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Marcus Badger

Lecturer in Earth Sciences, The Open University

Expertise: Paleoclimate, Carbon cycling, Past atmospheric CO2

Breitbart article baselessly claims a study of past climate invalidates human-caused climate change

“By the reasoning of this article, if a rock rolled down a hill three million years ago, no human can be responsible for rolling a rock down a hill today. The fallaciousness of this reasoning is astounding.
It is hard to imagine that a well-intentioned person can so profoundly misunderstand the science. Assuming the author is acting in good faith, this article provides evidence that motivated reasoning can produce results that appear delusional to well-informed people.”

The Independent makes a giant leap in stating that modern global warming could be “worse than thought” based on a single study

“The article reports on a paper which suggests there may be complications with ONE method we use to determine past ocean temperature. Notwithstanding possible flaws in the methods of the paper, the article ignores significant evidence from other measurements and observations and tells us nothing directly about the severity of future and present climate change.”