NASA embraces the widely cited statistic that “97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree” that warming trends are the result of human activity, while also listing 200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold to the same findings.
The other approximately 3 percent that reject anthropogenic warming? Turns out scientists went back to try to recreate the findings of those studies — and in each one found major methodological flaws.
Costs and consequences
What Mr. Trump said
“I will say this. I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.”
The facts
Not doing anything could cost trillions of dollars.
Here the president is referring in large part to the Paris Agreement, the voluntary pact among nearly 200 nations to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions, from which the Trump administration has vowed to withdraw. In announcing that the United States would abandon the Paris deal, Mr. Trump argued that it would have cost 2.7 million American jobs by 2025 and untold economic revenue.
The numbers came from think tanks opposed to the Paris Agreement. And while economics is less precise than science, here is another for balance: Stanford University researchers this year found that meeting the goals of the Paris deal would save the world tens of trillions of dollars in avoided climate damages, far outweighing most estimated costs.
Science and politics
What Mr. Trump said
“Look, scientists also have a political agenda.”
Asked about scientists who say hurricanes and other extreme weather events are worsening, Mr. Trump replied, “You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.”
The facts
Scientists dispute that.
No doubt climate change has become politicized. And climate skeptics Sunday night cheered Mr. Trump’s remark. But scientists took umbrage at the notion that their research has an agenda. Here are three in their own words:
Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist, Texas Tech University: “A thermometer isn’t Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t give us a different answer depending on how we vote.”
Andrew Dessler, climate scientist, Texas A&M University: “At its heart, this is just a wacky conspiracy theory,” he wrote. “It’s important to realize that there’s never been a conspiracy by a huge field of science. And this would have to be an extremely massive conspiracy, considering the thousands of scientists working on this. On the other hand, there have been many examples (cigarettes, anyone?) where political advocates have tried to cast doubt on science that is extremely solid. That’s what’s going on here.”
