Katrin Meissner
CO2 coalition sponsored article in The Washington Times presents list of false and misleading statements about the impacts of CO2 and climate change
“This article recycles old tropes such as “it’s been warm before”, “CO2 levels have been higher in the past” (millions of years ago!), “CO2 is plant food”, “warming is good for ecosystems/humans”, “so far impacts are small, so they will remain small”, etc. All these pseudo-arguments have been addressed many times before (see examples here, here, and here). This article is clearly motivated, misleading and biased.”
Video from PragerU makes several incorrect and misleading claims about climate change
This video discussing climate change was first published on PragerU’s website in April 2016 and recently posted on Facebook in May 2020. Scientists that evaluated the video found several claims about climate change to be incorrect and misleading to viewers.
Ian Plimer op-ed in The Australian again presents long list of false claims about climate
“This article is a mixture of misdirection, misleading claims, and outright falsehoods. The author attempts to paint a picture of current climate change as simply a continuation of natural changes that have occurred in the past. But this neglects the clear evidence that climate change over the last two centuries has been shown to be largely man-made, that it is much more rapid that anything we have seen in the last two thousand years if not longer, and that it is occurring in the context of a globe with more than 7 billion human inhabitants.”
Commentary in The Australian by Ian Plimer relies on false claims to make its case
“If you think that potentially causing hundreds of millions of refugees and trillions of dollars in damages is fine because some plants did well in the same conditions millions of years ago when humans weren’t around, then you could support this article.”
Ian Plimer wrongly claims that carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change
Claim:
there is no relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide emissions by humans[...] carbon dioxide has had a minuscule effect on global climate
Ian Plimer incorrectly claims human-caused emissions are short-lived
Claim:
The atmospheric residency time of carbon dioxide is five years and it is quickly sequestered into plants, marine life, oceans and sediments.
The Australian publishes "deeply ill-informed" opinion on climate by Ian Plimer
“This article is an amalgamation of logical fallacies, misleading talking points, and downright factually incorrect statements regarding the physics of the climate system. Every talking point in this article has been debunked many times over and it is astonishing that this was published.”
Guardian coverage of essay on potential of future "hothouse" climate is generally accurate, but misstates some details
“The article reasonably summarizes a new study published in PNAS, which describes the potential of tipping elements to enhance climate warming and the potential for the Earth to transition into a hot-house climate state. The article is careful to point out uncertainties and thus avoids being sensational. However, there are many small errors scattered throughout the article.”
Prof. John Christy incorrectly claims to show climate models are too sensitive to carbon dioxide
Claim:
the real atmosphere is less sensitive to CO2 than what has been forecast by climate models
Heartland Institute report’s claim that climate models are too sensitive to CO2 does not reflect evidence
Claim:
[climate models] systematically over-estimate the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide ... and modelers exclude forcings and feedbacks that run counter to their mission
The world’s coral reefs are severely threatened by climate change and other human impacts, as ABC story notes
Claim:
90 per cent of the world's coral reefs will disappear in the next 35 years due to coral bleaching induced by global warming, pollution and over-development.
Analysis of "Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has worst coral die-off ever"
“This article is mostly accurate … the frequency of massive bleaching events is increasing, will continue to increase in the near future, and these events do not need to occur annually to kill the reef. The variability of El Niño Southern Oscillation on top of the background warming trend of surface temperatures means that we will exceed the bleaching thresholds more frequently.”
Analysis of "About Those Non-Disappearing Pacific Islands"
“This article is very interesting because it exemplifies a highly-misleading rhetorical practice that is effective, frequently used, but not easily recognized by the public: “paltering”… A successful palterer will try to avoid being untruthful in each of his/her utterances, but will nonetheless put together a highly misleading picture based on selective reporting, half-truths, and errors of omission…”
Analysis of "An Overheated Climate Alarm"
“Lomborg is using scientific ‘language’ to suggest that climate change will have insignificant health impacts; this goes against a vast body of evidence. The notion that benefits from warmer winters could be more important than risks from hotter summer in terms of human health is plain wrong.”
Analysis of "What we’re doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66 million years, scientists say"
“It sadly implies that even the PETM, a massive warm climatic excursion, might not be harsh enough to represent an analogue for future climate change, as the Washington Post rightfully points out.”