ARLINGTON, Virginia (LifeSiteNews) — Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, an organization dedicated to educating the public about the role of carbon dioxide in the climate, recently spoke with LifeSiteNews’ Jim Hale to discuss the supposed “consensus” of scientists who believe in a climate “crisis,” the effects of green energy on the environment, and more.
Wrightstone, who also authored a book on “climate change” titled Inconvenient Facts: The Science Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know, told Hale that the supposed “consensus” of scientists is “contrived” and that the mainstream media won’t allow scientists with views opposing the “consensus” on their networks because they maintain the “science” on “climate change” is “settled.”
“The main paper that pushes this notion of 97 percent consensus would include me as part of that 97 percent, because I believe that… carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and… because of that we know that CO2 has a warming effect on the atmosphere,” Wrightstone tells Hale, adding that he believes the effect of carbon dioxide on atmospheric warming is “modest” and “overwhelmed by the same natural forces that have been driving temperatures since the dawn of time.”
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Historically, the earth experienced three great warming periods from 5,000 years ago to the rise of the first civilizations, all of which experienced temperatures warmer than those experienced today. Those warmer temperatures also occurred in periods of low atmospheric carbon dioxide, Wrightstone tells Hale.
In Wrightstone’s opinion, people should not fear a warming trend in the climate, and that statistical data surrounding “climate disasters” contradict any climate alarmism. Citing data from the United Nations, Wrightstone says that the number of “climate disasters” has dropped by 10 percent, and that deaths from natural disasters have dropped by over 90 percent since 1900.
“They won’t tell you that global fires are declining, the deserts are shrinking, that we’re not experiencing deforestation, the earth is actually experiencing reforestation,” Wrightstone explains.
Wrightstone admits, however, that places of deforestation exist, but that much of it is done in the name of “green energy,” such as the harvesting of “mature forests” in the Carolinas to make wood pellets to be used in the United Kingdom as “renewable biofuels.”
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“Those promoting these renewable… fuels are actually promoting destruction of our forests and our grasslands in order to build industrial scale solar farms, industrial scale wind turbine farms,” Wrightstone maintains. “It’s almost as if they have to destroy the environment in order to save the environment.”
Despite the problems he sees with green energy, and amid the push by politicians and Pope Francis for renewable energy, Wrightstone is “very optimistic.” According to him, the expense of green energy will cause more people to question the climate narrative, telling Hale that people cannot afford a rise in monthly electric bills by upwards of $400.
“We see a huge movement now, people speaking out,” he tells Hale. “We see it in the Wall Street Journal, people questioning their net zero movement, even in the New York Times and the Washington Post.”
“When you have a Nobel laureate stating that there is no climate crisis, you can’t just call him a science denier,” concluded Wrightstone, in possible reference to over 1,600 scientists and scholars, including two Nobel laureates, who signed a declaration denying a climate “crisis.”
While the declaration was written last year, several hundred have signed the document this year, including 2022 Nobel laureate for physics and CO2 Coalition board member John F. Clauser, who in July denied that there is a “climate crisis” at a conference in Korea.