Claim reviews
Rush Limbaugh falsely claims there is no evidence of human-caused global warming
CLAIM
"There isn’t yet any empirical evidence for their claim that greenhouse gases even cause temperatures to increase."
SOURCE: Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 2 April 2018
VERDICT
Breitbart repeats blogger’s unsupported claim that NOAA manipulates data to exaggerate warming
CLAIM
"NOAA has adjusted past temperatures to look colder than they were and recent temperatures to look warmer than they were."
SOURCE: James Delingpole, Breitbart, 20 February 2018
VERDICT
EPA’s Scott Pruitt incorrectly suggests climate change might not be “a bad thing”
CLAIM
"We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what, warming trends. I think there are assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that is necessarily a bad thing."
SOURCE: Scott Pruitt, KSNV NBC Las Vegas, 6 Feb. 2018
VERDICT
President Trump’s claim of growing ice does not reflect reality
CLAIM
"The ice caps were going to melt. They were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records"
SOURCE: Donald Trump, ITV, 28 Jan. 2018
VERDICT
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott wrongly claims Australia has warmed far less than data show
CLAIM
"unadjusted data suggests that temperatures in Australia have only increased by 0.3 degrees over the past century, not the 1 degree usually claimed"
SOURCE: Tony Abbott, Global Warming Policy Foundation, 9 Oct 2017
VERDICT
Incorrect claim that global warming is mostly natural was based on a study that can’t support that conclusion
CLAIM
"Most of the recent warming could be natural"
SOURCE: Jennifer Marohasy, The Spectator, 21 Aug. 2017
VERDICT
Climate change likely helped increase Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall, but too early to say exactly by how much
CLAIM
"[climate scientists] say that aspects of the case of Hurricane Harvey suggest global warming is making a bad situation worse."
SOURCE: Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 27 Aug. 2017
VERDICT
Some extreme weather events are clearly becoming more common, in contrast to Lord Lawson’s claim
CLAIM
"The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is sort of the voice of the consensus, concedes that there has been no increase in extreme weather events."
SOURCE: Nigel Lawson, BBC, 10 Aug. 2017
VERDICT
Lord Lawson falsely claims that global temperatures have declined over last decade
CLAIM
"according, again, to the official figures—during this past 10 years, if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined"
SOURCE: Nigel Lawson, BBC, 10 Aug. 2017
VERDICT
Earth is not at risk of becoming a hothouse like Venus, as Stephen Hawking claimed
CLAIM
"Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid."
SOURCE: Stephen Hawking, BBC, 2 July 2017
VERDICT