Tag Team Hit Job
October 22nd, 2005Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
It can only be a good sign that one’s views are having some influence when your critics begin to focus on ad hominem attacks and cartoonish mischaracterizations of your work. This has happened to me in, of all places, an interview of Georgia Tech’s Judy Curry by journalist Paul Thacker of Environmental Science & Technology. Here we can set the record straight with respect to some egregious errors and misrepresentations.
Thacker says to Curry, “Another apparent rising media star is Roger Pielke, Jr. I noticed that in a recent news story in Science he was listed as a “climatologist”, and he made no attempt to correct that.” In fact, I emailed Richard Kerr September 15, 2005 immediately after the Science article came out correcting the mistake. Had Thacker just called me up, I could have easily confirmed this; instead he has tried to suggest something that is not. I have sent to Thacker my email to Kerr and asked Thacker to issue a correction.
Curry responds to Thacker by trying to diminish my academic background, “Well, he’s a prolific writer, but he is really a policy person [who] has a qualitative understanding of climate science. He is not a climatologist. I don’t know that he’s ever even taken a class in atmospheric science. In fact, he got his degree at the University of Colorado, where I used to teach, well before we instituted the program in atmospheric and ocean sciences.” I am pretty comfortable with my academic background and publishing record, and feel absolutely no need to defend it here. I simply don’t understand Curry’s motivation for the ad hom criticism.
Curry then goes on to demonstrate that she has never really read any of my work when she writes, “So he has no formal training in atmospheric science. His mantra, if you will, is, “Let’s not worry about why we have climate change; let’s look at what we can do to adapt.” This is not bad, but in the situation of hurricanes, it’s been taken to an absurd position.” As I have stated here and in peer-reviewed papers numerous times, climate change is a problem worth worrying about. We have to adapt and mitigate at the same time. Exactly what to do, when, by whom and at what costs are difficult policy questions. Even a cursory reading of my work will show these points. On hurricanes, I simply don’t know what Curry is referring to, since she relies on inflammatory language (“mantra” and “absurd”) rather than engaging in anything close to substantive debate.
So let’s make it easy for Judy, here is a very short op-ed (PDF) on hurricanes in the context of climate change and climate policy that places our views in a nutshell. I am offering an open invitation to Judy Curry to prepare a response of similar length, which we will gladly publish here, to offer a different perspective. Let’s talk about the issues, shall we?
October 22nd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
In a way, I’d say you publications and background in science policy makes you MORE qualified to talk about what to do about global warming than a climate scientist. What background does a climate scientist have in implementation, costs and political realities? You’d go to a climate scientist to figure out the consequences of climate change, a policy guy for ideas for addressing it.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:02 pm
First, congratulatons on being tagged as a “rising star”. I fully expect to see you in People’s upcoming “50 sexiest academics” issue.
That said, I do think your oped has an anti-mitigation slant. To your credit, you do explicitly say upfront that mitigation is a worthwhile goal. But much of the rest of the oped subtly slams mitigation.
For example, about half-way through you say “we simply cannot expect to control the climate’s behavior through energy policies aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions.” This phraseology is odd and confusing — I’m not sure what you mean by “control” or how “through energy policies” adds some subtle meaning in this sentence. My reading of this (and how I think the general public would read it) is that it contradicts the previous statement that mitigation is worthwhile. And I think it goes against the prevailing scientific consensus: stabilization of the climate will require a mitigation effort that reduces GHG emissions to near zero.
You then go on to say that Kyoto will have minimal effects and that any mitigation efforts now will have little effect for decades. Both of those are well known and correct. You fail to point out, however, that mitigation can make an enormous difference in the second half of the century. Your choice of what to say and not say imbues your oped with an anti-mitigation perspective.
I believe you when you say that you think that mitigation is important, and I think that the characterization of you in that ES&T article was inappropriate. But I think that in your crusade to get people to think about adaptation and vulnerabilities (a worthy goal), you might be sending an unintentional anti-mitigation message. You could have easily made your basic argument — about our most effective strategy for addressing impacts of hurricanes — without taking these shots at mitigation.
Regards.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Roger, I suspect Judy’s problem with you is that this kind of statement…
“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.”
…reflects a poor political judgement rather than the best science. As well, it plays into the hands of irresponsible skeptics like Bill Gray.
Good public policy (science doesn’t even need to be involved beyond establishing the extent of past tropical cyclone variability) has dictated for quite some time that we should be doing things quite differently in hurricane zones from the way we have been. Now the science and good public policy tell us that we had better quickly reduce GHG levels as well, for a host of reasons that include the likelihood of enhanced future damage from strengthened cyclones.
October 22nd, 2005 at 7:19 pm
Steve, I would not recommend trying to separate Roger and his Uncle Bill
October 23rd, 2005 at 5:50 am
Two people have contacted me about our spam filter rejecting their comments. We are looking into it. Let me say for the record that we do not filter comments on this site for content, just spam and profanity. All perspectives are welcome. We are (so far!) extremely pleased to have for the most part thoughtful, non-anonymous, substantive comments on our site and want this to continue. If you have a comment that you would like posted and it is mistakenly rejected, simply email me at pielke@colorado.edu.
October 23rd, 2005 at 7:46 am
Steve, I would suggest you ignore the vacuous sophistry of Eli Rabett.
Btw, kudos to you and Dylan for the excellent commetary you provide here.
And Eli, if you must engage in the internet tool shtick, you already have Deltoid. No need to degrade this site with your pointless barbs.
October 23rd, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Andrew,
I think Pielke’s anti-mitigation slant, as you point out, makes a certain amount of sense. What I *think* he’s doing is identifying the flashpoint of controversy, what it is that motivates groups to pump millions into distorting the science and what has politicized this issue to the point of paralysis, which is energy policy. What I think he’s done is sort of shelved that issue for the moment so that we can act in areas we can all agree upon, such as mitigation. This would allow certain groups to be proactive, and others to insist what they are doing has nothing to do with climate change at all.
It also allows those politicians who would like to show they are doing something about global warming without having to decrease the amount of CO2 we put into the air a sort of cover. If you can get some Congressmen to sign onto a bill that recognizes the problem and seeks to address it, then you’ve moved beyond fighting over the science to a “what to do”. Once the debate has shifted, it becomes more difficult to backtrack and take the “it’s not occurring” position again, and they would be forced to come up with less credible reasons to oppose.
I’m doubtful the current Congress even wants to do anything about natural disasters, but in the post-Katrina environment, it’s a difficult position to take.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Roger Pielke Jr. wrote, “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.”
Steve Bloom responded, “…reflects a poor political judgement rather than the best science.”
I think Roger Pielke Jr.’s statement reflected indisputable science, if one translates the phrase “foreseeable future” into, “the next 0-40 years.” As far as I know, there is absolutely nothing that humans can realistically do regarding CO2 emissions in the next 0-40 years that will have a discernable effect on hurricanes in the next 0-40 years.
Steve Bloom continues, “Now the science and good public policy tell us that we had better quickly reduce GHG levels as well,…”
1) Suppose we cut GHG emissions to zero tomorrow. What would happen to global temperatures and hurricane intensities in the next 0-40 years?
2) Suppose governments do absolutely nothing, and allow human emissions of GHG to change totally as a function of the natural evolution of human technology. What would happen to global temperatures and hurricane intensities in the next 0-40 years?
I already have tentative answers to those two questions (i.e., it will make virtually no difference), but I’m interested in your answers. In order for your statement that “we had better quickly reduce GHG levels as well” to be true, there must be a fairly large difference in results between the two scenarios.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Roger,
When I repeatedly ask in comments for examples of what scientists do right in the public policy sphere, and ask you to suggest, oh, tips or pointers for folk on what you think a proper approach might be for future interaction with the public, this post isn’t really what I had in mind.
I guess what I’m looking for is *positive* examples in your mind of how to go about things.
Thank you,
D
October 24th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Dano-
Thanks. Here are some suggestions for places to look for tips and pointers:
Pielke Jr., R. A., D. Sarewitz and R. Byerly Jr., 2000: Decision Making and the Future of Nature: Understanding and Using Predictions. Chapter 18 in Sarewitz, D., R. A. Pielke Jr., and R. Byerly Jr., (eds.), Prediction: Science Decision Making and the Future of Nature. Island press: Washington, DC.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-73-2000.06.pdf
And the chapters in this book describe in some detail a range of case studies of successes and not-so-successes
Another paper focuses on “best practices”:
Pielke, Jr., R. A. and R. T. Conant, 2003: Best practices in prediction for decision making: lessons from the atmospheric and Earth sciences, Ecology, 84:1351-1358.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2003.22.pdf
And I have referenced a few successes on this blog, such as the NRC TRMM report.
But overall, I take your point. Look for an evaluation of NOAA RISA programs here soon (but not too soon) that also highlights effective strategies for scientists working with deicsion makers. Thanks.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
Mark, the time frame is obviously important. I hadn’t really stopped to think about it when I wrote my comment, but of course for it to make sense regarding cyclones only we should be talking about a longer period of time (although maybe not much more). Broadly speaking, I think the Iroquois had it about right, meaning something like a hundred year planning horizon.
But I think you misconstrue my basic point: I don’t think cyclones are the most immediate global warming-related problem. That problem is ocean acidification, closely followed by the melting of the Tibetan ice cap and then by loss of the permafrost methane. Cyclones are the most obvious of these problems at present, though, which is why it seems to me to be the height of foolishness to set aside the global warming component and focus just on adaptation. Instead, while undertaking every one of the appropriate adaptation measures for which Roger advocates, we should emphasize that getting global warming under control is *also* important for heading off a whole set of medium and long-term impacts of which enhanced cyclones are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg (which makes for one hell of a mixed global warming metaphor, no?).
One could argue that I’m advocating for exchanging a small (as these things go) intractable problem for a huge intractable problem, to which I would answer that the approach Roger advocates just plain doesn’t seem to be working: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-gulfcoast23oct23,1,2237804.story?ctrack=1&cset=true . Note also that the current plan seems to to rebuild New Orleans below sea level *before* strengthening the levees to withstand a Cat 5 (not an engineering goal I give great credibility to, by the way).
As well as not working in a direct sense, his approach of advising the public to ignore the man behind the curtain is doing active harm by advising people to ignore the larger problem that will also become even larger if we continue to ignore it. It wouldn’t hurt his efforts in the slightest to say instead that it also makes sense to begin reducing GHGs now to avoid even worse cyclones several decades down the line.
October 25th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Thank you Roger.
Best regards,
D
October 26th, 2005 at 8:26 am
UPDATE 10-26-2005
Paul Thacker and EST have extended to me the opportunity to submit a short letter to correct the inaccuracies in the inteview. Here is what I have sent in:
Dear Environmental Science and Technology-
In his interview with Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, EST’s Paul Thacker says to Prof. Curry that he “noticed that in a recent news story in Science he was listed as a “climatologist”, and he made no attempt to correct that.” This is simply incorrect, as I contacted Science immediately upon seeing the mistake. I am in fact a professor of environmental studies with degrees in math, public policy and political science. In addition, Prof. Curry’s apology for and clarification of her characterization of my work in the interview can be found on our weblog Prometheus.
Thank you for the opportunity to set the record straight.
Sincerely,
Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
October 30th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Case closed. This is up at EST:
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/oct/policy/pt_curry_letter.html
Policy News –
October 28, 2005
Letter and Response
A letter to the editor from Roger A. Pielke, Jr., and Paul D. Thacker’s response.
The following letter and response are related to a Question and Answer with Judith Curry titled “The evidence linking hurricanes and climate change” published on October 20, 2005.
Letter
In his interview with Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, ES&T’s Paul Thacker said to her that he “noticed that in a recent news story in Science Pielke was listed as a ‘climatologist’, and he made no attempt to correct that.” This is simply incorrect, as I contacted Science immediately upon seeing the mistake. I am in fact a professor of environmental studies with degrees in math, public policy, and political science. In addition, Prof. Curry’s apology for and clarification of her characterization of my work in the interview can be found on the weblog Prometheus.
Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Director, Center for Science and Technology
University of Colorado at Boulder
Response
Because of editing considerations and space limitations, a couple of questions from Thacker regarding Roger Pielke, Jr.’s criticism of climate change issues and Curry’s responses to these questions were combined into one brief exchange. The effect is unfortunate as it opens up this one question to misleading and ambiguous interpretation. However, when asked if she thought the interview fairly captured her thoughts, Curry told ES&T that she was pleased with the final outcome.
Paul D. Thacker
Associate Editor, ES&T