Cato Institute Ad Calls Climate Change “Grossly Overstated”

Full page ads questioning President Obama’s stance on climate change were published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, and the Los Angeles Times last week, paid for by the Cato Institute.

Environmentalists, journalists, and scientists alike are calling foul and poking holes in the assertion that “there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”

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From PolitiFact:

The definitive statement on global warming comes from a 2007 study by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists from more than 130 nations. They concluded that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.” The group also concluded that there is “very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.”

From Real Climate:

“The “global warming stopped” meme is particularly lame since it relies on both a feigned ignorance of the statistics of short periods and being careful about which data set you use. It also requires cherry-picking the start year, had the period been “exactly a decade” or 12 years then all the trends are positive.”

From Joseph Romm at Grist:

“a key study Cato uses to argue we may see much less warming than the models predict comes to exactly the opposite conclusion.”

From Andrew Revkin, NY Times:

“Of course, there are quite a few experts in climate science and policy who warn that debating whether the research pointing to a disruptive human climate influence is, or is not, settled is a complete distraction from the reality that the basics are not in dispute (more CO2 = warming world = rising seas and lots of changing climate patterns).”

From The New Republic:

“The ad’s method boils down to: “Ignore the facts you don’t dispute, pick some others that are ambiguous and imply that, because they are subject to some debate, we therefore know nothing.”"

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