Climate science combats skepticism, therefore it is not science.

In April, the most apocalyptic scenario in climate research was quietly and secretly buried, and no one observed a moment of silence. The very same computer model, on whose five-degree global catastrophe headlines, curricula, and billions in subsidies were piled for two decades, is suddenly considered "implausible" by its own creators – as can be read in a scientific paper that no one outside the field is supposed to take notice of.

The scenario is called SSP5-8.5, formerly RCP8.5, colloquially known as "business as usual." It assumed that humanity would burn coal and oil so recklessly by 2100 that the CO2 concentration would climb above 1100 ppm and everything would burn. The detail that's conveniently omitted: This dire prediction has been criticized as nonsense for twenty years because there simply isn't enough recoverable oil and gas on the planet to even release these quantities into the atmosphere. Humanity can't possibly destroy itself this way—the fuel would run out long before that happens. It becomes particularly ironic when you remember that the same group of people imposed car-free Sundays in the 1970s because oil was supposedly about to run out—and now, for the opposite panic, they assume unlimited reserves so that CO2 levels can climb so high in the first place. First the tank is empty, then it's overflowing, depending on which fear is currently in vogue.

The heretic from the university
Anyone who said something like that too soon learned the system from the inside. There's this... Experimental physicistTwenty-five years as a professor at a university on Lake Constance, nanoparticles, cluster physics, the whole shebang. A man who wouldn't dream of denying the greenhouse effect – he dutifully explains that CO2 heats up the atmosphere and it's getting warmer. His only crime: He added that two or three degrees are a problem, not the end of the world, so please, let's take our foot off the panic pedal.

The reaction was instructive. A shitstorm erupted. Members of parliament demanded that the man be banned from newspapers. A researcher friend, who claimed to have been threatened by a climate scientist, was told to cease their collaboration or face the loss of his job. And to top it all off, his own university, after a quarter-century of impeccable service, initiated proceedings against him for allegedly "unconstitutional statements" on his YouTube channel. The exact accusation was never revealed to him. This is what science feels like when it ceases to be science: a cross between the Mafia and the Inquisition, complete with grant applications.

What Einstein was allowed to do that the climate scientist wasn't
Herein lies the crux of the matter, and it's razor-sharp: Science thrives on doubt. Einstein didn't discard Newtonian mechanics out of politeness, but because he doubted it – only skepticism gives rise to innovation. A discipline that agrees on everything is not healthy, but dead. That's precisely why the statement is so harsh: Science thrives on skepticism, yet climate science fights skepticism with all its might – therefore, it isn't science.

This doesn't refer to every climate scientist who counts ice cores. Most physicists, whether in solid-state physics or astrophysics, are apolitical and simply seek knowledge. But when it comes to climate, a segment of the profession exists in a hybrid state of researcher and activist – people with an agenda who want to reshape society and whose science no longer seeks truth, but rather arguments to support their predetermined goals. This refers to predictive computer climatology, the branch that extrapolates models to 2100, the results of which no one can experimentally verify. True natural science thrives on the agreement between experiment and theory. A forecast for the year 2100 is, by definition, unfalsifiable – it can neither be proven nor disproven; it must be believed. And it is precisely this unverifiable aspect that drives politics and the public, while physicists who call for moderation are branded as heretics and shambled in the media.

Those who live by fear
Why the hysteria? Because entire research institutes thrive on fear. Panic is their business model, and they don't let a spoilsport ruin their business model. Just look at the famous tipping points: The supposedly collapsing Gulf Stream, which is supposedly freezing Northern Europe, simply cannot be reproduced in reputable models – it's a fabrication. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only speaks of a weakening of 20 to 40 percent, at the end of which it will still be warmer. And the sacred climate sensitivity? Three degrees, plus or minus two. The margin of error is almost as large as the measurement itself. This level of precision would be laughed at in any other field – yet here, it's used to build heating regulations that forbid elderly widows from using their oil heating and force them to install heat pumps at a cost of a small fortune.

That the same models have fed politics with fiction for thirty years is not an accident, but a deliberate strategy. Climate change has long since become a lever for transforming a society that, at some point, lost its center between prosperity and a loss of meaning – degrowth, scarcity management, eco-socialism with cargo bikes. Where religion and fatherland have ceased to provide meaning, the climate youth movement offers a substitute: a community, a common enemy, and the comforting feeling of belonging to the superior class. While a country with one-hundredth of the world's population fancies itself saving the climate single-handedly, Asia is building solar parks for three cents a kilowatt-hour and laughing at the morally superior mouse dismantling its industry. Anyone who disagrees is labeled a climate change denier – even if they merely point out the possibility of falsification.

A science that overwhelms its doubters with legal proceedings instead of arguments has abandoned the realm of natural science and ascended to the pulpit. An industry that quietly disposes of its own doomsday model and hopes no one will notice is not engaging in enlightenment, but rather damage control. And a country that drags a physicist before a disciplinary court for saying "no panic" has turned skepticism into heresy and seriously calls this bonfire "science"!

Physics professor dismantles climate hysteria – Gerd Ganteför in conversation