![\\"logo\\"](\\"/img/logo-dpa-factchecking.svg\\"/) * WhatsApp service * About Us ![\\"IFCN](\\"/img/ifcn-certificate.png\\"/) ![\\"EFCSN](\\"/img/efcsn- certificate.png\\"/) ## Misunderstood quote # Not a word in Thunberg's tweet about the end of humanity in June 2023 June 22, 2023, 4:15 p.m. (CEST) For some, climate activists like Greta Thunberg are a red flag. Now will the Swede assumes that 2018 is the year humanity will be wiped out 2023 predicted. Why this is nonsense. Greta Thunberg never tires of pointing out the dangers of global warming. Opponents of the Swedish climate activist accuse her of an apocalypse to conjure up and spread panic. Recently a deleted tweet Thunberg's from 2018, in which she allegedly predicted the downfall of the humanity is said to have predicted within five years. Also one Austrian private broadcaster broadcast on June 21, 2023 in an article, The Swede “said the end of the world for him in a tweet on June 21, 2018 prophesied this Wednesday”. But the accusation is sheer nonsense. ## Evaluation The sentence does not allow for such a reading at all. The period of five years refers to the use of fossil fuels. It is true that Thunberg deleted the tweet. The online article cited therein gives the Statements by the supposedly paraphrased US scientist are completely false again. In 2018, he spoke more about the influence of fossil fuels on the Ice in the Arctic, not from an end of humanity. ## Facts Climate skeptics accuse Thunberg of being alarmist and based on her tweet sometimes with a malicious undertone, that humanity is at this point in time would have already died out if climate science was correct. The common sentence cannot be used for this reading at all. But first: What is the tweet about? The false claim is based on a now deleted tweet from Thunberg from June 21, 2018. However, its content is still in internet archives to understand. According to the archive platform “archive.today”, the tweet was sometime during March 11, 2023 (compare here and here) from the Platform removed. In the tweet, the Swede quoted a sentence from an article on the platform “gritpost.com” from February 2018. The report has been available since January 2021 at the latest no longer available online. However, there are archive versions here too available that show the text - such as the one from May 1, 2018. What exactly is the sentence to be understood? The tweet sent by Thunberg on June 21, 2018 says: “A top Climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years." (in German: «A leading climate scientist warns that climate change is affecting the entire... Humanity will be wiped out if we don't in the next five years stop using fossil fuels.") The sentence is right at the beginning of «gritpost.com» article. Anyone who reads into it says that humanity will be wiped out in five years impending has a completely wrong understanding of the text. Rather, it is about that humanity will meet certain limits for pollutant emissions by 2023 must be achieved, otherwise due to feedback in the climate system catastrophic events are guaranteed decades to centuries later. Nowhere does it say the world will end in 2023. Who is the author of the sentence? The author of the “gritpost.com” text is responsible for this. This apparently paraphrases a speech by Harvard professor James Anderson (“a “top climate scientist”). But even this happens only imprecisely. The “gritpost.com” article reports on a lecture by the expert at Field of Atmospheric Research in Chicago on January 11, 2018. In the speech, which “Forbes” magazine reported on, was about the Effects of Carbon Levels in the Atmosphere: The World Must, So Anderson says he will stop using fossil fuels by 2023. Otherwise the effects on the polar ice caps would be irreversible. From There is no talk of human extinction by 2023. Anderson told the AP news agency fact-checkers March 2023 with a view to the statement assigned to it ("that climate change is... will wipe out the entire human race if we don't do it in the next five years stop using fossil fuels") because it's also right: for the audience It was clear during his speech that his statement “referred to the floating Ice volume related”. The insinuated sentence about an extermination of the Humanity within five years is “a complete distortion” of his lecture. “I would never make a statement like that,” said Anderson. How can this be classified scientifically? Serious climate science calls scenarios like the one described so-called tipping points, which should be avoided at all costs. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) writes that tipping points are critical thresholds in one System are, the exceeding of which leads to a significant change in the system status, although the change is often considered irreversible. This is what the IPCC special report on global warming says, for example Rainforest: Global warming of three to four degrees Celsius could be one represent a tipping point that will lead to significant forest dieback in the Amazon region lead. This is driven by stronger El Niño events, which occur more frequently would cause droughts in the region. A 2019 paper from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says es: “The tipping points in the Earth system pose serious risks for the humanity." They could trigger uncontrollable processes such as a massive sea level rise lasting thousands of years, total loss important ecosystems or increased extreme weather. (As of: June 22, 2023) ## Links Deleted Thunberg tweet (archived on March 11, 2023, 10:31 a.m. CET, archived on March 11, 2023, 2:01 p.m. CET) «gritpost.com» article about climate change (archived on May 1, 2018, archived on January 24, 2021, archived on June 22, 2023) Anderson lecture on January 11, 2018 (archived) “Forbes” article about Anderson’s speech from January 15, 2018 (archived) AP report on Anderson and Thunberg tweet from March 17, 2023 (archived) IPCC Special Report on Global Warming (archived) PIK paper on tipping points (archived) TV report with false claims (post archived, video archived) Facebook post with false claim in TV report (post archived) Facebook post with false claim about Thunberg tweet (archived) ### About dpa fact checks This fact check was carried out as part of the Facebook/Meta independent program Fact check created. Find detailed information about this program You here. 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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg predicted the end of humanity in 2023 in a tweet in 2018