{"id":394439,"date":"2025-08-11T08:33:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=394439"},"modified":"2026-01-04T06:05:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T05:05:47","slug":"turns-out-major-climate-study-peddled-by-media-relied-on-bunk-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=394439","title":{"rendered":"Turns Out Major Climate Study Peddled By Media Relied On Bunk Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE DAILY CALLER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Daily<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Audrey Streb
<\/a><\/strong>DCNF Energy Reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2024 climate change study amplified by the corporate press projecting up to $38 trillion in global climate damages by 2050 relied on inaccurate data, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s inclusion of Uzbekistan\u2019s faulty GDP figures skewed<\/a> its results and cast doubt on its conclusion that global GDP could be roughly 62% lower by 2100 due to climate change than it otherwise would be, according to the Post. Numerous prominent<\/a> media<\/a> outlets<\/a> touted<\/a> the study upon its release as proof of climate change\u2019s imminent economic threat, but a new analysis<\/a> and experts who spoke to the Post argue the paper is undermined by Uzbekistan\u2019s \u201cdata anomalies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original study<\/a> was the second-most<\/a> cited paper across media in 2024, according to the U.K.-based climate outlet Carbon Brief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only GDP that is set to plummet is the GDP of fraudulent self-promoting climate activists who are about to finally and appropriately get their funding cut by the Trump administration,\u201d President of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told the Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cCommon sense and actual peer-reviewed studies show that warmer weather saves lives, with nearly 20 times more people dying from cold than heat, that warmer temperatures and more atmospheric CO2 are stimulating a blooming of greenery throughout the planet, and crop production sets records nearly every year with longer growing seasons and more atmospheric CO2.\u201d (RELATED: Trump Admin\u2019s New Report Blows Massive Hole In The Left\u2019s Climate Catastrophe Narrative)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. government has even cited the study, with one December 2024 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report<\/a> referencing it to illustrate the risks climate change poses to the American economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Uzbekistan was removed from the dataset, projected GDP losses dropped sharply, from 62% to 23% by 2100, and from 19% to 6% by 2050, Hsiang told the Post. Hsiang and his two co-authors, graduate students Tom Bearpark and Dylan Hogan, reportedly uncovered the error after erasing one nation at a time from the data collection and observing that Uzbekistan\u2019s absence drastically shifted the results, according to the Post. The authors found that Uzbekistan\u2019s GDP records showed wild oscillations incongruent with purportedly more reliable World Bank data, which reflected less intense fluctuations, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody who works with data has some responsibility to look at the data and make sure it\u2019s fit for purpose,\u201d Global Policy Laboratory Director at Stanford University Solomon Hsiang, who helped point out the error, told the Post. \u201cWhen you have a lot of data points, the idea that a small country could be so influential is not intuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature editor Karl Ziemelis wrote to the Post that his publication is reviewing the study and that \u201cappropriate editorial action would be taken once the matter was resolved.\u201d The report\u2019s original authors told the outlet that the Uzbekistan data flub was a processing error that was corrected in an updated analysis<\/a>, though they believe the report still holds up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are grateful, and I think it\u2019s a good part of the scientific process that they\u2019ve pointed out these issues,\u201d Leonie Wenz, professor of environmental economics at the Technical University of Berlin and one author of the initial study, told the Post. \u201cBut importantly, the main conclusions of the paper hold, and there are only slight changes to the estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The massive GDP loss scale was flagged<\/a> during the peer review process, one review noting that \u201cI find all of this well explained and fairly convincing, yet, purely subjectively, I have a hard time in believing the results, which seem unintuitively large given damages aren\u2019t perfectly persistent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature, Wenz, his coauthors Maximilian Kotz and Anders Levermann, Hsiang, Bearpark and Hogan did not respond to the DCNF\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter\u2019s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 2024 climate change study amplified by the corporate press projecting up to $38 trillion in global climate damages by 2050 relied on inaccurate data, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":394442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818169,691829997,691819255,691818056,691818811,691837180],"class_list":{"0":"post-394439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bad-science","9":"tag-carbon-dioxide-co","10":"tag-climate-activism","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-uzbekistan","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AQMQ7yBkN6aQC0NXgvvfycqvCq9YOl9UgpCk7xC4qMf6sPvFPPgdh6PGWWNSVqfr2IVmEw-AFKjF6Ghq9Gxi_3s_Tnu61dlrZrHLArAehydf2mkcIn4NT4z-dDulL8739O3V996-mseHLPRV5gwKOFOSf6mFDQ-1.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1EBV","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":433889,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=433889","url_meta":{"origin":394439,"position":0},"title":"Wrong, Mainstream Media, People Are Not Going to Die from Inactivity Due to Global Warming","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/24\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Several mainstream media outlets, including The Daily Mail, Economic Times, and The Washington Post released articles referencing a study that claims global warming will result in a decline in exercise and physical activity, leading to a large increase in premature deaths. 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