Q&A Thread to in Response to Joe Romm
March 2nd, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Joe Romm has a post up today criticizing me as only Joe Romm can. It is full of misinformation and inaccuracies. I thought I’d open up a thread for anyone to ask direct questions of me, if they have any, in response to Romm’s allegations.
Let me say unequivocally, the following things:
1. Gore was right to admit that the slide was problematic and then pull it from his talk.
2. Gore has continuing problems using the Munich Re slide to make the same point.
3. Munich Re has published in the peer reviewed literature arguing that attribution of disasters to GHGs is not possible at this time, most recently last week.
4. An expert workshop that I co-organized with Munich Re concluded the same thing (PDF), and the results were published in Science (PDF).
5. There are no peer-reviewed papers documenting a link between GHG emissions and the long-term trend in disasters.
6. In the United States extreme events have actually declined over the long-term, not increased.
7. I will not parse the meaning of the word “this” as Joe Romm wants to do. The science on this subject is clear and unambiguous.
8. I have been banned from Joe Romm’s blog, so I cannot post this link there, so if a reader would do so, I would be obliged.
I trust that readers can see what Joe says, see what I say, and come to their own informed judgments about what to believe. If you have any questions, please ask me. I am perfectly happy to discuss any and all aspects of this issue, including the various technical details of the many peer-reviewed research papers that I have on this subject.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 am
Tom Yulsman, professor of journalism, leaves this over at Romm’s site:
# Tom Yulsman Says:
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Former Vice President Al Gore has done more than most people to raise awareness of climate change. He is certainly to be admired and his slide show applauded. But to argue here that Gore does not tie natural disasters to global warming is to ignore the obvious.
Romm devotes something on the order of 3,000 words — the equivalent of a magazine feature — to ultimately make the case that there is no antecedent to the word “this” in the former vice president’s speech. Because of the missing antecedent, Romm argues, Gore was not really implicating global warming in disasters. But at the same time, Romm conveniently ignores the slide immediately following Gore’s three or so minute description of natural disasters (a discussion, by the way, that takes place in the context of an entire presentation that is ultimately about global warming). That next slide details the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
So I guess Romm is technically correct that Gore never actually says what the word “this” refers to. And his point is actually ideal for use today in my Principles of Journalism class as an example of how something can be factually true but substantially false. Thank you Joe for helping me with class prep today.
It’s also curious, by the way, that Romm ignores the hurricane spiraling out of the smokestack on the book and DVD versions of Inconvenient Truth.
Accuracy is a preeminent journalistic value. But accuracy must be judged not just on the minutiae of individual words and their antecedents, but what major impressions they give readers and viewers. And to imply that viewers don’t leave Gore’s presentation thinking that natural disasters are closely tied to global warming is laughable.
Gore does indeed pay meticulous attention to scientific detail, and his achievements on this issue are singularly impressive. But in this case, Joe, he did exaggerate. (A politician who exaggerates? I’m shocked! Simply shocked!!)
Lastly, your continued demonization of Roger Pielke, Jr. and Andrew Revkin is unseemly and actually detracts from your credibility and your cause. I know both men well. Yes, they they occasionally make mistakes. But Roger’s motives are not as you describe them. He is devoted to helping policy makers find sensible solutions to climate change. And Andy has devoted 30 years of his life to shining a bright and revealing light on the issue of human domination of our planetary life support systems. No journalist has achieved more in raising awareness of these issues than Revkin has. So I find your continuing attacks on these honorable men are undignified and counterproductive.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
The case that Al Gore exaggerates rests upon a single word?!
SNIP …
I’m sorry Stan, lets keep this thread narrowly focused on questions and comments specific to Romm’s allegations.
Thanks! RP
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
Roger, ultimately is it very important what a nobody like Joe Romm believes or says. Even worst are those who read and believes as factual what he says.
I’d worry about him if he got elected to congress.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 am
Joe posted your post and added this:
[JR: Please note that he doesn’t devote a single word to refuting my charge that his assault on the character of the 3,000 scientists in the audience was beyond the pale. So indeed the his assault was indefensible. Gore was very careful in his word choice — because he has an understanding of the issue and a message that is far more nuanced and justifiable than Pielke asserts. Again, listen to Gore’s talk for yourself. The reason no one in the audience objected to what Gore said, is because nothing he said it was scientifically objectionable, as I have shown.]
Considering how some scientist and bloggers went, like dogs after a bone, after George Will last week. It is hard to believe that no scientist had anything to say against Gore presentation.
Hence the double standard, and my cynicism toward climate science.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
It should be easy to settle the debate about points 3, 4, 5, and 6 with some quotes. Is Romm correct or not?
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 am
He lost me at “Gore and his team work overtime to accurately represent the data and the science.”
This statement doesn’t ring true since Al Gore is on record as saying “Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” (Full interview at http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html)
But I kept reading anyway and found the film An Inconvenient Truth used as a reference for the truth.
The truthfulness of An Inconvenient Truth has been tested in court with scientists under oath. A British court found that the film is a work of political propaganda with serious scientific errors.
The post on ClimateProgress evaluates to an appeal to authority with Al Gore as both the authority and the person being defended. A lot of bandwidth could be saved if the post had been written simply as “Al Gore says Al Gore is right.”
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:06 am
-5-jae
Thanks, easy enough:
3. From Munich Re last week:
“Both studies confirm the consensus reached in May 2006 at the international workshop in Hohenkammer attended by leading experts on climate change and natural catastrophe losses.”
From the Hohenhkammer consensus report:
“Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions.”
4. From the Science paper the exact words from the Hohenkammer consensus:
“Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions.”
5.
6. Read this post and then the report:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/what-the-ccsp-extremes-report-really-says-4466
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
Your argument is that global warming has not been conclusively linked to an increase in extreme weather events. Romm’s argument is that Gore never claimed otherwise.
Romm is correct.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:13 am
Also, Romm says on his blog of our Science paper:
“read the Science article and please tell me where it says that AGW is not a contributing factor to the recent growth in extreme weather”
Our Science paper says that GHG emissions cannot be shown to be a contributor to increasing disaster losses — it does not prove a negative nor does it try to.
Anyone asserting that GHG emissions have a role in driving increasing disasters has a responsibility to have the goods when making this claim. Romm does not.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 am
-8-dana1981
Really?
Does the following image count as making a conclusive linkage?
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/justaintso.png
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 am
dana:
Come on. Besides the image Roger linked, how about the poor drowning little polar bears; enormous ice sheets crashing into the ocean; etc.? Gore has always suggested that “BAD climate change” will result from higher CO2 emissions. As noted by the journalism prof. over on Romm’s site, you have to look at the overall message that is conveyed, rather than devote 2,000 words to the meaning of “this.” It’s worse than Clinton’s parsing of the word “sex.”
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Also relevant:
Pielke, Jr., R.A., S. Agrawala, L. Bouwer, I. Burton, S. Changnon, M. Glantz, W. Hooke, R. Klein, K. Kunkel, D. Mileti, D. Sarewitz, E. Thompkins, N. Stehr, and H. von Storch, 2005.Clarifying the Attribution of Recent Disaster Losses: A Response to Epstein and McCarthy, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, Volume 86 (10), pp. 1481-1483.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1776-2005.42.pdf
Excerpt:
“However, to connect the economic
and other human impacts of disasters that have occurred
in recent years and decades to climate changes
(human caused or not) is not supported by the robust
peer-reviewed literature in this area. Advancing such
unsupported connections not only can create inefficiencies
in disaster policy (Sarewitz and Pielke 2005),
but can also open the door to an “overselling” of
climate science and a resulting criticism of advocacy
efforts regarding climate change (e.g., von Storch and
Stehr 2005). Both science and policy will be better
served by aligning the justifications advanced for
action with current scientific understandings. Future
research may yet reveal a connection between climate
change and trends in disaster costs, but at present it
is premature to attribute trends in disaster costs to
anything other than characteristics of and changes
in societal vulnerability.”
Epstein, on of the co-authors of the paper we we responding to, later joined the Hohenkammer consensus.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:45 am
More from Tom Y. at ClimateProgress:
# Tom Yulsman Says:
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Joe:
It really is hard to take you seriously given your repeated, over-heated, emotional, and undignified use of words like “vicious attack,” “smear” and “fabrication.” But I will try…
Please accept my apologies if I misunderstood your post. It is a little difficult to read through a feature-length post and figure out exactly what your point is. On the one hand you go on at length about how there probably IS a link between global warming and natural catastrophes, and then on the other hand you go on at length about how Gore did not say there was such a link. So Gore was right to highlight a link but he did not actually highlight a link. Huh? What am I missing Joe?
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Roger,
It would appear that climate campaigners are unaware of the consequences of their habitual exaggeration and hype, i.e. the emergence of a crying-wolf response. This has been the political reaction in Europe in the last 12 months where climate policy is no longer shaped or decided by environmental ministers and their science advisors. Instead, negotiations and decisions now rest firmly with finance and prime ministers who have little regard for climate alarmists:
“One of the big losers in this is the scientific community. Because their advice is no longer sought and their advice is no longer followed. Why? Because they’ve overdone it. I don’t think the decision-makers trust their advice. Not because they are climate sceptics – don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they are – but I think the exaggeration of the problem has made it difficult for decision-makers.”
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/LTT507_p14-15.pdf
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Roger
The fact he banned you from the blog says it all. Informed dissent is not wanted. Did the chart include data from such things as Tsunamis and earthquakes?
Mike
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
The double standard is notable. If one were to put as much effort into parsing George Will’s words as Al Gore’s, I think you could probably show that his statements were true, too. For example, he mostly quoted lines from publications, and I don’t think anyone is claiming he made the quotes up. The accusation is that he “cherry picked”, so that even though the things he said were true, they gave a wrong impression. That’s what “cherry picking” means. And the tortuous parsing of Al Gore’s words may show that he didn’t have any clear-cut falsehoods, but he surely conveys wrong impressions, so all the parsing doesn’t clear him of cherry picking, either. And it isn’t just about that one slide, either. Another example is that he has consistently exaggerated sea-level rise. (Once again, the things he says are “true”, but are missing the pertinent time scale, which changes the impression considerably.)
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Have any extreme events increased anywhere? It’s easy for people to believe they have but I’ve not seen any documents where an increase has been shown – even for the poster-child mid-Atlantic hurricanes, where there are as many papers for as against. Any other reports or talks seem to assume there will be an increase in events at some future point without actually demonstrating any having occurred up to now. It’s difficult to make an attribution on trendless data – unless you throw out some data or do some infilling of course.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I can add nothing to the discussion of Apocalypse Joe that hasn’t already been said repeatedly, except to repeat my advice: Save for the onerous necessity of correcting the worst of his distortions, do not engage.
Benny Peiser puts his finger on the most worrisome aspect of the (pseudo)scientific doomsday mongering that is exemplified by Romm better than anyone: Loss of credibility. Pielke the Elder & Pielke the Younger have both worried about this for years, and it’s now gaining serious momentum. It will be a tragedy for science, and ultimately, a tragedy for all of us.
(CAP would also lose all credibility, which would be a good thing, except that it has an endless fuel supply, appearing almost entirely populated by True Believers who by definition are impervious to reason and evidence. Faith and moral one-upsmanship are their sole raison d’être).
It’s past time for a new term: Pseudo-scientists With Credentials (I admit that’s not very snappy – suggestions anyone?)
BTW, I haven’t read Romm’s post and don’t intend to: He gives me a headache.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 am
Regarding #12
“Epstein … later joined the Hohenkammer consensus,”
the consensus was reflected in
Schiermeier, Q. Insurers’ disaster files suggest climate is culprit. Nature 441, 674-675 (8 June 2006).
Abstract
Rising costs hint at weather effect. Insurance companies, acutely aware of the dramatic increase in losses caused by natural disasters in recent decades, have been convinced that global warming is partly to blame. Now their data seem to be persuading scientists, too.
Sincerely yours, Paul Epstein
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Paul- Thanks for dropping by — This context on the Nature story is relevant:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/comments-on-nature-article-on-disaster-trends-workshop-3857
We never used the phrase “global warming” in the Hohenkammer. nature did run a correction to the story.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:31 am
Quting from the article:
At a recent meeting of climate and insurance experts, delegates reached a cautious consensus: climate change is helping to drive the upward trend in catastrophes.
Paul Epstein
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:41 am
Right – climate change, which defined as the IPCC does. This is indeed what the Hohenkammer consensus says.
Nature erred when it used “climate change” and “global warming” interchangeably.
But rather than parse a news story, the Hohenkammer consensus is right here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/sparc/research/projects/extreme_events/munich_workshop/workshop_report.html
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:11 am
And from the summary:
Consensus (unanimous) statements of the workshop participants:
1. Climate change is real, and has a significant human component related to greenhouse gases.
2. Direct economic losses of global disasters have increased in recent decadeswith particularly large increases since the 1980s.
3. The increases in disaster losses primarily result from weather related events, in particular storms and floods.
4. Climate change and variability are factors which influence trends in disasters.
5. Although there are peer reviewed papers indicating trends in storms and floods there is still scientific debate over the attribution to anthropogenic climate change or natural climate variability. There is also concern over geophysical data quality.
If you want to debate #5 re attribution, please say so.
Paul Epstein
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 am
-23-Paul, I am perfectly happy to reaffirm the entire Hohenkammer consensus, all 20 statements, as Peter Hoeppe and colleagues did last week in their paper.
Perhaps, as new science comes in, at some point we should reconvene the group to reassess the consensus (Peter and I have actually discussed this). However, at present I don’t see any of the 20 statements being in need of revision based on new research since the 2006 meeting.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am
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