Science reporting is notoriously hit-or-miss, as reporters struggle to simplify complex science into something digestible for the public. Sometimes this means high-quality explainers. Other times, pieces can create misleading oversimplifications or generate political spin. But usually, one study doesn’t generate both simultaneously. This week, we’ve seen an exception thanks to new research claiming that, in the words of one of the study author’s, “the 1.5C warming limit is not yet a geophysical impossibility.”
In short: the idea of a warming pause/hiatus provides a smidge of hope of meeting Paris goals if we ramp up climate action. But because the pause isn’t real and models and observations seem to line up fine, the study probably isn’t too accurate, and we’re still in deep trouble.
We’re sidestepping the many legitimate scientific criticisms of the study, particularly its seemingly “not true” reliance on model-observation differences (or lack thereof). See Carbon Brief for that kind of fact check. And we will nobly refrain from gloating about how this criticism of climate models debunks denier arguments about groupthink and gatekeeping. Instead, we’ll turn to how the study was “dangerously misinterpreted” by conservative media to advance its anti-science narrative.
Over at the Daily Mail, science reporter Shivali Best’s piece reflected the study author’s original framing: Best covers the study as a piece of good news, suggesting that the Paris goals could be within reach. The next day, however, conservative Member of UK Parliament Graham Stringer provided the denier take for the Mail, writing that the study “shows how the apocalyptic predictions of the green lobby have been exaggerated.”
Ben Webster at The TimesUK and James Delingpole’s Sun column also use Stringer’s “the greens are too dramatic” framing. In his piece, good ol’ James claims with his usual over-the-top hysterics that warnings have been “at best an exaggeration, at worst a disgraceful fabrication” and that with this study, “scientists have fessed up to their mistake.” At Breitbart he claims that “we climate skeptics have been proved right yet again” and the “snooty alarmist scumbags” should apologize.
For deniers, it’s confirmation they have been right all along. What’s more, since the study supposedly says the IPCC’s climate models overestimate warming, there’s no need to take urgent action on climate change. Both of these claims, according to a clarification from the study authors, are “false.”
They may have a hard time impressing this on the larger denier media. “Have scientists really admitted climate change sceptics are right?” one Telegraph headline asks.
No. No, they have not. Will that stop hacks like Delingpole and Bastasch from using the study to advance a narrative? Only if they’re acting in good faith.
So if this study shows anything, which we’re dubious it does, it’s that while keeping warming under 1.5C may not yet be a geophysical impossibility, deniers arguing in good faith probably is.
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