Mark Pickering

The foundational flaw of the climate narrative is the deliberate omission of context. We were told current temperatures and CO₂ levels were unprecedented, yet geological history says the exact opposite. Earth has been locked in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age for the past 34 million years, triggered by the glaciation of Antarctica. On geological timescales, the world's climate state is overwhelmingly driven by tectonic shifts and changing ocean currents. These ice age conditions intensified 2.58 million years ago into the Quaternary glaciation, characterised by long, brutal glacial periods of around 100,000 years, interrupted by temporary, warmer interglacials like the Holocene we live in today. We live in a far cooler global regime than 90% of the past 541 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon. Global average temperatures today sit around 15°C - markedly cooler than the Phanerozoic average of approximately 24°C, which historically swung between cold glacial lows and thermal peaks over 30°C. By historical standards, we are living in unusually cold times. The alarming predictions of extreme warming - such as projections of up to 5°C based on high-emissions models - are increasingly recognised across scientific literature as implausible upper bounds rather than realistic baselines. Atmospheric CO₂ is the indispensable foundation for photosynthesis, agriculture and the rise of complex life on Earth. Rather than suffering from an excess of carbon, the modern Earth has emerged from a long-term geological carbon shortfall - a prolonged period during which lower CO₂ levels contributed to global aridity and the retreat of ancient green biomass. An increase in atmospheric CO₂ represents life's biological resurgence. Acting as a natural fertiliser, it stimulates plant growth, improves water-use efficiency, and expands the planet's green canopy - a transformation clearly visible from satellite observation. The natural world has endured genuine, cataclysmic upheavals in the deep past. The great extinction events and climate shifts of history - such as the Carnian Pluvial Episode or the End-Permian transition - played out over tens of thousands to millions of years. Yet through every transformation, the biosphere adapted, survived and ultimately thrived. These events became opportunities for new life forms to emerge, such as the dinosaurs, and us. When the planet experienced sustained greenhouse conditions, life did not collapse - it flourished. During the Eocene Epoch 56 million years ago, palm trees grew in the Arctic, permanent ice disappeared from the poles and lush rainforests blanketed much of the planet's landmass. Far from a barren wasteland, the Eocene was a time of astonishing biological abundance, dense vegetation and a massive evolutionary radiation of mammalian life. The lessons of history show us that warmer conditions and elevated carbon levels are not the forces of destruction; historically, they have been the catalysts for biological growth and global greening. IMAGE: Global mean surface temperature curve over the past 485 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon, showing Earth's current position within a deep icehouse regime. Data adapted from paleoclimate reconstructions by C.R. Scotese et al. (2021) and E.J. Judd et al. Science (2024).

Dramatic predictions of a 5.5°C rise by 2100 are now dismissed as 'implausible' - and planet Earth is not even remotely facing runaway warming. The United Nations warming scenario is now widely acknowledged by scientists as implausible. We also live within a cooler ice age regime that has lasted tens of millions of years. Global temperatures remain a full 9°C colder than the 24°C average spanning the past 485 million years (Judd et al., Science 2024). Also, world temperatures have only changed by up to 1.4°C over the roughly 250 years since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is not sufficient justification for a crisis. First introduced in 2011 to guide policy, this extreme scenario - known as RCP8.5 (and later SSP5-8.5) - served as the primary engine for the terrifying headlines for over a decade. With the retirement of the extreme 5.5°C baseline ahead of the 7th Assessment Report (AR7), the ceiling for high-emissions temperature projections has been dropped. The IPCC's high-end baselines have been downgraded toward a maximum around 3.3°C, and even this is likely to be just as implausible. Perhaps this is why the latest AR7 committee hearings have just been suspended. Changes in CO₂ concentrations do not automatically trigger runaway temperatures. The world is too complex, and too many other factors have been left out. Any analysis of past climate reveals the world does not have a single temperature or a single climate; these are computerised composites, designed to maximise existential dread. A lift in CO₂ has already delivered measurable green leaf expansion across the world, as captured by NASA satellite data. Some cereal crop yields have jumped by 280%. CO₂ is a trace atmospheric gas - around 420 parts per million - which is among the lowest concentrations in all geological history, while the atmosphere is over 99% nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, with water vapor exceeding CO₂ many times over. This deceptive original scenario - promoted heavily through the UN and the media - galvanised Net Zero and unleashed global hysteria. It forced the premature decline of reliable energy systems across the West and deindustrialised heavy industry. The West's arch competitor, China, inherited the title of the world's greatest manufacturing nation in history. Now Beijing provides around 90% of the world's turbines, solar panels and components. Its industrial power is built on the world's greatest volume of coal-fired power stations. It is also the world's largest annual emitter of carbon dioxide, producing roughly 30% to 33% of global carbon dioxide emissions annually - releasing over 13 billion tons per year. This is the greatest transfer of wealth in history - without a shot fired in anger.

Earth's atmosphere is 99.96% nitrogen, oxygen and argon - yet carbon dioxide is less than a tenth of 1%. A global climate franchise based around the United Nations, has driven a 40-year campaign, based on CO₂ as an existential threat to the future of mankind. However, fundamental planetary physics and geology contradict this agenda, which has caused disruption and widespread industrial decline in Western nations. The warming effect of additional atmospheric CO₂ follows a descending logarithmic curve: each incremental 100 ppm yields roughly only half the warming effect of the preceding 100 ppm. Far from triggering runaway warming, additions of 2 to 3 ppm per year represent a vital biological recovery following hundreds of millions of years of long-term planetary CO₂ depletion. Geologically speaking, Earth - and human society - is in a cooler ice age regime, making current interglacial warming and carbon bounce-back a welcome restoration of the biological world, not a threat. We live in a world already several degrees colder than temperatures throughout 90% of this biological age. The tangible evidence of a decades long biological revival has become visible from space. NASA satellite imagery demonstrates widespread 'global greening', particularly across arid and semi-desert margins where elevated CO₂ allows vegetation to retain water and flourish. Farm produce has soared, cereal crops by 280%. This green leaf recovery has been met only with brooding silence from corporate boardrooms and the UN. It's not driven by the physics of climate, but mapped out in economic spreadsheets, for a spending effort unmatched in world history. The oceans are the key to the vagueries of the world's climate. They cover 72% of the Earth's surface area to an average depth of 2.3 miles, yet they have been conspicuously absent from the climate manifesto, coined by the IPCC. The oceans also contain 86% of Earth’s surface carbon reservoir. They dominate the world's climate systems, generating global rainfall, cloud cover and water vapor. Oceans also provide the bulk of plant and algae photosynthesis, and oxygen regeneration. This comes from microscopic phytoplankton, making up less than 2% of global plant biomass. These single-celled organisms generate up to 80% of Earth’s oxygen and perform nearly half of all global photosynthesis. Processing between 30 and 50 billion metric tons of carbon annually, phytoplankton match the carbon capture capability of all terrestrial forests combined. Marine dynamics are profound: as oceans warm, they naturally release CO₂; as they cool, they absorb and retain it. Deep ocean currents carry tropical warm upwards to the otherwise frigid Northern Hemisphere over thousand year cycles. Despite these physical realities, the UN climate franchise marches onwards, a wayward experiment expected to cost the world $275 trillion by 2050, or more than two-and-a-half times global GDP.

The Illusion of a Climate Crisis: Part 1 of a 2-part series. To understand the true nature of Earth’s climate, don't look through the narrow window of recent decades, but at the vast expanse of geological history. When viewed through the lens of deep-time, the current narrative of a impending 'climate crisis' doom is fundamentally disconnected from planetary reality. The evidence of history suggests the modern climate agenda is a highly orchestrated political and financial mechanism, designed to reshape human society, weaken sovereignty and consolidate global control. The foundational flaw of the climate narrative is the omission of context. We were told current temperatures and carbon dioxide levels were unprecedented, yet geological history tells the exact opposite story. For the past 34 million years—since the glaciation of Antarctica driven by tectonic shifts and changing ocean currents—Earth has been locked in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age. These conditions intensified 2.58 million years ago into the Quaternary glaciation, characterised by long, brutal glacial periods interrupted only briefly by temporary, warmer interglacials, like the one we live in today. During the Phanerozoic Eon—the last 541 million years of exploding biological diversity—global temperatures averaged between 18°C and 26°C, several degrees warmer than today’s average of roughly 15°C. Furthermore, rather than suffering from an excess of carbon, Earth has been experiencing a long-term carbon decline. Prior to the industrial era, low CO2 levels contributed to global aridity, the retreat of biomass and the loss of ancient rainforests. An increase in atmospheric CO2 represents an opportunity for life, acting as a fertiliser that stimulates biological growth and expands the planet's carrying capacity. The natural world has endured genuine, cataclysmic upheavals. The great extinction events of the past—such as the Carnian Pluvial Episode or the End-Permian extinction—played out over tens of thousands to millions of years. Yet the biological world survived and adapted. When the planet did experience sustained, greenhouse conditions, life didn't collapse—it flourished. During the Eocene Epoch around 56 million years ago, a genuine planetary hothouse emerged. Palm trees grew in the Arctic, ice disappeared from the poles, and lush rainforests blanketed 85% of the Earth's landmass. Far from a wasteland, the Eocene was a time of astonishing biological abundance of food and driving a massive radiation of mammalian life. History proves that warmer conditions are not to be feared; they are catalysts for biological resilience and growth. A central argument used to manufacture an emergency today is the pace of recent changes. Between 1900 and 2000, global atmospheric CO2 rose from approximately 300 ppm to 370 ppm, accompanied by a modest temperature rise of 1.1°C to 1.4°C. However, there is absolutely no precedent in Earth’s geological record for a permanent, fundamental climate shift occurring on a timescale of mere decades. The cyclical shifts of the ice ages are driven by the Milankovitch Cycles—long-term variations in Earth’s orbit—not by minor decadal fluctuations in trace gases. The brief fluctuations of past decades do not constitute evidence of a climate crisis; they are evidence of a temporary, microscopic blip in geological time. The oceans and the natural world face no structural threat of collapse. If the data does not support a climate emergency, what is driving the relentless push for global decarbonisation? The answer isn't environmental, it's institutional. The coordinated destabilisation of global energy production is a remarkably recent phenomenon, beginning in earnest after 1988. It follows a bureaucratic blueprint designed to foster public fear and justify a massive restructuring of the human world. IMAGE: we have to look past recent decades and view the vast expanse of geological history.