Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

One way to evaluate the validity of a science is with its predictive value, and Fox has unintentionally demonstrated the strong predictive value of climate science with regards to global warming. Fox tried one of their usual illogical attacks on science by coming up with a list of Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts.

The most recent item is not really a serious scientific forecast but a prediction made by a scientist in a newspaper interview. It is already of dubious meaning when they have to resort to using such an interview as opposed to the more meaningful predictions published in scientific literature which the science should be judged by. Even worse (from the perspective of the anti-science right) is the fact that the most recent “botched forecast” is from 2000.

The most recent forecast was from 2000, well before climate science reached its current state, and well before the consensus statements on climate change were released. Little Green Footballs has listed the years of all eight forecasts:

2000
1990
1972
1989
1970
1970
1971
1970

Not a bad record–on the mark for ten years and only four “botched forecasts” following 1970. What Fox wants to avoid admitting is that, not only have the predictions of climate scientists become increasingly accurate, in some cases we are seeing that global warming is progressing even more rapidly than many of the scientists predicted. Of course Fox would never report that as a “botched environmental forecast.”