Sports Teams Continue to Peddle the Climate Change Doomsday Message

Cara Koenen of Team Australia fights for the ball against Lauren Tait of Team Scotland during Netball Pool match on day two of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games at NEC Arena on the Birmingham, England, on July 30, 2022. David Ramos/Getty Images

Commentary

The Epoch Times recently reported that Australia’s national cricket captain Pat Cummins held a “Cricket For Climate” forum in Sydney, which led to a push for cricket clubs to install solar panels and speculation around the appropriateness of fossil fuel companies sponsoring the sport.

Earlier in the week, it was also revealed that a former netball captain sparked a revolt against the sponsorship of Australia’s national team from mining giant Hancock Prospecting.

The controversy spurred Australia’s wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart, to end Hancock’s $15 million (US$9.5 million) sponsorship deal with the cash-strapped sport citing disunity within the ranks of the netball community and inaccurate reporting over her company’s work with Indigenous people.

Not surprisingly, a torrent of personal abuse has been released on social media against this outstanding contributor to the wealth of this country.

In another case, the Fremantle Dockers, an Australian Rules (AFL) football team, was pushed to cut ties with its major partner, Woodside, an Australian operator of oil and gas production.

Signatories of an open letter addressed to Fremantle Dockers President Dale Alcock claimed that “climate change is already creating catastrophic and deadly conditions for communities here and overseas” and that the company’s “core activities are so clearly threatening our planet.”

The meddlesome interference of sportspeople in the climate change debate demonstrates that the world of sports, unfortunately, remains enmeshed in the world of politics.

Gina Rinehart speaks to John Bertrand the Swimming Australia President during day five of the Australian Swimming Championships at the South Australian Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Adelaide, Australia, on April 11, 2016. Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

The ill-conceived attempt at virtue signalling makes little sense given Australia’s economic well-being is entirely dependent on primary resource industries like coal and iron ore mining.

These demands for sporting teams to sever their ties with resource companies is reminiscent of Scottish author Charles Mackay’s 1841 book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”

The book lucidly describes the ease at which governments and policymakers create mass hysteria through peddling popular, but odious ideas.

And we are seeing the very same mass hysteria play out today.

In these circumstances, the uninformed and disinformed opinions of these influencers must be challenged and a more accurate picture of climate change needs to be offered.

Carbon Emissions Really That Dangerous?

We know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the interior of our planet Earth, or even about the hundreds of thousands of sub-sea fissures and volcanic vents constantly discharging heat and often toxic matter into the oceans and atmosphere.

Human recycling of a harmless trace gas that is not even listed as an atmospheric pollutant in any government document is a tiny fraction of the natural releases of this gas.

A recent paper by Professor Wyss Yim on this issue concludes: “Volcanic eruptions are underestimated as a natural cause of climate change in contrast to the exaggerated but minimal impact of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions ... Climate change is unfortunately politicised by the United Nations and numerous governments and there is no longer any debate based on scientific truth.”

Oceans, the largest lungs of the Earth, inhale and exhale carbon dioxide and other trace gases daily in response to temperature changes, according to Henry’s Law.

The temperature of oceanic waters is governed not by a capricious daily dose of sunshine (clouds of water vapour, dust storms or volcanic ash permitting) but by burps of hot stuff from a molten interior.

Doomsday Prophets Working Overtime

Doomsday predictions, including those that predict the demise of the world because of climate change, are continually made based on incorrect knowledge.

From the Chicken Little fable (also known as Henny Penny) to the discredited report “Limits to Growth” published in 1972, people in general have easily been driven to despair that the world will end.

Two school students holding placards as they march in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 20, 2019. Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

It has constantly been proven that the Earth is able to support life for eons into the future, but only if our talents are mobilised to access its resources—this requires cheap and reliable power.

But enthusiasts attending the climate-controlled incubators of international talkfests held in Paris, Glasgow, and in November of this year in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, will undoubtedly continue to hatch and peddle their doomsday predictions.

It would, however, be better if the proponents of climate change were to reflect on the current innate inability of humankind to unravel the mysteries of changes in temperature on Earth.

If so, the wisdom of banning resources companies from sponsoring a sporting team might be reconsidered and sanity restored to this debate.

John McRobert is a former director of Hancock Prospecting. His input to this article is personal, and no consultation with Hancock Prospecting has occurred.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.