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Amber Kerr

Researcher, Agricultural Sustainability Institute, University of California, Davis

Expertise: Agricultural impacts of climate change, Ecosystem-climate feedbacks, Land use change and forestry, Societal adaptation

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.”

Article by The Daily Caller oversimplifies drivers of wildfires and downplays role of climate change

“The causes of the increase in burned area in the western US in recent decades – and the record-setting fires of 2020 – are complex, driven by a mix of a changing climate, a 100-year legacy of overzealous fire suppression in forests adapted for frequent low-level fires, more people living in highly flammable wildland urban interface areas, and at times a counterproductive role of some environmental regulations. However, this article glosses over much of this complexity, presenting a simple but misleading narrative that land management rules enacted by the Clinton administration set the stage for the destructive fires we are experiencing today.”

New York Times op-ed claiming scientists underestimated climate change lacks supporting evidence

“Most of the specific facts and statistics in this op-ed are correct, but the overall effect is significantly misleading. The author’s central point is that scientists have been drastically underestimating the scope and the pace of climate change until just the past decade or so, and recent events such as permafrost melting, ice cap loss, and extreme weather events have caught them by surprise. This is simply not true.”

Letter signed by "500 scientists" relies on inaccurate claims about climate science

“The scientific content is completely inaccurate, undocumented, and fails to bring proof for its claims. The ending of the Little Ice Age in 1850 has no logical link with the fact that the Earth is warming now. Most past climate variations have been slower or less intense as the present one, and if they were as fast or severe they brought about mass extinctions in the biosphere. No explanation or proof is brought on the implausibility or inaccuracy of climate models (whose accuracy or uncertainty is precisely quantified and makes their use better than just random guesses).”

Claim that human civilization could end in 30 years is speculative, not supported with evidence

“The report this article is based on describes a scenario which is unlikely, but several aspects of what is included in the report are likely to worsen in coming decades, such as the occurrence of deadly heatwaves. The conclusion of a high likelihood that human civilisation will end is false, although there is a great deal of evidence that there will be many damaging consequences to continued global warming over the coming decades.”