Fixing one of climate’s worst plots

Andrew Dessler · 3 Aug 2026 · theclimatebrink.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Andrew Dessler did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl heat wave was caused by destructive farming practices rather than fossil-fuel emissions.

Their wordsThe relevant human activity was not fossil-fuel combustion but bad farming practices that contributed to the Dust Bowl.
Our reading
Expanded irrigation in the central U.S. during the mid-20th century cooled the surface and suppressed heatwave frequency there.

Their wordsIrrigation cools the surface, and the expansion of agriculture and irrigation in the central U.S. in the middle of the 20th century played a key role in why heatwaves were low in the middle of the 20th century
Our reading
The post-1970s global increase in heatwave frequency is caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

Their wordsThis differs from the Dust Bowl because it is a global signal, occurring essentially everywhere. This is almost certainly due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.