One of PragerU’s most egregious errors regarding climate science is found in an animated video about a young student named Ania who learns that burning coal is the key to self-actualization. When Ania talks about her climate fears with her family, 

“They challenge her with some thought-provoking questions. They encourage her to consider how the planet has been warming and cooling since prehistoric times, long before carbon emissions were a factor. Can she explain that?”

Seriously? 

Yes, she can explain that. Rather, she can explain how that is wrong. “Long before carbon emissions were ever a factor”? Carbon emissions were primary factors in the most impactful climate change events in Earth’s prehistory. For example, the eruption of the Siberian Traps some 252 million years ago unleashed astounding amounts of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere, precipitating the end-Permian mass extinction, perhaps the most hellish terrestrial event. Full stop. 

Humans didn’t invent carbon. Humans didn’t invent carbon emissions. But the Earth is getting hotter right now and we know that our emissions are causing it. Super volcanoes are hard to conceal, after all. 

PragerU attempts to use the Earth’s climate record as evidence that climate change isn’t being caused by humans, or that humans might only be playing a minor role in it. But the only reason people know about the prehistoric climate is because of climate scientists who study the fossil record. They’re known as paleoclimatologists, and they have discovered that the carbon cycle, emissions included, is devastatingly significant in our Earth’s ability to comfortably sustain life. As a result, they have been clear about their concern for our planet in light of our species’ activities.

I’m not a fan of cancel culture. I think someone can be wrong about one thing but right about other things. But I am also not a fool. I am highly suspicious of an outlet, such as PragerU, that can be so wildly misleading. It takes a lot of intellectual penance to restore trust in a source that seeks to inform us about carbon emissions, while simultaneously claiming that there was a time in our planet’s history before carbon emissions were a factor. Such a misstep reveals a vital and elementary misunderstanding about Earth science.

Indeed, faulty claims and leaps of logic abound in their other videos on the topic as well. Sometimes, their rhetoric is so faulty that it unintentionally forms a great argument for abatement of fossil fuel emissions. For example, in the next random video about the subject I clicked (there are a lot of them), climate dangers are supposedly downplayed by Steve Koonin, whose lower third and end-of-video introduction identifies him as the Former Undersecretary for Science in the Obama Administration, rather than as the former chief scientist for the oil and gas company, BP. Koonin basically says that modeling is tricky, and maybe there isn’t a climate emergency. He claims that “heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900.” While this may be true, the source cited by his video also has this to say:

“There have been marked changes in temperature extremes across the contiguous United States. The frequency of cold waves has decreased since the early 1900s, and the frequency of heat waves has increased since the mid-1960s. The Dust Bowl era of the 1930s remains the peak period for extreme heat. The number of high temperature records set in the past two decades far exceeds the number of low temperature records. (Very high confidence)”

Koonin also claims that “hurricane activity is no different than it was a century ago” (the video was released in 2021). The link for the source brings you to the Amazon page advertising his book. Perhaps I will check that out in the library, but for the meantime, Hurricane Beryl unfortunately “became the earliest Category 5 hurricane observed in the Atlantic on record and only the second Category 5 hurricane to occur in July after Hurricane Emily in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center” (from NOAA). And the IPCC states that,

“…even relatively small incremental increases in global warming (+0.5°C) cause statistically significant changes in extremes on the global scale and for large regions (high confidence). In particular, this is the case for temperature extremes (very likely), the intensification of heavy precipitation (high confidence) including that associated with tropical cyclones (medium confidence), and the worsening of droughts in some regions (high confidence).”

Koonin remarks that floods haven’t increased over more than 70 years. The IPCC has the following to say: 

“The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased over a majority of land regions with good observational coverage since 1950 (high confidence). Human influence is likely the main driver of this change. It is extremely likely that on most land regions heavy precipitation will become more frequent and more intense with additional global warming. The projected increase in heavy precipitation extremes translates to an increase in the frequency and magnitude of pluvial floods (high confidence).”

Koonin might object to the statement about floods here because it is based on projections, but this seems less like far-fetched modeling and more like common sense: observed increases in heavy rainfall and higher temperatures (leading to increased glacial melting and rising sea levels) will result in more floods in the future.

In response to Koonin’s claim that “Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago”, politifact notes that “Koonin relied on a study that had data through 2010. Experts agree that a period of warmer temperatures caused a large loss of ice in the 1930s. But the most recent data shows a period of steeper and longer lasting declines in the Greenland ice sheet between 2010 and 2020 than in the period 80 years ago.”

The most unfortunate takeaway from this part of Koonin’s video is that these four somewhat questionable factoids are cherry-picked. For each reassurance he offers, there are omitted historical trends that are definitely alarming. Cases in point are: the hard-to-keep-up-with heat records, the loss of biodiversity, desertification, ocean acidification, and an increase in wildfire extent and damage.

Koonin goes on to point out that we get 80% of our energy from fossil fuels, and that carbon dioxide “hangs around in our atmosphere for a really long time.” He continues, saying,

“CO2 is not a knob that we can just turn down to fix everything. We don’t have that ability. To think that we do is, well, hubris. Hubris leads to bad decisions. A little humility, and a little knowledge would lead to better ones.”

Right. So we can’t turn down the atmospheric carbon levels as simply as I can turn down the volume on these videos. And, currently, humans get most of their energy, about 80%, from fossil fuels which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Also, climate modeling is tricky, which could just as easily as not mean that the effects of climate change will be worse than climate scientists predict. 

So…humility dictates that we should seriously undertake an effort to limit frivolous carbon emissions and transition to sustainable energy sources before even more climate change becomes inevitable. It would be hubris not to proceed with caution, to continue creating energy in the same, old way despite the fact that the best models we can come up with, as well as previously mentioned prehistoric precedent, indicate that doing so is endangering our planet.

Maybe there are people who are more scared of climate change than they should be. There’s the story about a guy who killed himself on the advice of an AI chatbot telling him it was the best thing he could do to help the planet. Some people might feel guilty about using fossil fuels to heat their homes, cook their food, or commute. But the point of fighting against climate change is to decrease suffering, not create it. If PragerU’s obfuscations about climate change are simply a reaction to these unfortunate psychological side-effects, fine. But who’s that gullible? We see who funds them (fracking billionaires lead the way), and we hear their messaging. 

By the way, if you like reading about Earth’s prehistory, I recommend The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen. It’s a shame that we can’t enjoy learning about subjects like this in the context of a society that is more solidly taking steps to not become the cause of the next mass extinction, but, alas, no one ever said life is for the faint of heart.