Category: The American Spectator
Climate hucksters wrong again: Study claiming climate change would make you poorer retracted over major flaws
German climate alarmists claimed in a study published last year in the journal Nature that even if carbon dioxide emissions were radically cut down, so-called climate change would still drive the world economy toward a global GDP reduction of 19%.
The alarmists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggested further that not only would global annual climate-change damages hit $38 trillion by 2049, but that under a high-emissions scenario, global GDP would be lowered around 60% relative to the baseline in 75 years — an impact reportedly three times larger than previous estimates.
‘Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20% reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number. So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60% is off the chart.’
According to the U.K.-based Carbon Brief, this was one of the most-cited climate papers by the media, including the Associated Press, CNN, Deutsche Welle, and Reuters.
Just the News highlighted that numerous activists and institutions also cited it, including Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and the World Bank.
The problem for the climate alarmists and those who believed them was that the study’s conclusions were bogus.
A team of American economists pointed out in a commentary published by Nature in August that “data anomalies arising from one country in [the German researchers’] underlying GDP dataset, Uzbekistan, substantially bias their predicted impacts of climate change.”
The economists revealed that if the questionable data pertaining to Uzbekistan were excluded, projected global losses in 2100 would be 23% as opposed to 60%, which is more in line with previous estimates.
RELATED: Al Gore wrong again: Study delivers good news for Arctic ice trends, bad news for climate hucksters
Photo by ALEX KENT/AFP via Getty Images
The economists noted further that the Germans underestimated “statistical uncertainty in their future projections of climate impacts.”
“Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20% reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number,” Solomon Hsiang, a Stanford University professor who co-authored the August commentary, told the New York Times. “So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60% is off the chart.”
‘We have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately — if not, economic losses will become even bigger.’
The paper, which was originally published on April 17, 2024, was retracted on Wednesday.
The retraction notice indicates that “the results were found to be sensitive to the removal of one country, Uzbekistan, where inaccuracies were noted in the underlying economic data for the period 1995-1999.”
While the German alarmists attempted to correct the data for Uzbekistan and make other adjustments, they found that “these changes led to discrepancies in the estimates for climate damages by mid-century, with an increased uncertainty range (from 11-29% to 6-31%) and a lower probability of damages diverging across emission scenarios by 2050 (from 99% to 90%).”
In other words, the original conclusions hyped by the liberal media were worthless.
When the now-retracted paper was first published in April 2024, the German researchers made no secret of the point of the exercise: justifying societal and industrial upheaval coded as “adaptation.”
“Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly developed ones such as Germany, France, and the United States,” Leonie Wenz, lead scientist on the study, said in a release.
“These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions. We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at least some of them,” Wenz continued. “And we have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately — if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100.”
Wenz and her team are hardly the first climate alarmists to have their conclusions proven to be as incorrect as they are outlandish.
Failed presidential candidate Al Gore, for instance, concern-mongered in 2009 that in addition to the significant rise in the global sea level that was supposed to happen “in the near future” but never did, the entire polar ice cap was likely going to be seasonally ice-free, perhaps by as early as 2014.
Gore told the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that then-new research indicated there was “a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.”
In September, a paper published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters revealed that Gore was dead wrong — that over the past 20 years, “Arctic sea ice loss has slowed considerably, with no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005.”
Rather than wait to be proven horribly wrong, Bill Gates — who has spent years fear-mongering about the calamities that would supposedly visit humanity unless governments neutralized certain industries and regulated into extinction certain behaviors — admitted in October that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
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‘Lawful and needful’: Navy admiral dispels Hegseth’s alleged ‘kill them all’ order during drug-boat strike
Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth remains on offense, as another military official stands up in defense of the infamous boat strike against alleged drug traffickers.
The Washington Post published a story claiming that Hegseth ordered Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all” during a September 2 strike on alleged drug boats, insinuating that the alleged order amounted to a war crime.
‘I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, load it with drugs.’
Bradley echoed remarks made by Hegseth and members of the administration defending the strike and calling the Post’s reporting into question.
Lawmakers exiting the Thursday-morning meeting with Bradley reaffirmed that the accusations levied against Hegseth and his Pentagon were unfounded, claiming there was “no such order.”
RELATED: Trump’s boat strikes may leave one Venezuelan drug-smuggling pirate haven in ruins
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2 were entirely lawful and needful, and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said as he was exiting the classified briefing.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Cotton added.
RELATED: Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Cotton went on to describe the footage of the strike that was shown to the lawmakers.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat — loaded with drugs, bound for the United States — back over so they could stay in the fight,” Cotton said. “And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid.”
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‘Matrix’ co-creator: ‘Trans rage’ drives my work
At 57 years old, writer Lilly Wachowski is still doing a lot of soul-searching.
Born Andrew, and one-half of the famous Wachowski Brothers, Wachowski and his older brother, Lana (60), born Laurence, are known for their iconic movie series “The Matrix.”
Both claim to be transgender.
‘As a trans person, the dark question that I had as a trans person was, “Who will ever love this?”‘
Andy became Lilly in 2016, while Larry was four years ahead, becoming Lana in 2012. Since then, the duo have leaned into their new identities, going so far as to retroactively characterize “The Matrix” trilogy as a “trans metaphor” in 2020.
Freedom fried
During a recent interview on “So True with Caleb Hearon,” Lilly Wachowski took another look back at his previous work and explained that he has a new perspective that helps him see how his work got him to where he is now, in relation to his gender status.
I look back on all of my previous work, and I see it because I’m looking at it from this higher place. It just creates this different perspective from this point of view up here, and I can see “Bound” — the first shot of the movie is a closet. And it’s like, “Okay, it looks like we’re going to be working on some stuff.”
Noting that “The Matrix” was about “liberation and identity and, like, freedom,” Wachowski then repeated a liberal trope about making art that can “will things into being that you need to see in the world,” before further saying that his movies have also been about finding love, while also being subliminal instruments for transgender storytelling.
RELATED: Dave Chappelle calls out censorious transsexual activists who claim his jokes cause violence
“A lot of the things that me and Lana were also writing about was love — that we needed to create stories that gave us a grounding to see that love was possible,” Wachowski tried to explain. “As a trans person … the dark question that I had as a trans person was, ‘Who will ever love this?’ … And it gave us this reminder that there was a future for us.”
Mad for it
Wachowski also noted another powerful source of creativity his new identity has given him: “trans rage.”
In 2017, he and a partner began working on a trans-themed screenplay — a process he described as “purging all this rage and horror out of the world and onto this page.”
After a few years executive producing the Showtime series “Work in Progress” — a vehicle for comedian and self-described “masculine queer dyke” Abby McEnany — Wachowski returned to the script in 2021, finding “catharsis” in responding to a world he found had become “way s**ttier for trans people.”
Wachowski channeled some of his rage into “creating caricature[d] buffoons of the right wing.” He also used it to inspire a vision of “an idealized family, a network, a Weather Underground of trans people coming together and supporting each other and holding each other up, trying to create a story that is the best of us.”
Larry Wachowski, now Lana (L), and Andy Wachowski, now Lilly (R). Photo by Bob Riha Jr/WireImage
Flip-flop
Wachowski’s new creative direction hasn’t been great for the bottom line.
A fourth installment of the beloved Keanu Reeves saga, “The Matrix Resurrections,” flopped when released in December 2021, making only about $38 million on a $190 million budget.
That’s less than a third of the $139 million its predecessor, “The Matrix Revolutions,” pulled in 2004 — and a far cry from 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded,” which took in over $280 million.
The first “Matrix” made $171 million in 1999.
The media just told you their 2026 strategy: ‘Lies, but better!’
Let me explain what the New York Times just did to the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend. The Post tried to turn Secretary of War Pete Hegseth into a war criminal for blowing up maritime drug runners. But the attack didn’t gain traction — partly because Republicans are getting better at starving these narratives of oxygen.
So the New York Times read the room, climbed to the top rope, and elbow-dropped its own ideological ally to prevent serious blowback against the propaganda press. The Times wasn’t defending truth. It was defending future lies. The ability to run effective psyops in 2026 was on the line. And when the Times pretends to be an ombudsman, the calculus is always political.
You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026.
Don’t kid yourself: No ethical journalism happened here. The Times simply concluded, “We will sell no psyop before its time.” They weren’t going to let DataRepublican or Steve Baker rack up millions of views muckraking the Post’s latest collapsing narrative. So the Gray Lady hit the panic button and aborted the mission.
What should we learn from this? The temptation on the right will be to ask why the corporate left-wing press broke ranks on the eve of maybe flipping a Tennessee district Donald Trump won by 22 points to a Democrat who is on tape saying she hates her own city and its constituents.
But that question misses a foundational truth I repeat constantly on my show: Worldview is destiny. And outside the biblical worldview, every worldview boils down to a will to power.
With that hermeneutic, you can see exactly what the Times leaders are doing. They’re thinking far past Tennessee. They’re signaling that they have an entire arsenal of new lies ready to deploy to steal the midterms. It’s that Don Draper meme — hands outstretched, smirking: “Lies … but better!”
Remember: The godless do not have limiting principles. Why wouldn’t they lie if lying helps them capture power? It doesn’t matter whether it’s godless atheism, godless occultism, or godless Islam. Where the one true God is absent, the father of lies dances to a raucous tune. Hell has denominations, too.
But in the biblical worldview, the hallmark of everything is repentance, redemption, and restoration. You know a tree by its fruit. So if you want to discern whether something reflects the kingdom of God or the spirit of the age, the first question isn’t “do I like this person?” or “is this how I would do it?” The first question is: Does it produce repentance, redemption, and restoration?
Look at the Charlie Kirk memorial. Several people spoke whom no one expected to have deep, serious thoughts about Christianity. Yet the event unmistakably pointed people toward repentance, redemption, and restoration. That’s the kingdom of God. Don’t focus on the proxy on the outside. Focus on what God is doing on the inside. That’s the through-line from Genesis to Revelation.
The spirit of the age rejects all of it. It is will to power, front to back. Which means you cannot analyze the opposition the same way you analyze our side.
RELATED: How GOP leadership can turn a midterm gift into a total disaster
rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images
Sure, Republicans won that Tennessee special election by nine points. But they lost the Nashville precinct — the same place the Democrat said she hated. That’s how cults behave. And that’s why political messaging on the right must account for the environment normie voters live in — the tension between two very different kingdoms vying for their attention.
The normie voter either doesn’t know about those kingdoms or doesn’t care. He just wants what he wants: an economy that boosts his bottom line and border and anti-crime policies that keep him safe. Voters want elections to be about them.
That’s why Hegseth taking out foreign drug traffickers instinctively sounds like a pretty good deal — something even the New York Times could grasp, if only for tactical reasons.
So here’s the math going forward: Leftists can lie all they want — and sometimes lie badly, as we just saw — but the GOP will still lose if it fails to fix the economy and security.
You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026. With better lies behind her and normie voters feeling betrayed by lukewarm people in power, she — and people like her — will absolutely win.
Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention
Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable. What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.
Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.
It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict ‘experts’ who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with.
So the disloyal opposition defaults to its remaining weapon: information warfare. Media outlets, activist networks, and hostile bureaucrats have been carpet-bombing the information space with false claims designed to sow dissension among the ranks and mislead the public.
The country needs a president who can act decisively in defense of national security, without media gatekeepers, rogue judges, or partisan lawmakers running armchair military campaigns from the sidelines. The “Seditious Six” tried to undermine the president’s authority and cast doubt on lawful orders. The Washington Post attempted to turn that fiction into fact by quoting anonymous sources with unverifiable claims.
The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”
The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”
A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.
Even if the words had been spoken, the context would determine legality. If a commander asks, “How big a bomb do we drop on the enemy location?” and the answer is, “Use one big enough to kill everybody,” that exchange would not be criminal. It is a description of the force required to neutralize a hostile asset.
If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.
The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.
RELATED: White House names names in new ‘media bias tracker’ in wake of ‘seditious’ Democrat video
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Trump stated publicly that Hegseth told him no order was given to kill survivors. The fact that U.S. forces recovered two survivors from the submersible drug vessel undercuts the Post’s narrative even more. Pete Hegseth is far more credible than Alex Horton and the newsroom that elevated this rumor.
It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:
According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.
The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.
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