Briefing #12, 9 April 2008

The Center for Science and Technology Policy Research is working to improve how science and technology policies address societal needs. Please let us know what information you might like to receive by emailing us.

About the Center

Center Highlights

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Why a key subset of scientists chose to lend their scientific authority to the "environmental backlash," the counter-movement that has mobilized to defuse widespread concern about perceived environmental threats, including human-induced climate change:
Lahsen, Myanna. 2008. Experiences of Modernity in the Greenhouse: A Cultural Analysis of a Physicist 'Trio' Supporting the Conservative Backlash Against Global Warming. Global Environmental Change 18(1): 204-219.

What factors influenced residential water demand in Aurora, Colorado, during drought:
Kenney, D.S., C. Goemans, R. Klein, J. Lowrey, and K. Reidy. 2008. Residential Water Demand Management: Lessons from Aurora, Colorado. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 44(1): 192-207.

Prometheus is the Center’s weblog. Recent posts:

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6 Days in 2012: Effect of the CDM on Carbon Emissions, by Roger Pielke, Jr.
Update on Falsifiability of Climate Predictions, by Roger Pielke, Jr.

Sample of Recent Publications:

The technological advances needed to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions may be greater than we think:
Pielke, Jr., R. A., Tom Wigley, and Christopher Green. 2008. Dangerous assumptions. Nature 452(3): 531-532.

A comprehensive and longer-term perspective on IPCC predictions suggests that more recent predictions are not obviously superior in capturing climate evolution:
Pielke, Jr., R. A. 2008. Climate predictions and observations. Nature Geoscience 1: 206.

Economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C. W., Collins, D., Saunders, M., and Musulin, R., 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review 9(1): 29-42.