No, climate change is not natural, it is not good for us, and the Sun will not stop it

The repertoire of misconceptions about climate change is, so to speak, endless, and is even expanding. We now dispel four relatively-recent misconceptions about climate change.

There is a lot of fake news on social media, and climate change is often a target for conspiracy theorists that disseminate false information. As opposed to completely absurd claims like shadowy powers poisoning us with chemtrail and Bill Gates controlling our brains with 5G chips, there are fake news items that contain some truth, but which are completely twisted and become downright harmful.

The BBC has compiled a collection of these on the occasion of the Glasgow climate summit. Each of these fake news is relatively recent, although their roots may already be familiar from previous fake news. The first one, for example, states that climate change is a completely natural thing, human activity has little to do with it. In fact, it will even end soon, as a "Grand Solar Minimum" will lead to a natural fall in temperatures, and the life-giving Sun will prevent further warming.

It is not a new claim that climate change is a natural process. This is a recurring claim, because not only individuals but also companies that are not at all interested in reducing emissions, say such things. What’s new is the inclusion of the grand solar minimum in the story: it is a real phenomenon when the Sun gives off less energy as part of its natural cycle, and indeed, studies suggest that the Sun may well go through a weaker phase sometime this century.

Even the most optimistic calculations suggest that this could lead to an average temperature drop of up to 0.1-0.2 degrees, which is not even near to the predicted 2-3 degrees of climate change. So, if someone at the dinner table tells you this Facebook-triggered Sun myth that climate anxiety is yet another tantrum of young people who don’t understand nature, you can give him this explanation (at least the speaker will finish dinner sooner).

Another often-mentioned misconception is that climate change is actually good for us, we just don’t want to realise it. A great argument of conspiracy theory believers is that the cold kills a lot of people every year, but global warming no longer requires so much heating. Well, that's really true - in some areas, for a short period.

But due to climate change, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and moreover, places that already have Mediterranean or tropical climates are becoming uninhabitable. As we've discussed in one of our articles, if we don't do anything, by 2500 the Earth will be like an alien planet where you can only go outside in a spacesuit and nothing can grow naturally - maybe that's not enough to consider dismantling radiators....

The compilation also highlights a common claim made by those against efforts to tackle climate change, which is that fossil fuels were essential to driving economic growth and technological development in the last century. This is also a dangerous thesis because it is partly true that the comforts of today's world could not exist without fossil technologies.

On the other hand, it is a mistake to think that other solutions could not be as good or even better. Moreover, research shows that if we don't act on climate change by 2050, the global economy could shrink by 18%, as an increasing amount of money would be spent on firefighting (often literally).

The last point of the article is about the unreliability of renewable energy sources. According to the thesis, the blackouts in Texas at the beginning of the year also happened because wind farms were not working properly, and consequently, if there is no oil, we will return to the Dark Ages. In reality, of course, the wind turbines are not to blame, but rather the unusually-heavy storms in the North American state that destroyed the Texas power grid in February.

In the usually- sunny state, temperatures dropped to -19 degrees overnight, nothing like that had been seen there for 72 years, and many froze to death in their homes. And not because there was not enough oil; the BBC interviewed several experts, one of whom, Jon Gluyas, a professor at Durham University, remarked wistfully that blaming renewable energy for blackouts is nonsensical as Venezuela has oodles of oil and frequent blackouts.

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