copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: Antarctic sea-ice extent is increasing to record levels. Antarctica is getting colder; its sea ice and ice cap are not melting (Judith Curry and Don Easterbrook, 2023-04-28)
Evidence (2024-01-01): Sea ice does not simply grow and melt in one place. Sea ice is almost continually in motion, except in coastal regions where ice grows out from, and stays attached to, the shore like fast ice. The motion of ice results from a balance of forces defined by Newton's Second Law: [...] In contrast to the Arctic, the Antarctic has no surrounding land boundary for the northward flowing sea ice to run into, so the ice flows northward until it melts in warmer oceans and air temperatures. Because of this, Antarctic sea ice is younger and thinner, on average, than ice in the Arctic. Most sea ice in the Antarctic is less than a year old. [...] - Sea ice melts during the summer, and the surface temperature increases to the freezing point. Melting sea ice is difficult to distinguish from the surrounding ocean that is also near the freezing point.
Claim: Antarctic sea-ice extent is increasing to record levels. Antarctica is getting colder; its sea ice and ice cap are not melting (Judith Curry and Don Easterbrook, 2023-04-28)
Evidence (2023-03-14): The sea ice satellite record dates back to October 25, 1978. Unlike the Arctic, where sea ice extent is declining in all areas in all seasons, Antarctic trends are less apparent. From 1979–2017, Antarctic-wide sea ice extent showed a slightly positive trend overall, although some regions experienced declines. Those exceptions have primarily occurred around the Antarctic Peninsula. The region south and west of the Antarctic Peninsula has shown a persistent decline, but this downward trend is small compared to the high variability of Antarctic sea ice overall. Another region near the northern tip of the Peninsula, in the Weddell Sea, showed strong sea ice declines until 2006, but the ice in that region rebounded in the 2010s; most recently it has declined slightly again. The eastern Ross Sea region has shown a modest increase in ice extent over the same period. Overall, the long-term trend in Antarctic sea ice is nearly flat. (in contrast, the glaciers and ice sheets over land in Antarctica are losing mass.) The satellite record spans more than four decades, and although the ice has shown increasing and decreasing trends over portions of that record, few of those trends have been statistically significant. Year-to-year variability has dominated, especially over the last decade. Since the year 2013, Antarctic sea ice has exhibited its highest and lowest extents in the entire record—the highest-ever winter maximum occurred in September 2014, and the lowest-ever summer minimum was in February 2023. But the overall trend, as of early 2023, is close to zero.
Claim: Antarctic sea-ice extent is increasing to record levels. Antarctica is getting colder; its sea ice and ice cap are not melting (Judith Curry and Don Easterbrook, 2023-04-28)
Evidence (2016-08-16): Over the course of the satellite record dating back to 1979, Antarctic sea ice exhibited a mix of above- and below-average extents with a minimal trend. In September 2014, Antarctic sea ice reached its highest extent on record. Over the years 2013 to 2015, Antarctic sea ice extents were mostly above the long-term average. Beginning in 2016, Antarctic sea ice extents mostly fell below the long-term average. In 2023, Antarctic sea ice reached record-low extents at both the time of the annual minimum (February) and maximum (September). The September 2023 low extent in Antarctic sea ice was the lowest on record by a wide margin.
Claim: Antarctic sea-ice extent is increasing to record levels. Antarctica is getting colder; its sea ice and ice cap are not melting (Judith Curry and Don Easterbrook, 2023-04-28)
Evidence (2023-02-11): Characteristics of Antarctic sea ice | Increasing Antarctic sea ice | Wind and movement | Changes to sea surface temperatures | Increased precipitation | Difficulty in measurement | Climate model simulations of sea-ice trends | Summary | References | Comments | [...] The increase in total Antarctic sea ice extent 1978-2012 is slightly positive at 1.5 ± 0.3% per decade[4]. On a seasonal basis, the trends in ice extent and ice area per decade are: [...] Sea ice in Antarctica floats northwards to warmer waters, where it melts away almost entirely. Changes in the winds around Antarctica therefore change ice-concentration trends around Antarctica [8] by influencing sea-ice production and melt rates [9]. The pattern of wind change is complex, but variations in winds can help to explain some of the regional patterns in sea-ice formation [8]. Where the wind blows to the north, the sea ice is blown north where it melts, resulting in increased sea-ice extent. Where the winds blow south, the sea ice is blown towards the continent, resulting in decreased sea-ice concentrations.
Claim: Antarctic sea-ice extent is increasing to record levels. Antarctica is getting colder; its sea ice and ice cap are not melting (Judith Curry and Don Easterbrook, 2023-04-28)
Evidence (2024-01-01): Sea ice is frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface. Bookending our planet, sea ice waxes and wanes with the polar seasons. In the Arctic winter, sea ice stretches its tentacles into seas and coastlines far from the poles. Since land confines most of the Arctic, sea ice can only spread so far southward in many places. By contrast, Antarctic sea ice fringes a massive land mass, growing as far as winter freezing temperatures let it. Come spring, however, sea ice extent shrinks in the Arctic, with a lot of ice persisting, whereas almost all Southern Ocean or Antarctic sea ice is "seasonal ice," meaning it melts away and reforms annually. [...] Both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent are characterized by variations from year to year. The monthly average extent can vary by as more than 1 million or even 2 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) from the long-term monthly average. [...] Historically, Antarctic sea ice has exhibited a minimal long-term trend with significant year-to-year variability. In the austral winter of 2014, Antarctic sea ice reached its highest extent in the modern satellite record dating back to 1979. In 2016, however, Antarctic sea ice began to experience a series of below-average extents, including a series of record-low extents, prompting questions about a possible regime change.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2019-08-22): Research shows that continuing climate change results in a broad array of serious threats to humans and other species. However, counter to Hallam's statement, published studies have not predicted 6 billion human deaths this century and there is no credible mechanism referred to justify how this could happen.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2020-08-21): His 2019 manifesto, Common Sense for the 21st Century(9), was written in his own name but widely hailed as representing the views of Extinction Rebellion and heavily promoted by the organisation’s London HQ. Referencing his claim to ‘one recent scientific opinion’, he warns of 6 to 7 billion people dead as a result of climate change ‘within the next generation or two’. The paper cited as his authority in the footnotes makes no such claim(10). It is purely Hallam’s extrapolation of a 5°C world, given what Common Sense calls ‘the central role of methane in a climate emergency . . . with the system spiralling out of our control and the likelihood of global collapse within a decade or two’. He reiterated the mass dieback claim in a BBC News interview feature, trenchantly insisting: ‘I am talking about the slaughter, death and starvation of 6 billion people this century – that’s what the science predicts.’(11) Climate Feedback, a website more used to taking on deniers than alarmists, invited an expert panel to give their opinions on this prediction. The responses ranged from ‘an illustration of a worst-case scenario’ to ‘wild speculation’. Ken Caldeira, senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution, put it bluntly: ‘I know of no climate model simulation or analysis in the quality peer-reviewed literature that provides any indication’ that there is a substantial probability, above zero, of 6 billion deaths this century.(12)
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2021-05-05): Prediction by Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam that climate change will kill 6 billion people by 2100 is unsupported
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2020-05-11): These predictions from the U.N. may feel inevitable. But as a historian whose research focuses on famines in the 19th and 20th centuries, I have studied countless instances of avoidable starvation. What this history teaches us is that famine is rarely inevitable; it is a choice. That remains true today, even considering what we’re facing. [...] The potential famines feared by the U.N. need not come to pass. We should not accept a Malthusian fatalism when we have the food and understanding to prevent tragedy. The economic and technical elements of starvation are complex, especially at a time of social distancing. Yet the limiting factors are not technical but political. Famine is above all a problem of will. Governments must decide that fulfilling the basic biological need for food is the No. 1 priority. It is not impossible to unite the world’s abundant food supplies with its hungriest people. This may involve making sacrifices—economic ones regarding the allocation of resources, ideological ones regarding deeply held principles relating to free markets and individual merit. But the alternative is to deny millions of people their most basic social and biological existence, to quite literally expose them to death. And the virus has caused enough death already.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2023-01-01): Maybe it’s time to lift up our heads and envision a different future from the death and starvation of Hallam and the apocalypse of Cyberpunk.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2019-08-23): Mr. Hallam’s claim that „the science predicts" that six billion people are headed for slaughter and starvation by 2100 is simply not correct. No mainstream prediction indicates anywhere near this level of climate-change-induced human mortality, for any reason. The effects of war, disease, and weather disasters are somewhat harder to anticipate (and outside of my core expertise), so I will focus the remainder of my reply on food supply issues. [...] While I don’t agree that science predicts the death of precisely six billion people, in my opinion Hallam’s broader warning has qualitative merit and in this context I think his use of the number „six billion" could reasonably be interpreted as figurative. Given this ambiguity over whether to treat the claim literally or figuratively, I judge the claim to be unrateable. [...] I know of no climate model simulation or analysis in the quality peer-reviewed literature that provides any indication that there is a substantially non-zero probability of „starvation of 6 billion people this century" as a result of climate change.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2019-08-22): Mr. Hallam’s claim that "the science predicts" that six billion people are headed for slaughter and starvation by 2100 is simply not correct. No mainstream prediction indicates anywhere near this level of climate-change-induced human mortality, for any reason. The effects of war, disease, and weather disasters are somewhat harder to anticipate (and outside of my core expertise), so I will focus the remainder of my reply on food supply issues. [...] While I don’t agree that "science predicts" the death of six billion people, in my opinion Hallam’s broader warning has qualitative merit and in the context of a lay translation of risk his use of "six billion" might reasonably be interpreted as figurative, an illustration of a worst-case scenario (again, that I don’t think can be ruled out). Whether to interpret this claim literally or figuratively is a question perhaps best left to humanists. Given this ambiguity I judge it "unrateable." [...] I know of no climate model simulation or analysis in the quality peer-reviewed literature that provides any indication that there is a substantially non-zero probability of "starvation of 6 billion people this century" as a result of climate change.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2022-05-25): 4. "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years [by 1980]." [...] Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the "Great Die-Off." [...] 8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, "Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China, and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2023-08-19): - Proximal cause: The deaths will be caused only indirectly by AGW. More direct causes of death will include heat and humidity, rising sea levels, freak storms, changing precipitation patterns, disappearing glaciers affecting water supplies, ocean acidification, more frequent bushfires, loss of biodiversity, and so on. Many of these side-effects of AGW will reduce food supplies, causing famines. [...] - The estimate corresponds to 10% of the projected future world population. All 10 billion humans will need food and fresh water to survive, and AGW will seriously affect both.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2020-10-07): As a result, millions of people owe their lives to Haber and Bosch. The population explosion of the 20th century – from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to the 7.8 billion alive today – is in part thanks to them. At the same time, you can ask yourself whether the world is better off thanks to this invention. Because that enormous population growth – and the nitrogen released through the use of synthetic fertilisers – have been to the detriment of our natural environment. [...] The Haber-Bosch process spells an end to Malthus’s predictions. Thanks to Haber, Bosch and Rossignol millions of people are having dinner tonight. Haber received the Nobel Prize for this in 1918, because he turned air into bread. [...] The global population is predicted to reach 10 billion by 2050. This means we’re only going to need more synthetic fertilisers. And more synthetic fertiliser means more nitrogen.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2017-07-09): Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. [...] Drought might be an even bigger problem than heat, with some of the world’s most arable land turning quickly to desert. Precipitation is notoriously hard to model, yet predictions for later this century are basically unanimous: unprecedented droughts nearly everywhere food is today produced. By 2080, without dramatic reductions in emissions, southern Europe will be in permanent extreme drought, much worse than the American dust bowl ever was. The same will be true in Iraq and Syria and much of the rest of the Middle East; some of the most densely populated parts of Australia, Africa, and South America; and the breadbasket regions of China. None of these places, which today supply much of the world’s food, will be reliable sources of any. As for the original dust bowl: The droughts in the American plains and Southwest would not just be worse than in the 1930s, a 2015 NASA study predicted, but worse than any droughts in a thousand years — and that includes those that struck between 1100 and 1300, which "dried up all the rivers East of the Sierra Nevada mountains" and may have been responsible for the death of the Anasazi civilization.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2024-01-31): The overall global consequences of nuclear war—including both short-term and long-term impacts—would be even more horrific causing hundreds of millions—even billions—of people to starve to death. [...] This isn’t Avatar you dolt. 5 billion people would die, including you. [...] The sixth mass extinction once the first explosion is launched, a domino effect impossible to stop, in my humble opinion humanity has an expiration date, by mistake or planning our disappearance is almost a fact.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2024-07-24): The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...[8] [...] Ehrlich was certainly not unique in his neo-Malthusian predictions, and there was a widespread belief in the 1960s and 70s that increasingly catastrophic famines were on their way.[20] [...] Anne and I have always followed UN population projections as modified by the Population Reference Bureau -- so we never made "predictions," even though idiots think we have. When I wrote The Population Bomb in 1968, there were 3.5 billion people. Since then we've added another 2.8 billion -- many more than the total population (2 billion) when I was born in 1932. If that's not a population explosion, what is? My basic claims (and those of the many scientific colleagues who reviewed my work) were that population growth was a major problem. Fifty-eight academies of science said that same thing in 1994, as did the world scientists' warning to humanity in the same year. My view has become depressingly mainline!
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2024-01-01): Apocalyptic rhetoric blankets the news. Various groups claim various disasters, up to and including that billions will die within the next few decades. Greta Thunberg and President Trump shout at whoever will listen, engaging in a private (read: not private) Twitter war the rest of the time. [...] The thing is, that’s not what science actually predicts. Not really. Even if we did do something drastic enough to destroy the world, there is always enough life left after an extinction to go on – someday, anyway. We just probably wouldn’t be around to see it. [...] Let’s consider for a moment the claim by Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam: "I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts."
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2024-04-15): According to the founder of environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, climate change will lead to the "slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century." According to Just Stop Oil, the climate group behind many disruptive actions making news headlines, any further exploration of oil and gas will amount to "genocide" and the "starvation and the slaughter of billions," and will "condemn humanity to oblivion." Four in 10 Americans believe that global warming will likely lead to human extinction. Not surprisingly, a quarter of childless adults cite climate change as part of their motivation for not having children. After all, what’s the point of having children if you can’t give them a livable future? As one young woman put it: "I feel like I can’t in good conscience bring a child into this world and force them to try and survive what may be apocalyptic conditions." [...] This leads me to the final parallel. Back in Asimov’s day, it was considered incredibly embarrassing for an educated and intellectual type, particularly someone dedicated to science, to doubt catastrophic predictions about overpopulation. Didn’t the math make it inevitable? Skeptics like Julian Simon were either vilified or ignored, and they often still don’t get much credit today, long after they were proven right. The other lesson we should learn from the overpopulation debacle is the importance of doubt and dissent, of probing the blind spots of our own era.
Claim: I am talking about the slaughter, death, and starvation of 6 billion people this century—that's what the science predicts. (Roger Hallam, 2019-08-22)
Evidence (2024-01-01): Source: United Nations, World Population Prospects, The 2006 Revision. [...] For the last 50 years, world population multiplied more rapidly than ever before, and more rapidly than it is projected to grow in the future. In 1950, the world had 2.5 billion people; and in 2005, the world had 6.5 billion people. By 2050, this number could rise to more than 9 billion (see chart "World Population Growth, 1950-2050"). [...] World population growth accelerated after World War II, when the population of less developed countries began to increase dramatically. After millions of years of extremely slow growth, the human population indeed grew explosively, doubling again and again; a billion people were added between 1960 and 1975; another billion were added between 1975 and 1987. Throughout the 20th century each additional billion has been achieved in a shorter period of time. Human population entered the 20th century with 1.6 billion people and left the century with 6.1 billion.