What Joe Rogan Is Getting Wrong About Global Warming

The comedian-turned-podcaster has been telling his millions of listeners that a scientific study shows the Earth is cooling, but the researchers who authored the paper say his claims are completely false.

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For months, Joe Rogan has been repeatedly telling his millions of listeners that we are living in a “cooling period”, questioning the very idea of a climate emergency. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The podcaster, who has an online following in the tens of millions, has time and again brought up a September 2024 study that reconstructed a timeline of the Earth’s temperature over the last 485 million years. But the researchers who authored it say he has completely misrepresented the findings. 

The paper, appearing in the journal Science, looks at variations in the global mean surface temperature over the past half-billion years, which researchers say is “essential for understanding the processes driving climate over that interval.”

The variations are well illustrated in a Washington Post graph, which Rogan first brought up during an interview with American actor Mel Gibson in January. “What they’ve realized is, over the last ‘X’ amount of thousands of years that the temperature on Earth is plummeting,” the podcaster said.

“Look at the dip at the end. That’s where we stand. That’s the reality.”

The top graph (Judd et al, 2024) shows global mean surface temperature across the last 485 million years. The bottom graph (Martina Igini/Earth.Org) shows global surface air temperature increases between 1850 and 2024.

To Rogan’s credit, the timeline, which took two years to compile, includes long periods where temperatures were significantly higher than they are now.

An example of this can be seen some 250 million years ago, coinciding with the largest mass extinction ever recorded, also known as the “Great Dying”. At the time, gases from volcanic eruptions – including carbon dioxide (CO2) – raised Earth’s temperature by 10C in the span of about 50,000 years, wiping out most living things.

And again some 66 million years ago, when an asteroid struck Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. The asteroid’s impact caused an abrupt global temperature increase of about 5C, which lasted for approximately 100,000 years.

Temperatures have continued to fluctuate since then, although they have been on a general downward trend over the last 20 million years. The present-day state is, in fact, the coldest period in 65 million years. But that’s where the catch is.

Since the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, which marked the start of our intensive use of fossil fuels, global temperatures have been on an upward trend once again. Since then, our planet has warmed by 1.3C. That is a lot, when compared to other points in time. In fact, the current warming is happening at an unprecedented rate – a crucial distinction that Rogan has failed to acknowledge, creating a false narrative that our climate concerns are overblown.⁠

The current rise in temperature has occurred in just over a century, a “scary” speed that scientists say is faster than even major extinction events.

“It’s all about the speed and we’ve never seen carbon dioxide and temperature rise as fast as now… We evolved in a cooler climate and now we are rapidly warming it up and putting life on this planet in danger,” Jessica Tierney, co-author of the study, told the Washington Post.

And as previous mass extinctions have taught us, rapid temperature changes on Earth can be devastating for the species that have adapted to living on Earth at this particular moment in time. Right now, that is humans, who have been around for just about 300,000 to 200,000 years of Earth’s 4.54-billion-year history.

“[E]ven though climate has been warmer, humans haven’t lived in a warmer climate, and there are a lot of consequences that humans face during this time,” said Emily Judd, the study’s lead author.

More on the topic: What 2C of Warming Will Look Like: A Comprehensive Assessment

Rampant Misinformation

Rollie Williams, a climate science and policy expert and host of YouTube show Climate Town, said Rogan’s misrepresentation of the graph is “an incredible example of how climate misinformation sneaks into extremely popular media and then gets absorbed by the brains of millions of Americans.” On YouTube alone, Rogan’s interview with Gibson was viewed 11.5 million times at the time of writing. And that wasn’t the only time that he brought up the graph.

Climate misinformation online is rampant, and it is turning the climate crisis into a catastrophe, according to a recent report by the International Panel on the Information Environment. A review of 300 studies found that misleading messages about climate change, shared across social media, TV, and person-to-person communication, lead to a loss of public trust and make it harder for policymakers to work together. This creates a cycle where climate change denial fuels political gridlock, which in turn encourages more denial.

“It is a major problem,” Klaus Jensen of the University of Copenhagen, who co-led the review, told The Guardian in June. “If we don’t have the right information available, how are we going to vote for the right causes and politicians, and how are politicians going to translate the clear evidence into the necessary action? Unfortunately, I think the [bad actors] are still very, very active, and probably have the upper hand now.”

More on the topic: YouTube Makes up to $13.4 Million a Year From Videos Containing Climate Denial Narratives That Undermine Green Solutions, Watchdog Says

Featured image: Joe Rogan Experience (screenshot).