misinformation
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Statisticians reject global cooling
A terrific story by the AP’s Seth Borenstein, “Statisticians reject global cooling,” not only debunks that myth — it will make your head spin once again on error-riddled Superfreakonomics (coauthored by Levitt). Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or […]
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Caldeira on Yale e360
Yale Environment 360: I want to start with this little dust-up over SuperFreakonomics. In the book, you are quoted as saying, when it comes to global warming, “Carbon dioxide is not the right villain.” Is that accurate? Ken Caldeira: That is not accurate. I don’t believe I said anything remotely like that because I believe […]
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DeLong and Deltoid on Roger Peilke Jr. "train wreck"
Roger Pielke Jr. has written the most Titanic whine in the history of the climate blogosphere, “Giant Fish, Big Fish and Minnows of the Liberal Blogosphere.” And I do mean Titanic with a capital T. Tim Lambert (aka Deltoid) calls it the “Pielke Pity Party.” Eli Rabett calls it “The great Pielke meltdown.” The woe-is-me […]
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Coauthor of SuperFreakonomics apologizes to me
[Note: The error-riddled book is now searchable again on Amazon, so readers can confirm that all of my excerpts were correct and in context. The book has garnered a number of positive comments from (fast) readers, even on the climate chapter whose main conclusion has been rejected by its two primary scientific sources — see […]
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Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on SuperFreakonomics
Un-friggin-believable. Nathan Myhrvold, who Levitt and Dubner call the “polymath’s polymath” — who is one of the primary “experts” the authors rely on to make the case for their central geoengineering-only approach to global warming — has just publicly repudiated that approach. Apparently he never read the chapter — or didn’t understand it if he […]
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Interviews support my reporting on SuperFreakonomics
Caldeira, like the vast majority of climate scientists, believes cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions is our only real chance to avoid runaway climate change. “Carbon dioxide is the right villain,” Caldeira wrote on his Web site in reply. He told Joe Romm, the respected climate blogger who broke the story, that he had […]
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Anatomy of Debunking
UPDATE: For an independent vindication of my reporting here, see Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Caldeira backs up my reporting on error-riddled Superfreakonomics. Dubner is baffled that Caldeira “doesn’t believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions.” I wish I didn’t have to waste valuable blogging time writing this post to set the record straight. […]
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Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 5
n SuperFreakonomics, Levitt and Dubner write of Ken Caldeira (page 184), “Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.” What he really believes, as he wrote me last weekend, is: I compare CO2 emissions to mugging little old ladies…. It is wrong to mug little old ladies […]
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Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 4
This post looks at Nobelist Krugman’s first take-down of the single most stunning economic error in SuperFreakonomics. I’ll also take on the authors disingenuous response to the critics (including me), “The Rumors of Our Global-Warming Denial Are Greatly Exaggerated.” No, I don’t know any critics who called them global warming “deniers” — I don’t use […]
