On Friday 26th June, I went to a screening of a
film called the “People’s Emergency Briefing.” It was, as I expected, an
environmental alarmist’s wet dream. As one of the most anti-nett-zero people in
the whole UK, this was not my normal kind of fare. However, if you have an
opportunity to find out, for free and in some detail, what your enemy is doing,
it seems silly to pass it up.
I went with a friend who is treasurer of our Reform UK
branch in Godalming and Ash, for which I am campaign manager. He is very active
on social media, on which the screening was being pushed for some days
previously, and he thought it might be good for me to come along and take a
look from my skeptical point of view. This was, to my knowledge, the second
screening of this film in our area, the first having been announced on public
billboards and having taken place on June 12th.
It was no surprise why this was being hyped. The Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday of that week had seen a “red alert warning” from the Met
Office for unusually high temperatures in the local area. The Met Office would
surely have seen a month or so ahead the potential for that kind of thing. That
explains the timing!
The Wednesday heat-wave and its aftermath
As it happens, I enjoy hot weather a lot, as long as it
isn’t too humid. So, I found Wednesday in particular very pleasant. I strolled
around the local lake to see how the wildlife were faring. Because of the heat,
it was mercifully free from the usual dog-walkers.
At home, I captured some screen dumps of forecast and
observed temperatures from the Met Office website, and formed them into a
coherent article. I sent it to “the world’s most viewed site on global warming
and climate change,” where I have published several times before. Happily, they
accepted it.
So, by 6AM on Thursday, the article was up: [[1]].
It has generated 145 comments to date (Sunday 28th), most of them
about the new “June record” temperatures reported by the Met Office and the BBC.
Those who care to read the comments will be able to pick out those on the two sides
of the arguments, not only by what they say, but often also by how they say it.
Alarmists do like ad hominems.
The National Emergency Briefing
Before I went to the screening, I decided to look at how
this film came about. It is being advertised by an organization called the
National Emergency Briefing [[2]].
It describes itself as “the result of leading experts and concerned citizens
joining forces to encourage UK decision-makers to step up their response to the
escalating climate and nature crisis.” You can download the statements of their
“leading experts” (11-page PDF) from [[3]].
Their stated immediate target is “a prime-time televised
emergency briefing to the nation.”
I thought I should give you a little information on the
leaders of the organization, the experts who provided the briefing notes, and
the film-makers.
The leaders
Prof Mike Berners-Lee
The chair of the organization is Professor Mike Berners-Lee
of Lancaster University. He is the brother of the man called by some “the
inventor of the World Wide Web.” Here are some of his published journal
articles:
1)
(2011) The relative greenhouse gas impacts of
realistic dietary choices.
2)
(2013) Mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions
embodied in food through realistic consumer choices.
3)
(2016) The distributional and nutritional
impacts and mitigation potential of emission-based food taxes in the UK.
4)
(2022) Our house is on fire: The climate
emergency and computing's responsibility.
And here is his introduction to the “National Emergency
Briefing,” which was held in November 2025 at the Central Hall, Westminster: [[4]].
Simon and Nick Oldridge
Next, the two individuals who front the organization. “This
initiative is spearheaded by brothers Simon and Nick Oldridge, climate funders
and communicators, with a background in business.” They organized the meeting at
the Central Hall which “brought together over 1,200 people – MPs, business
leaders, faith leaders, media, unions, and more – to hear unvarnished science
on how the climate and nature crises are already impacting health, food,
security, and the economy in the UK.”
Dr Victoria Harvey
The individual who put together the document is Dr Victoria
Harvey: [[5]].
CAST is the “Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations.” She “examines
institutional mechanisms towards low carbon transformations with a focus on the
UK advertising industry.” And works with Mike Berners-Lee in other contexts,
too.
Moreover, some of the CAST team to which she belongs are
based at a charity called “Climate Outreach.” This “works with people and
organisations to help create new climate stories.” And promises “new adaptation
research” with “the latest insights on how to tell the story of a resilient
future and build support for the solutions we need to implement at scale.”
The experts
Prof Hayley Fowler
Prof Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the
School of Engineering at Newcastle University. She has a particular interest in
water engineering. Here are some of her published journal articles:
1)
(2014) Heavier summer downpours with climate
change revealed by weather forecast resolution model.
2)
(2021) Anthropogenic intensification of
short-duration rainfall extremes.
She also, in 2005 and 2007, co-authored two papers with Phil
Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Yes, that
Phil Jones – of Climategate fame.
Prof Kevin Anderson
Prof Anderson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at
the University of Manchester. He is a former deputy director of the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research: [[6]]. Which
“seeks to understand the impacts of climate change and inform the transition to
a sustainable, low-carbon and resilient future.”
“His analysis previously contributed to the framing of the
UK’s Climate Change Act and the development of national carbon budgets.” He has
also published a video on behalf of Just Stop Oil: [[7]]. There
is a transcript, here: [[8]]. He
describes himself there as “an engineer,” and he quotes Gramsci approvingly.
Prof Tim Lenton
Prof Lenton is “Chair in Climate Change and Earth System
Science and was the founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the
University of Exeter.” He “works with policymakers and businesses helping them
assess the risks of climate change and nature loss and highlighting the
opportunities for ‘positive tipping points’ that can accelerate change towards
net zero.” His “Global Tipping Points Report,” produced in partnership with
Bezos Earth Fund, was published at the UN climate conference in 2023.
His career included a spell as Reader and then Professor at
the University of East Anglia at Norwich, which overlapped the Climategate
scandal.
Prof Nathalie Seddon
Prof Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity and Founding
Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative in the Departments of Biology
and Geography (Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment) at the
University of Oxford.
“I advise governments and the private sector on nature-based
solutions to ensure their implementation supports biodiversity and enhances
wellbeing.” And she was “academic co-lead for the UK’s first People’s Assembly
for Nature.”
Prof Paul Behrens
Prof Behrens is at Oxford Martin School. He “is a professor
in environmental change and works on a broad range of sustainability challenges
– particularly in climate change, food, and energy.” He is a “British Academy
Global Professor,” and he urges “a Great Food Transformation to reduce
environmental harm and to increase food system resilience.”
Prof Hugh Montgomery
Prof Montgomery is the Chair of Intensive Care Medicine
(Honorary Consultant) at University College London. And he had no direct
involvement with SAGE, lockdowns or compulsory vaccinations. So far, so good.
Yet, he also founded this: [[9]].
In which Mike Berners-Lee is also involved. Oh, and Paul Ekins – one of the
economists that in the 2000s helped government change the rules to make it
impossible to do an honest cost-benefit analysis on “nett zero” and similar
projects.
Lt Gen Richard Nugee
The idea of a military general embracing the “climate
emergency” nonsense is laughable. “If we’re attacked, we mustn’t fire back ’cos
climate change.” Enough said.
Angela Francis
“Director of Policy Solutions at WWF-UK where she leads the
teams working on climate, finance, economics, production, and consumption
policy.” Also associated with the Grantham Institute at Imperial College,
London: [[10]].
Tessa Khan
Executive director of Uplift, a research and advocacy
organisation that “undertakes research, analysis and campaigning to support a
rapid and fair transition away from oil and gas production in the UK.” “A
lawyer with the Urgenda Foundation and co-founder of the Climate Litigation
Network.” [[11]].
The film-makers
Chris Packham
“Organised the writing of a manifesto for UK wildlife in
2018 which he delivered to Downing Street via The Peoples Walk for Wildlife.” [[12]].
Deborah Meaden
“Meaden co-presents The Big Green Money Show for BBC Radio 5
live, alongside Felicity Hannah. The series of weekly episodes began in March
2022 and covers actions being taken by businesses and individuals in response
to climate change.” [[13]].
To sum up the personnel
These are not scientists. Most of their expertise is in
impacts, policy, climate communication, “sustainability,” “transformations,” “creating
stories” (including film-making), or advocacy.
They seem well equipped to heighten levels of alarm among
those already pre-disposed to believe that human industrial civilization is
destroying the planet. But they won’t convince those who, like me, demand
objective evidence and proof beyond reasonable doubt of any accusation levelled
against us, whether individually or in aggregate.
The briefing notes
I pass to the briefing notes themselves.
Weather Extremes
This page sets the tone for the rest. A long list of scares
– many of which are not even supported by the conclusions of the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). And some are obviously biased –
for example, stressing the killing potential of heatwaves while ignoring the
fact that far more people die from cold extremes than from hot ones.
There is a conclusion, without any justification: “until we
stop burning fossil fuels, extreme weather will continue to get worse.” Well
actually, I thought the heat wave was rather nice.
Climate
This page states baldly that human-caused CO2
“has driven up average temperatures by around 1.5oC compared to
pre-industrial levels.” And it says “We now risk 3oC or 4oC
warming by the end of the century.” While ignoring at least the following:
1)
Temperatures haven’t actually gone up as much as
1.5oC in that time.
2)
How do we know that the rise was due to human
activities? For example, in the Holocene Climate Optimum, 6,000 to 8,000 years
ago, it was warmer than now. What caused that?
3)
Even if some of the rise was human-caused, how
do we know it was due to CO2, not for example to land use change or
the urban heat island effect?
4)
And the big question – isn’t a warmer world
likely to be a better world? If not, why not?
It then gives a list of “solutions,” which would be
unaffordable, if not also destructive of our human freedoms; even if there was
a real problem to “solve.” It also demands a future of “private sufficiency and
public luxury.” Which, if I read it right, means that a privileged class and
their cronies – including these film-makers and “experts” – will live lives of
luxury, for which the rest of us will be forced to pay.
But that’s how things already are today – isn’t it?
Nature
“When we destroy nature,” pontificates the author, “we
expose ourselves to escalating risks.” Yet it is never stated exactly what are
the visible signs of this destruction of nature, or how it is to be measured,
or how responsibility is to be apportioned among those who cause it. This is
just a ploy to try to make people feel guilty. The rest of the page is no
better.
Further, for me, anyone paid with taxpayers’ money, who
places the interests of other species ahead of the interests of those
taxpayers, is a traitor to the people they are supposed to serve.
Tipping Points
This is merely a load of unsupported scares, to try to wind
up people’s emotions to get the gullible among them to scream for “action.”
Food Security
If you care about food security, you absolutely must
avoid repeating what happened in Sri Lanka in 2022. There, environmentalist
policies forced on the people by the Rajapaksa régime caused a famine. The best way towards food
security is for politicians and “experts” to get out of the way, and let
farmers farm as they see fit, and learn what works and what not.
Health
This one takes the cake. “We need transformational change
now if we’re going to survive.”
Quite right, sirrah! You (the “experts”) will need
transformational change, if you’re going to survive the backlash that will come
when the mass of ordinary people finally realize all that you have been doing
to them with your scares and lies, your “transformations,” your “tipping
points” and all the rest.
Economics
That the page on Economics was written by someone from the
WWF, says all you need to know about the competences of this team.
National Security
“Don’t shoot! We’ll break our carbon budget!”
Energy Transition
This page was written by a political activist, not an energy
analyst. It repeats one of the slipperiest of the green lies – that renewable
energy is “more affordable” than traditional fuels. In reality, when you take
into account the costs of backup to meet demand when there’s no wind or sun,
and grid balancing to keep the system stable when renewable outputs vary,
renewables become far more expensive than gas, coal or nuclear energy. That is why
the price of electricity, relative to gas, has gone higher and higher as more
renewables have come online.
To sum up
Policies like the ones put forward by this National
Emergency Briefing will not fix any “climate and nature crisis.” (That’s even if
there actually was such a thing in reality – for which, they provide no
objective evidence at all).
Such policies will merely destroy what is left of our
economy, as well as all our rights and freedoms. While unjustly enriching the
very class that are responsible for those policies.
The screening
To the screening itself. There were about 100 people there,
in a hall with an audience capacity of about 150. Those who introduced the
meeting stated that there had been around 1,800 screenings of the film in the
UK.
The major sponsor of the screening was Godalming Town
Council. I have written about this council before: [[14]].
Being Lib Dem controlled but with a sizeable Green presence too, it is arguably
one of the greenest and most “woke” town councils in the UK. Several town
councillors were in attendance, along with some from Waverley Borough Council
too.
I was disappointed, but not surprised, that the introducers
did not mention the recent withdrawal by the IPCC of the high-end emissions
scenario called “RCP8.5” because it is “no longer plausible.” A lot of the most
alarming climate predictions that have been reported were based on this
scenario, usually without saying so. Therefore, all the worst pictures of
climate doom, that have been painted by alarmists around the world, ought to
have been reviewed, and withdrawn if they were based on assumptions found to be
no longer plausible. But this hasn’t happened, of course: the last thing
alarmists want is to dilute their message!
There was to be a “facilitated discussion” in small groups after
the film. There would be no opportunity for individuals from the audience to
ask questions. A great pity and, one might say, an implicit admission of the
weakness of the case the film presents.
The film followed the outlines of the briefing document
quite closely. I will not, therefore, say much more about its content. But one thing
I noticed is that there was more emphasis than before on adaptation (dealing
with problems as you encounter them) as opposed to mitigation (trying to
prevent warming happening). Considering that the focus of climate policies to
date has been mitigation, a move towards adaptation is a welcome turn towards
sanity. Moreover, it implies that, even in the minds of the alarmists, “nett
zero” has failed. Which should give us some moral ammunition when time comes to
repeal it.
Overall, I felt like an atheist who had strayed into a
church service. In the kind of church that does not allow anyone to criticize
any of its dogmas, however false or silly they might be. One carefully selected
audience member was even allowed to say “We’re obviously converted, because
we’re here.” In the end, my friend and I walked out. Not for show, but because
we were bored.
My friend provided this feedback to the organizers: [[15]].
He is far more generous than I am! But he described the film as: “extremely biased,
selective evidence, contradictory, dystopian and heavily Left-leaning
propaganda.”
To sum up
This film strikes me as almost an exact time-mirror of Al
Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” That film pushed for “climate action” at a time
when interest in the subject was increasing. This one is seeking – with the
dishonesty typical of alarmists – to use a single weather event to re-kindle
interest, at a time when large numbers of people, having felt the adverse
economic effects of climate policies, have tuned out and turned away from the
issue.
I have been studying this subject area in some detail for
very nearly 20 years now. The film did nothing to shift, or even to loosen my
confidence in, my views. I do not deny that the world has warmed over the last 350
years or so, including the last 150; but I do dispute how much of the warming
is proven due to the various possible causes. In particular, I consider the
contribution of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to be far less than
the alarmists think.
So, I do not accept that there is a “climate crisis,” or
anything like it. Nor do I accept, without seeing objective evidence and proof
of my culpability, any accusation that I have destroyed (or even damaged) nature.
I still regard the “escalating climate and nature crisis” hype as, even at best, a storm in a teacup. I am all but certain that the whole thing is a total fraud. And I look forward to the day when the green lies, scares and illusions are finally shattered, and we set about bringing to justice, and claiming reparations from, those responsible for them.
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