David Friedman Skewers Media for Bad Reporting on Climate Change

In two Substack articles this month, economist David Friedman roundly criticized the media for ignoring facts about climate change—including facts readily available  in the highly-praised reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

Here’s a start (emphasis added):

“Treatment of climate in the IPCC reports, especially in the summary for policy makers, is biased but, so far as I can tell, honest. Unfortunately, few people actually read the IPCC report and those who do mostly read only the summary for policy makers, which in my experience is the most biased and least scientific part of the report. Most people get their views on climate issues at second hand from news stories, blogs, YouTube channels, friends and acquaintances. Most reporters do not understand the issues and even climate scientists are unlikely to understand other subjects that feed into views on climate, such as economics, geology, or statistics. The result is that most people’s beliefs about climate issues have only a loose relation with the truth.”

From there (the second story can be found here), Friedman offers one example after another of media misinterpretation of IPCC reports—with some criticism of the IPCC as well.

“The problem is mostly the fault of the media but the IPCC, in particular the Summary for Policy Makers that accompanies each report, sometimes encourages a misreading of the scientific results in the alarmist direction not by what they say so much as by how they say it.”