Thanks. I think that you know well enough that my own view is that energy policies are not good tools for modulating future deaths and damages related to climate impacts. The threat of climate change, were it only limited to these marginal effects, might effectively be dealt with through adaptation. The reason mitigation is important is because of potential large and irreversible effects on the earth system, and not marginal changes. These risks are nonzero and may be precisely unknowable. But that doesn’t mean that they do not exist. Prudence would suggest that we act in ways to reduce the risk, especially if such actions confer other benefits at the same time. We argue that adaptation and mitigation are different policy responses that address different problems. Miller suggests that adaptation is a substitute for mitigation. That is simply incorrect.

For an elaboration of these points see my testimony last year here:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2466-2006.09.pdf

Thanks!

You (y’all ) write, “Unfortunately, Dr. Miller commits an equally grave mistake by suggesting that adaptation can take the place of mitigation. Any effective approach to climate policy will require that we both mitigate and adapt.”

What scientific or economic evidence do you have that “any effective approach to climate policy will require” mitigation?

It seems to me y’all’s statement that “any effective approach to climate policy will require” mitigation is statement of collective personal opinion, rather than a statement backed by science and economics.

For example, I assume y’all agree that no politically plausible mitigation (i.e., reduction of GHG emissions):

1) will have any significant effect on the number of people who die from malaria in this century?

2) will have anything but a small fractional effect on the amount of hurricane damage in the next 50 years?

3) will create even a 3 inch difference in the amount of sea level rise over the next 50 years?

It was those three issues—malaria, hurricanes, and sea level rise—that Henry Miller used in his opinion piece. If he correctly represented your views on those issues, I don’t see where he “misrepresented” you. Where do y’all see mitigation as being “required”?

Mark

So when I actually bother to read the piece of spin that your letter addresses and to point out that your work is being misused much more badly than your bland reply acknowledges, you choose not to comment on the “spin cycle” or how best to deal with it, but to attack me as the messenger – as it must be my nefarious purpose to impeach your work! I guess I have obviously touched a sore spot.

Of course you get to choose how you respond when your work is hijacked to serve someone’s agenda (and it’s not my job to take up that task for you). However, to attack me for pointing it out – which is a perfectly fair thing to do – seems to be more than a little perverse.

You say to Nosmo that you’d “probably react less strongly to Tom had he actually taken the time to engage our short paper rather than some reaction to the paper”, but isn’t this post precisely about you trying to set a part of the record straight and NOT about the substance of your paper?

You are correct to read me as suggesting that you might wish to respond to Miller’s misuse of you paper more strongly; that indeed was precisely my point. It seems to me that much of the pro-adaptation punditry is really a “do-nothing” prescription that strikes not only at mitigation but at the adaptation measures you suggest as well.

My sense that this may be worth addressing more strongly may simply be wrong, and the best way to address it is precisely the course you are adopting. But as long as you are being misinterpreted or misquoted by articles such as this (and Broad’s), I’m not sure how I do you a disservice either in pointing it out or asking how you deal with this phenomenon.

Regards,

Tom

That being said, I do not perceive my work to be often misused and abused, certainly not any more than any other academic involved in political issues, and probably less, especially since we’ve watchdogged such things via this blog. However, a few people sure like to make a lot of hay from those few instances, trying to use them to impeach my work. That itself is part of the political dynamic at work here …

Thanks.

Rather I have noted that the degree to which your essay is being misused is more significant that which you complain of in your letter. I find it puzzling that this should elicit a reaction directed towards me.

And I have not “characterized” your work, except to assert that it cannot fairly be used to support the quoted propositions that Miller makes. But if I misunderstand, and you do indeed agree with Miller on any of the points I quoted, perhaps you could clear that up?

By the way, I have no problem at all with the argument that BOTH mitigation and adaptation are needed, since obviously we cannot turn the climate on a dime, nor would it wise even to try to do so. My problem is with pundits such as Miller, who show no real interest in either mitigation or adaptation.

Thanks for your follow up. Apologies if I misinterpreted your comments.

My views on climate policy are quite well known and I have not been shy in advancing them (e.g., see my 2006 Gov’t Reform Cmte testimony). Those who want to characterize my work as you have are misrepresenting it as badly as Miller did. I recognize that some people want to advance adaptation as an exclusive alternative to mitigation, and similarly some want to advance mitigation exclusive to adaptation. In this context it is difficult to argue as we have that mitigation and adaptation should co-exist — we will likely make no one particularly happy, and will surely motivate comments like your tired invocation of “denialists”. That is the state of the climate debate, and it is how most research in this field is viewed – through a pre-exisiting political lens.

When I see misuse of our work, I’ll use this forum as I have in the past, and with this post. Today or tomorrow I will post up a response (and our reply) to our Nature essay that errs in the other direction. It is a tough gap to shoot, but we’re trying our best. I’d simply ask that you evaluate our work on its merits, which in this case you have not done.

Thanks.

What Miller offers and you recite is a strawman. To lower CO2 emissions one must capture carbon, not reduce the burning of fossil fuels. There are ways to do this without dooming modern industrial civilization. It may mean that fossil fuel-generated power and internal combustion engine fuels cost more, but the result will be a shift into lower-carbon resources and greater efficiency in use and production of energy. Japan and some parts of Europe already get much more GDP per BTU than we do – because of higher energy prices.

More on coal from AEI/Wall Street Journal here: http://www.aei.brookings.org/policy/page.php?id=284.

But you fail to address the issues raised by Roger’s letter and by the Miller piece – does it make fair use of Roger’s essay and does it correctly blame enviros and politicians (Dems?) for damaging America’s ability to adapt to climate change?