Bishop Hill RP Jr on disasters
Nov 21, 2014 Climate: WG2 
Readers at BH probably don't need to be reminded that the official science on extreme weather and climate change is not nearly as scary as the popular perception of it is. In some ways then, Roger Pielke Jr's slim tome about disasters and climate change might be seen as entirely superfluous to requirements, but in fact it would be a mistake to overlook a book that goes well beyond a simple expounding of the science, but looks also at the political and social background to it.
For example, the first chapter, entitled 'Climate’s Legitimacy Wars', is probably worth the purchase price on its own, featuring a series of more or less hair-raising anecdotes about scientists and politicians behaving badly: everything from misrepresenting the science to lobbying others to misrepresent it to attacking those who failed to misrepresent it. The story of a mystery graph in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment was fascinating.
Then there is a very useful chapter that pins down exactly what the IPCC means by "climate change" (it doesn't necessarily imply "manmade") and explains how they attribute any climate change to mankind.
As ever with Pielke, it's written in a clear, straightforward fashion that makes it easy for anyone to follow. It is rock solid on the science. It's also much handier to carry around with you than the IPCC report.
Strongly recommended.
Reader Comments (12)
A strong shower is interpreted as a harbinger of the end of the world by the media nowadays. It's a needed book. OT, nominations are open for this year's Pratties. Have your say.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/the-pratties-2014-the-race-is-on/
Pointman
In the Introduction RP Jr says
Roger Pielke Jr is not a proper "sceptic", in that he believes that the climate models are running too hot, or are simply rubbish. Rather, he takes what the IPCC says, and then thinks the issues through. To actively support mitigation policy requires ignoring both positions along with ignoring multiple reasons for no currently conceivable policy being viable.
At £5.99 the book is good value, and like our host, RP Jr writes well. I have placed my order.
Not on Kindle?
It is probably good timing for such a book. Climate science may be approaching some sort of re-think depending on what the temperature does next. Climate change on the other hand can be anything you want and will be milked for as long as the manipulators can keep the scare alive.
I was reflecting on the topic recently and thought that the whole thing boils down to the old bit of advice, "Correlation does not imply causation."
When soaring global temperatures correlated with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations there must have been huge excitement. Then as the years went by, the models were created with CO2 dominating climate, policymakers becoming convinced, environmentalists getting fired up, money flowing faster and faster...
Then, oops! Eighteen years on we are still in the oops phase. Clearly, some people hope that the warming will resume, the correlation will return and the pause will have been a blip. That thinking is wrong. The pause illustrates that CO2 cannot be the dominant driver. The pause is not a blip it is a game changer.
Doubting Rich
New publication. It will no doubt be on Kindle in a couple of weeks.
Pielke is very smart and his father is a climate scientist so he knows the science is basically dodgy. He is also an environmentalist / liberal. He's the most credible opposition (to me).
nice post and nice artical
Thanks for the heads up. I really miss Roger Pielke Snr's blog. Both Pielke's have presented and discussed climate science the way it should be presented and discussed. I have ordered my copy.
I was at the University of Colorado at Boulder when Roger Pielke, Sr - not Jr as in the book - hosted Roy Spencer to present a seminar on his Aqua satellite findings in the summer of 2008. (The subject was his empirical findings on estimated climate sensitivity.)
Roy asked if anyone from NCAR (also in Boulder) was there? Out of the 150 or so in attendance, no one raised their hand.
That's how total is the conformity at a US Federal government-funded lab is. (The could not have been ignorant - flyers were posted there and daily newspaper coverage of the presentation was mentioned - and CSIRO, the outfit Roger Pielke, Jr heads at "CU" also spread word of the event.
My copy has just arrived. My first perusal surprises me with the preface by someone I don't know at Arizona State University - Daniel Sarewitz.
On the back cover are three academic-scientist endorsements. The first one will not be a stranger to many, perhaps most here - the husband of Judith Curry, Peter Webster, also at Georgia Tech (like Judith); John McAneney, Managing Director, Rick Frontiers at Macquarie University; and John Michale Wallace, Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington.
If anyone would like to fill us in about the three (or four) poorly know people? - please do.
That way lies Lysenkoism and group-think to the nth degree.
I'm reminded of a quote from George Carman QC, one of the most feared defence lawyers of the late 20th century: "He behaved like an ostrich and put his head in the sand, thereby exposing his thinking parts." I think that sums them up quite well.
Amazon US - $8.09