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Timothy Osborn

Professor, University of East Anglia, and Director of Research, Climatic Research Unit

Expertise: Instrumental record, Climate projections, Natural climate variability

Video promoted by John Stossel for Earth Day relies on incorrect and misleading claims about climate change

“This video is misleading in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin. For a start there’s a repeated assertion that climate “alarmists” won’t enter debate on climate change, but there are many examples of renowned climate scientists such as Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann and David Karoly entering into debates with climate change denialists. Many scientists have found such debates to be unhelpful as they give the false impression of balance despite there being broad consensus among climate scientists…”

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).”

Analysis of "The Phony War Against CO2"

“The article speaks about scientific questions under an “opinion” banner—as if questions about the role of CO2 in the Earth system could be a matter of opinions. For the major final conclusion “With more CO2 in the atmosphere, the challenge [to feed additional 2.5 billion people] can and will be met.”, there is absolutely no scientific credibility, nor support in the scientific literature—it is pure fantasy.”

Analysis of "…in many ways global warming will be a good thing"

“This article presents a highly biased view of global warming, only presenting the “positive” aspects of it. As the author is criticizing media doing the opposite (always showing the bad side of climate change) it is a shame the author didn’t present a balanced view here.”