On Sunday, April 6, Roger Pielke, Jr. was featured on the NBC’s News Special:
Ann Curry Reports
Our Year of Extremes: Did Climate Change Just Hit Home?
NBC News
In a special one-hour documentary, NBC’s Ann Curry travels from the Arctic, to drought-stricken regions in the American West, to the edge of rising seas in Florida and into extreme weather events all over the globe. “Our Year of Extremes: Did Climate Change Just Hit Home?” airs Sunday, April 6 at 7pm/6c on NBC. Read more …
Balancing Energy Access and Environmental Goals in Development Finance: The Case of the OPIC Carbon Cap
by Todd Moss, Roger Pielke, Jr., and Morgan Bazilian
Center for Global Development
CGD Policy Paper 038, April 2014
Abstract: The international community has ambitious goals for responding to climate change and increasing global access to energy services. To date, these agendas have been viewed to be largely complementary. However, policy makers are now facing more explicit interactions between environment, energy, and economic and social development objectives and associated trade-offs.
In this essay, we explore the implications of the balance between these aspirations as they manifest in the investment rules for various international finance institutions by looking closely at the U.S. government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). We argue that trade-offs between emissions reductions (or limiting emissions growth) and increasing energy access are inevitable, given the present state of energy systems. Understanding these trade-offs and their consequences can help to better inform policy debates and investment decisions. We conclude with several win-win proposals that would exempt the poorest and least-emitting countries from certain restrictions on public finance. These proposals, including a potential political compromise, would have a positive effect on access to energy services without any significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. Read more …
Webcast Now Available for CSTPR’s Noontime Seminar on Governance of Climate Change in the U.K.
Reporting, Regulation, and the Governance of Climate Change in the U.K.
by Samuel Tang, Department of Geography, King’s College London
Abstract: The number of UK business organisations that are voluntarily disclosing their greenhouse gas emissions to reporting indexes managed by not-for-profit organisations (e.g. CDP) has increased in recent years. Notably, this type of reporting practice is being integrated alongside existing mandatory commitments (e.g., CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, EU Emissions Trading Scheme) set out by the European Union, the UK Government, and various Regulatory Agencies. Additionally a number of large critical national infrastructure organisations (largely from the utilities and transport sectors) were also required to prepare climate change adaptation plans and strategies of resilience under the 2008 Climate Change Act. This presentation looks at these reporting requirements and discusses what they actually mean for business performance and management of climate change. Through document analysis and interviews with stakeholders responsible for delivering or responding to reporting requirements, the key debates are synthesized: why stakeholders respond; how they respond; and what they do post-reporting.
Max Boykoff quoted in a Yale Forum’s on Climate Change & The Media article on celebrities and climate change.
Celebrities, Climate and Showtime’s ‘Years of Living Dangerously’
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media
by John Wihbey, March 26, 2014
Upcoming deluxe cable TV climate change series visually stunning and stocked with big-name celebrities seeks to build toward broad public consensus on climate change issues and actions.
In one of the most high-profile, big-budget, and ambitious climate change communications and mass media efforts to date, Showtime will broadcast a new eight-part documentary series, Years of Living Dangerously,
Roger Pielke Jr assesses the legacy of J. D. Bernal’s science-policy classic on its 75th anniversary
In Retrospect: The Social Function of Science
by Roger Pielke Jr
Nature 507, 427–428 (27 March 2014) doi:10.1038/507427a
The Social Function of Science
J. D. Bernal George Routledge and Sons: 1939
In 2011 Tom Coburn, the Republican Senator for Oklahoma, issued a report focused on helping the US National Science Foundation to better conduct research that “can transform and improve our lives, advance our understanding of the world, and create meaningful new jobs”. It is ironic that this conservative Republican’s demands that research be carefully planned and focused on social objectives can be traced directly to the writings of an Irish-born communist crystallographer 75 years ago.
Such is the wholesale acceptance of John Desmond Bernal’s views in his 1939 treatise The Social Function of Science — covering the organization of research to science and its social role — that they are now part of the fabric of science-policy debates across the political spectrum. For Bernal, usefulness was more than an aspiration: it was the central objective of the scientific enterprise and the desired end of state support of science.
He was among the first to recognize that all public engagement is ultimately political, although his vision of scientists as stalwarts resisting partisan politics might now seem naive: “The scientist … sees the social, economic and political situation as a problem to which a solution must first be found and then applied, not as a battleground of personalities, careers and vested interests.”
Bernal was the first to compile estimates of government-wide spending on science, several years before the first gauges of gross domestic product in the early 1940s. On the basis of such estimates, he concluded presciently that the United States was poised to take a long-term leadership role in science. Today, much discussion of science policy (some would say too much) hinges on this kind of number-crunching; 75 years ago, it provided a fundamentally new lens through which to view the scientific enterprise.
Bernal was born in Ireland in 1901. His formative years were marked by the First World War and the 1917 Russian revolution, which, along with the Great Depression in the 1930s, had a lasting negative influence on his view of capitalism. After earning a degree in mathematics and science at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1922, Bernal did his postgraduate training in X-ray crystallography before joining the Cambridge faculty in 1927. He became part of Britain’s left-wing intellectual elite, joining zoologist Solly Zuckerman’s dining club Tots and Quots (a reference to Roman playwright Terence’s “Quot homines, tot sententiae”, meaning ‘so many men, so many opinions’) with biologists Julian Huxley and J. B. S. Haldane, among others. Zuckerman became Britain’s first chief scientific adviser in 1964.
Bernal started to write The Social Function of Science in 1938 after having “achieved a certain standing in the scientific community”, according to his biographer Andrew Brown (The Sage of Science; Oxford University Press, 2007). He was far from the first to explore the nexus of science and society. For instance, the theme of the 1936 meeting of the British Science Association was ‘Science and Social Welfare’, and in 1937 the American Association for the Advancement of Science added “an examination of the profound effects of science upon society” as one of its objectives. Even so, Bernal’s book helped to define a new discipline: the science of science.
The book was controversial for two reasons. First, Bernal was presenting a view of science that was directly at odds with the ‘pure science’ ideal, in which scientists were expected to keep their distance from public affairs. Second was Bernal’s vision of science fulfilling its social function by supporting a centrally planned society. He even stated that “science is communism” and argued that the Soviet Union “was one State where the proper function of science was being realized”. Read more …
When Picking a Bracket, It’s Easier to Be Accurate Than Skillful
FiveThirtyEight
by Roger Pielke, Jr.
March 24, 2014
So, how is your bracket after the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? Did you pick Mercer to win in the round of 64? Most didn’t, of course, including President Obama and anyone who based picks off the favorites in the FiveThirtyEight bracket. Only 3.3 percent of brackets in the ESPN Bracket Challenge had Mercer beating Duke, and only 0.3 percent correctly picked all four of the double-digit seeds that advanced Friday.
Incorrect NCAA predictions come from two places: One is the failure to anticipate upsets, and the other is the prediction of upsets that don’t occur. Because favorites win most games, the upsets you get wrong are far more important than those you get right.1
In fact, after the first weekend of play, it turns out that 83.4 percent of entrants in the ESPN Bracket Challenge would have been better off picking all the favorites.
In last year’s tournament, this simple strategy would have resulted in 43 (of 63 total) games picked correctly, a 68.3 percent accuracy rate. For comparison, consider that a bracket based on FiveThirtyEight’s 2013 odds would have also resulted in 43 of 63 winners picked correctly. Even the wisdom of the crowds couldn’t exceed the 43-game mark by much. No one in the CBS or Yahoo NCAA 2013 bracket competitions correctly picked more than 50 winners. So far in 2014, only 1.83 million of the 11.01 million participants in the ESPN Bracket Challenge are doing better than a naive bracket going into the Sweet 16.
In 1884, a scientist named John Park Finley set the standard for being accurate but not skillful in his predictions. Over three months, Finley predicted whether the atmospheric conditions in the U.S. were favorable or unfavorable for tornadoes over the next eight hours, and then compared whether his prediction was accurate. By the end, Finley had made 2,806 predictions and 2,708 of them proved accurate, for a success rate of 96.5 percent. Not bad. But two months later, another scientist pointed out that if Finley had just said that there wouldn’t have been a tornado every eight hours, he would have been right 98.1 percent of the time. Read more of this article on FiveThirtyEight …
Roger Pielke, Jr. was highlighted in the Denver Post on climate change and extreme weather:
Extreme weather censors
By Vincent Carroll
Denver Post, March 22, 2014
If you were looking for the extremes of political intolerance in America, you’d begin with the usual roll call of hate groups on the right or bigoted jihadists — or perhaps left-wing radicals of Occupy Wall Street ilk and Earth Liberation Front.
But as you expanded your search to less dangerous outposts, you’d want to check 0ut the world of climate activism, which apparently brooks no views that vary so much as a centimeter from enforced consensus.
Why else would activists be denouncing the decision of statistics celebrity Nate Silver to add a University of Colorado professor to his new website’s list of contributing writers — a professor who agrees that greenhouse emissions are warming the Earth, favors a carbon tax and, in his words, has “supported what President Obama has done to combat climate change, including stronger regulations on efficiency [and] power plants … “?
The reason for the activists’ ire, as a National Journal article explains, is that Professor Roger Pielke Jr. has argued that some climate policy advocates “have gone too far in claiming climate change has worsened extreme weather events like hurricanes and severe droughts, or increased their frequency.”
And so, because Pielke resists glib claims about extreme weather from people who should know better, some seek to marginalize and even banish him from sites such as Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com.
As Pielke recently explained in The New Republic, “While politicians and environmental advocates routinely attribute natural disasters with human-caused climate change, the uncomfortable reality is that such attribution remains speculative. There is not yet a scientific basis for making such a connection.”
Pielke freely points out that research suggests extreme weather “may become more frequent and/or intense in the future as a direct consequence of human-caused climate changes.” But we might not see confirmation of that for decades.
For the time being, those who say hurricanes, tornadoes or floods are getting more intense or frequent are just factually wrong. Meanwhile, since the 1950s, “some regions of the world have experienced a trend to more intense and longer droughts … but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter.”
That last quotation is not from Pielke but from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he refers to frequently, as well as to a host of peer-reviewed papers. But Pielke doesn’t suffer opportunists and demagogues lightly, and so has taken to task public figures who abuse their status to misinform the world about the science of extreme weather.
Last July, when he testified before a Senate Committee examining climate change, Pielke even raised the hackles of President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren. Perhaps that’s because Obama himself resorts when convenient to claiming that extreme weather has become more frequent and intense.
In any case, Holdren recently took the stunning step of telling Congress that Pielke was outside “mainstream scientific opinion” — although the evidence Holdren provided pertained only to droughts and didn’t actually refute Pielke at all.
As the CU professor points out, imagine the outcry if George W. Bush’s science adviser had used his prestige in an attempt to smear an academic.
And yet Pielke himself appears undeterred. His first article for FiveThirtyEight: “Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change.” Read more …
Understanding a Period of Policy Change: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy in Colorado
by Tanya Heikkila1, Jonathan J. Pierce, Samuel Gallaher, Jennifer Kagan, Deserai A. Crow, and Christopher M. Weible
Review of Policy Research
Volume 31, Issue 2, pages 65–87, March 2014
Abstract: This paper investigates the beliefs and framing strategies of interest groups during a period of policy change and the factors explaining policy change. We develop propositions to explore questions concerning policy change primarily from the advocacy coalition framework as well as from other theorie. The propositions are tested by examining the promulgation of a Colorado regulation requiring the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Using coded data of documents published by organizations involved in the rulemaking process, we find divergence between industry and environmental groups on their beliefs concerning hydraulic fracturing, as well as their portraying themselves and each other as heroes, victims, and villains, but some convergence on their more specific beliefs concerning disclosure of chemicals. Interviews point to the importance of policy entrepreneurs, timing, a negotiated agreement, and learning for explaining policy change. The findings provide both theoretical and methodological insights into how and why policy changes. Read more …
Max Boykoff is giving a talk on March 27th at University of Idaho on media coverage of climate change:
“Who Speaks for the Climate?”
March 25, 2014
7:00 PM
by Maxwell T. Boykoff, who researches and writes about the cultural politics of climate change
Boykoff is an assistant professor in the Center for Science and Technology Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He is the author of “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change” published in 2011 by Oxford University Press. His research interests include climate adaptation, science-policy interactions, and political economy and the environment.
University of Idaho, College of Law Courtroom, 711 S. Rayburn Drive, Moscow, ID Contact: Kenton Bird, School of Journalism and Mass Media, (208) 885-4947 (208) 885-4947, kbird@uidaho.edu
University of Idaho News: UI Hosts Expert On Media Coverage of Climate Change
Maxwell T. Boykoff, who researches and writes about the cultural politics of climate change, will speak Tuesday, March 25, at the University of Idaho. His free public talk, “Who speaks for the climate?” will begin at 7 p.m. in the courtroom of the College of Law, 711 S. Rayburn Dr. in Moscow.
Boykoff is an assistant professor in the Center for Science and Technology Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He is the author of “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change” published in 2011 by Oxford University Press. His research interests include climate adaptation, science-policy interactions, and political economy and the environment.
“Professor Boykoff will address the ways in which the news media contribute to public understanding – and misunderstanding – of climate issues,” said Kenton Bird, director of the school of journalism and mass media, one of the program’s sponsors. “His research is especially relevant to the University of Idaho’s growing expertise in the effects of climate change on the Pacific Northwest.”
Boykoff’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring four UI faculty members: Juliet Carlisle, department of political science; Barbara Cosens, College of Law; John Abatzoglou, department of geography, and R
Roger Pielke, Jr. was quoted in The Washington Times on Science Advisor, John Holdren.
Mainstreaming fringe science with John Holdren
The White House science adviser confuses global-warming fact and fancy
The Washington Times, March 18, 2014
by Chip Knappenberger
In recent months, White House science adviser John Holdren has repeatedly pushed the link between extreme weather events and human-caused climate change well beyond the bounds of established science. Now, veteran climate scientists are pushing back.
Mr. Holdren’s efforts started in January, as much of the nation was shivering in the midst of an excursion of arctic air into the lower 48 states.
Anyone with a passing interest in the climate of the United States knows that is hardly an unusual occurrence (“citrus freeze” anyone?), but outfit the chill with a new, scarier-sounding moniker and a blase-sounding “cold-air outbreak” goes viral as the “polar vortex.”
Apparently, sensing the time was ripe for a bit of global-warming alarmism, the White House released a video titled “The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes,” featuring Mr. Holdren describing how “a growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.”
Although this statement is not outright false, it is, at its very best, a half-truth — and a stretch at that. In fact, there is an ever-larger and faster-growing body of evidence that directly disputes Mr. Holdren’s contention.
This was pointed out last month in a letter to Science magazine authored by five veteran climate scientists, who are all experts in the field of atmospheric circulation patterns.
The scientists disputed Mr. Holdren’s explanation, writing that “we do not view the theoretical arguments underlying it to be compelling” and concluded that while such research “deserves a fair hearing to make it the centerpiece of the public discourse is inappropriate and a distraction.”
One of the letter’s authors, atmospheric science professor John Wallace from the University of Washington, even wrote a guest post at the popular Capital Weather Gang blog run by The Washington Post, to proclaim, “I disagree with those who argue that we need to capitalize on recent extreme weather events to raise public awareness of human-induced global warming.”
Such pushback didn’t stop Mr. Holdren, though.
A couple of weeks ago at a congressional hearing, Mr. Holdren attacked the views of University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke Jr. concerning the connection between anthropogenic global warming and the ongoing drought in the Southwest.
Mr. Pielke, an expert on the relationship between natural disasters and climate change, had previously testified to Congress that the best science regarding many types of extreme weather, including hurricanes, tornados, floods and droughts, indicated no detectable tie-in to global warming.
Mr. Holdren described Mr. Pielke’s views as being outside of “mainstream scientific opinion” and submitted a six-page explanation to the Senate subcommittee describing why he thought so, focusing on drought and specifically California drought (a copy of which was also posted at the White House website).
In response, Mr. Pielke defended himself, laying out a strong and overwhelming scientific case in a lengthy essay for The New Republic and accusing Mr. Holdren of “wielding his political position to delegitimize an academic whose views he finds inconvenient.”
Mr. Pielke was not alone in his defense. Recently, Martin Hoerling, lead scientist of the Interpreting Climate Conditions Team of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, expressed surprise at Mr. Holdren’s response to Mr. Pielke in the DotEarth blog hosted by The New York Times.
Mr. Hoerling wrote that the type of drought currently facing California “has been observed before” and that “[i]t is quite clear that the scientific evidence does not support an argument that this current California drought is appreciably, if at all, linked to human-induced climate change.” Read more …
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