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

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.

Best regards,

D

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.