Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Aug 3, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Imagine study of property damage from rainstorms —

assuming no one has a roof (ht @Klynchit)

-> alarmist headlines

This study finds sea level rise affects millions, risk $trillions —

assuming we rip out all coastal defenses

-> alarmist headlines

theguardian.com/environment/20…
Central quote

Only true if "no dykes or sea walls in place"

Great for scary stories, bad for informing policy

How is it relevant for mayor of New York or Jakarta to know what happens if humanity rips out all dikes and sea walls?

nature.com/articles/s4159… (p8, supplement) Image
Many of the same researchers have already found that just the difference between *existing* and *increasing* protection as we get richer and as sea levels rise

impacts will be reduced 100-1000 times

pnas.org/content/111/9/… Image
It ought to be a scandal that alarmist media and journals get away with misinforming us like this on sea-level rise and climate change

Instead of scaring us witless, they should give us the correct picture
sciencedirect.com/science/articl… Image
To its credit, Guardian briefly remarks on no protection, but spins it into illustrating benefits of 'early action' (is that CO₂ cuts?)

No, shows the benefit of *keeping* our protection and upgrading it Image

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More from @BjornLomborg

Jul 17
Another environmental scare debunked:

Acid rain killing all forests was the main environmental scare in the 1980s

A new half-century study shows acid rain doesn't kill trees

— actually, trees grow more with acid rain!

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Acid rain scare in the 1980s delivered full-on panic

No more so than in Germany, where papers claimed "the forest is dying," called it an "ecological Hiroshima" and claimed ‘‘the dying of the forests will have a greater impact on our country than World War II’’

All falseImage
The 1980s Acid Rain scare we know now was mostly false

New study: acid rain actually makes trees grow faster

Yet, a majority of Germans in 1985 believed "all forests will be dead by 2000" because of acid rain

We were misled


bibliothek.wzb.eu/pdf/1986/iiug-…
sauerlaender-verlag.com/CMS/uploads/me…Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 6
Today, the Great Barrier Reef is better than ever

But 12 years ago, we were told about the "Great Reef Catastrophe"

and how the reef would be almost gone today

Moral of the story: Don't always believe the scare stories

Refs in🧵
Here is the 2012 article telling us about the terrible state of the Great Barrier Reef

and about how it will almost halve again by 2022 to 5-10%

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 2
Doesn't fit the narrative, but

2024 record coral cover for Great Barrier Reef

Based on official data for all 11 sectors of GBR,

Last three years, 2022-2024, have been unprecedented

Data: apps.aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…Image
Official, reef-wide average widely published as the Great Barrier Reef got worse

But when it got better, official average stopped

Here is the optimal average (least-square) based on their 11 published sectors,

Last official reef-wide average: apps.aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…
aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…Image
In 2014, the eco-worried Guardian wrote the obituary of the Great Barrier Reef

Last three years, the Great Barrier Reef has been better than ever since records started in 1986

Moral: Don't believe all scare stories theguardian.com/environment/ng…Image
Read 4 tweets
Jun 26
Misinformation:

New York Times tells you that heat is “the deadliest of all extreme weather events”

But NYTimes simply ignore their own data, which shows

Cold is 9x deadlier

But, of course, this doesn't fit the climate narrative

NYTimes:
WMO:
Data from Lancet: nytimes.com/2024/06/21/cli…
library.wmo.int/viewer/68500/d…
thelancet.com/journals/lanpl…Image
Not just the New York Times misinforming on heat deaths:

The Guardian misinforms and misdirects, trying to avoid telling you that cold deaths vastly outweigh heat deaths


Image
Not just the New York Times misinforming on heat deaths:

Bloomberg tosses and turns to avoid telling you that cold deaths vastly outweigh heat deaths


Image
Read 6 tweets
Feb 20
Climate alarmists are annoyed that global climate-related disaster deaths have declined dramatically

Then they discovered how to cherry-pick deaths to look like they’re increasing

— just (indefensibly) remove the top 50 most deadly mega-disasters and rig the scales

🧵+refsImage
After manipulating their stats, they have the temerity to claim “Misinterpreting statistics could be harmful if it supports a discourse minimizing the importance of climate action”

I’m pretty sure misinterpreting statistics is wrong no matter what

, p7cred.be/sites/default/…Image
They show low death numbers from 1900s and 1910s, but these are likely wrong ()

They have left out at least two major catastrophes, likely missing at least 20-25 million deaths from the Chinese flood in 1906, leading to famine in 1906-07, and at least 2-10 million deaths from the Persian drought leading to famine in 1917-19


sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_f…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_f…Image
Read 8 tweets
Feb 4
CO₂ and climate make the world greener

Over 2001-20 the world added so many new leaves

the additional leaf area is equivalent to 1.4x the area of the Contiguous US

Climate net problem

but breathless reporting ignores an ever-greening world

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
CO₂ makes world greener

Every two seconds global leaf area grows by 5 soccer pitches

Every year, the world adds almost three Great Britains of additional leaf area

Climate net problem, but breathless reporting ignores an ever-greening world

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Global greening happens over most of the world, but especially in China, India, Europe, African Sahel (the greening of the Sahel), Southern Brazil and across US/Canada

Much of this is from forests and increased cropping in croplands

nature.com/articles/s4189…
Image
Read 10 tweets

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