FACT CHECK: Yes, climate change poses great threat to humanity

A Twitter post has claimed that climate change is not a threat to humanity.

Peter Imanuelsen, via his Twitter handle, @PeterSweden7 said the idea of climate change is a ploy by the elite to dominate the world.

“Climate change is not a threat to humanity. Climate change will not make humanity extinct. Climate change is a scam by the elite to gain total control. Pass it on,” Imanuelsen tweeted to his 446.5k followers.

🔹Climate change is not a threat to humanity.

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🔹Climate change will not make humanity extinct.

🔹Climate change is a scam by the elite to gain total control.

Pass it on.

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— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) November 8, 2022

The post gathered more than 596 comments, 7,092 retweets and 18.2k likes at the time of filing this report.

In the Twitter thread, the Swedish journalist also asked users to follow him on Telegram, where according to him “he exposes climate lies”.

Analysing Imanuelsen’s Twitter timeline revealed that he vehemently opposes the concept of climate change. Many of his tweets speak against green energy and climate goals, referring to them as “climate hypocrisy”.

Retweet if you think climate change is a scam👍

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) November 7, 2022

On November 7, he asked his followers to retweet a post if they agree that climate change is a scam. The tweet generated over 2,360 comments, 28,ooo likes and 39.4oo likes.

On his blog, The Freedom Corner with Peter Sweden, he accused a top think tank, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), of flagging him for spreading climate change disinformation.

“I am being attacked for the crime of reporting the real news that is going ignored by the mainstream media,” Imanuelsen who poses as a journalist said. 

In the same blog post, he narrated that a COP26 report listed him as a repeat offender guilty of sharing climate disinformation.

Verification

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity and it affects the social and environmental determinants of health, which include clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.

Climate change is responsible for extreme weather events, such as heat waves, storms and floods. These extreme conditions like flooding and drought are disrupting agriculture, hence threatening food security.

In terms of health, the impact of climate change has increased the occurrence of water- and vector-borne diseases, and in some cases as the WHO reported, mental health issues. 

In terms of climate-related devastation, which threatens human existence, the 2022 flooding in Nigeria for instance is the country’s most severe flooding disaster since 2012. 

In October, Nigeria’s ministry of humanitarian affairs said over 3.2 million people were affected by the recent flood which also led to the death of over 600. 

In addition, the flood disaster which affected 34 out of the 36 states in the country, displaced 1.3 million people. According to UNICEF, over 200,000 houses were either partially or fully damaged. 

Going by a 2021 forecast by WHO, between 2030 and 2050, each year, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths, resulting from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

Furthermore, some of the life-threatening issues climate change poses are indirect and are hardly accounted for, most especially in cases where it undermines key determinants for good health, such as the source of livelihoods, shelter, equality and access to healthcare and social support structures. 

In fact, many of the health risks are most felt by vulnerable members of the population like persons with disabilities (PWDs), women and children in poor communities, those with underlying health challenges and the elderly.

Verdict

The claim that climate change is not a threat to humanity is false. 

Some natural disasters are direct consequences of climate change and have claimed lives and property. Adequate evidence also shows that these climate-related disasters threaten human existence in several ways.