Climate Politics as Manichean Paranoia by Roger Pielke Jr

Last night Roger Peilke Jr gave a superb talk, hosted by The Global Warming Policy Foundation, on Climate change politics. It was timely, challenging and positive. I will post the video links when they are available but you can read a Twitter version of the talk here. My cartoon notes are below and click the image for a larger version.

The GWPF video of the talk

Posted by Josh

Cartoons by Josh

Dr Mann in the dock - Josh 388

On this historic Brexit day the fun has not been confined to this continent. Over in the US they have had a 'hearing' on Climate Science with three of the world's most eminent climate scientists. Michael Mann was there too. 

Click to read more ...

A comment by Roger Pielke Jr

Roger Pielke Jr left this comment in the thread below one of his own posts. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it in full.

Over at Real Climate, Kerry Emanuel of MIT, has a post up with his views on tropical cyclones and climate change. Emanuel doesn't cite the IPCC, but what he reports is pretty much consistent with the AR5 (trends inconclusive, expected changes in the future, etc.).

Here I am not discussing the science presented by Kerry, but instead, I note this passage:

"When a 100-year event becomes a 50-year event, it may take a few destructive hits before we adapt to the new reality. This is of particular concern with tropical cyclones, where the application of existing damage models to projected changes in tropical cyclone activity predict large increases in damage, as documented, for example, in the recent Risky Business report commissioned by Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson, and Thomas Steyer."

What Emanuel does not say is that he was in fact the one commissioned by Steyer et al. to produce the scary scenarios in the report (which are completely at odds with IPCC AR5 and KE's own published academic work - I've explored this is some detail).

Thus, Emanuel is (a) self-citing in stealth fashion, and (b) failing to disclose a big COI.

Two big non-nos in science, but which in the climate world get a free pass if you are perceived to be on the "right side." Another day in climate science.

Swivel eyed lunacy - Josh 316

Mad and madder

Cartoons by Josh

Review of ‘What counts as good evidence for policy?’

This is a guest post by Mark Piney. It looks at the Institute of Physics seminar on science policy of a few weeks back. Although the seminar has already been reported on here, Mark brings up different aspects of the event, which I thought were interesting.

Perhaps 100 of us sat in a rather airless meeting room, early evening on Monday 4th February at the Institute of Physics (IOP) to listen to four speakers (Roger Pielke, Georgina Mace, Richard Horton and Jonathan Breckon) give us their take on evidence and policy. The event was chaired by James Wilsdon from Sussex university’s SPRU.

Click to read more ...

Steps videos

A week or so back, prominent sci-policy wonks spoke at a symposium run by the University of Sussex's STEPS centre. Videos have now been posted here. They including Pielke Jr on the science-policy interface. Mike Hulme on the IPCC and Climategate, and Bob Watson on designing an assessment process.

Climate change fast & loose food - Josh 203

Roger Pielke Jr has a must read post on the link between the UK's horsemeat in burgers scandal and Climate change, which is both timely and clever. And it inspired this cartoon.

Many thanks Roger!

Cartoons by Josh

Diary date

Roger Pielke Jr is in London at the start of February and will be participating in an event at the Institute of Physics:

What counts as good evidence for policy?

Policymakers often talk up the importance of evidence-based policy, with increasing calls for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) as the best way of testing whether particular interventions work. But finding and applying evidence in policy is anything but straightforard. Evidence alone rarely wins complex political arguments. Often this merely shifts the locus of debate to what counts as evidence. 

Join us as we explore the politics of evidence across various policy domains, including climate change, innovation, public health, biodiversity, education and more. Our panel of experts will offer introductory perspectives, followed by what promises to be a lively debate.

It's free to attend. Tickets here.

More evidence that the IPCC is a busted flush

Roger Pielke Jr's latest post outlines how the IPCC responded to his evidence that the Fourth Assessment Report was flawed as regards trends in weather-related disasters. I think it's fair to say that they have an almost comical inability to admit error.

I've gone on the record before as saying that the Fifth Assessment Report is dead in the water already.

It looks as if I was right.

Fossil fuel Mann

Michael Mann has tweeted that he is in fundamental agreement with Roger Pielke Jr on the subject of shale gas, with :

I'm pretty much in agrent w/ @RogerPielkeJr on signif of dramatic recnt drop in U.S. CO2 emissions.

I always thought Mann was against fossil fuels, but perhaps I'm mistaken. The sudden outbreak of climate detente has been prompted by their comments in this interview.

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that "ultimately people follow their wallets" on global warming.

"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.

While Pielke is also quoted as saying that shale is only an interim fix, we should probably welcome this outbreak of realism.

Pielke Jr in Foreign Policy mag

Roger Pielke Jr explains the Kaya Identity to readers at Foreign Policy magazine, arguing that it is through technology that progress will be made on the global warming problem:

To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation -- technological, but also institutional and social. Nuclear power offers the promise of large scale carbon-free energy, but is currently expensive and controversial. Carbon capture from coal and gas, large-scale wind, and solar each offer tantalizing possibilities, but remain technologically immature and expensive, especially when compared to gas. The innovation challenge is enormous, but so is the scale of the problem. A focus on innovation -- not on debates over climate science or a mythical high carbon price -- is where we'll make [progress].

Grundmann on Climategate and the scientific ethos

Another Grundmann paper looks at whether Climategate demonstrated breaches of what he calls the scientific ethos. The Hockey Stick Illusion is discussed at some length.

I was particularly interested in Grundmann's views on whether anything in the story of the Hockey Stick amounts to scientific misconduct. There was a minor blog tiff between myself and Roger Pielke Jr about this a couple of years back. Grundmann analyses Pielke Jr's position and reckons you can come to a different conclusion. It's all in the definition of what constitutes misconduct.

I must say, I struggle with a definition in which misleading people is not seen as misconduct.

Purdue climate confab

Video of the Purdue University event featuring, RP Jnr, Judith Curry and Andy Revkin is now available.

WMV file is here.

Report on the Purdue forum

Many will readers will know that there was a discussion last night between Judith Curry, Andy Revkin, Pielke Jnr and a Elizabeth McNie, a professor of political science and earth and atmospheric sciences.

Boilerplate.com, which looks like it's a newspaper blog, carries a brief report on the proceedings. It sounds as though much good sense was talked. Curry has already posted her speech, but there was also Revkin saying this:

Science is all about what is and the what ifs ... not telling you what to do.

Click to read more ...

They're all a comin'!

Pielke Jnr takes aim at an absurd article in PNAS (the journal that famously published the upside-down Mann paper and Anderegg's blacklist paper too).

Oppenheimer: "They're all a comin' !"Princeton' professor Michael Oppenheimer predicts that climate change will cause between 1.4 and 6.7 million Mexicans to move to the US, a finding that Pielke lucidly describes as "guesswork piled on top of "what ifs" built on a foundation of tenuous assumptions".

Even more damningly, one of Pielke's commenters points out that there are only 6.3m agricultural workers in Mexico. For Oppenheimer to predict that they will all move north seems preposterous.