If we get sucked into a “forest management” vs “climate change” framing Trump has already won the propaganda battle
Winning this debate (whatever that means) does not restore trust, legitimacy, competency or work against autocracy
It gets RTs & excites people
But don’t do it
I have no doubt that Biden & a future Biden administration will depart from Trumpian autocratic governance
That won’t be about mouthing appropriate words about “the science” but securing respect for expertise in federal agencies among elected & appointed figures and the public
The idea that Trump’s delegitimization of federal agencies & their expertise = Biden’s exaggeration of climate change is the false equivalency
They are not remotely comparable
Which is why I question Biden’s appeals to “the science” rather than going straight to competency
Of course Biden should play things straight on climate change — it is both tactically smart & the right thing to do
But more importantly, he should avoid getting trapped in a “forest management” vs “climate change” debate that feeds red meat to partisans but little else
Bottom line:
Central issue here is competency in governance — getting stuff done, like protecting people from hazards, responding to the pandemic, decarbonizing the economy
Pretending this is about “the science” gives Trump an easy win
It is about competency & autocracy
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The percentage of a percentage trick is increasingly common & leads to massive confusion
Here a undetectable difference of 0.01 events per year per decade is presented as the difference between a 31% and 66.4% increase (in the *likelihood* of the event, not the event itself)
The resulting confusion is perfectly predictable
Here is a reporter (NPR) explaining completely incorrectly:
"The phenomenon has grown up to 66% since the mid-20th century"
False
Also, the numbers in the text and figure do not appear to match up
I asked Swain about this over at BlooSkeye
A Frankenstein dataset results from splicing together two time series found online
Below is an example for US hurricane damage 1900-2017
Data for 1980-2017 was replaced with a different time series in the green box
Upwards trend results (red ---)
Claim: Due to climate change!
The errors here are so obvious and consequential that it is baffling that the community does not quickly correct course
The IPCC AR6 cited a paper misusing the Frankenstein hurricane loss dataset to suggest that NOAA's gold standard hurricane "best track" dataset may be flawed
JFC - Using flawed economic loss data to suggest that direct measurements of hurricanes are in error!
We’ve reached the point where an IPCC author is openly rejecting the conclusions of the IPCC out of concern over how their political opposition is correctly interpreting the AR6
The integrity of the IPCC on extreme events is now under attack
The IPCC explains that a trend in a particular variable is DETECTED if it is outside internal variability and judged with >90% likelihood
For most (not all) metrics of extreme weather detection has not been achieved
That’s not me saying that, but IPCC AR6
The IPCC also assesses that for most (but not all) metrics of extreme weather the signal of a change in climate will not emerge from internal variability with high confidence (ie, >90%) by 2050 or 2100, even assuming the most extreme changes under RCP8.5
The US National Academy of Sciences has a new study committee on Extreme Event Attribution
Among its sponsors are the Bezos Earth Fund and Robert Litterman
Who are they? . . .
The Bezos Earth Fund sponsors World Weather Attribution, an advocacy group promoting the connection of weather events w/ fossil fuels in support of press coverage & lawsuits
Robert Litterman is on the board of Climate Central which founded WWA & collaborates on climate advocacy
The fact that a NAS committee is funded by political advocates is crazy enough
But that is not all
On the committee itself are individuals from two climate advocacy groups
One . . . the Union of Concerned Scientists which is working to use attribution to support lawsuits . . .