Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Oct 3, 2021 17 tweets 10 min read Read on X
New study: climate makes children born today experience 2-36x more climate catastrophes

Lot of media coverage

But study assumes everyone stays poor and do nothing to adapt

Not remotely true of real world

So, what's the point, except to scare?

🧵

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
To predict 2100, scary climate study assumes nobody does anything after 2005

– how does that inform real-life decisions?

They don’t even tell you this in main study – you have to read the supplementary material, almost as if they don't want you to know

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Predicting the world in 2021 with 1926 data is awful

Since 1926, sea levels risen 15-20cm so prediction: drowned significant parts of the world

But human ingenuity actually means that *more* land has been reclaimed than lost!

nature.com/articles/nclim…
Scary climate study cherry-picks events that they know will get worse

Not useful way to guide policy

but great way to scare

(they also introduce ref37, which describes all their data better
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…)
Scary climate study shows that fires burn more and more

In reality, global burned area has *declined*

But, of course, if you ignore societies controlling fire...

Not useful to guide policy

but great way to scare

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Scary climate study uses fire model that doesn’t really work

And acknowledges that human action could reverse ”any of the trends found here”

But while this is useless to guide policy

it is great for scaring

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
Global fire history shows ever less area burns because of human fire suppression

Climate policy will make fire decline even more

This sort of information can help policy-makers

But, of course, pretty useless for scaring young people senseless

Refs here
Scary climate study claims much more fire (red line)

But 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 true if ignore CO₂ and fire suppression from society

If included, Nature study shows *completely* different outcome

Red line useless for policy, but great for scaring

nature.com/articles/nclim…
Scary study shows more flooding, but ignores social factors:

Not surprisingly, humans can avoid most flooding, if they are not poor

Ignoring obvious adaptation — like levees and dams — doesn’t inform but simply scares

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
Compare the impact on coastal flooding from rising sea levels:

As humanity gets richer (SSP1 or SSP5), it will protect itself ever better, and ever fewer will get flooded

Informative, but not scary

pnas.org/content/111/9/…
Scary climate study finds more and more hurricanes

— although they *know* that ”most … models project fewer hurricanes in a warmer world”

While not informative, claiming more hurricanes obviously great for scare stories

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
Scary climate study finds more and more hurricanes

— but the UN Climate Panel from 2021 finds that the frequency “will decrease or remain unchanged with increased global warming”

How is this not deeply problematic?

ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1…
Scary climate study expects more hurricanes and model that humanity will do nothing

— although we’ve always tackled hurricanes, and adaptation can ”reverse any such trend”

But great for scaring young people

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
Scary climate study expects more crop failure and expects humanity will do nothing

— although changing cultivars, fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation can reverse this

But narrative great for scaring young people

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
Scary study predicts more and more crop failures because they ignore adaptation

WHO estimate for malnutrition: declines dramatically because of less poverty. Climate simply slows down the decline slightly

But scaring people is apparently much more fun

apps.who.int/iris/handle/10…
Scary article blatantly tells you (in supplementary material) that they only look at potentially bad stuff, but in reality, things might get better

Well, here are actual damages for global weather-related losses — declining

Scary climate article tells you: children of the future will experience many more climate disasters

But they ignore adaptation and many of their models are just plain bad

Demand policy-relevant information, not just scares

, sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

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More from @BjornLomborg

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
Jan 16
Gasoline, not electric cars:

Two-thirds of American's want their next car to be fossil fuel driven, with just 6% battery-electric

Deloitte new 2024 Global Automotive Consumer Study

Key trend: "Slowing EV (electric car) momentum"

deloitte.com/global/en/Indu…Image
Electric cars: Consumers worry

They worry about charging time, range anxiety,
cost, battery safety, and availability of charging infrastructure

deloitte.com/global/en/Indu…
Image
We're being told that electric cars will take over the US

But Biden's Energy Information Administration estimates that by 2050, 84% of all cars will still run on fossil fuels


Image
Read 4 tweets
Jan 14
Climate alarmists incessantly hype extreme weather

But global climate-related disaster costs are declining

This decline is not just evident globally but also for rich and poor countries, and for flood, flash flood, coastal flood, cold, drought, wind, and all damage

Why don't we hear this?

Notice, damage is measured in % GDP, as even the UN insists on measuring it (e.g. SDG 11.5.2, )

This is because the same flood or storm will create much more damage in a much richer world:

If there are twice as many houses, a flood will tend to damage twice as many houses

Update of academic paper:


unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/global-disas…
Image
Cost of climate-related disasters has dropped nearly 5-fold since 1980

True for both richer and poorer countries and for all countries

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Cost of nearly all climate-related disasters have dropped dramatically over 1980-2016

True for both richer, poorer and all countries, at 50, 100, 200 and 400km

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 13
As cold envelops the Northern Hemisphere, stay warm!

Despite the climate narrative, almost everywhere cold is much more deadly than heat

Cheap and reliable energy to keep us warm used to be the hallmark of prosperous countries

no more because of our climate obsession

🧵+refsImage
Why is cold dangerous?

Because it causes outer blood vessels to constrict to conserve core body heat, driving up blood pressure

Here 2+ million measurements, 6 cities in the US

130+ is classified as high blood pressure
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29677012/
Image
Blood pressure up in cold

Mayo Clinic: "Blood pressure generally is higher in the winter and lower in the summer"

We see this over the year, here for 23,000 Chinese; markedly higher systolic blood pressure in winter months



academic.oup.com/eurheartj/arti…
mayoclinic.org/diseases-condi…
Image
Read 9 tweets
Jan 9
Despite breathless climate reporting about ever more fire

The US burned area last year was the lowest this century

It was less than 7% of the 1930s

Climate does increase the burned area

but zoning and forest management are much more important

Thread + refsImage
We actually have good decadal estimates of US burned area from 1900

2023 saw less than 3% of the area that burned each year in 1900s (1900-1909)



data credibility: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.…
nifc.gov/fire-informati…
Image
Climate change played a minor role in the wildfires that devastated California in the past three years, a panel of experts said

blaming most on land management and development.

"25% ...from climate change, and 75% is the way we manage lands"

eenews.net/stories/106202…
Image
Read 11 tweets
Jan 2
Congrats to Germany

Super-expensive but ineffective climate policies mean

De-industrialization

with small climate benefit


telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/…
archive.ph/uHOKy
Image
Germans pay ever more for power

Even before war in Ukraine, costs had increased more than 50% from 2000 to early 2022

to 35 euro-cents per kWh (or 38 US¢)


destatis.de/EN/Themes/Econ…
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/e…
Image
Not surprisingly, Germans can afford ever less electricity, with consumption per person actually declining since 2017

lowcarbonpower.org/region/Germany
Image
Read 4 tweets

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