Affect Climate Change fact-checking desk
Debunking bogus climate claims in the media with peer-reviewed science and primary sources.
www.affectclimatechange.com/buster
The social slides offer a quick introduction. This website preserves the complete fact check, direct source links, limitations, review history, and corrections.
Each issue examines four circulating climate claims, pairs them with evidence-based verdicts, and preserves permanent pages where readers can inspect the full scientific record. New investigations remain alongside earlier editions, building a cumulative library readers can revisit.
Issue 011 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 011
Public money. Climate claims.
Four checks examine Amazon’s public-support claim, a solar-farm expiration headline, China’s wind generation, and the Sun as an explanation of recent global warming.
4 fact checks · 10 scientific sources · Published · Updated October 11, 2026 Explore Issue 011 and its evidence →
Issue 010 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 010
AI and water: four numbers to check
AI has a water footprint and important reporting gaps. Four selected numerical claim checks clarify what the sources establish without assessing AI's total impacts or declaring a facility safe.
4 fact checks · 8 scientific sources · Published · Updated September 30, 2026 Explore Issue 010 and its evidence →
Issue 009 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 009
Costs, cold deaths, sampling and vineyards
Four September claims checked against original records: EPA’s cost estimate, temperature-associated deaths, Green Climate Fund sampling, and climate pressure on vineyards.
4 fact checks · 14 scientific sources · Published · Updated October 11, 2026 Explore Issue 009 and its evidence →
Issue 008 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 008
The missing context: four climate claims checked against the complete record
This issue checks a precise AI-water comparison, a claim that the Fifth National Climate Assessment relies on failed models, reassuring framing of Antarctic snow gains, and the categorical claim that coral recovery means climate change is not a threat.
4 fact checks · 9 scientific sources · Published · Updated September 13, 2026 Explore Issue 008 and its evidence →
Issue 007 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 007
Cause and effect: four climate claims checked against the evidence
This issue checks whether CO₂'s greenhouse effect has been measured, whether climate attribution is a legitimate scientific method, whether warming produces uniformly fewer and weaker storms, and whether El Niño plus a rising greenhouse-gas baseline reverses cause and effect.
4 fact checks · 16 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 28, 2026 Explore Issue 007 and its evidence →
Issue 006 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 006
Signal / Noise: four climate and energy claims checked
This issue checks claims about cool regions on a monthly map, wind and solar's share of energy, hurricane trends, and falling disaster deaths against temperature records, energy forecasts, tropical-cyclone assessments, and loss data.
4 fact checks · 10 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 28, 2026 Explore Issue 006 and its evidence →
Issue 005 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 005
Evidence dossier: four climate and energy claims checked
This issue checks claims about satellite greening, historical heatwaves, data-center electricity demand, and renewable-energy wildlife impacts against the complete scientific and regulatory record.
4 fact checks · 13 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 28, 2026 Explore Issue 005 and its evidence →
Issue 004 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 004
Real problems, inflated conclusions
This edition checks an inflated solar-fire headline, a lightning argument that confuses ignition with wildfire behavior, a claim that wind and solar will create history's biggest toxic waste heap, and an either-or claim about warming and cooling costs.
4 fact checks · 14 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 18, 2026 Explore Issue 004 and its evidence →
Issue 003 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 003
When the comparison changes the story
This edition checks a heat-mortality estimate dismissed with the wrong metric, a false claim that building wind and solar creates more carbon pollution than the technologies prevent, a categorical warming-acceleration headline that omits the adjusted result, and a 2012 IPCC assessment presented as current.
4 fact checks · 14 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 11, 2026 Explore Issue 003 and its evidence →
Issue 002 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 002
Summer heat and model spin
This edition checks a misquoted UK temperature record, a HAARP weather-control allegation, an aerosol study framed as replacing CO₂, and a false claim that the IPCC admitted its scenarios were wrong.
4 fact checks · 13 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 8, 2026 Explore Issue 002 and its evidence →
Issue 001 visual edition
Propaganda Buster · Issue 001
Four claims. One auditable record.
This edition checks an unsupported volcanic-emissions comparison, a fabricated NASA attribution, a correct atmospheric number used to support a false inference, and a wind-energy lifecycle quote stripped of its condition.
4 fact checks · 14 scientific sources · Published · Updated August 8, 2026 Explore Issue 001 and its evidence →Every case page contains the claim as circulated, a clear verdict, a plain-language explanation, the strongest source-backed findings, and direct links to the scientific record.
Private financing does not erase public support.
02 MisleadingThe cited percentage does not support the age claim.
03 ContradictedChina's documented wind use contradicts the claim.
04 ContradictedFalse as an explanation of recent global warming.
05 MisleadingA modeled average for one data-center scenario should not be presented as a universal water cost for every AI prompt.
06 ContradictedThe cited research projects withdrawal, not consumption; the verdict is bounded to the swapped metric.
07 MisleadingThe underlying market estimate covers all U.S. data centers, not a separately measured AI-only subtotal.
08 ContradictedThe original publisher corrected billion to million. This verdict concerns the earlier unit error, not the corrected article.
09 MisleadingFuture, economy-wide modeled savings were described as immediate, sector-specific costs removed.
10 MisleadingA historical association between temperature and mortality was presented as a proven causal result.
11 UnsupportedA non-random, alphabetically ordered sample cannot support the sweeping population-wide conclusion drawn.
12 MisleadingWeaker demand and climate pressure can occur together; total grape tonnage cannot rule out climate effects on wine production.
13 UnsupportedThe reviewed public sources do not independently validate the exact ratio using matched definitions, system boundaries and current measured ChatGPT data.
14 MisleadingSome models do run too hot, but the article omits that NCA5 reduced their influence in downscaled regional projections through documented climate-sensitivity weighting.
15 MisleadingSnowfall and upper-glacier thickening are real, but the reassuring frame omits retreat-driven loss and increased 2016-to-2020 surface lowering reported by the same regional study.
16 ContradictedGlobal assessment and monitoring evidence identifies climate-driven heat stress as a major reef threat; local recovery during relief from disturbance does not contradict that risk.
17 FalseLaboratory spectroscopy, satellite spectra, and surface instruments independently measure the radiative behavior expected as atmospheric CO₂ increases. The categorical no-evidence claim is false.
18 False For The Categorical Description Of The FieldAttribution uses testable observation, model-evaluation, counterfactual, multi-method, and uncertainty procedures. The categorical description of the field as pseudoscience is false; individual studies can still warrant specific criticism.
19 MisleadingStorm outcomes depend on moisture, instability, ocean heat, wind shear, circulation, place, and storm type. Some counts may fall while heavy rain or high-end intensity rises, so the one-dial conclusion is misleading.
20 False For The Cause-And-Effect Reversal ClaimGreenhouse gases raise the long-term baseline while El Niño temporarily redistributes heat. Both can contribute to one warm year without either process causing the other, so the claimed cause-and-effect reversal is false.
21 MisleadingRegional cold anomalies can occur during a very warm global month; they do not overturn the measured global average or long-term trend.
22 MisleadingThe 3% figure uses a broad primary-energy denominator; electricity is different, and a current share cannot prove what will never happen.
23 MisleadingTotal storm counts, intensity, Category 3–5 share, rapid intensification, and rainfall are different metrics with different assessed trends.
24 MisleadingFalling mortality shows that protection works; it does not measure total hazard, exposure, economic loss, displacement, ecosystem damage, or unequal vulnerability.
25 MisleadingSatellite greening is real, but leaf area is not a complete measure of biodiversity, nutrition, water stress, resilience, or net climate harm.
26 MisleadingPast heatwaves were real, but an old extreme does not erase a long-term shift in average temperature or the frequency of very hot days.
27 MisleadingA limited national share does not erase concentrated regional loads that utilities and regulators already must plan and build for.
28 MisleadingRange overlap identifies places needing careful review; it does not by itself measure deaths, population decline, or universal impact at every site.
29 False As Headlined — Wrong CategoryThe source reported 212 incidents involving solar panels across multiple property types, not 212 damaged homes. It identified 102 residential incidents, while leaving causation and denominators unresolved.
30 Misleading — Ignition Is Not Fire BehaviorLightning counts describe one ignition pathway. They cannot, by themselves, establish how heat, humidity, wind, and fuel moisture affected growth after ignition or prove that climate had little role in burned area.
31 Misleading — Scale And Recyclability DistortedRenewable-energy equipment creates real end-of-life waste, but most turbine mass and most solar-module mass consist of recyclable materials. Difficult components and weak collection systems do not make this history's largest toxic waste stream.
32 Misleading — False Either-OrHotter weather raises cooling demand, while electricity prices, buildings, equipment, behavior, urban heat, and other factors also shape bills. Multiple causes do not support a categorical claim that climate has no role.
33 Misleading — Wrong MetricCumulative registration totals do not test deaths during two short heatwaves. The 2,736 total is a rapid modelled estimate with uncertainty, not a final death-certificate count, but the registration comparison does not show it was fabricated.
34 False — Lifecycle Emissions Are Far LowerBuilding turbines and panels creates emissions. But wind and solar then generate electricity without burning fuel, while coal and gas keep emitting whenever fuel is burned. Lifecycle studies count construction and still find much lower emissions per kilowatt-hour.
35 Misleading — Method OmittedThe adjusted analysis finds acceleration above 98% confidence after accounting for natural influences. The unadjusted series is noisier and does not reach the same threshold—a real caveat—but the categorical headline omits the published adjusted result.
36 Misleading — Outdated AssessmentThe linked source is the IPCC's 2012 SREX report, not the current assessment. IPCC AR6 says observed and attributed evidence strengthened for several extremes, although confidence still differs by hazard and region.
37 False — Record MisstatedThe UK's all-time record is 40.3°C from July 2022. The Met Office verified 38.0°C at Lingwood on June 26, 2026 as a new June record, and one day cannot overturn the long-term warming trend.
38 FalseHAARP transmits radio waves into the ionosphere far above the troposphere where weather develops. Neither the facility's physics nor controlled experiments provide a mechanism or evidence for creating a surface heatwave.
39 Misleading — Real Aerosol Effect, False ReplacementReducing sulfate pollution removes some regional cooling and can add to European summer warming. The cited research does not show that CO₂ stopped driving warming or that net-zero policy caused the heat.
40 Misleading — Scenario Update MisrepresentedThe IPCC said the cited ScenarioMIP study was WCRP research, not an IPCC admission. Emissions scenarios are conditional inputs, and revising their plausibility does not show that climate models failed.
41 FalseThe post supplied no eruption-specific CO2 measurement. USGS estimates all present-day volcanoes combined emit 0.13–0.44 GtCO2 per year, while the Global Carbon Budget reports 42.4 ± 3.2 GtCO2 of total anthropogenic emissions in 2024. The claimed comparison has no evidentiary basis.
42 False — Fabricated AttributionNASA did not make this admission. Orbital cycles explain long-term glacial pacing, but not the rapid modern warming trend.
43 Misleading — Correct Number, False InferenceA gas's climatic effect depends on its infrared absorption and change in concentration, not on whether its atmospheric percentage looks small.
44 False As A General ClaimThe viral meme removes the original quote's site-specific condition. Meta-analyses and lifecycle studies find modern wind turbines normally repay construction energy many times over.
No cases match those filters.
We test the smallest factual claim the evidence can actually answer. We do not grade a person’s character or invent a motive.
Capture the original post, date, platform, wording, and archived source.
Separate the testable claim from opinion, prediction, satire, or rhetoric.
Prefer direct measurement, primary datasets, peer review, and major assessments.
Explain what fails, what remains true, and what changed after review.
The website and social series share one evidence record while doing different jobs.
Organized, calm, informational pages designed for readers who want to inspect the full record.
Distinctive posts that state the claim, show decisive evidence, and send readers here.
