An Online news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian reports.
EurekAlert! carried a press release for the study, and the story was picked up by a number of international news organisations including the Vancouver Sun and the Economic Times of India.
“This is happening much faster than we expected,” Liliana Hisas, executive director of the Universal Ecological Fund (UEF) and author of the study, said of her findings.
But, in an episode recalling criticism of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), when the UN climate science body wrongly claimed the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035, the UEF claims about rising temperatures over the next decade were unfounded.