Well, well, well… sometimes you mess up so spectacularly that the only reasonable reaction is to crawl into a closet and pretend you’re not home. That’s probably how the “prestigious” science journal Nature is feeling right now. On Wednesday, they officially retracted their big, scary 2024 climate report — you know, the one that predicted death, misery, economic collapse, and the usual buffet of left-wing apocalypse fantasies.
Like so much of the climate panic machine, the dramatic claims were, unsurprisingly, unproven.
Back in April 2024, Nature released a study warning that climate change would cause far more economic damage by the end of the century than anyone had estimated before. Global headlines ate it up, central banks used it for risk analysis, and activists waved it around like holy scripture.
And then — plot twist — Nature had to retract it. Turns out, the data was flawed. Imagine that.
A team of economists discovered issues with the data from one single country, Uzbekistan, and that alone was enough to massively skew the results. Without Uzbekistan’s faulty numbers, the predicted economic damages suddenly deflated back down to something resembling earlier research. Instead of a catastrophic 62% collapse in global economic output by 2100, the actual estimate would have been closer to a 23% decline — a difference so huge it almost feels like satire.
Even Bill Gates — professional climate alarmist and part-time philosopher-king — softened his doomsday language last October before COP30. He suggested everyone should maybe tone down the apocalyptic rhetoric since the facts don’t exactly support the theatrics. When Bill Gates is the voice of moderation, you know something’s off.
Nature, for its part, released a statement confessing the obvious: “The authors acknowledge that these changes are too substantial for a correction, leading to the retraction of the paper.” They’re now scrambling to rewrite the article with updated data and hope to have another peer-reviewed version out soon. And yes, their predictions are still very much in the “we’re all going to die” genre — but after a blunder this big, good luck getting people to take any of it seriously.
Lint Barrage, chair of energy and climate economics at ETH Zurich, pointed out even more potential flaws in the study and delivered the most honest observation of the entire saga: “It can feel sometimes, depending on the audience, that there’s an expectation of finding large [climate damage] estimates. If your goal is to try to make the case for climate change, you have crossed the line from scientist to activist, and why would the public trust you?”
Excellent question. One the climate crowd should probably tape to their bathroom mirror.
The good news? Moments like this remind people to question the fear-mongering, demand real evidence, and stop letting activists disguised as scientists drive policy. Reality still wins — and that’s something worth celebrating.
