Think Progress

GLOBAL WARMING REPORT: Right-Wing Fiction vs. Economic Reality - Monday, October 30th, 2006

As the scientific consensus on the reality of global warming’s effects have strengthened, global warming deniers have resorted to arguing that, even if it is real, it’s too expensive to mitigate. Some examples:

National Review’s Jason Steorts: “Even if warming is predominately the result of human activity, and even if its harms will outweigh its benefits, [...]

REPORT: The Cost of Ignoring Climate Change Is $20 Trillion A Year - Friday, October 13th, 2006

Global warming deniers frequently fall back on the following argument: even if global warming is real, it’s too expensive to mitigate. For example, the National Review’s Jason Steorts said it would require “economic castration.” Such arguments, however, ignore the costs of inaction.
A new study by the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts [...]

FACT CHECK: Combating Global Warming Does Not Require ‘Economic Castration’ - Monday, July 24th, 2006

There is a group of people who will say whatever it takes to cast doubt on global warming science. But if all else fails, their default position is that even if global warming is real and dangerous, trying to solve it wouldn’t be worth the economic cost. For example, here’s our old friend Jason Steorts [...]

New Study: Manmade Global Warming Contributing To Increase In Wildfires - Thursday, July 6th, 2006

A common right-wing argument about why global warming isn’t a problem is that it may have positive benefits for the earth:
“When it’s not even clear that the warming we’ve seen is hurting us — many argue that it’s a boon, citing its benefits to agriculture and its potential to make severe climates more [...]

The Climate Skeptic Playbook - Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

Jason Steort’s “clarification” of his misleading National Review cover story is accompanied by a letter-to-the-editor by Pat Michaels. Mr. Michaels is the one who told Steorts that 2002 was a “high-water mark for Antarctic ice” based on a grossly inaccurate interpretation of a study by Curt Davis.
In his letter, Michaels backs away from [...]

Steorts Issues ‘Clarification’ On Misleading Global Warming Article, Makes Another Error - Friday, June 16th, 2006

ThinkProgress has documented several critical errors in the National Review’s June 5 cover story on global warming, “Scare of the Century.”
In the new issue of National Review, Steorts owns up to one of his errors in a “clarification” letter to the editor. Here’s an excerpt:
CLARIFICATION
My article “Scare of the Century” (June 5) quoted University of [...]

Steorts Dismisses Factual Errors As ‘Irrelevancies,’ Demands Corrections From ThinkProgress - Monday, June 5th, 2006

Jason Steorts, author of the National Review cover story on global warming, dismisses multiple factual errors exposed by ThinkProgress as “irrelevancies.” Apparently, even though Steorts concedes he made numerous mistakes, we need to correct ourselves for pointing them out. Steorts says ThinkProgress has “failed to correct the errors and omissions I have pointed out in [...]

Key Fact In National Review’s Global Warming Article Is ‘Completely Wrong’ - Friday, June 2nd, 2006

In the June 5 global warming cover story in the print edition of the National Review, scientist Curt Davis said author Jason Steorts completely misrepresented his study to argue that Antartica gained ice between 1992 and 2003. Steorts now maintains he omitted the fact that Davis’ study only covered the eastern interior of the continent [...]

Climate Scientist: National Review ‘Misrepresented My Study Just Like CEI Did’ - Thursday, June 1st, 2006

An advertisement by the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute used a study to claim that the “Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner” as a way of casting doubt on global warming science.
The author of the study, Curt Davis, issued a press release in response calling CEI’s ad a “deliberate effort to confuse and [...]

How The National Review Bastardizes James Hansen’s Global Warming Research - Thursday, June 1st, 2006

Jason Steorts is on the defensive about his National Review cover story on global warming “Scare of the Century.” Steorts’s article seeks to dismiss the conclusion of thousands of climate scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global warming is real, the result of human activity and, if unmitigated, will have grave consequences. [...]

National Review: ThinkProgress Doesn’t Have The ‘Slightest Idea What They Are Talking About’ - Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Jason Lee Steorts of the National Review has published a column taking issue with our response to his cover story on global warming, “Scare of the Century.” The response is useful because it more explicitly exposes the tactics of Steorts and others trying to muddy the debate:
1. Discount the consensus of thousands of scientific experts [...]

FACT CHECK: National Review’s Cover Story Distorts Facts On Global Warming - Thursday, May 25th, 2006

The National Review’s June 6 cover story, Scare of the Century by Jason Lee Steorts, has several serious errors and omissions. By distorting evidence, Steorts misleads his readers about the threats of global warming. Here’s a debunk of some of Steorts’s inaccurate claims:
CLAIM: “[T]here is wide disagreement about the extent to which carbon-dioxide [...]