Unfortunately, his fallacies have created a great deal of confusion and have perpetuated the misunderstanding of a number of critical issues. It is important to confront Limbaugh's disinformation campaign directly and clear up the resulting misconceptions. A new EDF report presents examples of Limbaugh's erroneous statements, followed by the scientific facts, citing the sources for each. Limbaugh offers little or no evidence to back up his claims. Here is a sampling.
Volcanoes emit two sorts of ozone-depleting compounds.
One is hydrochloric acid, but the amount of this chemical in the stratosphere, measured before and after Pinatubo's eruption in 1991, was found to be largely unchanged. Yet nearly all the sulfur dioxide from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption has already washed out of the atmosphere, unlike CFC's, which remain in the stratosphere for up to a century. Cumulatively, Pinatubo's destructive effect on the ozone layer has been about 50 times less than that of CFC's, rather than a thousand times greater, as Limbaugh claims. Thus his estimate is off by a factor of 50,000. Global Warming Global warming is another topic about which Limbaugh attempts to mislead his readers, despite the international scientific consensus on many aspects of this issue.