The Climate Crisis Is Not Our Temperature. It Is Institutions Corrupted by Groupthink, Rent-Seeking, and Power Lust.

Guest Post from Vijay Jayaraj at the CO2 Coalition.

Kooky tales about Antarctica abound – including the presence of UFOs, a lost civilization and a passage to Earth’s interior. All are generally dismissed as absurd. Yet, some widely accepted claims about climate change and ice sheets at the planet’s southernmost end are equally far-fetched.

The world is told daily that rising CO₂ levels are melting polar ice, shrinking crop yields, and pushing humanity toward extinction. “Institute radical decarbonization or we’re all dead!” is the cry of our enlightened overlords, as if swapping incandescent bulbs for LEDs and banning gas cars would spare us from their predicted apocalypse. They demand immediate economic hara-kiri to avoid weather predictions based on pseudoscience and outright deception.

Real-world data – from Brazil’s record harvests to the rebound of Antarctica’s ice – expose the climate crusade for the baseless hysteria that it is.

Brazil’s agricultural triumph

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics projects cereals, legumes, and oilseeds to reach more than 325 million metric tons of production this year, an 11% increase over 2024.

Production of soybeans, another cornerstone crop of global food security, is expected to hit 161 million metric tons in Brazil, a 6% jump from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Brazil’s National Supply Corporation forecasts total grain production to be more than 322 million metric tons, up over 8% from the prior harvest, as rice leads with an increase of nearly 10% in planted area.

What does this mean for you? These numbers are evidence of a thriving agricultural sector that feeds millions worldwide. Brazil’s success challenges dire warnings from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of rising CO₂ and temperatures disrupting agriculture.

Warmer climates and higher CO₂ levels are enhancing plant growth, as warmth extends growing seasons and CO₂ acts as a natural fertilizer, facts that are evident across the globe.

Antarctica’s ice rebound

Far south of Brazil, in the freezing landscape of Antarctica, another climate myth is derailed. A poster child of climate disaster forecasts, Antarctica is adding to its inventory of ice for the first time in decades. Recent data reveal that Antarctica’s ice sheet is growing. Between 2021 and 2023, Antarctic ice gained mass at a rate of approximately 108 metric gigatons per year, driven by anomalous precipitation accumulation.

This marks the first sustained ice growth in decades and should be headline news. The melting of polar ice has long been used to justify urgent policy interventions – from net-zero mandates to oil and gas restrictions to agricultural taxes. We were told rising CO₂ meant inevitable ice loss and catastrophic sea-level rise. But when the ice grows instead of shrinks, the climate establishment barely flinches.

Why are the people most entrusted with global climate policy ignoring or dismissing data like this? And more importantly, why are policymakers doubling down on economically destructive climate agendas when the physical world is contradicting their models?

Some independent researchers, farmers and energy analysts have raised red flags about flawed assumptions underlying the climate narrative. But they are often silenced or labeled “deniers” – a term designed to shut down inquiry rather than invite discussion.

Record crops and growing ice sheets are empirical evidence that challenges climate orthodoxy. Ignoring this information is not only unscientific but also immoral.

The IPCC, the supposed gold standard for climate science, has built entire policy frameworks around the assumption of irreversible polar ice loss and inevitable climate collapse from the use of fossil fuels. These frameworks have been adopted wholesale by politicians like Canada’s Mark Carney, England’s Keir Starmer, Australia’s Anthony Albanese, California’s Gavin Newsom and others.

So, what happens when nature refuses to follow their political scripts? Nothing. The policy train keeps moving, fueled by inertia, institutional pride and personal hubris. The crisis is not in our atmosphere. It is in institutions corrupted by groupthink, rent-seeking and lust for power.

Until some measure of integrity is restored to scientific and political leadership, the real catastrophe is the collapse of trust in those designated to protect liberty, engender economic growth and allow for the continued advancement of human civilization.

This commentary was first published at BizPac Review on May 9, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K., and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, U.K.

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