Suppressed reports: the government IS lying about climate change , but not in the way the denialists think - it's far worse

Suppressed reports: the government IS lying about climate change , but not in the way the denialists think – it’s far worse

The tl;dr “Governments are indeed lying to you about climate change – but not in the way the deniers claim. The situation is not better than we are told. It’s actually far worse.”

That’s a line that didn’t quite survive in my latest Conversation piece, which you can read here.

A UK climate security report backed by the intelligence services was quietly buried – a pattern we’ve seen many times before

Meanwhile, here’s a scrape of the Bluesky thread I did alongside it.

First,

@thierryaaron.bsky.social had a very good thread on two easy bad misreadings of this.

Next, I’d add the point that there is a (largely unjustified) mystique around military assessments. They can be wrong, not just for budget-grubbing (threat inflation) reasons, but because they’re written to grab attention. See this from 2004.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

Then, well, what is to my mind a key point got axed from my Conversation piece. The 1st British PM to be formally briefed abt climate change was… drumroll… Margaret Thatcher, in mid-1979. She responded with an incredulous “you want me to worry about the weather?”

https://archive.org/details/margaretthatcher0000camp_o3c1/mode/2up?q=%22worry+about+the+weather%22

Ultimately though, all the warnings, with all the graphs and precision and passion and the rest of it don’t amount to a hill of beans in this cooking world unless there are broad-based, non-co-optable, non-exhaustible and – frankly – radical social movement organisations that can help people deal the feelings of anger and despair any rational human who can read a Keeling Curve and understand its implications feels. Without those social movement organisations, you get spasms, disavowal & acting out. But action? Not so much.

Further reading on this (and please add more!)

Chambers, R. 2026. The national security assessment on ecosystem collapse is a government wake-up call – Inside track

Hudson, M. 2023. Extinction Rebellion says ‘we quit’ – why radical eco-activism has a short shelf life

Monbiot, G. 2026 The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised | George Monbiot | The Guardian

NEF National Emergency Briefing.

Read, R. 2026. Why did government try to hide climate report? Eastern Daily Press, February 3