and they'll need tape across windows because of high winds". Fifteen years ago, Gore said that within ten years we would have reached the point of no return. 350 .org was created to keep us at 350ppm or face catastrophe. We're at +400ppm now and Armageddon isn't upon us.

Models IPCC "111 of the 114 available climate model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations". What that means they have failed spectacularly. In 1990, the IPCC stated that in the decades since then we would see temperatures increase at 0.3 deg.C. They were wrong. Global satellite and weather ballon radiosonde datasets tell a different story of 0.18 which fits neatly into natural variability. Remember when they said 50% of warming is man made? Yep .. models. Climate models are designed with a positive feedback amplifying factor (the theory) and they have been proved wrong by factors of 3-8. According to the theory, there should be extra water vapour held at high altitudes from warming oceans. Real world data shows significantly less sensitivity to the point that the model runs are a bad joke, but they’re still used to drive energy policy.

Observations over the last four decades show us that the models are wildly wrong and the rate of warming falls into natural variability unremarkable to anything seen in the past. But instead of changing the model inputs to match the real world data, the richly funded alarmists dig in and adjust the data to match their previous conclusions. This is fraud on an epic scale. Worse, anyone who questions their numbers is automatically discredited, called a 'denier' and hit over the head with the Hockey Stick. Truth is arrived at in science by challenging theories, but that's not allowed in this field and it’s deeply sinister. Look at what's happening; sceptical scientists and journalists hounded out of their jobs, or the BBC removing content that goes against the climate party line.

So why is this happening? Several reasons, but political ideologies and vested interests are by far the main culprits. The climate agenda brings rent-seekers money. It generates many many billions in funding for many many people who link their work to climate change to keep the money rolling in. The government gives them money to prove something, so they do. A very positive feedback! There is no climate emergency. We're told that the safe reliable energy that feeds us, transports us, and has given us everything we have is bad and must be replaced with unreliable dilute energy that fills the pockets of rent seekers. Worse, it diverts money away from serious energy research that would actually end the fossil fuel age.

Here's why it matters: Climate policies are hugely expensive and hit the poorest the hardest. But it's not just the economic costs. There's are huge environmental costs. Forest destruction from burning wood, ethanol and biodiesel. Poor people are being denied reliable energy to get out of poverty and everyone knows that poor regions hurt the environment the most. We're ruining natural habitats by turning landscapes, rivers, estuaries, hills, fields and forests into power stations that make crap, expensive, unreliable energy when we don't have to. Bird slicing, bat chomping, eco-crucifixes are slaughtering species on a biblical scale. Green? Don't make me laugh. This has nothing to do with the environment. It's all about money and control.