Why did Nature run Pielke’s pointless, misleading, embarrassing nonsense?

The usually thoughtful journal Nature has just published a pointless and misleading -- if not outright dangerous -- commentary by delayer-1000 du jour, Roger Pielke, Jr., along with Christopher Green, who, as we've seen, is another aspiring delayer.

It will be no surprise to learn the central point of their essay, ironically titled "Dangerous Assumptions" (available here [PDF] or here, with a subscription), is: "Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels." This is otherwise known as the technology trap or the standard "Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah" delayer message developed by Frank Luntz and perfected by Bush/Lomborg/Gingrich.

The Pielke et al. analysis is certainly confusing, which is not surprising given that the subject matter is arcane: the appropriate baseline for emissions scenarios in climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What is surprising is that Nature would run a piece that comes to a conclusion not only at odds with its own analysis, but a complete reversal from the conclusion of standard delayer analyses just a few years ago:

Five years ago the American Enterprise Institute "proved" that the lowest IPCC emissions projection is too high, and they backed up their conclusion with actual 1990s data, whereas Pielke, Wigley, and Green have "proven" that the highest IPCC emissions projection is too low, and they backed up their conclusion with actual data from this decade.

Hard to believe, but true. And they say you can't make this stuff up. Well, maybe you can't. But the delayers can.

This piece is an embarrassment to Nature's reputation as a leader on climate issues, and it suggest that the editors (and reviewers) didn't actually understand what they were reading.

In this post I will endeavor to explain what's so incredibly pointless about the piece, flawed about the analysis, embarrassing and misguided about the conclusion. Regular readers of this blog know why the technology trap is dangerous (it leads to delay, which is fatal to the planet's livability). This can't be done briefly. You should probably read my recent posts "Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible?" and, possibly, "The adaptation trap 2: The not-so-honest-broker" first. Oh, and you should actually read the article. Come on, you know you are hot for this baseline analysis stuff. Trust me, you won't believe what these guys try to get away with.

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The U.S. sits on the sidelines rather than leading the charge in a war on climate change

Americans have a history of joining together in times of crisis. But the terminology of war is the most familiar rallying cry.

So it's understandable that when he's talking about global warming, John Edwards often implores Americans to be "patriotic about something other than war." And when Al Gore accepted his Nobel Prize this week, he said, "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war."

So, where is America the strong, free, brave, visionary? Where is America, defender of the world's climate?

The U.S. is not leading the charge at this week's U.N. climate conference in Bali. American delegates have insisted they would not be a "roadblock" to a new international agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. Not be a roadblock? Was it irony or simply poor word choice?

The only way to a soft landing is down

The only way to a soft landing is down.

In a brief article on DeSmog by Emily Murgatroyd, a Cato Institute type, Jerry Taylor, is quoted as saying

Scientists are in no position to intelligently guide public policy on climate change. Scientists can lay out scenarios, but it is up to economists to weigh the costs and benefits and many of them say the costs of cutting emissions are higher than the benefits.

Can we consider this claim, or is it somehow protected by a taboo? Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that economists are not, themselves, necessarily right about everything?

Economists, meanwhile, claim to have the key to rationality. Their claim is based in their own definition of their field, which is about "how people collectively make decisions", but they proceed very quickly from there to the marketplace via a number of dubious assumptions.

The marketplace is real enough, and the fact that it affects the decisions we make is inescapable, but that doesn't prove a claim that economics is uniquely placed to resolve our differences.

A claim in more desperate need of challenging I cannot imagine -- yet on it goes, essentially unchallenged in circles of power.

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Delayers are replacing deniers

There's been some hand wringing about the fact that science does not have the traction it should in the political debate over climate change.

This is the genesis of the framing argument, most recently pushed by Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet. Basically, this thesis says that scientists need to put their scientific results into a "frame" that allows the general public to better understand how to interpret their results.

I've never particularly liked "framing," and here's one reason: I think that the scientific community has been extremely effective at getting the word out about climate change.

Look at this article:

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