People send me stuff.
Below is a letter I received today that has a number of follow up questions answered by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. after his blockbuster testimony last month.
Pielke’s responses are all about questions on extreme weather. Note Senator Whitehouse’s first question which basically reads: “look, I’ve been wrong and making up nonsense for a long period of time, but isn’t it OK because this other guy is wrong as well?”
For the record: “The effects of climate change, driven by carbon pollution, hit Americans harder each year. Extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires and droughts are growing ever more frequent and severe.” – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Reuters June 19, 2013
It is a good read.
20 August 2013
Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman Senator David Vitter, Ranking Member
US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Washington, DC 20510-6175
Dear Senators Boxer and Vitter:
The accompanying two pages contain my responses to the questions posed by Senators Whitehouse and Vitter. I have reproduced the questions in italics and my replies are offset immediately following each question.
I am grateful for the opportunity to share some of our research before the committee and to provide some replies to questions from members.
Sincerely,
Roger Pielke, Jr.
Professor and Director (as of Sept 1 2013)
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research University of Colorado/CIRES
Boulder, CO
===============================================================
Replies of Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. to Questions from Senate EPW 21 August 2013
Questions from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:
1) In your written testimony, you stated:
“It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
In your opinion as a science-policy expert, is it also misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?
PIELKE REPLY: Yes. Both such claims are misleading and incorrect.
2) Who funds your research currently? Please supply a full list for the record.
PIELKE REPLY: I currently have one active grant. It is a small grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation for a project looking at the role of philanthropy in policy and politics (it has nothing to do with climate or extreme events), drawing on an engagement model I proposed in my book, The Honest Broker (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Also, at the University of Colorado, I am a Fellow of CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences) which is a NOAA Joint Institute.
Questions from Senator David Vitter
1) Dr. Pielke, as I read Mr. Nutter’s testimony, he appeared to be trying to tell us that businesses face a disaster that is happening now. But according to a recent Lloyd’s of London survey of almost 600 corporate executives about the risks faced by their business, they ranked climate change #32 behind “piracy” but ahead of “space weather.” High taxation was ranked #1. Regulation was ranked #5. Why do you think they placed climate change at #32?
PIELKE REPLY: Human-caused climate change likely ranks low in the Lloyd’s 2013 Risk Index1 because the vast majority of impacts associated with such changes that would be of direct concern to global businesses in 2013 are presently small or even undetectable at present in the context of historical climate variability, as discussed in my testimony.
1 http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/risk-insight/lloyds-risk-index
2) Dr. Pielke, do you agree with comments made during the hearing that the weather here in the U.S. has fundamentally changed as is evidenced by an increase in hurricanes, droughts, floods, and tornadoes? Do you agree there is “strong evidence” that extreme weather events in the U.S. have become more frequent and intense?
PIELKE REPLY: A range of evidence summarized in my prepared testimony indicates that, on climate time scales in the US or globally, there has not been an increase in hurricanes, droughts, floods or tornadoes. The evidence for this claim is strong and is well-supported in the peer-reviewed literature, data collected by the U.S. government’s research agencies and the recent report on extreme events by Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change.
3) Dr. Pielke, to reiterate your points debunking claims that weather events in the United States are “extreme” in that they are increasing and more intense I would like to ask you a series of questions and provide you the opportunity to answer each.
a) Have United States landfalling hurricanes increased in frequency or intensity since 1900? Have they increased globally? Has damage, adjusted for more people and property, increased in the US or elsewhere?
PIELKE REPLY: As presented in my testimony, the US has not seen an increase in hurricane landfall frequency or intensity since at least 1900, nor in measures of damage, normalized for societal change. In fact, the US is presently in the longest stretch without a Category 3+ hurricane landfall since at least 1900.
b) Has United States flooding increased on climate timescales? Globally? Have United States tornadoes increased? Has United States drought overall increased?
PIELKE REPLY: As presented in my testimony, the US has not seen an overall increase in flooding, nor has such an increase been documented globally. The same holds also for tornadoes and drought.
c) Has the cost of disasters increased globally as a fraction of GDP?
PIELKE REPLY: As presented in my testimony, the cost of disasters as a fraction of global GDP has actually decreased since 1990.
4) Has anyone taken you up on your June 27th twitter invitation to defend President Obama’s claim? (“Open invitation: Does anyone wish to defend the Obama claim that worse extreme weather is increasing disaster costs?”)
PIELKE REPLY: No one took up the challenge.
===================================================================
The original letter in PDF form is here: Senate.Response.20Aug2013 (1)
h/t to Bryan Zumwalt
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Roger Pielke Jr. is not a scientist per se.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke,_Jr.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/04711007512915460627
The thing that makes Pielke so powerful is that he doesn’t get sucked into arguments about the science. His statements and arguments are based on historical fact (not theory, extrapolation and conjecture).
I still would not want Peilke jnr on my side of the table. His first answer is utterly wrong. It is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated by ‘progressive’ politicians on their fellow citoyen.
He also should leave alone those questions which relate to the science. He isn’t one and in my opinion will never be one, whereas Senior …. now he would have on my side of the table.
However, his performance at the hearing(s) and his replies here are good. His answers are well crafted and not ‘extreme’
Friends:
I write to correct a misunderstanding by those thinking AGW is a “hoax”.
AGW is a ‘bandwagon’.
A coincidence of interests usually creates a bandwagon.
And a bandwagon does not need a hoax or a conspiracy to create it or to sustain it. People join the band on the wagon when the wagon is going where they want to go. They stay on the wagon until it stops or ceases to be going in the direction they want to go. And they will try to keep it moving in the direction they desire.
No “hoax” or conspiracy is needed or is involved.
Richard
If every time a hypothesis was artificially propped by Zohnerism, pal-review, and generally shoddy science then touted as settled science (on par with evolution), paraded around to emotionally charge the electorate, used to create damaging policy and then disproved, we treated it like a hoax, there would be a lot less pseudoscience conducted in this country.
richardscourtney says:
August 22, 2013 at 4:23 am
Friends:
I write to correct a misunderstanding by those thinking AGW is a “hoax”.
AGW is a ‘bandwagon’.
A coincidence of interests usually creates a bandwagon.
—————————————————————————-
Yes!
I believe it.
Bandwagon is the best explanation yet.
Even if I don’t agree with everyone else’s causes. Since the wagon is heading this way, and I’m going in the same direction…..I’ll just ride along.
Not everyone on an airplane to Orlando is going to visit The Mouse.
Thank you Richard.
cn
@ur momisugly richardscourtney
I’m sure you are correct that the grand majority of the advocates for climate change action now are just bandwagon followers, but at the very core of CAGW is a deliberate deception (or incompetence) with respect to the robustness of the conclusion. It is this deception that encourages the bandwagon following and is usually accomplished through lies of omission. Whether it is the obvious information left out in an advocacy site or the referencing burial of inconvenient data in scientific journals, it’s still an intentional deception (or criminal level incompetence) and therefore fraud.
In my book anything less than full disclosure of pertinent information is fraud. Let’s take, for example, the 4 Hiroshima bombs per second (HsB/s) analogy. Sounds pretty scary until it’s put into the context of solar insolation being on the order of 1000 HsB/s and the error range on the 4 Hiroshima bombs per second being (plus or minus) 113 HsB/s. From my point of view spouting on about 4 HsB/s without providing the context is fraudulent. Hiding behind caveats like “consistent with” and “might occur” and then when it comes time to recommend policy be all “settled science” is fraud. “Hiding the decline” in a graphic but having CYA buried in a reference of a reference of a reference is fraud. In industry (electro-chemical) we have to develop hypotheses and recommend courses of action based on those hypotheses too; and yes we also use caveats to communicate uncertainty. Yes, sometimes we’re wrong. The difference is our confidence in our hypothesis matches our confidence in our course of action recommendation. If I’m 80% sure of the hypothesis I’m 80% sure of the course of action. With climate science it seems from judging by the caveats that they’re 20% sure of the hypothesis and 100% sure of the course of action.
But, either way you look at it, Dr. Pielke answered a nearly yes or no type question with a nearly yes or no type answer when the question really should have been answered IMO with much more additional context.
We have Full Disclosure Laws governing transactions for almost anything we buy except for government policy direction recommendations.
PS: I’m not saying the CAGW conclusion is wrong, I’m saying we don’t have anywhere near the level of confidence that some scientists have communicated concerning the CAGW conclusion.
@ur momisugly C.M. Carmichael
Or the expression “common sense”. It just ain’t common.
Mike Maguire , August 21, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Mike, you really need to figure out the difference between
“effecting” and “affecting”. You’ve gotten it wrong in both your comments in this thread that I’ve seen.