Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein traveled over to the fact-checking section on Monday to condemn President Trump for taking a victory lap on behalf of all people who do not subscribe to theories of apocalyptic climate change after the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ruled a 2011 study’s “worst case scenario — called RCP8.5 — was implausible.” The problem for Borenstein was that in 2026, he said Trump was ignoring other, more likely scenarios, but in 2011, he willingly went along with the worst-case scenario.
Trump posted on social media, “GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!””
Borenstein began his reply, “Trump was referring to a set of projections from 2011 from a group of scientists associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that were updated in a study published in a scientific journal this spring. The update found that the old worst case scenario — called RCP8.5 — was implausible.”
He also wrote, “Even when it was created 15 years ago, that worst case scenario was unlikely — there were other scenarios that were considered more likely. But the most extreme scenario was still possible if the world went on a fossil fuel heavy binge, in particular continuing to use coal, the most dirty fossil fuel, in a big way. It projected an end of the century warming of about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) compared to the mid 1800s.”
However, 15 years ago, Borenstein wrote, “The report does say scientists are ‘virtually certain’ — 99 percent — that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.”
Sure, Borenstein said temperatures “could” rise nine degrees by 2100, but the words “implausible,” “unlikely,” and “worst-case scenario” do not appear anywhere in his 2011 article. Borenstein wants to condemn Trump for what he himself did. American Enterprise Institute climate policy researcher Roger Pielke Jr. summarized the problem:
Tens of thousands of research papers have been — and continue to be — published using these scenarios, a similar number of media headlines have amplified their findings, and governments and international organization have built these implausible scenarios into policy and regulation.
We now know that all of this is built on a foundation of sand.
Pielke also disagrees with Borenstein’s characterization as a worst-case scenario. Instead, he argued it was “characterized as ‘business as usual.’” Pielke also notes that SSP3-7.0 has also been retired, which predicted a roughly six-degree Fahrenheit increase.
The problem for Borenstein is that even if he is right and Pielke and Trump are wrong about RCP8.5’s demise, there is still the fact that, according to alarmists, New York City was supposed to be overwhelmed with floods in 2015, milk was supposed to be $12.99 per carton (it was $3.39), and gas was supposed to be over $9 a gallon (it was $2.75). Perhaps Borenstein should look back at those predictions instead.
