An inconvenient tiff: climate scientist chides his home team
Image via Wikipedia
Right before game time, Team Green opted for a locker-room fistfight, giving Team Brown what would seem an advantage at kickoff.
Roger Pielke, an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has taken issue with one paragraph in a White House report on climate change released last week. Based on the paragraph, Pielke contends the report cherry picks data to support its claims about global warming impacts in the United States, which include the celebrated prediction that the Florida Keys will be submerged. Pielke says the report ignores more recent evidence that droughts and weather events have not, in fact, been on the rise. These contentions, which have already made headlines in New York Times and BBC blogs, seem secondary to Pielke’s main concern, which I’ll address shortly. What has mattered in coverage so far is that Pielke agrees humans are causing global warming, and he accuses his like-minded colleagues of misrepresenting science, including his own work.
Global warming deniers could not have asked for much more, with a vote sort-of expected next week on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, more casually known as the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill. I say sort-of expected because there are rumors the vote will be delayed. Apparently Democrats have been unable to reach a compromise on the bill’s provisions affecting agriculture. Unlike the tiff between climate scientists, that fistfight has been going on mostly behind closed doors, though Fox seems to have gotten a peek through the keyhole.
Pielke didn’t mean to impugn the White House report as a whole, or so he said to a commenter on his blog, who asked him if the dubious paragraph meant the whole report is flawed. He replied, “I wouldn’t think so and would certainly hope not. At the same time the section which covers my research does not give me a lot of confidence in the process that led to the report.”
Last sentence, again, not helpful politically, but probably deserves points for sincerity.
Roger Pielke Jr. via Wikipedia
On to Pielke’s main concern, which seems to be that the report was coauthored by Energy Dept. scientist Evan Mills, who cited some of his own work, which was not peer reviewed. Pielke also alleges that Mills has a financial interest in climate change.
But then, who doesn’t?
Hard to say why the Heritage and Heartland foundations haven’t caught on to Pielke’s complaints yet and sent them ricochetting around the rightosphere. Maybe they’re simply accustomed to ignoring climate scientists who aren’t on the Exxon payroll, but it seems inevitable they will catch on, since Pielke looks a lot like a dagger right now, pointed at the heart of the effort to halt global warming. Among other things, Pielke gives credence, as he believes a balanced scientist should, to these claims:
1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.
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I tend to avoid conversations about Global Warming. Not that I don’t think it exists but instead either argument always descends into one study or another and as a layman it is all just gibberish to me. Recently George Will wrote a column suggesting that so and so University had some evidence that polar ice was not melting as much as first believed. The authors of the study noted they were misquoted or represented. So an academic friend of mine, who thinks Global Warming is nonsense and that researchers are supporting it because, well, that is where the grant money lies. So when Will was rebuffed I asked my friend what he thought of it. His response was typical of the debate, “It is not the amount of ice but the depth that matters and in that Will has it right.” Ah, depth versus area, there is something I could debate all night.
It is maddening to make any sense of it all. Listening to Gore is frightening but it is confusing to find the facts for yourself. Which I suppose is the point of Exxon research.
Libtree, you’re absolutely right that the debate can be frustrating for the public, and only more frustrating when the scientists who agree begin to disagree. But what if we look at it this way: isn’t it worthwhile to clean up air pollution whether or not it causes global warming?
Yes, cleaning up pollution is a win-win and that is usually my fall back position when ambushed by data. It’s a…shouldn’t we err on the side of humanity argument that has been used in quite another context I believe.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] in 21 weeks Austin Considine American CrossroadsUpdated 1 hour agoActive Topic:Politics1 hour agoAn Inconvenient Tiff: climate scientist chides his home team Jeff McMahon Scorched Earth6 hours agoWho will blink first in Iran? Phil Zabriskie Brush [...]
I’m glad that there is a scientist who is being slightly reserved with what he has to say, because as a scientist, he can’t PROVE anything, so he can only hypothesize based on his data, and I’m glad he is recognizing the inconsitencies in his data set. Climate change is cause problems, not total disaster.
Libtree, I don’t claim to understand it all either, but I try to at least understand some of it. That could be because of my relative youth, because to me, this is a serious issue. If I had to choose between say…..immigration and climate change, I would say climate change is waaaay more important to me, and most of my generation.
iskid2astop,
Your comment is quite encouraging, my generation was shocked by Silent Spring and rose, somewhat clumsily, to begin to question things but failed miserably and fell behind Europe in recognizing the seriousness of the problem. Acid rain woke me up, hiking and seeing the destruction and then the problem with water, there was a time when you didn’t worry about drinking from a stream. So go fight like hell…a planet is a terrible thing to waste.
In response to another comment. See in context »Libtree,
Thanks for the encouragement. Your generation was very interesting in regards to its reaction to the environmental problems. I think it was a fixed fight to some degree, because the movement was so much more reactionary, and a minority, and the science wasn’t as developed. I’m feeling encouraged too.
I don’t understand this statement by iskid that global warming is more important than immigration. Immigration, turning low-consuming peoples into apex-consuming USAmericans, is a huge contribution to global warming.
I can’t give exact figures but I can draw a good picture. Of the 700 million or so people who will be added to the world population in this decade, the 33 million or so who will be added to the US will account for about 1/3 of the additional ghg impacts as well as about 1/3 of the increase in ecofootprint.
Were the US to stabilize its population it would be like reducing the world population by some 250 million average Earthlings per decade.
Sustainability, each nation living within its ecological, economic and political borders, is what I think our focus should be.