Withdrawal of Extreme Global Warming Scenario by The New York Times

The New York Times announced on Tuesday that it has retracted the extreme global warming scenario that had made headlines in the past. This model, known as Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5), has been a cornerstone of climate alarmism since its introduction in August 2011. The Times had published numerous alarming articles based on this model.

In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mentioned that RCP 8.5 and similar models are now “becoming implausible.” Some critics argue that this model is based on unlikely coal consumption levels and was questioned when it was first released.

During 2020, the Times released articles that suggested climate change would lead to significant migration, indicating that hardships from global warming would spur people to move en masse. One article emphasized the challenges posed by increased migration to politics, indicating an anti-immigrant backlash that has empowered nationalist governments across the globe.

The argument presented was that political responses to climate change could yield very different futures. In a 2017 article, the Times predicted severe economic damage in southern states due to climate change, forecasting that the number of heat-related deaths could mirror annual car accident fatalities by the century’s end.

Another article in 2018 linked rising murder rates to high temperatures, stressing that ignoring such connections in the face of climate change was unwise. By 2022, the editorial board had called for a transformative shift in U.S. policies to avert the dire consequences of unchecked global warming.

Roger Pilke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, remarked that the slow correction of scientific models sometimes hampers public discourse and understanding. “Science corrects itself, but sometimes that process takes too long,” he noted during a discussion about the media’s reliance on RCP 8.5.