The stupidest climate-change article of the year? So far?

weekend blog

I have just come across what may be the most idiotic climate-change article of the year so far – a Euronews article claiming that climate change is triggering an increasing number of earthquakes:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/02/09/climate-change-is-triggering-more-earthquakes-big-oils-interests-are-a-factor

It’s almost worth reading the article to understand how deranged the climate catastrophists are becoming.

The author claims that: ‘As melting glaciers change the distribution of weight across the Earth�s crust, the resulting “glacial isostatic adjustment” drives changes in plate tectonics�that could lead to more earthquakes,�awaken volcanoes and even affect the movement of the Earth�s axis.’

The author goes on to say: ‘Unfortunately, it is not just earthquakes. Climate and weather-related disasters�have surged five-fold�over the past five decades, killing over two million people, with 91% of the casualties in developing countries. And it is only getting worse.’

And the author concludes by blaming ‘Big Oil’: ‘Fossil fuel companies bear significant responsibility for the climate emergency yet enjoy near-total impunity. At the same time, they are consistently reaping record profits � while ordinary citizens across the globe struggle to pay their household bills.’

Nonsense on stilts?

Let’s try to deal with these three claims.

Melting glaciers causing earthquakes?

The eminent ‘expert’ claims that “melting glaciers change the distribution of weight across the Earth�s crust”. But I could equally well claim that the more glaciers there are, the heavier the weight on the Earth’s tectonic plates and therefore fewer glaciers will mean less weight on the tectonic plates. Moreover, the big glacier melt happened between 16,000 and 6,000 years ago when sea levels rose about 120 metres (120 cms per 100 years) compared to today’s rise of between 7cms and 20 cms per century (depending on whose figures you believe):

Of course, we don’t know how many earthquakes there were per year between 16,000 and 6,000 years ago. But given the relatively minor sea-level rise over the last century one might be tempted to doubt that melting glaciers really are causing the Earth’s tectonic nervous breakdown

Climate and weather disasters are getting worse?

Oddly, the figures tell us the exact opposite. In the last century climate-related deaths have fallen by over 90% even as atmospheric CO2 has risen from 300 parts per million to around 420 parts per million:

Here’s a chart of the main natural disaster deaths from 1900 to 2016:

And here’s another one:

‘Big Oil’ is to blame for the ‘climate emergency’

First of all, there is no climate emergency. In fact, as I explain in my book THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS, we’ve never had it so good.

Extreme poverty has fallen dramatically:

Until, the Chinese lab-leaked plague, fife expectancy around the world was rising:

And crop yields were continuously increasing:

And most of these improvements in the human condition have been mainly due to the availability of cheap, reliable fossil-fuel energy and fossil-fuel products

But I guess the moral of the story is that you can get any old rubbish published as long as you blame climate change.

What about earthquakes?

Here’s a mapping of the main earthquake zones which, of course follow the tectonic plates:

To fully understand if earthquakes are increasing you’d have to analyse all earthquakes each year and then maybe multiply each one by its severity on the Richter scale to give an approximation of each year’s seismic activity.

I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to do this. But I had a quick check on the 20 worst earthquakes in modern times and found that there seem to be clusters. There were 3 major earthquakes in the 1960s and 7 since the year 2000. So, looking just at recent history, it would be correct to sat there has been a rise in major earthquakes. But I humbly suggest this has absolutely nothing to do with supposed anthropogenic climate change: