Debunked: Fake climate fact check of President Trump

Hey everyone. Steve Milloy here. The fake fact checkers at FactCheckdotorg recently tried to fact check Donald Trump on global warming. But FactCheckdotorg struck out. Let’s go through it. In a recent interview with TV producer Shawn Ryan, President Trump talked about why climate hoaxers stopped calling it “global warming.” Here’s what he said: PAUSE

FactCheckdotorg dismissed President Trump’s statement because, quote, “The fact that a few places have gotten cooler over time does not negate the overwhelming trend in the opposite direction for the rest of the world, nor does it invalidate the term,” end quote.

Let’s first recognize, as FactCheckdotorg reluctantly does, that President Trump is correct: Recent changes in surface temperatures have been regional. Antarctica has been cooling for 70 years. The Southeastern US has been cooling for 120 years. The Southwest Pacific and Western South America also are cooling. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are the same everywhere, large parts of the Earth, in fact, are cooling. The explanation is unknown but it’s clear that it’s not carbon dioxide emissions.

Why are we even talking about global warming the first place? Per this new study in the journal Science, the Earth has been cooling for the past 485 million years. Even though we’re in a warming trend that started 20,000 years ago – way before coal plants, SUVs, cheeseburgers and even recorded human history – we’ve got a long way to go before the planet is as warm as it used to be. Strike one, FactCheckdotorg.

Next, President Trump noted that scientists in the 1920s thought the world was cooling: PAUSE

But FactCheckdotorg said: Quote, “It’s unclear which news story Trump had in mind. He mentioned Time, but in a search, we couldn’t find any such articles from the 1920s," end quote. I don’t know where the mention of Time magazine came from as it’s not in the intervew, but it took me literally seconds to find this wire service article from March 8, 1927 featured on the front-page of the Kansas City Star. Quote, “Washington Scientist Finds World Cooling,” end quote reads the headline. Strike two, FactCheckdotorg.

FactCheckdotorg then went to further accuse President Trump of imagining there was a Time magazine cover story about global cooling from the 1970s. Well, there was no cover story and he never said there was in the interview. But there was this Time Magazine story from June 24, 1974 reporting that the, quote, “telltale signs of another ice age were everywhere” end quote.

Strike three, FactCheckdotorg. You’re out. But I’m going to give President Trump the last word on who and just how crazy climate hoaxers are. PAUSE