« September 2005 »

Neal Lane Talk

For you local folks:

Neal Lane, White House science adviser to former President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. in Room 1B50 of the Eaton Humanities Building.

The free, public event is part of a year-long lecture series titled "Policy, Politics and Science in the White House: Conversations with Presidential Science Advisers," sponsored by CU-Boulder's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.

Lane, who is a long-time Fellow Adjoint at JILA, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and also served as chancellor of the CU-Colorado Springs campus from 1984-1986, will address the role of science in the presidential decision-making process. Following Lane’s remarks, center director Roger Pielke Jr., will interview Lane about topics like the current Bush administration’s alleged misuse of scientific information. The event will conclude with a question-and-answer session with the audience.

As presidential science adviser, Lane was the most senior member of the White House staff on matters of science and technology policy. Lane earned a reputation as an unusually effective advocate for science among policy-makers, especially within the White House.

The CU-Boulder presidential science adviser series coincides with an unusually high interest by the public and media in science policy issues like global warming and hurricanes, energy development and space exploration, Pielke said. Lane was the director of the National Science Foundation from 1993 to 1998 and served on the National Science Board. He joined the faculty of Rice University in 1966 and served as Rice provost from 1986 to 1993. He currently is a Rice professor and a senior fellow at Rice’s James A. Baker III Public Policy Institute. Lane received his doctorate in physics from the University of Oklahoma.

The series previously hosted science advisers to Presidents G. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon. Upcoming series speakers include Donald Hornig, science adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. in Old Main Chapel, and George Keyworth, science adviser to President Ronald Reagan, on Jan 31 at 7 p.m. in Hale 270.

Additional information about the series, as well as web casts, transcripts, audiotapes, photographs from past talks and a library of background materials are available here.

*** This announcement posted by Bobbie Klein.

Stehr and von Storch on Climate Policy

Nico Stehr and Hans von Storch have collaborated on another brilliant essay on climate policy. (Longtime Prometheus readers will recall their earlier essay on the danagers of overselling climate science, here.) We are happy to provide an English translation of their most recent collaboration below, which first appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 21 September 2005. Your comments are encouraged. Read the whole thing.

The Sluggishness of Politics and Nature

Nico Stehr and Hans von Storch

Even before 11 September 2001, the American Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - of which little good has been spoken in the past days - published a list of the three most probable catastrophes threatening the US: a terrorist attack on the city of New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a direct hit by a hurricane on the city of New Orleans. The Houston Chronicle asserted in that the hurricane is the deadliest danger. There are not many similar examples of accurate predictions. And yet there was a criminal lack of precautions taken in New Orleans.

The disastrous results of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and in the surrounding states are a perfect example of a failed climate policy. The failure, however, does not lie in the Bush administration's refusal to agree to the Kyoto Protocol, as German Environment Minister Trittin has claimed.

It simply makes no sense, after the catastrophic force of Hurricane Katrina, to resort to new superlatives and to claim that this extreme weather event is proof that the force and duration of tropical cyclones will increase in the future. The first order of business should not be to wonder whether Katrina is an indicator that anthropogenic global warming is the immediate cause of the devastation in New Orleans. We can do without these debates, or we can happily leave them in the hands of science.

Climate researchers should be asked, however: Assuming for a moment that the US, as well as China, Russia and India, were radically to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases to a hitherto quite improbable degree, when might we be able to discern the fruits of this climate policy, when will the consequences of hurricanes such as Katrina be less grave, and exactly how large will these lesser damages be? Interesting questions. For our society and for others, however, it is much more important to ask: How can we protect ourselves in the coming decades from extremes of weather like Hurricane Katrina, heat waves, floods and other extremes; and what should a climate policy that takes just this as its goal look like? And how is it that climate policy up to now, particularly in Germany, has been almost exclusively devoted to the reduction of greenhouse gases, and thus can only comment on catastrophes like the one that occurred in New Orleans with an air of smug superiority?

In answering this question, we first come face to face with several interesting characteristics shared by environmental, education and research policy alike.

The gains or losses in these policy areas are difficult to calculate; their successes and failures become apparent, if at all, only after decades; coming generations reap their rewards or suffer from their mistakes. The voters, reinforced and fostered by politics, have a short-term memory. They will only pay for what affects them at first hand.

Environmental policy, however, like the other two policy areas, is something whose effects, in many cases, are only apparent in the long term. Because this is the case, it is at the mercy of current events. Extreme weather events wash the topic of climate policy to the surface. And there is one more common characteristic: Environmental, research and education policy are crucial policy areas in terms of power. Anyone who can make a name for himself or herself in these areas assumes one of the better positions in the future economic and political pecking order. This is power, and power is what interests politics. How, then, do we find solutions in spite of these difficulties? Let us examine climate policy.

The consensus on climate change that has prevailed up to now and the policy measures that have been drawn from this consensus lead to a dead end. The alternative to this way of thinking is called adaptation. This entails political measures devoted - not exclusively, indeed, but certainly primarily - to the question of adapting to the expected climate changes.

What is the crucial difference? The present consensus on the cause of climate change always leads to one and the same result in terms of policy: reduce greenhouse gases, particularly emissions of carbon dioxide. CO2 is bad. This point is stressed incessantly. This mantra has little to do with the practical problem of protecting the environment and avoiding the dangerous results of environmental changes. It does explain, however, why the measures taken up to now have been so unsuccessful. They are strategies of moderation. The proper strategy, however, as New Orleans could hardly demonstrate more clearly, is one of adaptation.

Survival by adaptation means taking precautions by means of a multitude of concrete measures, with the goal of meeting past and expected weather extremes without massive damages in the future. The Dutch reaction to the devastating storm tide in a cold winter night in 1953 is exemplary. The Thames Barrier, which prevents flooding in London, England, is an obvious further example of the power of precautions.

Precautionary measures extend from the simplest provisions - where were the thousands of buses to evacuate poor, sick and old people from New Orleans before the storm hit? - to adaptive strategies effective in the long term; for instance, building codes, forbidding settlement in endangered areas, innovations such as intelligent dykes, the renaturalization of rivers, education and information campaigns regarding what to do in an emergency, etc.

Accommodation and precaution - in other word, adaptive measures - are essentially easier politically to enforce and to legitimize. And they have one enormous advantage compared to all strategies of moderation, whose success may (or may not) become apparent in the distant future: Adaptive processes have a relatively brief planning interval. When solutions to a problem must be found by means of innovations in science and technology, they can be produced much more easily if they are conceived as adaptive measures. The knowledge-based economy makes possible something that was long unimaginable: the reconciliation of ecological and economic aims. If, for example, the traditional objectives of entrepreneurial trade - that is, maximizing returns - are to be retained in the future, the resources of the old economy will be handled more sparingly, more efficiently and more productively. Accommodations will be made. The dynamic of social transformation has expanded, and so too have the opportunities to adapt to novelties and to dangers.

Adaptive strategies also allow several goals at once to be achieved more easily: improving quality of life, reducing social inequity and increasing political participation are not mutually exclusive. The risks and dangers associated with uncertainties - new technology, for instance - are fewer in the case of adaptive measures. Adaptive processes can become the motor of what we call sustainable management. Adaptation can lead to the reduction of greenhouse gases, because adaptation and moderation are not mutually exclusive. However: reduction does not necessarily lead to adaptation. Any form of sustainability is local.

We must learn to think in a new way. Nature is sluggish. The modest, politically enforceable forms of moderating greenhouse gases discussed up to now have hardly any influence on climate change, despite claims to the contrary. The reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases needed to "stop" climate change amounts to about 70 percent.

How such a reduction is to be achieved without ignoring the hopes and expectations of more than 80 percent of the world's population is not currently a topic of discussion. If these contradictions are resolved by stressing what is feasible, then it quickly becomes evident: the majority of politically realistic measures tend in any case to be adaptive strategies.

These strategies describe what is possible. One only has to consider the warnings that climate change will result in catastrophic famines and epidemics. In other words, it is health that is at stake here. But personal modes of behavior are much more crucial determinants of health than climatic conditions. And people can influence their own behavior more easily and sustainably than any attempt purposefully to change the global climate. Adaptation, then, means giving every individual the chance to be able to react to changes.

And yet: the fear of catastrophes, prompted by extreme weather events, is used to win public support for plans of moderation. This, however, is a very dubious strategy. In politically relevant timeframes, the measures of moderation propagated by science and sanctioned by policy have no effect on the probability and the force of extreme events. Thus it is imaginable that the public will rebel against the burdens imposed on it. The climatic dynamic demands politically enforceable adaptive strategies that will remain stable over much longer time periods. This degree of consistency can hardly be reached on the basis of fear of extreme events.

Paradoxically, the fact is: to the extent that our knowledge about the part human activity plays in global warming improves and expands, the opportunities in modern societies to negotiate sustainable and planned reductions of greenhouse gases actually diminish - to say nothing of the question of who should cover the costs and how the benefit should be divided.

Adaptation, by contrast, works. Precautionary and preventative measures are effective in preventing fatalities from heat, for example. While a tragedy occurred in Chicago in mid-July 1995, with more than 700 "heat deaths," in the same summer the so-called "hot weather health warning watch system" saved the lives of about 300 people in the city of Philadelphia. The occurrence of extremely high temperatures in Philadelphia in 1993 and 1994 prompted the development of an efficient warning system and social networks that benefited the elderly and other persons at risk. What does this mean? In reality, it was the isolation of elderly people in Chicago who did not know how to help themselves, or the poverty (and thus also: helplessness), which was much worse in this region ten years ago, that led to the high number of fatalities.

This is also the chief factor at the global scale: Anyone who battles poverty creates the basic conditions to ensure that climate change will not entail the catastrophes that politicians continue to invoke in promoting moderation. Adaptation means: disseminating knowledge nd creating new opportunities. Wherever people are completely at the mercy of changes, there will always be catastrophes - including those caused by climate change.

An environmental policy that has comprehended this would truly be of lasting effect. And enforceable. It would prevent another New Orleans from happening.

Professor Nico Stehr is Karl Mannheim Professor for Cultural Studies at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen. Hans von Storch is a director of the Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center and a Professor of Meteorology at the University of Hamburg.

Griffin: The Space Shuttle Was a Mistake

This according to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in today's USA Today. Here is an excerpt:

"The space shuttle and International Space Station - nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades - were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday. In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth. "It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path," Griffin said. "We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can." The shuttle has cost the lives of 14 astronauts since the first flight in 1982. Roger Pielke Jr., a space policy expert at the University of Colorado, estimates that NASA has spent about $150 billion on the program since its inception in 1971. The total cost of the space station by the time it's finished - in 2010 or later - may exceed $100 billion, though other nations will bear some of that ... Griffin has made clear in previous statements that he regards the shuttle and space station as misguided. He told the Senate earlier this year that the shuttle was "deeply flawed" and that the space station was not worth "the expense, the risk and the difficulty" of flying humans to space. But since he became NASA administrator, Griffin hasn't been so blunt about the two programs. Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, "My opinion is that it was. ... It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible." Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, "Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in.""

This is a startling admission from the NASA administrator, and perhaps a positive sign that real change is possible. I do have mixed feelings about the admission. One the one hand, it vindicates the arguments made by a team of scholars that I was part of in the early 1990s under the leadership of Rad Byerly that focused on developing space policy alternatives (PDF) to those presented by NASA. But on the other hand it raises the frequently-asked-question, what good is robust policy analyses if decision makers are unaware of it or for other reasons is not useful in decision making? It would be easy (and oh-so-appealing) to simply conclude that researchers produce knowledge and what decision makers choose to do (or not do) with it is their responsibility. Similarly, it would be easy to simply ask policy researchers to become political advocates. From my perspective, academic policy research can and should be better connected to decision making, and there are alternatives to these two models of interaction. This is a subject that we'll be devoting much time to in the near future.

For further information on the space shuttle and space station see the publications of Rad Byerly here. And also this paper of mine on the space shuttle program:

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1993: A Reappraisal of the Space Shuttle Program. Space Policy, May, 133-157. (PDF)

Meade on Disasters and Research

Charles Meade, from the Rand Corporation, had a thoughtful op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this week. Here is the full text, reprinted here with permission:

Get proactive with disasters

Charles Meade

Imagine if the Army's main strategy for protecting soldiers was to provide more ambulances, hospital beds, and doctors to treat the wounded - instead of relying on defensive measures such as fortifications, tanks, body armor and helmets to protect soldiers from being wounded in the first place.

The strategy of responding only after attacks instead of adequately preparing to defend against them sounds absurd. But it is exactly what the federal government, states and localities have done when it comes to protecting people from disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornados and volcanoes.

Even if the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina had been far faster, bigger and better organized, the storm would inevitably have caused some death and severe property damage. But if more had been done earlier, New Orleans and other communities would have fared far better and many deaths would have been prevented.

In his Sept. 15 address from New Orleans, President Bush said: "This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina." Emergency response was clearly improved during Hurricane Rita. But a strategy based primarily on responding to a disaster after it hits is a losing strategy. We are far better off taking action to reduce and prevent disaster damage before it occurs.

While we don't know exactly when and where these calamities will strike, we do know that hurricanes often hit communities along the Gulf of Mexico, tornados are common on the Great Plains, and earthquakes often take place in parts of California. This knowledge can enable us to take action.

Even before the 2004 hurricane season, natural disasters were costing the United States an average of about $300 million per week, as documented in a 2003 RAND Corporation report I prepared for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The number of natural disasters has clearly continued to rise in the last two years, but there has been only limited federal action to prevent these types of losses.

We should be able to use research to develop better policies that determine where homes, businesses and other structures can be constructed - and where new construction is a bad idea. We should also use research to decide what building standards new homes and businesses must meet to withstand the forces of nature. These steps can greatly reduce the need for massive evacuation, and emergency response and recovery operations like those seen in the cases of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A new national strategy to learn the lessons of Katrina and Rita about disaster preparation should do the following:

Focus scientific and technical efforts on reducing our vulnerability to disasters, changing the current emphasis on improving short-term weather forecasting. For example, as Katrina and Rita roared across the Gulf, they were extensively studied to predict landfall locations. But once the storms hit communities, there were virtually no measurements of wind force and direction near the ground. Such information could have been collected if instruments had been deployed ahead of time in areas likely to be hit by the storms. The information could be used to help develop better engineering and design standards.

Encourage tougher building codes requiring that new buildings be better able to withstand earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tornados or other natural disasters. Such codes typically increase the initial costs of new construction, but they dramatically reduce future losses if disaster strikes.

Provide federal financial incentives that would prompt state and local governments and property owners to reduce disaster losses. Owners of homes and business could get federal tax breaks if they strengthened existing structures or paid higher construction costs to build safer homes and businesses.

We haven't seen measures like these because past policies and budgets have been reactive rather than proactive.

In the case of Katrina, this strategic failure proved extremely costly. Estimates are that the federal government could ultimately spend about $200 billion on recovery and rebuilding efforts. It would have been far cheaper to shore up levees in New Orleans, toughen building codes, change zoning laws, and take other actions that would have dramatically lowered the death and destruction.

In 1736, Benjamin Franklin famously stated that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." If Franklin were alive today, he might say that "an ounce of preparedness is worth a pound of response." This is the most important lesson we can learn from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Charles Meade is a senior scientist with the Rand Corporation.

Mr. Crichton Goes to Washington

Today Michael Crichton is scheduled to testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. We'll discuss when we learn more and if we deem it worth commenting on. Meantime, it seems clear that Michael Crichton tends to drive climate scientists to froth at the mouth. NASA's Jim Hansen, cited in Crichton's latest book, State of Fear, sent out by email a preemptive attack (PDF) on Crichton. Hansen picks the eve of Crichton's Congressional testimony to take issue with Crichton's characterization of his work in State of Fear. Here is an excerpt from Hansen's fusillade:

"Michael Crichton's latest fictional novel, "State of Fear", designed to discredit concerns about global warming, purports to use the scientific method. The book is sprinkled with references to scientific papers, and Crichton intones in the introduction that his "footnotes are real". But does Crichton really use the scientific method? Or is it something closer to scientific fraud? I have not read Crichton's book ... Crichton writes fiction and seems to make up things as he goes along. He doesn't seem to have the foggiest notion about the science that he writes about. Perhaps that is o.k. for a science fiction writer. However, I recently heard that, in considering the global warming issue, a United States Senator is treating words from Crichton as if they had scientific or practical validity. If so, wow -- Houston, we have a problem!"

For his testimony-eve efforts Hansen may have contributed to the impression among some that Crichton's non-fictional arguments about the role of politics in climate science have some validity. Here is what Crichton said last year on science and politics:

"I'm concerned that science, having ascended to a phenomenal position of power within our society, has provided a temptation for some highly intelligent individuals to join in the political fray, where they really don't belong, where they do it really badly, and where they don't acknowledge they are damaging science as an enterprise. Because science needs to be kept separate from politics And it can be phenomenally dangerous when you start to take as policy something you want to happen and begin to claim it's science-based. Science has to stay independent, it has to stay focused on the data and it cannot be involved in where this is going to lead. In those days it was immigration policy and the "gene pool." Now it's something else. But it's a dangerous, dangerous gangplank to walk down and I hope we don't go further. We need science. Keep the politics out of it."

Lest any new reader to Prometheus think that I support Crichton's views on politics and science, I have often written about the impossibility of cleanly separating science and politics (e.g., here in PDF) -- instead the challenge is to manage the inevitable overlaps. It seems that Crichton's testimony and Jim Hansen's preemptive attack underscore the reality of the inevitable interconnections of science and politics.

Is Better Information Always Better?

It is a canon of the academic enterprise that more and better knowledge is always a good thing. However, when it comes to actual processes of decision making, more knowledge does not always lead to better outcomes, and in fact may lead to worse outcomes. In a thoughtful column in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal, David Wessel takes on this interesting subject. Here is an excerpt:

"How about the service offered by LegalMetric LLC, a start-up founded by patent lawyer Greg Upchurch? Contemplating a patent-infringement case in Delaware? For $795, Mr. Upchurch will tell you which judges rule most swiftly and which tend to favor patent holders. Making a motion for summary judgment? Mr. Upchurch can tell you how the judge has ruled on similar motions versus his peers. These data always have been available in court files, but putting the pieces together was so expensive no one did it. Now, it's on the U.S. federal judiciary's Web site. Mr. Upchurch and his two employees download dockets, key information into a database and push a button so their software generates detailed reports. For lawyer and client, this knowledge can be very valuable. But does it increase the chances that the judge will come to a just decision? It is the sort of information that Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow labeled "socially useless but privately valuable." It doesn't help the economy produce more goods or services. It creates nothing of beauty or pleasure. It simply helps someone get a bigger slice of the pie. Sure, if the product helps win cases, then both sides will buy it -- just as both sides in high-stakes product-liability cases invest in jury-selection experts and software -- and neither will have an unfair advantage. But does that make the society better off? The same question arises in the sophisticated software used to draw the boundaries of U.S. congressional districts so precisely that Republicans and Democrats know which party is almost certain to win. This has enhanced the power of incumbency: In 2004, 401 of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sought re-election; all but seven won. It also has polarized the U.S. Congress, and made compromises scarce, because with safe districts, legislators have little reason to court the voters in the center. The advantage to individual lawmakers is clear; the value to society is not."

In important respects uncertainty about future outcomes is what allows for risks to be shared equitably. Wessel asks us to imagine what would happen if we had perfect knowledge of the future:

"Imagine a place with uncertain weather where food is plentiful in rainy spots, but not in others. Residents, in essence, buy insurance. The lucky feed the unlucky. No one starves. Then it becomes possible to buy accurate weather forecasts. One who buys the forecast knows whether he needs insurance or not; he profits. But the total amount of food available is unchanged. And if everyone buys the weather forecast, the insurance market becomes impossible. "There is a double social loss -- the resources used unnecessarily in acquiring information and the destruction of a market for risk sharing," Mr. Arrow said when he posed this example in 1973. Eliminating uncertainty makes insurance impossible. That's no small matter: If deciphering the human genome allows each of us to know the precise odds of contracting a dread disease, life and health insurance will be very tricky."

For scientists seeking to justify investments in their area of research, findings such as these make it untenable to simply assert that society will inevitably be better off with more knowledge. Indeed the current debate over stem cell research indicates that some people in society are more than willing to forgo the potential fruits of science in service of other valued outcomes. The value structure of a scientific endeavor seeking to advance knowledge, well-described by Michael Polanyi thirty years ago, is not always the same value structure that underlies the needs of pragmatic decision making or political battles among people who hold different conceptions of how the world should look.

Bayh-Dole at 25

Fortune has a very interesting, and highly negative, article about the Bayh-Dole Act and its effects on universities. Here is an excerpt:

"That single law, named for its sponsors, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole, in essence transferred the title of all discoveries made with the help of federal research grants to the universities and small businesses where they were made. Prior to the law's enactment, inventors could always petition the government for the patent rights to their own work, though the rules were different at each federal agency; some 20 different statutes governed patent policy. The law simplified the "technology transfer" process and, more important, changed the legal presumption about who ought to own and develop new ideas-private enterprise as opposed to Uncle Sam. The new provisions encouraged academic institutions to seek out the clever ideas hiding in the backs of their research cupboards and to pursue licenses with business. And it told them to share some of the take with the actual inventors. On the face of it, Bayh-Dole makes sense. Indeed, supporters say the law helped create the $43-billion-a-year biotech industry and has brought valuable drugs to market that otherwise would never have seen the light of day. What's more, say many scholars, the law has created megaclusters of entrepreneurial companies-each an engine for high-paying, high-skilled jobs-all across the land. That all sounds wonderful. Except that Bayh-Dole's impact wasn't so much in the industry it helped create, but rather in its unintended consequence-a legal frenzy that's diverting scientists from doing science."

Op-ed in the LA Times

Dan Sarewitz and I have an op-ed on hurricanes, climate change and disasters in today's Los Angeles Times. Here is the opening:

"LIKE A BAD horror movie in which the villain keeps coming back, Hurricane Rita, the 18th storm of the season, is spinning toward an inevitable rendezvous with the Gulf Coast. We've already seen more death and destruction than the last 35 hurricane seasons combined. And many people, including some European and U.S. politicians, are hoping that the carnage - represented most poignantly by the destruction in New Orleans - will help bring this country to its senses on dealing with global warming.

But understanding what this hurricane season is really telling us about why we're so vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes means facing up to an unavoidable fact: Efforts to slow global warming will have no discernible effect on hurricanes for the foreseeable future. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adequately preparing for future disasters are essentially separate problems."

Read the whole thing here.

Response from William Colglazier on Science Academies as Political Advocates

In Bridges last July, I questioned the wisdom of science academies acting as political advocates. I argued that, "There are at least three reasons why political advocacy by science academies should be greeted with caution," and these were the practical self-interest of scientists, the broader needs of policy making, and reasons of democratic accountability.

William Colglazier, Executive Officer of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Chief Operating Officer of its National Research Council provides a rebuttal in the current issue of Bridges. I appreciate that Mr. Colglazier chose to enage this issue. Here are a few excerpts from his rebuttal and my comments in response:

Colglazier: "In our view, the eleven academies statement was consistent with and supported by careful objective studies done by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) over the past 15 years ..."

Response: Of course, my point is that there are any number of policies "consistent with" such "objective studies." Settling on a subset of policy recommendations involves many considerations that go well beyond science. This is the essence of political advocacy, as science is poorly suited to reaching closure on what actions we should take in any given context, which is ultimately a question of values.

Colglazier: "Mr. Pielke asked about democratic accountability when science academies issue findings and recommendations in statements and reports. We view our reports as bringing the best available insights from science and technology to help inform public policy decisions, not engaging in political advocacy or politics."

Response: My commentary was obviously not about academy reports generally, but a single statement. I think that it is quite fair to call a statememt calling for political actions by policy makers issued in order to influence the G8 Summit an act of "political advocacy." There is something very different about this action versus the typicaly science academy study, though Mr. Colgazier directs our attention to the latter with the bulk of his response.

Colglazier: "The eleven science academies that developed the climate change statement for the G8 heads of state meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland, last July will likely join together again to produce additional statements, based on their individual studies, as input to future G8 meetings. One unfortunate aspect of the release of the eleven academies statement on climate change was confusion caused by a press release issued by the Royal Society (RS) of London. That press release went far beyond what the eleven academies statement actually said. The RS press release was not seen in advance by the NAS and did not represent the views of the NAS. So there is still work to be done in developing the right traditions."

Response: I think that the flap over the Royal Society letter helps to make my main point -- " there are real risks for the scientific enterprise when science academies become political advocates." And on Colglazier's recogniztion of work to be done in developing the right traditions, we are in complete agreement.

Column in Bridges

My latest column in Bridges, the quarterly publication of Office of Science & Technology at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC, is now online. It is titled, "Making Sense of Trends in Disaster Losses," and starts out like this:

"Record rainfall and over a thousand dead in Mumbai. Devastating floods in central Europe. A record hurricane season in the Atlantic, including more than $100 billion dollars in damage from Hurricane Katrina. The summer of 2005 seems to have witnessed more than its fair share of weather-related disasters. And, perhaps understandably, no weather-related disaster occurs without someone linking it to the issue of global warming... But as logical and enticing as it may seem to connect the ever-growing toll of disasters with global warming, the current state of science simply does not support making such a connection."

Read the rest here. Comments welcomed.

If you are interested in science and technology policy, then the entire issue of Bridges is worth your attention.

Correcting Pat Michaels

Posted by Roger A. Pielke, Jr. (RP) and Kerry Emanuel (KE)

In a column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch Pat Michaels mischaracterizes the role of KE in a paper RP is lead author on forthcoming in BAMS (PDF). Michaels writes,

"A heavily cited paper, published recently in Nature by Kerry Emanuel, claims that hurricanes have doubled in power in the past half-century. It has been the basis for much of the association of Katrina with planetary warming. However, there are three manuscripts in review at Nature disputing this, as well as a recently published paper by Roger Pielke, Jr., in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, downplaying the notion. (As a measure of the acrimony among leading scientists on this subject, Emanuel removed his name as a co-author of this paper shortly before publication.)"

This is incorrect on two counts.

First, KE withdrew with no acrimony. Here is what the two of us jointly wrote on this a few weeks ago:

"The reason that KE decided to withdraw amicably from co-authorship had nothing to do with the paper's summary of research on the societal impacts of hurricanes, as implied here, but instead, a change in KE's views on the significance of global warming in observed and projected hurricane behavior. It is misleading to use KE's withdrawal to dismiss the entire paper. Here is how KE characterized his withdrawal to RP in an email:

"The awkward situation we find ourselves in is bound to occur when research is in rapid flux. Working with both data and models, I see a large global warming signal in hurricanes. But it remains for me to persuade you and other of my colleagues of this, and it is entirely reasonable for you all to be skeptical...it is, after all, very new. It is not surprising, therefore, that what I have come to believe is at odds with any reasonable consensus. The problem for me is that I cannot sign on to a paper which makes statements I no longer believe are true, even though the consensus is comfortable with them."

We remain close, collegial colleagues who are seeking to advance science by challenging each others ideas in the traditional fora of scientific discourse. We hope that the media will recognize that science is complex and legitimate, differing perspectives often co-exist simultaneously. This diversity of perspective is one feature that motivates the advancement of knowledge."

Second, the BAMS paper (PDF) does not "downplay" the relationship of hurricanes and global warming. The paper is an assessment of the authors' best judgments about what can and cannot be said about the relationship based on the peer-reviewed literature. Here is what the paper says about Emanuel (2005):

"Emanuel (2005) reports a very substantial upward trend in power dissipation (i.e., the sum over the lifetime of the storm of the maximum wind speed cubed) in the north Atlantic and western North Pacific, with a near doubling over the past 50 years. The precise causation for this trend is not yet clear. Moreover, in the North Atlantic, much of the recent upward trend in Atlantic storm frequency and intensity can be attributed to large multi-decadal fluctuations. Emanuel (2005) is just published as of this writing, and is certain to motivate a healthy and robust debate in the community."

There will be a place for debating and discussing Emanuel (2005) and its possible implications and that is in the peer reviewed literature.

Why Should We Believe NASA?

Earlier this week NASA released its plans for the future of the U.S. human spaceflight program. The New York Times has a good series of articles on the plans and reactions to it (here and here). Were I a discerning budget examiner or congressional staffer with a knowledge of the history of the space program, I'd ask NASA why we should believe any of the following statements (borrowed from the Times reporting):

* "Michael D. Griffin, the agency's new administrator, detailed a $104 billion plan that he said would get astronauts to the Moon by 2018."

Does NASA have any credibility on budget or schedule projections? History suggests that cost estimates are overly optimistic and shortfalls are used as a justification to secure budget increases. As one former congressional staffer has commented, "NASA cost overruns represent full employment in some congressional districts."

* "Dr. Griffin said that after adjusting for inflation, the program would cost just 55 percent of what it cost to put a dozen men on the lunar surface from 1969 to 1972."

The spin begins. An actual accounting of Apollo costs (see Table 14.4 here in PDF) indicates that the program actually costs (in 2004 dollars) between $105 to $125 billion. NASA is already either playing fast and loose with the budget numbers or is ignorant of its own budget history. Neither option is particularly encouraging.

* "The new craft, called the crew exploration vehicle, would perch the astronauts' capsule above the rockets that power it into space, rather than alongside them as with the shuttle. NASA officials said it would be 10 times as safe as the shuttle, with a projected failure rate of 1 in 2,000, as opposed to 1 in 220 for the shuttle."

Deja vu. No launch vehicle has ever demonstrated such a success rate. Unrealistic estimates of reliability contributed to the experiences of the Shuttle program. Further, if NASA really believes these numbers, what justification can there be for continuing to fly the Shuttle?

Space policy should be guided by a firm appreciation of history. We have a lot of hard-earned and valuable experience. Here are a few places to start (PDF and PDF).

Revkin on Katrina, Climate Science, Policy

Andy Revkin is one of the nation's most influential and widely respected journalists covering climate (and other environmental) issues. In a news release, the AAAS provides a rare look at the views of someone who plays a significant role in shaping public and policy debate over climate. Here are some interesting excerpts from the AAAS news story:

""We have to understand, and society has to become comfortable with, making decisions in uncertainty," Revkin said in the Robert C. Barnard Environmental Lecture at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C. He spoke to an audience of AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows and others ...

In his lecture, Revkin said that after covering global warming for almost 20 years, he is convinced that there will never be a time when he can write a story that states clearly that global warming "happened today." "It is never going to be the kind of story that will give you the level of certainty that everyone seems to crave," he said. "We are assaulted with complexity and uncertainty. Somehow, we need to convey that in all that information, with those question marks, there is a trajectory to knowledge." American society is uneasy with the equivocal answers that often are the best environmental scientists can provide, said Revkin. Newspapers are uncomfortable with "murk," and politicians and Congress "hate it," he said. Yet, despite the lack of crystal clarity, "you can still make decisions. Uncertainties don't let you off the hook," he said, even though some people in politics have used the uncertainties for that purpose...

The effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans is an example of how society has responded to a risky situation, he said. Since 1969, when Hurricane Camille churned ashore nearby, it was known that New Orleans "was designed to survive a hit from a Category 3 hurricane, but was now living in a Category 5 world," said Revkin. "We were willing to live with that gamble in all of the years since then, and now many people are paying the cost." In the wake of Katrina, he said, Americans must decide how to deal with risks. He said society can either make greater use of science in planning for long-term risks or "we can just hunker down and weather each storm as it comes. I am not sure which way we are going to go yet." ...

Revkin said he finds comfort in the fact that there are still scientists and other people who are trying "in an open-minded and transparent way" to understand how the environment can be preserved and who are "braving the landscape of policy." "It is very easy to be a scientist and just do your work and try to avoid (policy questions)," he said, "but it is getting harder and harder and it is also getting less and less responsible not to get into that landscape.""

Read the full AAAS news story here.

On Burying the Lead

The Webster/Holland/Curry/Chang work in Science this week received a load of press coverage. Little of it was intelligent. (Roger slammed one piece last Friday here.)

In my experience, often one of the most important sections of any Science or Nature paper is the last two paragraphs. Here's what the last two paragraphs say in Webster et al.:

"We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases before this period (28), which means that a comprehensive analysis of longer-period oscillations and trends has not been attempted. There is evidence of a minimum of intense cyclones occurring in the 1970s (11), which could indicate that our observed trend toward more intense cyclones is a reflection of a long-period oscillation. However, the sustained increase over a period of 30 years in the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes indicates that the related oscillation would have to be on a period substantially longer than that observed in previous studies.

"We conclude that global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional assessment (29). This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones (18, 30), although attribution of the 30-year trends to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state."

Among many crucial caveats in both paragraphs, the second half of the last sentence is especially crucial to how this paper was covered. Not only is 35 years of data in an ocean-atmosphere climatology context is too short to say much of anything, 35 years effectively becomes zero years placed in the context of the multi-decadal cycling of the Tropical Atlantic Variability (itself interacting with the North Atlantic Oscillation and Meridional Overturning Circulation). This crucial caveat is obvious to Webster and his colleagues and so was mentioned in their paper, but it was not discussed in any popular media coverage that I could find. Instead, all popular media accounts picked up the message of abstract, which had no such caveats:

"We examined the number of tropical cyclones and cyclone days as well as tropical cyclone intensity over the past 35 years, in an environment of increasing sea surface temperature. A large increase was seen in the number and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5. The largest increase occurred in the North Pacific, Indian, and Southwest Pacific Oceans, and the smallest percentage increase occurred in the North Atlantic Ocean. These increases have taken place while the number of cyclones and cyclone days has decreased in all basins except the North Atlantic during the past decade."

And so the media coverage went, even while briefly interviewing dissenters, not examining the whole paper. The NY Times picked up the AP story which reports controversy according to Roger's formula but does not discuss the real issue: does 35 years of data in an environment with strong multi-decadal variability say anything? Roger highlighted the 9/16 Juliet Eilperin Washington Post story, which similarly missed the issue. Newsday wrote their own story here.

The climatology community will easily discern for themselves how much or little importance to place on the Webster et al. study, but the public and policy-making communities rely on somebody else for that kind of insight. Invariably the non-expert community relies upon media coverage to form their opinion. And in this case, instead of giving a complete picture, reporting both on the abstract and the last paragraph, the media has portrayed all abstract. In this they do a great disservice, deemphasizing the big picture in order to make a printable story.

Where does the fault lie? With Webster et al. for not mentioning the caveat more prominently, or with journalists for being too lazy to read and absorb the entire study? In my opinion, both.

The journalists are an easy target, so I'll forgo that discussion. As for researchers, they ordinarily get a free pass when simply reporting research while keeping their political opinions mostly to themselves. But this is not an ordinary case. Webster, Holland and Curry have been in this game for years. They know they are publishing compelling research in the U.S.'s most prominent science journal on a very sensitive topic with heightened current relevance, within a larger controversial political context. They would have anticipated the interest their article received, and should have anticipated the likelihood of their main results being parroted without the special caveat any climatologist would immediate recognize and accept. To write a paper with such a charged backstory while burying its most important caveat is in my opinion irresponsible.

Dust Up Over MDGs

Amir Attaran asks in PLoS Medicine of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, "Could it be, despite an appearance of firm targets, deadlines, and focused urgency, that the MDGs are actually imprecise and possibly ineffective agents for development progress?" He answers this question with,

"I argue that many of the most important MDGs, including those to reduce malaria, maternal mortality, or tuberculosis (TB), suffer from a worrying lack of scientifically valid data. While progress on each of these goals is portrayed in time-limited and measurable terms, often the subject matter is so immeasurable, or the measurements are so inadequate, that one cannot know the baseline condition before the MDGs, or know if the desired trend of improvement is actually occurring. Although UN scientists know about these troubles, the necessary corrective steps are being held up by political interference, including by the organisation's senior leadership, who have ordered delays to amendments that could repair the MDGs. In short, five years into the MDG project, in too many cases, one cannot know if true progress towards these very important goals is occurring. Often, one has to guess."

Jeffrey Sachs and colleagues disagree, responding:

"Although Attaran raises important points on the poor quality of data for some indicators used to measure progress on the MDGs, he uses these findings to draw the wrong conclusions. Of course the data on the world's poorest people are weak, as is just about every other effort regarding the poor. Rich countries invest little in helping save the poor from dying of malaria and tuberculosis. It is therefore no surprise that developing countries and the international system lack the resources to measure the diseases' effects well. Attaran's criticisms in this regard are justified, and have been made by many others before him, including many professionals working for the UN system. The world leaders who attended the 2000 Millennium Summit committed to halve poverty in its many forms by 2015, and the MDGs are the result of that political commitment. Attaran ignores that broad goals adopted by world leaders are distinct from the technical question of how to define and measure progress toward those goals."

Attaran offers a rejoinder:

"Writing in response to my article, Jeffrey Sachs and colleagues at the UN Millennium Project, admit that my criticisms are justified. They concede that the same criticisms "have been made by many others before including many professionals working for the UN system". So it does not seem debatable that what I am arguing is truthful: that progress (if any) towards the MDGs is not being measured as the UN claims. I therefore find it hard to understand why Sachs and colleagues have sought to refute my article in such negative terms. Maybe they are rebutting its political implications, which - if you have chaired the UN Millennium Project as Sachs has - and pinned your legacy on that, must touch a nerve. Certainly they do not deny the facts underpinning my argument, which when published in PLoS Medicine referenced 41 articles. Sachs and colleagues' reply contains zero references to the literature - zero references to the evidence. A reply that contains no contrary evidence is not a rebuttal but a polemic."

Read the full text of this exchange here. From where I sit Attaran has both the moral and intellectual high ground here, concluding,

"Imagine if the US president set a Millennium Unemployment Goal to halve the number of people without jobs by 2015. Then suppose some years later, an academic asked the government: "So, how much unemployment is there?" If the government's answer were, "We never measured that, and you're right that we don't know, but shame on you for blaming us", the public outcry would be huge. So would the realisation that the government was unaccountable and disdainful of the people it is meant to protect. This is exactly where the UN finds itself today over several of its most important MDGs: it pushed for goals that its own scientists knew it could not measure. Largely it gets away with that because world's poorest people are seldom in a position to complain. Rebuking me for drawing attention to it is shooting the messenger. This does not solve the problem - which Sachs and colleagues concede exists. We all want the MDGs to succeed, but defending their existence with polemic is not the way. Setting measurable goals, measuring them to guarantee progress, and celebrating the progress as it happens - not just celebrating the goals because they are comforting - is the proper way to dignify and protect the lives of the world's neediest citizens."

Excellent Book on Think Tanks

I am overdue to comment on an excellent 2004 book by Andrew Rich, Think Tanks, Public Policy and the Politics of Expertise (Cambridge University Press). Anyone who wants to understand the evolution and role of think tanks should read this book (A sample chapter, here in PDF, whets your appetite for the whole thing. Here are some short, thought-provoking excerpts from the book:

pp. 26-27, "The greater substantive potential for policy research early on as opposed to during final deliberation and enactment is recognized by scholars. But this insight does not seem to have guided the behavior of many think tanks, at least not in the past quarter century. In the chapters that follow, I examine what account for these particular developments. I consider the paradox why, at precisely the moment when experts and those who support them are realizing their own power in policy making, those among the that are most conscious of their own potential devote effort where it can achieve the least substantive effect. This development in combination with the harm to collective reputation done by some ideological think tanks results in little evidence that, amid the proliferation of think tanks in American policy making, these think tanks and experts generally are especially - or proportionally - influential. Quite the opposite in fact: Their actual standing may be eroding just as their numbers and scholarly recognition increase."

p. 215, "When think tanks become involved in producing commentary, they abandon the most distinctive niche for experts in the policy process, the point in the process when the contributions of researchers are least contested by other types of actors. Instead, in efforts to attract attention for work that at best serves little substantive role anyway, think tanks compete with scores of non-expert actors involved in policy debates, especially interest groups and lobbyists, that almost invariable have more resources and power than they do. In the competition between interest groups and think tanks to make views influential at latter stages of policy debates, interest groups almost always win out."

p. 216, "At the beginning of the twenty-first century, research is frequently evaluated more in terms of its ideological content and accessibility to audiences than by the quality of its content."

p. 218, " the imbalance between conservative and liberal think tanks seems likely to diminish... "; p. 220, "... whether liberal think tanks become more marketing oriented or whether they increase in numbers to rival conservative organizations, I question whether it matters as much for policy making as some activists believe."

p. 220, "The biggest worry for liberals, conservatives, and scholars alike should be the trend for think tanks - and increasingly experts of all kinds - to produce research that is little more than polemical commentary. This work diminishes the potential for its producers to have substantive influence with policy makers. Even more, this work, especially in its most ideological and most aggressively marketed forms, damages the reputation of experts generally among policy makers. The distinction between experts and advocates is tenuous. As we head into the future, the weakness of that distinction presents a fundamental challenge for think tanks, experts, and those who rely on the. The weakness threatens the quality of policy produced; for if trusted research and analysis is not available, what becomes the foundation for informed policy decisions?"

For those interested in understanding think tanks in contemporary policy and politics, get the book and read it.

Generic News Story at Work

It is good to see my generic news story on global warming from May, 2004 being put to good use by the Washington Post in a story today on the new Webster et al. paper in Science. (For those wanting to see an excellent news story on Webster et al. see Richard Kerr in Science.)

Here is the generic news story in full from Prometheus in May, 2004:

Generic News Story on Climate Change

Instructions to editor: Please repeat the below every 3-4 weeks ad infinitum.

This week the journal [Science/Nature] published a study by a team of scientists led by a [university/government lab/international group] [challenging/confirming] that the earth is warming. The new study looks at [temperature/sea level/the arctic] and finds evidence of trends that [support/challenge] the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scientist [A, B, C], a [participant in, reviewer of] the study observed that the study, ["should bring to a close debate over global warming," "provides irrefutable evidence that global warming is [real/overstated] today," "demonstrates the value of climate science"]. Scientist [D, E, F], who has long been [critical/supportive] of the theory of global warming rebutted that the study, ["underscores that changes in [temperature/sea level/the arctic] will likely be [modest/significant]," "ignores considerable literature inconvenient to their central hypothesis," "commits a basic mistake"]. Scientist [A, B, C or D, E, F] has been criticized by [advocacy groups, reporters, scientific colleagues] for receiving funding from [industry groups, conservative think tanks]. It is unclear what the study means for U.S. participation the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush Administration has refused to participate in. All agreed that more research is necessary.

Here is a tightly edited version of the Washington Post story:

"A new study concludes that warming sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes, adding fuel to an international debate over whether global warming contributed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The study, published today in the journal Science ... Georgia Tech atmospheric scientist Judith A. Curry -- co-author of the study with colleagues Peter J. Webster and Hai-Ru Chang, and NCAR's Greg J. Holland -- said ... "There is increasing confidence, as the result of our study, that there's some level of greenhouse warming in what we're seeing," ... Florida State University meteorology and oceanography professor James O'Brien, who writes for the online free-market journal Tech Central Station, said his survey of government data on Atlantic storms between 1850 and 2005 shows that "there's no indication of an increase in intensity." ... Katrina reanimated a transatlantic argument over global warming policy as critics of the Bush administration have seized on it to promote mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions... Arguing that the science of global warming remains uncertain, President Bush in 2001 disavowed the Kyoto treaty that sets mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and he has pursued policies calling for more research and voluntary efforts to limit emissions."

Kerr on Hurricanes and Climate Change

In Science this week, Richard Kerr has the best summary I've seen of recent scientific studies of hurricanes and climate. The occasion for Kerr's article is a study by Webster et al. on trends in strom frequencies and intensities. Here is the summary of Kerr's article, "Mounting evidence suggests that tropical cyclones around the world are intensifying, perhaps driven by greenhouse warming, but humans still have themselves to blame for rising damage." These articles are freely available here.

Politics and Disaster Declarations

In today's New York Times, economist Alan B. Kruger discusses our work on politics and presidential disaster declarations. Here is an excerpt:

"While no one would doubt that a disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina deserves the full commitment of the federal government, the language in the FEMA law is vague enough to count two feet of snow in Ohio as a major disaster, as was the case last December. Indeed, the law specifically prohibits the use of an "arithmetic formula or sliding scale" to deny assistance. So, disaster requests are not evaluated based on standard quantitative evidence; instead, declarations involve subjective judgment. Not surprisingly, in this vacuum presidents have displayed a tendency to declare more disasters in years when they face re-election. Mary W. Downton of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Roger A. Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado, Boulder, for example, looked at the flood-related disasters that were declared from 1965 to 1997 in an article published in "Natural Hazards Review" in 2001. Even after accounting for the amount of precipitation and flood damage each year, they found that the average number of flood-related disasters declared by the president was 46 percent higher in election years than in other years. The tendency to declare more disasters during election years is not limited to floods. President Bill Clinton set a record by declaring 73 major disasters in 35 states and the District of Columbia in 1996, the year he was up for re-election. When George W. Bush faced re-election in 2004, he declared 61 major disasters in 36 states - 10 more than in 2003 and tied for the second highest number of major disaster declarations ever, according to data provided by FEMA. The increase from 2003 to 2004 was particularly sharp in the 12 battleground states in which the election was decided by 5 percent or less; these states had 17 major disasters declared in 2004 but only 8 in 2003, and, therefore, accounted for 90 percent of the increase."

The paper that Professor Krueger references is this one:

Downton, M. and R.A. Pielke, Jr., 2001: Discretion Without Accountability: Politics, Flood Damage, and Climate, Natural Hazards Review, 2(4):157-166. (PDF)

[Note: The Garrett and Sobel article referred to by Krueger can be found here and a prepublication version of the same study here (PDF).]

Part III: Historical economic losses from floods - Where does Katrina rank?

In Part I and Part II of his series we discussed some of the methodological challenges in quantifying economic impacts and sought to place Katrina into the context of historical hurricanes. Katrina holds the distinction of not only being one of the most costly hurricanes on record, but also one of the most costly floods.

In its tabulation of losses from extreme weather events, the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) has historically distinguished hurricane damages from flood damages. In a research report to NOAA on flood damage that we completed several years ago we characterized the distinction as follows:

"[Flooding includes] river and coastal flooding, rainwater flooding on level surfaces and low-gradient slopes, flooding in shallow depressions which is caused by water-table rise, and flooding caused by the backing-up or overflow of artificial drainage systems. The NWS includes damage from most types of flooding listed above, but excludes ocean floods caused by severe wind (storm surge) or tectonic activity (tsunami)." The NWS also excludes mudslides from its flood damage totals.

In that report we reanalyzed the historical flood damage record of the NWS by going into NWS archives, exploring historical media reports and cross checking federal and state damage estimates. We think the resulting dataset is the best single source of information on flood damage available in the United States. You can see it here - www.flooddamagedata.org

The data from our report can be converted to 2004 dollars by using the implicit price deflators found in Table B-3 of the Economic Report of the President (multiply 1995 dollars by 1.175 to get 2004 dollars). In millions of $2004 the ten largest flood-damage years from the period 1929-2003 are as follows:

1993: $20,039
1972 : $15,940
1997 : $10,135
1986 : $9,022
1979 : $7,920
2001 : $7,568
1996 : $7,059
1951 : $6,576
1973 : $6,134
1983 : $6,130

But as we have often discussed here, such measures can be misleading because there are profound societal changes that occur over a period of decades. One way to reduce the effects of societal changes is to look at damages per capita. Here are the top 10 flood years 1929-2003 measured on a per capita basis:

1993: $77.74
1972 : $75.94
1951 : $42.46
1997 : $37.85
1986 : $37.57
1937 : $36.11
1979 : $35.19
1965 : $30.20
1973 : $28.95
1955 : $27.31

Damage per capita still underestimates the effects of societal changes, as not only has the population changed, but it has overall become much more wealthy over time, resulting in the potential for much larger losses today than in the past. One way to further adjust the data is to look at damage per unit of national wealth. This graph (PDF) shows this data, and suggests that even as floods have increased in their total costs, their economic effects have diminished as a fraction of wealth.

We strongly encourage anyone who wants to use this data to become familiar with its strengths and limitations which are discussed here and in the publications listed below.

The flooding associated with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is, as we've discussed, a very unique case. The only parts of the total event that would be appropriate to include in this database (aside from inland flooding away from the Gulf) would likely be the levee breaks in New Orleans. And even then, if the levee breaks were determined to be the result of storm surge, then the flooding might then be judged an orange in this basket of apples.

But for the sake of discussion, let's assume that the flooding of New Orleans is indeed classified as flood damages and not hurricane damages. At any of the estimates currently available for the costs of draining and rebuilding New Orleans, Katrina's flooding will shatter the record for annual flood costs and per capita flood costs. Under such an allocation of costs, Katrina would likely be listed as the second most costly hurricane on record (after 1926 Miami) and the worst flood event on record. The total damages would thus be a combination of both types of loss estimates. If this seems a be convoluted, I'd agree, but we are constrained in our historical analyses by the methods used to assess damage over time. This is why great caution is needed in assessing Katrina's damages for the purposes of comparing the event with past storms.

For more information on flood damages please have a look at the following:

http://www.flooddamagedata.org

Downton, M., J. Z. B. Miller and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Reanalysis of U.S. National Weather Service Flood Loss Database, Natural Hazards Review, 6:13-22. (PDF)

Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Natural Hazards, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 211-228. (PDF)

And to see how flood damage has varied with climate trends, please see this paper:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and M.W. Downton, 2000: Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20), 3625-3637. (PDF)

Of Blinders and Innumeracy

Elizabeth Kolbert has an article in the New Yorker on everyone’s favorite topic these days, hurricanes and global warming. The article is amazing because even though the data is staring Kolbert right in the face, she apparently cannot bring herself to grasp its implications for her argument.

Kolbert describes the problem: “In June, the Association of British Insurers issued a report forecasting that, owing to climate change, losses from hurricanes in the U.S., typhoons in Japan, and windstorms in Europe were likely to increase by more than sixty per cent in the coming decades. (The report calculated that insured losses from extreme storms—those expected to occur only once every hundred to two hundred and fifty years—could rise to as much as a hundred and fifty billion dollars.) The figures did not take into account the expected increase in the number and wealth of people living in storm-prone areas; correcting for such increases, the losses are likely to be several hundred per cent higher.”

Let’s first do some fact checking and take a look at what the Association of British Insurers report (PDF) actually says. Table 6.4 on p. 25 indicates that the ABI analysis shows a current total loss baseline of $16.5 billion for U.S. hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms. And on p. 23 it notes that “If carbon dioxide concentrations doubled, total average annual damages from US hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms combined could increase by up to $10.5 bn (¥1140 bn, €8.5 bn) from a baseline of about $16.5 bn today, representing an increase of around 65%.” So this is where she gets the more than sixty percent figure. So far so good, although the projected date for these changes in into the 2080s, a little bit further on than “coming decades.” But let’s move on.

But where does the number come from for the effects of societal changes, which she describes as likely to be “several hundred percent higher”? One has to go to the supplementary information to the report (PDF) to find this information. At p. 41 tables 3.8 and 3.9 one finds the data on projected wealth and population growth. Based on the numbers here, the combined effects of population and wealth on storm damages, independent of climate changes, would result in 2085 in total damages of $81.8 billion for U.S. hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms, or an increase of $65.3 billion over the 2004 baseline. This is an increase of more than 600%, quite a bit larger than the “several hundred percent” reported by Kolbert.

Now, I do have some questions about the ABI study, which would be worth revisiting in the future, such as why it projects a combined annual rate of increase in wealth and population of only 2% for these regions. (The ABI seems unfazed by the apparent contradictory information it presents: “If Hurricane Andrew had hit Florida in 2002 rather than 1992, the losses would have been double, due to increased coastal development and rising asset values.” This represents about an 8% annual increase.) Also, The ABI’s estimates for increasing damages related to wind storms is roughly an order of magnitude larger than projected by the IPCC in its SAR. Reports such as those produced by the ABI can be extremely valuable, but they’d be more readily understood and placed into context if their analyses were submitted to the peer-reviewed literature.

But let’s press ahead. Kolbert’s column understates what the report actually says about the effects of growing population and wealth by a factor of 3. The ABI finds that future losses to wind storms are about 10 times more sensitive to societal factors than to climate factors. Yet even using the wrong numbers Kolbert writes a paragraph that clearly acknowledges the dominant role of societal changes in shaping future windstorm damages. And yet, when it comes to discussing policy options she focuses exclusively on the less significant factor:

“As the rest of the world has adopted Kyoto—earlier this year, the treaty became binding on the hundred and forty nations that had ratified it—these arguments have become increasingly indefensible, and the President has fallen back on what one suspects was his real objection all along: complying with the agreement would be expensive. “The Kyoto treaty didn’t suit our needs,” Bush blurted out during a British-television interview a couple of months ago. As Katrina indicates, this argument, too, is empty. It’s not acting to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that’s likely to prove too costly; it’s doing nothing.”

I do think that there is more than just political opportunism at work here. I simply don’t think that people are prepared to see the numbers right before their eyes. Part of this dynamic must be the effects of starting with a solution (greenhouse gas reductions) and searching for justifications, but part also must be related to the lure of silver bullet policy solutions rather than the difficult, yet mundane challenges of addressing the day-to-day decisions that cumulatively result in a tremendous increase in vulnerability to disasters. But if we are to address the ever-growing vulnerability of society to weather disasters we cannot continue to ignore the obvious.

New Center Website

Thanks to our webmaster extraordinaire, Mark Lohaus, we have a new design for the website of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.

Please check it out and feedback is appreciated:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/

Some Thoughtful Perspectives

Chip Geller and Dave Roberts from Grist have a nice piece in the 11 September 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Here is an excerpt:

"If we could travel back in time 10 years, even 20, and work to prevent last week's misery and loss, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions would be far down the list of pragmatic preventative strategies. We'd start instead with reinforcement of New Orleans' levees, restoration of coastal wetlands, upgrades to regional emergency-response programs, maintenance of FEMA's independence and integrity, meaningful anti-poverty programs and the election of a commander in chief who wasn't so obviously in over his head. The wind and rain may have been natural, but Katrina was very much a human disaster, rotten with racism, willful neglect and criminal incompetence."

Paul Recer also has a very nice essay in today's Slate (Thanks DOK). Here is an excerpt:

"Until the science clarifies, environmental groups that use Katrina as a way to boost their campaign for tougher controls on greenhouse emissions risk provoking a backlash. Exploiting bad news and facile pseudoscience to seek support and fresh donations is a good way to lose credibility. Greenpeace, for instance, looked foolish when it denounced genetically modified foods as "Frankenfoods" that can potentially harm human health. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a respected independent advisory group, concluded in 2004 that foods created by gene manipulation were no more dangerous than crops altered by traditional breeding methods. The animal-rights movement suffered a similar embarrassment when it argued against using laboratory animals for medical research by claiming that computer modeling could accomplish the same research goals as living animals. Donald Kennedy, executive editor in chief of the journal Science, called the claim "a remarkable piece of science fiction."

Environmentalists who want to leverage Katrina are on far more solid ground scientifically and economically in going after the state and federal rules that permit people to build in harm's way. Population growth along the U.S. coastline has exploded in recent years-13 million people now live in Florida's coastal counties alone compared to only about 200,000 a century ago. A USA Today study concluded that about 1,000 people move into U.S. coastal counties each day. The denser population mak