The elites and politicians have been pushing “green energy” on Americans. But now they are eating their words.
And climate alarmists are utterly embarrassed after key research gets destroyed.
Alarmist Climate Study Retracted After Data Flaws Exposed
Prestigious British journal Nature has pulled a high-profile study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that dramatically warned of $38 trillion in annual climate damages over the next 25 years, following sharp criticism of its shaky methodology and questionable data.
Eye-Popping Projections That Didn’t Hold Up
Published in April 2024, the paper The economic commitment of climate change grabbed headlines by forecasting a 19% plunge in global income by 2050 and a staggering 62% drop by 2100, driven by temperature shifts hammering labor and agriculture. It analyzed 1,600 regions using four decades of data on everything from heat’s toll on productivity to precipitation’s role in floods and farming.
The estimates dwarfed milder forecasts, like the World Economic Forum’s 2023 projection of $1.7 trillion to $3.1 trillion in yearly hits by mid-century from wrecked infrastructure and health woes. Environmental advocates seized on it as fresh proof of climate catastrophe upending global life.
But cracks appeared fast. An editor’s note flagged concerns on November 6: “Readers are alerted that the reliability of data and methodology presented in this manuscript is currently in question,” adding that “Appropriate editorial action will be taken once this matter is resolved.”
The full retraction landed Wednesday, pinning the blame on botched data from Uzbekistan alone. Scrubbing that outlier slashed the 2100 GDP loss from 62% to about 23% under high-emissions scenarios—much closer to prior, less sensational estimates. The 2050 income hit softened from 19% to 17%, with uncertainty bands widening (11–29% to 6–31%).
“The authors acknowledge that these changes are too substantial for a correction, leading to the retraction of the paper,” the note concluded. The team plans to rework and resubmit for peer review, promising an update link if it clears the bar.
Science Self-Corrects as Trump Calls Out the “Con Job”
The Potsdam Institute stood by the core message in a statement to Fox News Digital: “Following the publication of two critiques as ‘Matters Arising’, and in conversation with the journal Nature, the authors of the study ‘The economic commitment of climate change’ at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have retracted the paper.”
They’ve since revised, insisting mid-century damages remain “substantial and outweigh the costs of mitigation,” hitting low-income, low-emission areas hardest via temperature swings. “The authors and PIK take full responsibility for the original oversight,” they added.
This episode underscores the rigor of scientific scrutiny—exposing how one country’s data glitch can inflate doomsday numbers that fuel policy pushes. It arrives amid the Trump administration’s bold rollback of Biden-era green mandates, from easing oil and gas drilling curbs to loosening rules on gas-powered vehicles.
“It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” President Donald Trump declared at the U.N. General Assembly in September. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.”
“They were made by stupid people that have cost their country’s fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success,” he continued.
Democrats fired back, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasting Republicans at November’s COP30 summit in Brazil for handing clean energy dominance to China. “The United States of America is as dumb as we want to be on this topic, but the state of California is not. And so we are going to assert ourselves, we’re going to lean in, and we are going to compete in this space,” Newsom said.
As the dust settles, this retraction serves as a timely reminder that not every dire forecast withstands a closer look—validating Trump’s long-standing skepticism of overhyped climate alarms.
