Climate Feedback

<div>=</div><div>see shill whine to zuck</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><div>In viral Turning Point USA video, Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk falsely claim there is no evidence of global warming and scientists don’t know the cause</div><div>
</div><div>CLAIM</div><div>There is no factual data to back up global warming; real scientists don’t know whether CO2, solar sunspots or natural activity cause global warming</div><div>SOURCE: Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk , Turning Point USA</div><div>
</div><div>Published: 16 Apr 2021</div><div>https://climatefeedback.org/authors/charlie-kirk/</div></div><div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">=</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">orig?</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the great failure of the climate models</div><div style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by Patrick Michaels and Caleb Stewart Rossiter</div><div style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> | August 25, 2019</div></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models">https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models</a></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">computer models of the climate are at the heart of calls to ban the cheap, reliable energy[COAL] that powers our thriving economy and promotes healthier, longer lives. For decades, these models have <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-dr-john-christys-testimony-house-testimony" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-dr-john-christys-testimony-house-testimony&source=gmail&ust=1566755659204000&usg=AFQjCNFw90ZuBjpNmby_jPdc-FIPwqCfgg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;">projected dramatic warming</a> from small, fossil-fueled increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, with catastrophic consequences.Yet, the real-world data aren’t cooperating. They show only slight warming, <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/climate-change-rule-thumb-cold-things-warming-faster-warm-things" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/climate-change-rule-thumb-cold-things-warming-faster-warm-things&source=gmail&ust=1566755659204000&usg=AFQjCNGXLOloVgiPLkuN6bfYBldvvCxuZw" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">mostly at night and in winter</a>. According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there has been no systematic increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, and the ongoing rise in sea level that began with the end of the ice age continues with no great increase in magnitude. The constancy of land-based records is obvious in <a href="https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNFqiy76Xyc-j_mtsBH2U_TgekWxCw" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;">data</a> from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Should we trust these computer models of doom? Let’s find out by <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-dr-john-christys-testimony-house-testimony" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-dr-john-christys-testimony-house-testimony&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNGTUhXzzUBVE7l4Kd2h-xRLijQhhA" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">comparing</a> the actual temperatures since 1979 with what the 32 families of climate models used in the latest U.N. report on climate science predicted they would be.Atmospheric scientist John Christy developed a global temperature record of the lower atmosphere using highly accurate satellite soundings. NASA honored him for this achievement, and he was an author for a previous edition of the U.N. report. He told a House Science Committee hearing in March 2017 that the U.N. climate models have failed badly.Christy <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/you-ought-have-look-dr-john-christys-testimony-house-testimony" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">compared</a> the average model projections since 1979 to the most reliable observations — those made by satellites and weather balloons over the vast tropics. The result? In the upper levels of the lower atmosphere, the models <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2017BAMSStateoftheClimate" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2017BAMSStateoftheClimate&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNF52BPd4IIQBf7Gjon6PR39mkwG0A" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">predicted</a> seven times as much warming as has been observed. Overprediction also occurred at all other levels. Christy recently concluded that, on average, the projected heating by the models is three times what has been observed.This is a critical error. Getting the tropical climate right is essential to understanding climate worldwide. Most of the atmospheric moisture originates in the tropical ocean, and the difference between surface and upper atmospheric temperature determines how much of the moisture rises into the atmosphere. That’s important. Most of Earth’s agriculture is dependent upon the transfer of moisture from the tropics to temperate regions.Christy is not looking at surface temperatures, as measured by thermometers at weather stations. Instead, he is looking at temperatures measured from calibrated thermistors carried by weather balloons and data from satellites. Why didn’t he simply look down here, where we all live? Because the records of the surface temperatures have been badly compromised.Globally averaged thermometers show two periods of warming since 1900: a half-degree from natural causes in the first half of the 20th century, before there was an increase in industrial carbon dioxide that was enough to produce it, and another half-degree in the last quarter of the century.The latest <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNEmoRho7WxftAH2E_gzEDa4B6MmhA" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">U.N. science compendium</a> asserts that the latter half-degree is at least half manmade. But the thermometer records showed that the warming stopped from 2000 to 2014. Until they didn’t. In two of the four global surface series, data were adjusted in two ways that wiped out the “pause” that had been observed.The <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNE0Ip4QwnkMstGJI5CJJcl_aMdVZg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">first adjustment</a> changed how the temperature of the ocean surface is calculated, by replacing satellite data with drifting buoys and temperatures in ships’ water intake. The size of the ship determines how deep the intake tube is, and steel ships warm up tremendously under sunny, hot conditions. The buoy temperatures, which are measured by precise electronic thermistors, were adjusted upwards to match the questionable ship data. Given that the buoy network became more extensive during the pause, that’s guaranteed to put some artificial warming in the data.The second big <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.2297" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.2297&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNF5mgwTG2ONKJYyT0ONCU1PCDU9gg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">adjustment</a> was over the Arctic Ocean, where there aren’t any weather stations. In this revision, temperatures were estimated from nearby land stations. This runs afoul of basic physics.Even in warm summers, there’s plenty of ice over much of the Arctic Ocean. <a href="https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section=234" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section%3D234&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNEYRy6GFxak-3UNHtnk8LqEI13M-w" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">Now</a>, for example, when the sea ice is nearing its annual minimum, it still extends part way down Greenland’s east coast. As long as the ice-water mix is well-stirred (like a glass of ice water), the surface temperature stays at the freezing point until all the ice melts. So, extending land readings over the Arctic Ocean adds nonexistent warming to the record.Further, both global and United States data have been frequently adjusted. There is nothing scientifically wrong with adjusting data to correct for changes in the way temperatures are observed and for changes in the thermometers. But each serial adjustment has tended to make the early years colder, which increases the warming trend. That’s wildly improbable.In addition, thermometers are housed in standardized instrument shelters, which are to be kept a specified shade of white. Shelters in poorer countries are not repainted as often, and darker stations absorb more of the sun’s energy. It’s no surprise that <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e4b8/0f6d1026c7adada383917c4c9b7fa56aae27.pdf" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e4b8/0f6d1026c7adada383917c4c9b7fa56aae27.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1566755659205000&usg=AFQjCNHfGZ5oQetloYzqaA1YFSQDFQXXtg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">poor tropical countries show the largest warming from this effect.</a>All this is to say that the weather balloon and satellite temperatures used in Christy’s testimony are the best data we have, and they show that the U.N.’s climate models just aren’t ready for prime time.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">cmd 7/20</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook is “aiding and abetting the spread of climate misinformation,” said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University. “They have become the vehicle for climate misinformation, and thus should be held partially responsible for a lack of action on climate change.”Brulle was reacting to Facebook’s recent decision, made at the request of climate science deniers, to create a giant loophole in its fact-checking program. Last year, Facebook partnered with an organization, Science Feedback, that would bring in teams of Ph.D. climate scientists to evaluate the accuracy of viral content. It was an important expansion of the company’s third-party fact-checking program.But now Facebook has reportedly decided to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063436369" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">allow its staffers to overrule the climate scientists</a> and make any climate disinformation ineligible for fact-checking by deeming it “opinion.”The organization that requested the change, the CO2 Coalition, is celebrating, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063436369" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">E&E news reported on Monday</a>. The group, which has <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060122629" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">close ties to the fossil fuel industry</a>, says its views on climate change are increasingly ignored by the mainstream media. Now it plans to use Facebook to aggressively push climate misinformation on the public—without having to worry about fact checks from climate scientists.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">How it all started</h2>A <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">column</a> published in the Washington Examiner in August 2019 claimed that “climate models” were a “failure” that predicted exponentially more warming of the earth than has occurred. The piece, co-authored by notorious climate science denier Pat Michaels, was quickly shared more than 2,000 times on Facebook.There was just one issue: It wasn’t true.This is exactly the kind of mess that Facebook’s network of independent fact-checkers is supposed to solve. In <a href="https://sciencefeedback.co/science-feedback-partnering-with-facebook-in-fight-against-misinformation/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">May 2019</a>, Facebook partnered with Science Feedback, a site dedicated to explaining “why information is or is not consistent with the science.” Science Feedback’s process is extremely rigorous. Each piece has multiple reviewers, and each reviewer “holds a Ph.D. and has recently published articles in top-tier peer-reviewed science journals.”Five scientists <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/washington-examiner-op-ed-cherry-picks-data-to-mislead-readers-about-climate-models-patrick-michaels-caleb-stewart-rossiter/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">reviewed</a> the Washington Examiner article for Science Feedback. The scientists identified a number of problems with the piece: “false factual assertions, cherry-picking datasets that support their point, failing to account for uncertainties in those datasets, and failing to assess the performance of climate models in an objective and rigorous manner.” The article was rated “false” by Science Feedback and logged in Facebook’s system.That should have been the end of the story. The Washington Examiner article should have had a warning overlaid each time it was shared on Facebook, and its distribution on Facebook should have been dramatically reduced.But that’s not what happened.Instead, an organization affiliated with Michaels, the CO2 Coalition, wrote Zuckerberg and complained about Science Feedback’s rating. Among other things, the coalition claims that Science Feedback’s analysis amounted to “simple differences of opinion.” The coalition asked Zuckerberg to “remove Facebook’s censorship, labeling, and restrictions on this article.”Amazingly, it worked. In September, Facebook <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-create-fact-checking-exemptions-for-opinion-and-satire-11569875314" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">removed the false rating</a>, overruling the judgment of Science Feedback. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook found that the misinformation about climate models was an “opinion” and, therefore, not eligible for fact-checking.Now, the CO2 Coalition has announced its intention to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063436369" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">exploit this loophole</a> to spread climate misinformation on Facebook.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">How Facebook’s fact-checking program is supposed to work</h2>The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182222309230722" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">rules</a> for Facebook’s fact-checking program are clear. Facebook does not conduct the fact-checks itself. Instead, it has outsourced the process to third parties that are certified by Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network.If a publisher has a dispute about a rating it receives on Facebook, it should “reach out directly to the third-party fact-checking organizations.” The rating can only be removed by the organization that issued the fact check — either because the fact checker is convinced by the publisher’s dispute or the publisher corrected the false information. There is no mechanism to appeal a fact-check directly to Facebook.According to Facebook’s rules, all “public, newsworthy Facebook and Instagram posts, including ads, with articles, photos, or videos,” are eligible for fact-checking. The only type of content that is listed as exempt is original content posted by politicians or political candidates.The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-create-fact-checking-exemptions-for-opinion-and-satire-11569875314" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">reported</a> that, after receiving the complaint from the CO2 coalition, Facebook planned to create a new rule exempting “opinion pieces” from fact-checking. But Facebook did not “respond to requests for comment” on the new rule. No such rule has been publicly acknowledged by Facebook in the months that followed.In response to a request for comment, Facebook did little to clarify the situation, reiterating the company’s official fact-checking policies but not addressing its decision to overrule Science Feedback. “The focus of Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program is combating viral misinformation,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said. “There’s an appeals process in place for publishers to appeal directly to fact-checkers to dispute ratings.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">How climate science deniers plan to exploit Facebook’s loophole</h2>Creating an unwritten exemption for “opinion” content, which is enforced by Facebook and not its fact-checking partners, creates a giant loophole for misinformation. The CO2 coalition told <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063436369" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">E&E News</a> that they plan to exploit it.<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">After the quiet decision by Facebook, the coalition says it and other groups that attack consensus climate science can share content that climate scientists have labeled as misleading because Facebook will consider it “opinion” and therefore immune to fact-checking.The CO2 Coalition is increasingly focused on using Facebook to reach more people with its message that climate change fears are overblown and that burning more fossil fuels would help humanity, Executive Director Caleb Rossiter told E&E News this week. He sees the battle over its climate-related posts as part of a larger proxy war over how to reach an audience outside of conservative media.</blockquote>Rossiter said Facebook was increasingly important because “the mainstream media” is no longer willing to amplify the group’s opinions. But the reason the “mainstream media” is not willing to amplify the group’s opinions is because they’re not opinions at all. They’re falsehoods.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">Climate facts are not climate opinions</h2>Andrew Dessler is one of the five climate scientists who originally fact-checked the CO2 Coalition’s op-ed by Pat Michaels. It was “complete bullshit,” he said. “We gave it a bad review, which it 100 percent deserved.”The <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">article</a> claimed computer models used by climate scientists to predict warming have proved overblown, and thus shouldn’t be trusted. To prove it, Michaels compared “actual temperatures since 1979 with what the 32 families of climate models used in the latest U.N. report on climate science predicted they would be.”The comparison was flawed. Michaels compared the earth’s present temperature with past climate models that predicted more carbon pollution than actually occurred. If we had polluted as much as the models predicted, the world would have warmed as much as the models predicted.We know this because actual climate scientists have <a href="https://heated.world/p/climate-models-have-been-correct" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">published research</a> assessing the accuracy of climate models. That research, which went through the rigorous peer-review process, says computer climate models have been largely accurate for the last 40 years. Michaels’ analysis, on the other hand, didn’t go through any peer-review process, nor is Michaels climate scientist himself. What Michaels did was amateur Google sleuthing. What the scientists did was science.Dessler thinks Michaels should be able to state his opinions about climate change without getting fact-checked. “Things like, ‘we should [implement] a carbon tax,’ or ‘subsidize nuclear energy, or even ‘we shouldn’t do anything about climate change,'” he said. “Those aren’t facts; they’re policy choices.”But statements about the physical condition of the planet; the effect of carbon on the atmosphere; the historical accuracy of climate models—those are scientific in nature. “Those are not opinions,” Dessler said. “They’re either true or false.”“The earth is warming. Climate models have done a good job,” he added. “That should be covered by fact-checking.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px;">The dire consequences of not fact-checking climate denial</h2>The CO2 Coalition told E&E News that it is getting assistance from a “‘conservative’ Facebook employee.” Facebook says that claim is not true, but did not specify who at Facebook reversed Science Feedback’s ruling.American political conservatives have a long, well-documented history of perpetuating climate disinformation in order to delay climate action. Disinformation—that is, the intentional spread of misinformation—has been a key strategy of the fossil fuel industry and its political allies for decades. The less people understand about climate science, the strategy goes, the less likely they will be to support aggressive climate policies, which threaten the fossil fuel industry’s immense profitability.The CO2 Coalition’s use of Facebook’s op-ed loophole “fits right back into that strategy of trying to promulgate misinformation to the public in order to keep alive the lack of public concern over climate change, to stop meaningful action to address it,” Brulle said. And by having the loophole, Brulle said, “Facebook is becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution, to climate change.”Naomi Oreskes, an acclaimed Harvard University professor who co-wrote “Merchants of Doubt,” agreed that Facebook’s op-ed loophole is “potentially very damaging.”“We know that many people, particularly young people, are getting their information heavily, or even primarily, from social media,” she said. “For social media to propagate disinformation, without any attempt at screening, is for them to become, in effect, part of the disinformation machine</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div><div style=""><div class="article-body-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; line-height: 1.9em; padding: 0px 5px 10px 0px; margin-top: -30px;">
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</div><div class="article-body-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; line-height: 1.9em; padding: 0px 5px 10px 0px; margin-top: -30px;">media bias BS:</div><div class="article-body-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; line-height: 1.9em; padding: 0px 5px 10px 0px; margin-top: -30px;">Brian Maloney is the co-founder of the Media Equality Project. </div><div class="article-body-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; line-height: 1.9em; padding: 0px 5px 10px 0px; margin-top: -30px;">
</div><div class="article-body-text" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.9em; padding: 0px 5px 10px 0px; margin-top: -30px;">=ref to pat michaels WE<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/facebook-has-another-go-at-climate-truth-arbitration" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/facebook-has-another-go-at-climate-truth-arbitration</a>no lnxFacebook has another go at climate truth arbitrationby Patrick Michaels  | June 29, 2020 Last year, Facebook briefly slapped a “false” label on an op-ed I wrote with statistician Caleb Rossiter on the poor performance of the computer models that predict future global temperatures. That label blocks Facebook users from seeing and sharing an article. We explained in detail in a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the label was “unsupported by the data and analysis of UN and U.S. government agencies.”I am a climate scientist. I know the U.N. data because I was an author and reviewer of many of the U.N. climate reports, even as I grew increasingly unsatisfied by their gradual evolution from real science into advocacy science.To its credit, Facebook removed the “false” label and indeed adopted a new policy of not “fact-checking” op-eds. But Facebook has slapped another “false” label on a YouTube video of my Oct. 21, 2018, interview on Life, Liberty & Levin. They probably would have let it pass except for the fact that nearly 3 million people have watched it.The arbiter of climate truth is a group contracted to Facebook called Climate Feedback, itself funded by professional climate alarmist Eric Michelman. It gets exercised about anything deviating from its apocalyptic religious view of climate change. It was particularly upset by Michael Moore’s recent film on the true environmental and financial costs of wind and solar projects, which turn out to be anything but “renewable.” In fact, as Moore showed in his folksy "Believe me; I’m an amateur" style, these boondoggles require massive fossil fuel energy inputs to build the infrastructure that provides their intermittent and costly power and so don’t even reduce net carbon dioxide emissions.Climate Feedback accused me of stating erroneously that “about half” of the warming of nearly a degree in Celsius since 1900 is caused by carbon dioxide. But this is a fact, not an opinion. There are two warming spells that occurred in the 20th century. The first one started in 1910, long before we had put enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to create much of a warming effect. And interestingly, the rate of warming in the early 20th century is indistinguishable from the rate of the second warming, beginning in 1976.In rebutting my assertion, Climate Feedback relies on a computer climate model simulation from the United Nation’s collection. The U.N. uses 105 model runs, and 104 of them are incapable of simulating the three-dimensional behavior of the entire global tropics. The one model that does work predicts hardly any global warming, but call the special prosecutor; it’s a Russian model.Climate Feedback was also upset that I said warming may have stopped from the late 1990s to the beginning of the big El Nino warming of 2014-16. In my extended piece on Climate Feedback’s shenanigans, I included a graph of global monthly surface temperatures from the most pristine scientific record we had at the time of the Levin taping. This clearly shows the “pause,” which was discussed a great deal at the time it happened.Is Facebook aware that all of those vaunted climate models are “parameterized” (i.e., fudged) to get the answer the modelers want? I’m exaggerating about this, right? Well, here’s what climate modeler Thorsten Mauritsen wrote in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems a mere two months ago:We have documented how we tuned the MPI-ESM1.2 [Max-Planck Institute Earth System Model 1.2] global climate model to match the instrumental record warming; an endeavor which has clearly been successful. Due to the historical order of events, the choice was to do this practically by targeting an ECS [equilibrium climate sensitivity—the amount of warming resulting from a doubling of carbon dioxide] about 3 [degrees celsius] using cloud feedbacks, as opposed to tuning the aerosol forcing.What this means is that his climate model (like everyone else’s) was unable to simulate the climate of the 20th century from first physical principles. So, he forced the issue by mucking around with the cloud parameters even though that was likely to induce massive errors in the tropics. After all, the only truly unpardonable sin would have been to come back with a model that stood out too much from everyone else's.Unfortunately, Facebook is back to censoring informed, defensible scientific opinion with less defensible scientific opinions.[does he mean his youtube vid]  It was a great platform when it upheld the free exchange of ideas.   Michaels is a former professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a former president of the American Association of State Climatologists. He is the author of Lukewarming (2016) and Scientocracy (2019) and a senior fellow with the CO2 Coalition in Arlington, Virginia.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ref</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><a href="http://co2coalition.org/2020/06/12/global-warming-facebook-thinks-its-opinion-is-better-than-yours/" style="">http://co2coalition.org/2020/06/12/global-warming-facebook-thinks-its-opinion-is-better-than-yours/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">g<a href="http://co2coalition.org/2020/06/12/global-warming-facebook-thinks-its-opinion-is-better-than-yours/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 400ms ease 0s, background-color 400ms ease 0s;">lobal Warming: Facebook Thinks Its Opinion Is Better Than Yours</a></div><div class="entry-summary" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Hyperpartisan “Fact-checkers” Appear to Find a Video Loophole in the 2019 Policy Change of Not Blocking Opinion Pieces</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">The CO2 Coalition of climate scientists today published a Science & Policy Brief by Dr. Patrick Michaels, formerly the president of the association of state climatologists and an expert reviewer and author for the UN’s climate change agency, about the recent censorship by Facebook of his three-million view appearance on the Life, Liberty & Levin television show.“Facebook Thinks its Opinion is Better than Yours” provides a detailed scientific response, with links to all relevant documents, to the “false” label placed by Facebook in May on Dr. Michaels’ expert opinion that about half of the one degree Celsius global warming since 1900 is natural, with the other half being human-caused, from emissions of carbon dioxide. As the Science & Policy Brief notes, Dr. Michaels’ opinion is shared by the UN’s climate change agency.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;">A “false” label on Facebook creates a “shadow ban” that blocks distribution and advertisement.In 2019 Facebook, relying on a group called Climate Feedback as its “fact-checker,” similarly censored an op-ed on computer models of the climate that was published in the Washington Examiner by Dr. Michaels and the CO2 Coalition’s executive director, former statistics professor Caleb Rossiter. After a detailed appeal to CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Dr. Michaels and Dr. Rossiter, Facebook removed the label and adopted a new policy of not submitting op-eds to “fact-checking.”“There are two issues we are asking Mr. Zuckerberg to address in this new case,” said Dr. Rossiter. “First, Climate Feedback is taking advantage of the lack of clarity in Facebook’s definition of ‘opinion’ that will not be subject to censorship. Why should spoken opinions about scientific judgment be censored when written ones are not? Second, why is Facebook still relying on Eric Michelman’s alarmist Climate Feedback? As Dr. Michaels shows in the Brief, this group has a long history as a biased ‘goon squad’ whose climate science claims are sloppy and weak.”Download the Science & Policy Brief <a href="http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Michaels_Science-Policy-Brief_GlobalWarming_Facebook-final.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: color 400ms ease 0s, background-color 400ms ease 0s;">Facebook Thinks its Opinion is Better than Yours</a></div></div></div></div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-medias-favorite-climate-contrarians-go-fox-shows-bash-bidens-climate-plan">https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-medias-favorite-climate-contrarians-go-fox-shows-bash-bidens-climate-plan</a></div><div>
</div><div>ted mcD</div><div>
</div><div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Climate contrarians Michael Shellenberger and Bjorn Lomborg both got airtime on Fox shows this week to attack Joe Biden’s recent climate plan and promote their new books, which similarly downplay the seriousness of the climate crisis. This claim is wrong, of course, and plays right into the hands of the right-wing media which is all too eager to use their message to delay necessary climate action.<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3883631" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">On July 14</a>, Environmental Progress <a href="https://environmentalprogress.org/founder-president" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">founder</a> Shellenberger appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss Biden’s new climate plan. With his recent book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All in the background behind him, Shellenberger falsely accused renewable energy of being <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy97/20505.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">costly</a> and <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/05/setting-record-straight-about-renewable-energy" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">inefficient</a>, lamented why natural gas and nuclear power weren’t taken seriously by the Biden campaign, and accused “United Nations officials and some scientists” of wanting to “control energy and food production around the world.”On <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3883746" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">July 15</a>, Danish political scientist Lomborg appeared on Fox Business’ Varney & Co. to discuss Biden’s new climate plan and to promote his new book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. He called Biden’s plan “a very poor deal” that is “phenomenally expensive,” stated that “we need to get out of this ‘it’s the end of the world’ sense” on climate change, and promoted continued investment in research and development of new energy technologies as the sensible solution to climate change.On <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3884301" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">July 16</a>, Lomborg appeared on Fox Business’ Making Money with Charles Payne. He referred to Biden’s climate plan as “a phenomenally large cost for not very much benefit” and dismissed dire climate claims, stating that “we've been so force-fed with all these stories that are a little true and a lot of false.”Shellenberger is a <a href="https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/11/21/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-nuclear-power-transcript-of-michael-shellenbergers-tedx-berlin-2017" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">pro-nuclear</a> advocate who has a history of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/04/why-renewables-cant-save-the-climate/#71304dd43526" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">criticizing renewable energy</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1239364394863063046" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">singing the</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/02/17/if-they-are-so-alarmed-by-climate-change-why-are-they-so-opposed-to-solving-it/#7a9875a16b75" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">praises of</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1237073310015311874" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">natural gas</a>, and pushing <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/07/shellenbergers-op-ad/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">contrarian and bad-faith views</a> about the environmental movement. He’s espoused deliberately misleading claims on recent issues including the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-sloppy-forbes-diatribe-on-amazon-fires-commentary/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Amazon fires of 2019</a> and the recent <a href="https://twitter.com/KetanJ0/status/1278080117701566464" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Australia wildfires</a>. Similarly, Lomborg has his own history of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">downplaying the dangers</a> of climate change. As Media Matters <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/dallas-morning-news-editorial-board-conducted-rare-climate-change-focused-qa" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wrote last year</a>, he’s “been long discredited within the climate science community,” including being “caught downplaying the risks of sea level rise and even misrepresenting Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.” His claim to fame, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist, was so riddled with errors that a Danish government committee found him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jan/09/highereducation.science" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">guilty of “scientific dishonesty</a>,” and a website was <a href="http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">created specifically to debunk</a> these errors.Neither of these individuals, of course, are climate scientists.Their appearances on Fox shows, which have been <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2019/12/03/how-fox-news-is-helping-to-destroy-the-planet" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">notorious purveyors of climate misinformation</a>, were the culmination of a slew of op-eds and appearances by Shellenberger and Lomborg in various right-wing media outlets. Although their arguments have been picked apart by actual climate experts, that won’t stop right-wing media from using their works to continue pushing for delay on climate action.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">Both books are being heavily promoted by climate deniers and right-wing media</h3>Shellenberger has <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1277651999593381889" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a>, “No book on the environment has ever been praised by a more prestigious group of scientists & scholars than ‘Apocalypse Never.’” However, a look at the discourse surrounding his book showed that the praise largely came from climate skeptics within right-wing media.In the days before and after the release of his book on June 29, climate denier and <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/two-foxs-favorite-climate-deniers-testified-congress-un-extinction-report" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Fox News staple</a> Marc Morano <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1277587370532052999" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">praised</a> Shellenberger, <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1276844518919278593" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">lumping</a> Apocalypse Never, in with another set of contrarian climate works as “A Winning Trifecta for Climate Science & Rationality.” The <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/committee-constructive-tomorrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">conservative, climate-denying</a> Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) <a href="https://twitter.com/CFACT/status/1277652009399783425" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">shared</a> an op-ed Shellenberger wrote for Forbes that teased some of the arguments made in the book -- the article has since been taken down by Forbes due to violating its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/04/the-environmentalists-apology-how-michael-shellenberger-unsettled-some-of-his-prominent-supporters" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">standards of self-promotion</a> (and not, <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1277611390195216390" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">as Shellenberger has claimed</a>, due to censorship). The <a href="https://polluterwatch.org/CO2-Coalition" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">climate-denying</a> CO2 Coalition also <a href="https://twitter.com/CO2Coalition/status/1275169167377907712" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">tweeted</a> in support of his new book.Breitbart <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/06/29/prominent-environmental-activist-michael-shellenberger-apologizes-for-climate-scare/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wrote an article</a> on it, and noted how Shellenberger “issued a public apology for the unfounded panic caused by environmentalists over the fabricated horrors of global warming.” This was followed by a fawning profile of Shellenberger’s claims by <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/30/delingpole-forbes-cancels-environmentalist-who-wrote-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">James Delingpole</a>, who has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/james-delingpole" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">called</a> climate change “the biggest scam in the history of the world.” Jack Posobiec, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/jack-posobiec" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist</a> with white supremacist ties, called Shellenberger’s book “<a href="https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1277946457216122880" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">really a big deal</a>.” The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shellenberger-on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare?%3Futm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwtwitter" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">republished</a> an excerpt of his since-deleted Forbes article in which, “on behalf of environmentalists,” he apologizes for the “climate scare.” <a href="https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1277747432319827975" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Zero Hedge</a>, [shill] whose recent climate screeds have included “<a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/global-warming-fraud-exposed-pictures" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Global Warming Fraud Exposed In Pictures</a>” and “<a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-02-12/climate-change-real-its-manufactured-weather-new-battlefield" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Climate Change is real, but its manufactured. Weather is the new battlefield</a>,” also <a href="https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1277747432319827975" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">tweeted about Forbes’ removal</a> of Shellenberger’s piece. Finally, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/sen-ted-cruz-claims-the-data-are-mixed-on-climate-change-70172741957" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">recently</a> <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/settled-science-basic.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">and falsely</a> claimed that “the data are mixed” on climate change, <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1275130423035789312" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">tweeted</a> a Wall Street Journal review that praised Shellenberger’s book, calling it “worth reading.”Prior to appearing on Fox News, Shellenberger made the conservative media rounds, appearing on <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blazetv" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Glenn Beck’s</a> right-wing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPCDgEzCuc&t=1517s" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">BlazeTV</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU_YgXnle1k" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">The Federalist Radio Hour</a> podcast, the Murdoch-owned <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/details/6168491756001" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Sky News Australia</a>, and the podcast of The <a href="https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/heartland-interviews-michael-shellenberger-on-his-new-book-apocalypse-never" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Heartland Institute</a>, a group that has “<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">been at the forefront</a> of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.”Lomborg’s book, published roughly two weeks after Shellenberger’s, has also run the right-wing media gamut. He published op-eds in both the <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/how-climate-change-alarmists-are-actually-damaging-the-planet/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">New York Post</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lockdowns-lessons-for-climate-activism-11594440061" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">The Wall Street Journal</a>. His book has been promoted by <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/bjorn-lomborgs-false-alarm-brings-reason-to-the-climate-change-debate_3405697.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">The Epoch Times</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/a-cartoonists-nihilistic-defense-of-donald-trump/537297/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">nihilistic Trump defender</a> <a href="https://www.scottadamssays.com/2020/07/15/episode-1058-scott-adams-part1-talking-with-bjorn-lomborg-about-his-book-false-alarm-plus-ridiculous-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Scott Adams</a>, and Climate Depot’s <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1276844518919278593" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Morano</a>. He conducted an <a href="https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1283799388071104513" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">interview</a> with uber-conservative radio host and <a href="https://features.weather.com/course-climate-misinformation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">major climate misinformer</a> Dennis Prager on July 16, and he is <a href="https://twitter.com/ceidotorg/status/1283089987664134144" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">scheduled</a> to discuss his book on July 23 with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group with a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">long history</a> of fossil-fuel backed climate denial.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">Actual experts have thoroughly debunked Shellenberger and Lomborg’s arguments</h3>Shellenberger’s Forbes article was <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/article-by-michael-shellenberger-mixes-accurate-and-inaccurate-claims-in-support-of-a-misleading-and-overly-simplistic-argumentation-about-climate-change/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">admonished by seven climate scientists</a> at Climate Feedback, which <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">bills itself</a> as “a worldwide network of scientists sorting fact from fiction in climate change media coverage.” They referred to many of Shellenberger’s claims as “inaccurate” and made “in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change.” Climate scientist Peter Gleick reviewed Shellenberger’s book for Yale Climate Connections, calling it “<a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/review-bad-science-and-bad-arguments-abound-in-apocalypse-never/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">bad science and bad arguments</a>,” and noted its propensity for “strawman arguments, cherry-picking facts, and ad hominem attacks on scientists, media, others.”Lomborg’s book was given a <a href="https://twitter.com/jswatz/status/1283731552988475393" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">scathing review</a> in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/books/review/bjorn-lomborg-false-alarm-joseph-stiglitz.html?smid=tw-share" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">The New York Times</a> by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, noting the “many contradictions within the book” and taking to task his “underestimation of the damage associated with climate change.” (Indeed, during Lomborg’s appearances on both <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3883746" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Varney & Co.</a> and <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3884301" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Making Money with Charles Payne</a>, he did not once mention the cost of inaction on climate change, which is estimated to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/moodys-analytics-says-climate-change-could-cost-69-trillion-by-2100/2019/07/02/f9fb94ac-99cb-11e9-916d-9c61607d8190_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">many trillions of dollars</a> -- <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=11" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">much greater than actually taking action</a>.) The Times’ review closed by saying “Lomborg’s work would be downright dangerous were it to succeed in persuading anyone that there was merit in its arguments.”Unfortunately, climate deniers within right-wing media are all too eager to use these false arguments to contradict the prevailing scientific consensus: <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Bold and immediate climate action</a> is necessary if we want to maintain a livable climate.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">These false claims play right into the hands of those who want to delay climate action</h3>The arguments made by Lomborg and Shellenberger -- who both identify themselves as environmentalists and acknowledge the reality of man-made climate change -- represent a very insidious form of climate skepticism. Doubting the urgency of climate change is one of the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-change-misinformation-spreads-online" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">three main themes</a> of spreading climate misinformation.Shellenberger here is just following in the footsteps of Lomborg, who has been at this schtick for years (and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/25/millions-behind-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">making a lot of money</a> in the process). But Shellenberger’s case is particularly egregious because he took the authority to speak on behalf of the entire environmental movement. By painting himself as some sort of reformed environmentalist, he gains a lot of credibility and legitimacy with his readers who either outright deny climate change or are skeptical about it in the first place.In fact, Shellenberger’s book was explicitly tailored for climate skeptics -- as journalist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus <a href="https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/1279149494693769216" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">pointed out</a>, Shellenberger’s publicist admitted that the book’s purpose was to get “people to think of climate change as a ‘100 year problem’ not a ‘10 year problem.’” Obviously, climate change is a <a href="https://time.com/5418134/ipcc-climate-change-report-2030-crisis/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">serious problem that needs to be taken care of right now</a> -- to argue otherwise is to encourage inaction on the issue.By appearing on Fox to promote their books, they are just showing who their true audience really is -- those who want to kick the can down the road and avoid taking necessary action to address climate change.</div></div></div><div>refrated minus 1.2
<a href="https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/article-by-michael-shellenberger-mixes-accurate-and-inaccurate-claims-in-support-of-a-misleading-and-overly-simplistic-argumentation-about-climate-change/">https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/article-by-michael-shellenberger-mixes-accurate-and-inaccurate-claims-in-support-of-a-misleading-and-overly-simplistic-argumentation-about-climate-change/</a><header style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 10px; line-height: 1.1;">article by Michael Shellenberger mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change</h1>Analysis of "On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare" Published in <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/outlet/forbes/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Forbes</a>, by <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/authors/michael-shellenberger/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Michael Shellenberger</a> on <time class="updated" style="box-sizing: border-box;">28 June 2020</time></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Six scientists analysed the article and estimate its overall scientific credibility to be 'low'. <span class="infoboxtext small" style="box-sizing: border-box; visibility: hidden; background: rgba(204, 204, 204, 0.5); text-align: center; padding: 3px; border-radius: 4px; width: 120px; position: absolute; z-index: 1;"><a target="blank" href="https://climatefeedback.org/process/#tit4" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a target="blank" href="https://climatefeedback.org/process/#tit4" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: </a><a href="https://climatefeedback.org/article-tag/cherry-picking/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Cherry-picking</a>, <a href="https://climatefeedback.org/article-tag/misleading/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Misleading</a>.</div>
... article by Michael Shellenberger was published in full or in part in various media outlets, including Forbes, Zero Hedge, Breitbart, PJ Media, The Daily Wire, The Australian, and Quillette. The article has been shared more than 200,000 times on social media since it was published, according to Buzzsumo. Forbes unpublished the article on the same day it was published for violating editorial guidelines around <a href="https://archive.fo/ycJZs" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">self-promotion</a>. In the article, Shellenberger, who is promoting a new book, outlines a series of claims about climate change. As the reviewers describe below, several of these claims are accurate or partially accurate. However, others are inaccurate and mislead readers by lacking context and cherry-picking data while overlooking other relevant scientific studies.Specifically, Shellenberger claims that “climate change is not making natural disasters worse.” As the reviewers describe below, this claim is inaccurate and contradicts reports from the IPCC as well as numerous scientific studies linking anthropogenic climate change to temperature extremes, drought, precipitation patterns, and wildfires[1-4].Shellenberger also claims that “Humans are not causing a ‘sixth mass extinction’”. This categorical statement misrepresents the discussion happening in the scientific community. Scientific evidence clearly shows that human activities are driving global species extinctions, and these extinctions are expected to accelerate with continued global warming[5-12]. According to the IPBES, “degradation of the Earth’s land surface through human activities is negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction.”[10] The IPBES 2018 report also states, “It has been proposed that we are in a sixth mass extinction of the Earth’s species, following five others in the past 540 million years[5,13,14]. There are an accumulating number of studies that almost universally support this conclusion, although often with caveats owing to the paucity of data.” As described in Ceballos et al. (2015), “conservatively almost 200 species of vertebrates have gone extinct in the last 100 years.”[5] This result contrasts with the estimated background extinction rate, which would take approximately 10,000 years for 200 vertebrate species to go extinct. So clearly, the possibility that human activities are causing a mass extinction is being actively discussed by scientists, both with regards to current conditions and future trends, including global warming that is expected to accelerate species extinction rates[10,12].Scientists who reviewed this article also noted several misleading claims about wildfires, including “fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003,” and “The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California.” Although global burned area declined ~25% from 1998-2015, this is driven in part by non-climatic factors, such as clearing land for agriculture[15,16]. By conflating purposefully set fires and wildfires as well as climatic and non-climatic factors driving these fires, the claim relies on flawed reasoning to suggest that wildfires are not affected by climate change. These claims also contradict scientific studies showing that anthropogenic climate change has increased fire risk in the western U.S. and Canada[17-19].The reviewers who analyzed this article rated its overall credibility to be low. In their comments below, the scientists evaluate many of these claims and describe how they are inaccurate or mislead readers by contradicting available evidence or using scientific data out of context.<a class="inline-btn" href="https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.zerohedge.com/political/forbes-censors-award-winning-environmentalists-apology-over-three-decade-climate-scare-so" target="blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;">See all the scientists’ annotations in context.</a><span class="infoboxtext" style="box-sizing: border-box; visibility: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-align: center; padding: 3px; border-radius: 4px; width: 120px; position: absolute; z-index: 1;"><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;" /><section class="separator" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><h3 class="inseparator" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;">REVIEWERS’ OVERALL FEEDBACK</a></h3></section><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;"> These comments are the overall assessment of scientists on the article, they are substantiated by their knowledge in the field and by the content of the analysis in the annotations on the article.</a><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;" /><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;"></a><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;" /><a class="inline-btn" href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/" target="blank rel=" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; padding: 3px 4px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden;"></a><a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: Shellenberger’s article promoting his new book “Apocalypse Never” includes a mix of accurate, misleading, and patently false statements. While it is useful to push back against claims that climate change will lead to the end of the world or human extinction, to do so by inaccurately downplaying real climate risks is deeply problematic and counterproductive.Shellenberger’s claims that climate plays no role in natural disasters and wildfires fly in the face of a large peer-reviewed scientific literature showing clear links between climate change and extreme heat events, drought, and extreme rainfall as well as links between hotter and drier conditions and wildfire areas burned in many regions of the world[1-4].Shellenberger also falls into the trap of seeing a single technology (nuclear) as the one true solution to climate change, and mistakenly sees denigrating other clean energy technologies as the best way to promote it. The real world involves messy trade-offs and uncertainties, and decarbonization will involve a range of different technological solutions across industries and geographies rather than a single panacea.For more details on each, see my comments below.<a target="blank" href="http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/science/geography/s.doerr/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Stefan Doerr</a>, Professor, Swansea University: The article argues that society has been misled about causes and consequences of climate change, which has led to “climate alarmism.” The author advocates that we should be less concerned about climate change than many environmentalists argue. Whilst the latter is relative depending on how concerned an individual is and which specific (and perhaps extreme) view this aligns with, some of the supporting statements in the article related to wildfire are (i) inaccurate for key facts supporting argumentation, or (ii) omit important information that leads to flaws in the conclusions.“Climate change is not making natural disasters worse”.This is incorrect for wildfires. Several global climate trends promote fire: increased temperature, frequency, intensity and/or extent of heatwaves, droughts and extreme winds. This is very well established and summarised in the IPCC (2014) report[1,2].“Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003″.It is correct that the total global area burned has OVERALL declined over the last decades, BUT this is incorrectly used to argue that climate change is not affecting wildfires. The overall decrease is largely due a substantial reduction in flammable vegetation in African grasslands arising from human land use changes. Climate change has led to an increase in area burned in regions where fires burn more intensely and have a greater impact (e.g. western USA and Canada)[18,19]. This is omitted, leading to a false perception.“The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California”.Partially correct[17], but the assertion that the climate change related factors outlined above do not also contribute to increasingly “dangerous fires” is fundamentally flawed. It is comparable to suggesting that smoking alone and not obesity is responsible for an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Both factors are clearly important.<a target="blank" href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/daniel-swain" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Daniel Swain</a>, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research: The article presents a mix of out-of-context facts and outright falsehoods to reach conclusions that are, collectively, fundamentally misleading. The author claims to reference specific sources, including “the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), [and] the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).” However, the author’s claims are broadly unsupported by any of these authoritative bodies[1].<a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JCSZqzsAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Gerardo Ceballos</a>, Professor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico: This is not a scientific paper. It is intended, I guess, to be an article for the general public. Unfortunately, it is neither. It does not have a logical structure that allows the reader to understand what he would like to address, aside from a very general and misleading idea that environmentalists and climate scientists have been alarmist in relation to climate change. He lists a series of eclectic environmental problems like the Sixth Mass Extinction, green energy, and climate disruption. And without any data nor any proof, he discredits the idea that those are human-caused, severe environmental problems. He just mentions loose ideas about why he is right and the rest of the scientists, environmentalists, and general public are wrong. Being objective, this is a really bad article. It will cause confusion among the public—perhaps that is his idea.He indicates, with no data, that we are not in the Sixth Mass Extinction. I will explain here why he is wrong. For a long time, we have been aware that our activities have caused the extinction of many species. The case of the dodo, the first human-caused extinction in modern times (1600 AD) is relatively well-known for the general public[5]. In the last decade, there has been a plethora of scientific studies that have carefully analyzed the current extinction rates and have compared them with the natural or background rates occurring in the last million years[6-8]. Evolution of life proceeds as a dynamic balance of the extinction and speciation processes. While some species become extinct others are generated by speciation events. Under normal times, when Earth is not suffering a global catastrophe, the normal extinction rate is called the “background extinction rate.” However, in the last 600 million years life has experienced 5 mass extinctions, where most species on Earth have disappeared. These mass extinctions were each caused by a natural catastrophe, such as a meteorite, or happened over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, causing the extinction of 70 to 90% of all living species.In 2015, I showed with my colleagues from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Stanford University that we have entered the Sixth Mass Extinction (see figure below)[5].<a href="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Extinctions.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-11997" src="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Extinctions.jpg" alt="" width="600" srcset="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Extinctions.jpg 635w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Extinctions-300x239.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; height: auto; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a>Figure—Cumulative vertebrate species that have gone extinct or extinct in the wild according to IUCN data from 2012. Dashed black line represents the background extinction rate. From Ceballos et al. (2015)[5].The 543 species of vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) that were lost over the last 120 years would have become extinct in 10,000 years under the background extinction rates prevailing in the last million years. In other words, in the last century we lost in one year the same number of species that would have been lost in 100 years!We and other scientific groups have also shown that the extinction crisis is more severe because hundreds of millions of populations of animals and plants have disappeared in the last 40 years[5-9].Those extinctions are accelerating, threatening the ecosystems that support life on Earth. If the current extinction crisis continues unchecked, we will lose entire ecosystems and the critical services they provide, including the proper combination of the gases of the atmosphere that make life on Earth possible, provision of fresh water, pollination and pest and disease control[8].<a target="blank" href="http://marine.rutgers.edu/_francis" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Jennifer Francis</a>, Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center: Many statements are half-truths or based on cherry-picked information. Some are outright false. For example, it’s ludicrous to state “climate change is not making natural disasters worse.” An abundant and rapidly growing body of peer-reviewed scientific research identifies numerous ways that climate change is increasing the likelihood and intensity of various extreme weather events, exacerbating coastal flooding, and destroying ecological systems[1,2,6,18,19].“Humans are not causing a ‘sixth mass extinction’”An exceptionally rapid loss of species is occurring and expected to continue. Climate change is not the only factor responsible—pollution, habitat deterioration, over fishing and hunting, and invasive species are also contributing. Human fingerprints are all over these factors[5-14].“Climate change is not making natural disasters worse”This statement is refuted by numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies[1-4]. While disasters related to non-climate-change events (such as volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis) have not increased in frequency, those associated with climate change have tripled in frequency since the 1980s (see figure below).<a href="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-11998" src="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters.jpg" alt="" width="600" srcset="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters.jpg 1635w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters-300x126.jpg 300w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters-768x321.jpg 768w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NaturalDisasters-1024x428.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1635px) 100vw, 1635px" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; height: auto; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a>Figure—The number of geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, and climatological natural events that occurred globally from 1980-2017. From <a href="https://natcatservice.munichre.com/events/1?filter=eyJ5ZWFyRnJvbSI6MTk4MCwieWVhclRvIjoyMDE3fQ%3D%3D" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">NatCatSERVICE</a>.“Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003”This is true in terms of a global average, mainly because forests have been cut down and replaced with agricultural land and because of fire suppression activities[15]. Some areas, however, are experiencing more frequent, larger, and more damaging fires—such as the U.S. western states, Alaska, northern Canada, and northern Eurasia[18,19]. This statement is misleading at best.“Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s”This is true, but it’s in large part because high-emission industries have been moved to developing countries. Global carbon emissions are still increasing steadily (see figure below).“The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California”Both factors are contributing to increased fires[16].<a target="blank" href="https://atmos.illinois.edu/directory/profile/rsriver" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Ryan Sriver</a>, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois: First off, it is largely an opinion piece and many of the claims are unverifiable or written in a way that is misleading, such as: “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003”. What exactly does this mean, the number of fires, duration, area burned, etc.?Another such misleading claim is “Climate change is not making natural disasters worse”. Again, what natural disasters is the author referring to with this blanket statement, and what time frame, the last 5 years, 20 years, 100 years? The claim is vague and misleading in particular for climate and weather extremes. Temperature and precipitation extremes are getting worse with global warming leading to more severe and widespread heatwaves and drought[1-4]. This is well documented in the community assessments and observations, such as the <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">4th National Climate Assessment</a>[20]. In addition, oceans are getting warmer and the atmosphere is wetter, which—combined with global sea-level rise—is making the flooding and precipitation damages from tropical cyclones and hurricanes more severe[1,2,21,22].Finally, there is essentially no mention of arguably the biggest risk of climate change: sea-level rise!  The only statement I see is the claim: “Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor.” This statement acknowledges that sea-level rise is indeed happening and that adaptation will make nations better off economically. Statements such as these are dangerous and misleading. Sea-level rise poses a major threat to coastal communities with global socio-economic implications, and we are already seeing the negative impacts in more frequent and severe flood events in the US. These damages will only worsen as the polar ice sheets continue to melt, with potentially catastrophic effects on coastal cities and ecosystems, real estate markets, insurance industries, human migration, and national security.<a target="blank" href="http://eaps4.mit.edu/faculty/Emanuel/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Kerry Emanuel</a>, Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT:In his article, Michael Shellenberger claims that “climate change is not making natural disasters worse”. This begs the question of what exactly is meant by “natural disasters”, but no matter how one defines them, this statement is patently false.Let us assume that Shellenberger is defining natural disasters as deaths from events that could conceivably have a climate connection, such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes. In the period between 1900 and 2020, global deaths from these disasters have declined steeply. There is little question about why this has happened, and it is the immensely gratifying effects of greatly improved warnings, evacuations, and resilience. For example, in Bangladesh, where a single storm killed as many as 500,000 people in 1970, the government and non-governmental organizations have built many emergency evacuations shelters that have saved arguably millions of people in subsequent cyclones that have been meteorologically as bad or worse.If there is a climate change signal, it would appear as a lessening of this happy trend toward decreased fatalities, but it would be very difficult if not impossible to extract such a signal. We do not know from this data whether climate change is decreasing the rate of decline of deaths from natural disasters or not.If, on the other hand, we look at economic damage, normalized by world domestic product, the signal is equally clear but in the other direction….damages from weather-related natural disasters have been increasing greatly. One could plausibly argue that this is because of a global migration toward risky coastal regions, and so it is not unequivocal that this increase is owing to climate change.The cleanest way to look at climate effects on natural phenomena is to look at the phenomena themselves. Here there is strong and mounting evidence that climate change is increasing precipitation extremes (floods and droughts), conditions for wildfires, and the incidence of strong hurricanes[1,2].Whichever way one looks at it, Shellenberger’s statement is not defensible.<section class="separator" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><h3 class="inseparator" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">ANNOTATIONS</h3></section> The statements quoted below are from the article; comments are from the reviewers (and are lightly edited for clarity).<section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">as an energy expert…invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: This credential sounds much more impressive than it actually is. Anyone who wants to can sign up as an expert reviewer for the IPCC.</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: While this phrase was inaccurately spread in some news stories earlier this year, climate scientists – and the majority of activists – have never claimed this to be the case.There is, however, a real danger that a combination of logging and climate change could transition much of the Amazon to a savannah-like ecosystem this century[23,24].</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">Climate change is not making natural disasters worse</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/daniel-swain" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Daniel Swain</a>, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research: On the whole, this claim is incorrect. While there are clearly certain types of natural disasters unaffected by climate change (earthquakes and volcanic activity, for example), and certain kinds of disasters for which there is an absence of evidence regarding a detectable influence from climate change (tornadoes, for example), there is a long and growing list of extreme event/disasters types regarding which the scientific literature strongly supports links to climate change. These include, but are not limited to: extreme heatwave intensity and frequency, drought intensity, wildfire extent and severity, and the flood hazards associated with tropical cyclones/hurricanes (both from oceanic storm surge and freshwater flooding associated with heavy precipitation).<a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: This is patently false. While there are some types of natural disasters with no (volcanoes, earthquakes) or very limited (tornadoes) climate links, others such as extreme heat events, droughts, and extreme rainfall have clear attribution to climate changes.The US National Academy of Science published a report in 2016 on the role of climate change in extreme events that is quite helpful in understanding where linkages are – and are not – well understood[2]. This figure from the report shows our understanding and attribution of climate change impacts on extreme events, by event type.[graf]</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/daniel-swain" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Daniel Swain</a>, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research: I cannot speak to this specific statistic, but I emphasize that it is largely irrelevant in context and certainly misleading, since it conflates both climate and non-climate related factors.There are strong links between climate change and wildfire extent and severity in many regions globally. It’s less clear whether there are links between climate change and wildfire frequency, but that’s not really the relevant metric here. Instead, climate change is clearly modulating the characteristics of wildfire in many regions—broadly increasing the dryness and flammability of vegetation, and allowing fires to become more intense and to burn more extensive areas.<a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: This statement is accurate but misleading. The vast majority of fires globally are purposefully set for agricultural clearing, and these have declined in recent years. Conflating all fires with forest and wildfires – as Shellenberger does – is not helpful in understanding changing drivers of fire risk.A 2014 study in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr. Jia Yang at Auburn University and colleagues suggests that in the tropics climate change may have also reduced the area burned over the past 50 years, due, in part, to wetter conditions[25]. However, they find that climate change has likely increased fire risk in the high latitudes and mid-latitudes over recent decades.<a href="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fires.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-12000" src="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fires.jpg" alt="" width="600" srcset="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fires.jpg 894w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fires-300x254.jpg 300w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fires-768x651.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 894px) 100vw, 894px" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; height: auto; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a>Figure—Contribution of different factors in changes since 1900 in forest-fire area globally and for different regions. Effects of climate change (including changes in temperatures and precipitation) are shown by the vertical stripes. Human land management activity is shown by the diagonal stripes, while the effect of CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition is shown by the dots. From Yang et al. (2014)[25].Hotter and dryer conditions <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-global-warming-has-increased-us-wildfires" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">have been a major factor</a> in the increase in areas burned by wildfires in many regions – such as the western US – in recent years.</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: This statement <a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/achieving-peak-pasture" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">is accurate</a> (according to FAO data) and represents an important decoupling of land use and livestock production in spite of increasing global meat consumption – though some of the reduction is offset by increased land use for agricultural crops for animal feed.That said, there are large climate impacts of meat consumption apart from land use, and growing meat consumption is still driving deforestation in areas like the Amazon even as overall pasture use shrinks. So while peak pasture is certainly a positive thing, it does not translate into notable reductions in emissions to-date, as emissions from land use changes have <a href="https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/index.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">remained largely unchanged</a>. It does not – as Shellenberger seems to suggest – in any way indicate that climate change is a less serious problem than commonly thought, just that it’s possible to mitigate our impacts by changing practices and technologies.</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/daniel-swain" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Daniel Swain</a>, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research: This is misleading and incorrect as stated. While the legacy of 20th century forest management policies, as well as urban incursion into the wildlands, are indeed relevant in some areas, research has shown that such non-climate factors cannot account for the enormous increase in area burned by wildfire both in the broader American West and California specifically.In fact, drying of vegetation due to climate change is responsible for about half of the observed increase in western U.S. forest fire area burned over the past several decades[18]. More specifically in California, observed warming and drying more than doubled the occurrence of extreme fire weather conditions between 1979 and 2018—a trend that is attributable to human-caused climate change[19].<a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: Here Shellenberger sets up a false dichotomy. All three factors – buildup of vegetation due to fire suppression, more people living in the wildland-urban interface, and hotter and dryer conditions <a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/wildfire-causes" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">have contributed to severe wildfires</a> in regions like the western US in recent years.For example, there is a strong year-to-year relationship between fuel aridity – driven by hotter and dryer conditions – and area burned in the western US.
Figure—Western US forest fire area on a logarithmic scale compared to standardised fuel aridity, with datapoints during the 1984-1999 (blue dots) and 2000-2017 (red dots) periods highlighted. Map insert shows the western US forest areas. From Abatzoglou et al. (2016)[13].A 2016 study showed that climate change is responsible for over half the increase in fuel aridity (drier fuel load), and has doubled the cumulative forest area burned[18]. Rising average global temperatures have led to higher spring and summer temperatures, which in turn have led to <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/07/wildfires-and-climate-change-whats-the-connection/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">earlier spring snowmelt</a>. Further, there is evidence that climate change is causing winter rains to come later in autumn, and stop earlier in spring[26,27]. This is extending the area and time periods in which forests become combustible, and in parts of California, fire season is now 50 days longer than in 1979[28,29].<a href="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-12002" src="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason.png" alt="" width="600" srcset="https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason.png 1245w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason-300x158.png 300w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason-768x405.png 768w, https://climatefeedback.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FireSeason-1024x540.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1245px) 100vw, 1245px" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; height: auto; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a>From 4th National Climate Assessment, based on data from Abatzoglou et al. (2016)[13,15].</section><section style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);">Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s</blockquote><a target="blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Chq-VAIAAAAJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Zeke Hausfather</a>, Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute: This claim substantially overstates the long-term success that rich countries have had in decarbonizing their economies. Rich nations as a whole (using OECD nations as the grouping of rich countries) <a href="https://www.icos-cp.eu/global-carbon-budget-2019" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">emit 25% more CO2</a> today than they did in the mid 1970s. While a number of countries (Germany, France, UK) do emit less today than in the 1970s, their experience is not generalizable to rich countries as a whole.These calculations also do not include emissions associated with increased consumption of goods produced in places like China, which <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-largest-co2-importers-exporters" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">matters quite a bit</a> in recent decades....[much more]</section>show all donors down to 5 bucks:In 2016, we raised $30,000+ thanks to the generous donations of 500+ backers on Indiegogo.
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