The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called for internet ‘fact-checkers’ Climate Feedback to withdraw erroneous statements made about a new GWPF report.
The GWPF report, by former US IPCC delegation member Dr Indur Goklany, compares claims about the impact of climate change to real-world observations from leading scientific authorities and published in peer-reviewed journals.
According to GWPF director, Dr Benny Peiser, Climate Feedback made untrue claims about the nature of the report, the review process it received, and many of its conclusions:
“Throughout the so-called fact-check, they deceive their readers about the nature of our work and Dr Goklany’s report, building up strawman arguments to knock down. It’s a remarkably unprofessional document in many ways – some of the reviewers don’t even seem to be familiar with the relevant scientific literature. Climate Feedback needs to adhere to a minimum journalistic standard and to correct its many untrue statements.”
And Dr Peiser points out that unaccountable organisations like Climate Feedback are potentially a threat to free speech:
“Climate Feedback are used by Facebook to monitor the climate debate and to silence anyone who challenges an alarmist narrative. But this sorry story shows that Climate Feedback are not adhering to standard journalistic practices and pose an existential threat to scientific freedom.”
Facebook’s own guidelines make clear that the focus of their fact-checking programme is “addressing viral misinformation, particularly clear hoaxes that have no basis in fact.” To censor a report that relies entirely on findings from leading scientific authorities is clearly going far beyond this remit, and represents a worrying slide towards censorship.
Further details of Climate Feedback’s inaccurate claims can be found on the GWPF website.
Dr Goklany’s report Impacts of Climate Change: Perception and Reality is available here.