MEDIA:
TELL THE TRUTH
Would the main climate criminals in fossil fuel companies and politics be able to continue to expand or maintain fossil fuel operations if the media told the people the full horrifying facts about climate breakdown? We argue they would not.
So we are placing here a snapshot of key items of news and facts that either received no UK media coverage or very little. The vast majority of people will be unaware and consequently will be unable to make informed choices at the ballot box. As a consequence of poor public understanding of the scale of harm, the fossil fuel companies and many politicians are able to pursue policies and activities that cause mass death, mass suffering and have begun the process that will annihilate low-lying island states (genocide and crimes against humanity).
Climate impacts now.
After record-breaking rainfall in the UK, in 2023 and 2024, UK agricultural output suffered significant damage, with farmers warning of civil unrest in the future due to food shortages: –
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/environment/climate-induced-food-shortages-could-cause-civil-unrest
By the end of 2023 and the 6th year of failed rains in the Horn of Africa, the Red Cross reported that 150,000,000 people had been impacted by record breaking drought, with 100,000 people killed: –
https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/disasters-and-emergencies/world/africa-resilience-programmes
In 2022 33,000,000 million people were impacted by record breaking floods in Pakistan, with 8 million displaced: –
https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/devastating-floods-pakistan-2022
The World Meteorological Organisation reported that 2024 was the hottest year on recordwith 151 unprecedented climate disasters, 550 floods, heatwaves, storms made worse by climate change and 800,000 people lost their homes: –
https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-report-documents-spiralling-weather-and-climate-impacts
The World Health Organisation, Global Humanitarian Forum, DARA International and The Lancet have warned that one of the greatest killers is the increased spread of disease in our rapidly heating world. The DARA International report for the UN said 360,000 infants were being killed every year (infants under the age of 1 year): –
https://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/
What is coming
In the lifetimes of the youngest members of our families’ profound changes are coming that will cause mass death, mass suffering and the annihilation of low-lying island states. We here in the UK will experience dramatic changes that will impact every aspect of the lives of the people we love.
The UK Environment Agency has issued a dire warning that the young must ‘adapt or die’ to the scale of disruption ahead: –
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/adapt-or-die-says-environment-agency
The World Meteorological Organisation has warned that the impacts of sea level rise, increased extremes of flood and drought, water and food scarcity could displace 700 million Africans by 2030: –
https://news.un.org/es/story/2022/09/1514121
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change: –
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter09.pdf
The Lancet ‘Countdown’ annual report on climate change and health received very little media coverage and yet this body catalogues a catastrophe of human suffering from heat, drought, flood, sea level rise, disease and mass displacement. Billions of people will suffer ill-health consequences of global heating: –
https://www.thelancet.com/countdown-health-climate
The research at the universities of Western Ontario and Graz warned around 1 billion people will be killed after we exceed the 2°C threshold. This will probably happen in the 2040s: –
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-climate-changing-human-billion-deaths-century.html
One unfolding catastrophe, that did receive a little more media coverage, was the announcement by the British Antarctic Survey, on the West Antarctic ice sheet, that revealed this will collapse and around 5 metres of sea level rise is now locked in. However, the UK media did not set put the implications for the UK. Very few people would have been aware of the need to immediately change planning policy, build new homes further inland, begin to abandon parts of our major cities, including London, and the vast sum needed to relocate critical infrastructure like sewage works and railway lines. See: –
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/increased-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-melting-unavoidable/
Extreme risk: Many billions of people could be killed.
In January 2025 the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Exeter University published a report that warned of the plausible risk 4 billion people could be killed at 3°C of global heating. The report also warned that the strength of the various climate feedbacks means there is a threat we could reach 3°C of global heating by the year 2050. (See page 32): –
https://actuaries.org.uk/document-library/thought-leadership/thought-leadership-campaigns/climate-papers/planetary-solvency-finding-our-balance-with-nature/
The renowned Professor James Hansen has published peer reviewed research that warns we are on a trajectory for 8°C to 10°C of global heating. This would be a mass extinction event that kills virtually all people on the planet. See: –
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
AMOC weakening/collapse.
Just one climate tipping point could make life in the UK unbearable and severely damage our food production. The abrupt heating in the Arctic Ocean is believed to be weakening the current that brings the Gulf Stream to the UK. Without that we will suffer extremely cold winters and far more extreme summer droughts. This video, by a scientist who specialises in this field, shows the staggering threat we face (UK impacts at 29 minutes): –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNNW8c_FaA
Within the next 10 years scientists will probably be able to provide a clear indication when the AMOC current will collapse or have weakened to such an extent that the UK will be unable to feed its population. We don’t yet have that answer, but young people need to receive informed media discussions around their options.
One of the dirtiest secrets all young people need to know.
An incredibly small number of people understand an important implication of the 2050 Net-Zero target; but the UK media isn’t willing to spell it out to the young.
At the Paris COP21 conference in 2015, nations agreed to limit global heating to well-below 2°C and deploy carbon removal technologies from 2050 onwards, in the attempt to limit global heating to the 1.5°C threshold. Most young people have no idea that because the UK industrialised 200 years before most other nations (including China) we used up our fair share of the global carbon budget many years ago. The UK has 0.85% of global population but is responsible for 4.45% per cent of global historical emissions.
So the UK pretends it has a carbon budget, and has ‘overdrawn’ that budget! The UK will then leave the youngest UK citizens to pay back that debt from the year 2050 onwards.
The cost of carbon removal technologies is so expensive that current politicians aren’t willing to pay. So they will leave it to their own children to pay! It is very difficult to quantify exactly how much this will cost the young, but this research suggests the global bill could be around $535 trillion. The UK share of that may be around £15 trillion. This is the largest debt in history. If it isn’t paid, climate cannot be stabilised and millions of British citizens will be killed.
The UK media is not willing to explain the science and economics to young people and will never allow the young a voice. The detail: –
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2017/08/climate-inaction-will-make-our-kids-pay-hundreds-of-trillions-of-dollars/
The politics and legal implications of killing billions of people
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was brought into UK jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court Act 2001. The legislation tackles crimes of ‘common purpose’, where politicians ‘contribute’ to the killing (Article 25) and the legislation addresses crimes of ‘direct intent’ and ‘oblique intent’ (Article 30). The law is clear – it is a criminal offence for politicians and business figures to contribute to the policies and activities that result in mass death, mass suffering and annihilation of low-lying island states.
Article 25.3(f) of the legislation also imposes upon individuals an obligation to attempt to stop these extreme crimes. The implication of the legislation is that radical climate groups, that take dynamic action to stop climate breakdown, are people who uphold the law.
In law the criminals are politicians and business figures who promote the ongoing use of fossil fuels and the law-abiding people are those who try to stop climate breakdown. However, the UK criminal justice system protects those who kill and prosecutes those trying to stop the killers.
Despite the legislation being crystal clear, the UK media will never allow these facts to be reported to audiences.
Conclusion
The facts shown on this page are profoundly alarming. Had the people been allowed to hear this, they would surely have demanded that politicians take far more dynamic action to decarbonise. People would realise that the 2050 Net-Zero target is far too late and our nation must join others that are willing to do more to protect the young.
The vast majority of citizens have no idea that thousands of climate defenders have put enormous effort into the attempt to get the UK media to tell the people about the gravity of the threats. There have been tens of thousands of individual actions taken in the attempt to get organisations like the BBC to allow the public to know about the number of people being killed and the number to be killed in the near future. Despite this, the majority of UK media organisations remain determined to suppress the most alarming facts and news.
The media has stolen the one thing the young needed to defend themselves – information.
– Jon Fuller
