We rewrote this page. The old version leaned on climate-skeptic blogs; this one cites primary sources instead (IPCC, WMO, peer-reviewed papers) and official agency data. Bracketed numbers point to the list at the bottom.

Claim 1: We’re at “perfectly healthy levels of CO2” that will bring only “slightly warmer average temperatures along with increased plant growth.”

The facts: The measurements don’t back this up. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report states, flatly, that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” Through 2019, that warming was measured at 1.06°C over pre-industrial levels (likely range 0.88–1.21°C). [1] The World Meteorological Organization confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record: 1.55°C (±0.13°C) above the 1850–1900 average, likely the first calendar year to exceed 1.5°C, with every one of the past ten years ranking in the top ten warmest. [2] And this isn’t only a surface story. The IPCC assesses that total future warming will be “dominated by past and future CO2 emissions,” and that human influence is very likely the main driver of the measured acidification of the surface open ocean. [1]

Claim 2: Climate models are “false, failed models of how the climate works.”

The facts: That line doesn’t survive contact with the data. A peer-reviewed study in Nature (Marotzke and Forster, 2015) compared model output against observed temperatures for every possible 15-year window since 1900. The models came out slightly too cool just as often as slightly too warm. Average observed trend: 0.086°C per decade. Model average: 0.088°C per decade. The authors’ conclusion: “the claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded.” [3]

One thing worth saying out loud: the models don’t predict a single fixed future. They say warming depends on emissions. With deep, rapid cuts (SSP1-1.9), best-estimate warming through 2081–2100 is about 1.4°C above pre-industrial (very likely range 1.0–1.8°C). On a high-emissions path (SSP5-8.5), it’s about 4.4°C (very likely range 3.3–5.7°C). [1] So “warming only gets worse” is true if we keep emitting. That is the whole point of cutting emissions: it doesn’t have to.

Claim 3: Restrictions on coal power won’t solve anything; the real fix is making non-carbon energy cheap.

The facts: Here the original page was half right, and it got the winning half. Making non-carbon energy cheap was in fact the fix, and it happened faster and cheaper than anyone projected in 2018. By 2023, new utility-scale solar cost USD 0.044/kWh globally on average, 56% below the weighted average fossil-fired cost; new onshore wind was USD 0.033/kWh, 67% below it. Around 81% (382 GW) of all new renewable capacity commissioned in 2023 beat the local fossil price. [4] Solar is now the single largest source of growth in global energy demand, and clean deployment since 2019 avoids about 3 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, roughly 8% of global emissions; the avoided coal demand alone exceeds India’s entire 2025 coal use. [5] And rules work where they’re actually enforced: EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards cut US power-sector mercury emissions 86% by 2017. [6] The EIA’s own analysis of coal retirements lists “lower natural gas prices, higher coal prices, slower economic growth, and the implementation of environmental rules” as the factors at play, with economics doing much of the work. [7]

The actual climate footprint: coal dominates global energy-related emissions.

Where coal sits in global emissions determines how much of the warming above we can prevent, so start there.

• Global greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion: 44% coal, 32% oil, 22% natural gas. [8] No other single fuel contributes more.
• The effects match the footprint. 2024’s record heat came with the warmest ocean on record across the upper 2,000 meters, record sea-level heights, and melting ice; the WMO describes all of it as powered by record-breaking greenhouse gas levels from human activities. [2]
• The original page pointed to projections of “at most mild” warming. The numbers don’t hold that up: even on a low-emissions pathway, the IPCC projects at least one foot (0.3 m) of sea-level rise above 2000 levels by century’s end, and up to about a meter (likely range 0.63–1.01 m) under high emissions, before counting any contribution from ice-sheet instability that can’t be ruled out. [9] [10]

The greening effect is real. So are its limits.

• Yes, Earth has visibly greened since the 1980s, and rising CO2 is a major cause. NASA’s analysis found CO2 fertilization explains about 70% of the greening trend, with a quarter to half of vegetated land significantly greener over roughly 35 years. [11] We don’t dispute any of that.
• But the effect has limits and it’s fading. A peer-reviewed Science study (Wang et al.) reports that “global CFE has declined across most terrestrial regions of the globe from 1982 to 2015, correlating well with changing nutrient concentrations and availability of soil water" — in plain terms, the plant-growth boost from CO2 is weakening because nutrients run out. [12] Greening shows up where soil, water, and nutrients allow; it doesn’t follow CO2 into heat-stressed or drought-struck land.
• And greening is not a health benefit that offsets the rest. Even today, cold kills more people than heat in Europe (roughly ten cold-related deaths for each heat-related death). But projections show that without adaptation to heat, the increase in heat-related deaths consistently exceeds any decrease in cold-related deaths under all climate scenarios studied, hardest hit being the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. [13]

What the instruments actually show

• Sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (21–24 cm) since 1880, and it’s accelerating. The average rate from 2006–2015 was 3.6 mm/yr, which is 2.5 times the roughly 1.4 mm/yr pace of most of the twentieth century. [9] The IPCC independently measured 3.7 [3.2–4.2] mm/yr over 2006–2018 and finds human influence very likely the main driver since at least 1971. [1]
• The original page called acceleration “speculative.” It has already been measured: satellite data show the rise speeding up, with 2023’s global mean sea level the highest annual average in the record. [9] And the IPCC’s 2100 range (0.28–1.01 m depending on emissions) deliberately excludes low-likelihood, high-impact ice-sheet processes “that cannot be ruled out,” so those figures are a floor, not a ceiling. [10]
• The oceans are acidifying. More than 30% of human CO2 emissions dissolve into seawater (surface pH sits at about 8.1, slightly alkaline), and the IPCC assesses that human influence is very likely the main driver of the observed decline in surface ocean carbonate chemistry. That’s a measured chemical change with documented effects on shell-forming organisms, not a lab artifact. [14] [1]

The best policy?

Reliable, affordable energy is genuinely valuable, and by 2023 the cheapest new electricity in most of the world was low-carbon (solar at $0.044/kWh, onshore wind at $0.033/kWh; both below the average fossil-fired cost). [4] There’s no version of the data that supports keeping coal running for warmth or cheap power: it accounts for 44% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and still emits air pollutants, while its grid alternatives now undercut it on price. Cutting emissions is the policy the evidence favors, and the cost data got there first.