Examples Of Fake News On Climate Change – For Just 1 Month

Back on Nov. 8, 2021, I highlighted the fallacy of climate change models due to their attempt to make projections based upon less than 1% of the necessary data. Today I wish to share a summary of Junkscience.com’s “Climate Fact Check: April 2023 Edition.”

Steve Milloy, who runs junkscience.com, states, “April 2023 continues to disappoint the hopes and dreams of the climate alarmist crowd as this month was significantly cooler that April 1998, per NASA satellite data, despite 65% more man-made atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).” Additionally, Milloy points out that “April 2023 was cooler than April 1981, despite 137% more man-made atmospheric CO2. This is hard to explain under the global warming rubric that every molecule of CO2 causes a rise in average global temperature. Not only is there no demonstrable causation between emissions and temperatures, there is not even correlation.”

Milloy provides 10 selected media claims from just the month of April 2023, and a fact-check rebuttal refuting each claim. Here are three examples:

1. Claim: The New York Times reported in “Here Are the Places Most at Risk From Record-Shattering Heat” that, “Global warming is making dangerously hot weather more common, and more extreme, on every continent.”Fact Check: Despite a 270% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, U.S. heat waves have dramatically declined in frequency and intensity since the 1930s, per the most recent U.S. National Climate Assessment.
2. Claim: Bloomberg reported in, “U.S. Forests Are Failing to Keep Up With Climate Change” that “a new study shows forests are adapting to hotter and drier conditions, but not nearly fast enough.”Fact Check: Tree and forest growth are affected by a multitude of factors of which temperature and rainfall are but two. In the western U.S., average temperature has reportedly warmed by about 2°F and rainfall is flat since 1895. It is difficult to image how a slight and gradual temperature rise and steady rainfall could possibly adversely affect tree and forest growth. By the way, NASA satellite photos indicate that the Earth is getting greener thanks to carbon dioxide emissions.
3. Claim: The Guardian reported in the story “Spain braced for record April temperature of 39C as extreme heat causes misery,” that “this episode fits with what’s happening because of climate change.”Fact Check: Although Spain was warmer than normal, neighboring France was cooler than normal. No part of the emissions-driven warming hypothesis explains how such a temperature pattern could occur. The only explanation, therefore, is weather.

Milloy’s review of the climate “science” reporting by the media illustrates a point made by David Klinghoffer, of the Discovery Institute, in “Why Are Science Reporters So Credulous?”

“The credulousness of science journalists is remarkable. Their reporting, almost as a rule, seems more like they are crafting a press release than objectively probing the claims of their subjects, namely scientists. Mainstream journalism as a whole has come increasingly to resemble state propaganda.”

Journalists’ infatuation with anything dubbed as “science” illustrates their lack of discernment and contributes to the prevalence of junk science. As an example, consider what Otto von Guericke, a neuroscientist from the University of Magdeburg, Germany, as well as editor-in-chief of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, stated on May 14, 2023, during an interview on National Public Radio broadcast, “Fake studies in academic journals may be more common than previously thought.” Here he made the following statements regarding the rate of junk science papers referred to as “science.”

“So, when we’re looking at the numbers of papers that are identified with our indicators, the percentage was in 2020 at 28% of all biomedical publications. That comes to over 300,000 in the biomedical field alone. Now, if you consider that all of science is maybe roughly double that, then you can sort of roughly estimate that there may be a half million fake papers published per year. And that is a shocking number.

“Roughly 2 million papers are published in the scientific community. And if you use 28% of that, then you are at roughly 500,000. Maybe I’m wrong, and it’s only half of that, or maybe it’s more than that. In any case, whatever the number it is, the scope is shocking, and it is of a major concern. And in my opinion, it’s probably the biggest science scam ever.”

Most scientists, academics, journalists, politicians and consumers are far more gullible than the villagers in the fairytale “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” They keep responding to false claims.