🧵
Why are climate scientists so mad at me?
Here's one answer
For almost 30 yrs I've been writing abt the conflicts between (a) the special interests of the climate science community and (b) the broader social responsibilities of this community
Pretty normal STS fare ... read on
My 1994 PhD dissertation was an evaluation of the then newly-created US Global Change Research Program link.springer.com/content/pdf/10…
I argued that the USGCRP would do a lot of good science but have limited policy relevance (a conclusion later reached by a @theNASEM study)
I was a post-doc at NCAR when this paper came out
It resulted in a furor
NSF funded NCAR & the program officer who oversaw NSF funding was central to creation of USGCRP
My job was threatened
A huge debate ensued
UCAR leaders pushed back on the pressure
I kept my job
A preview...
I placed blame on failures of Congress to secure a convergence of expectations on what they wanted from the USGCRP
Of course scientists wanted to do science
And agencies wanted funding & programs
Congress wanted the climate problem to go away
Responsibility lay with Congress
Flash forward ~decade
Dan Sarewitz & I wrote for @ISSUESinST asking a provocative question:
"What happens when the scientific community’s responsibility to society conflicts with its professional self interest?" issues.org/p_pielke/
By this time USGCRP shortfalls were obvious
The motivation for this piece was a proposal by the Bush Administration to double-down on climate research as the main response to climate
We saw this as delay from taking real action
Many scientists also wanted action on climate, but also really liked the idea of more funding
We pulled no punches
Claims that projections of the long-term future were central to effective climate policy just didn't hold up
But long-term projections were central to the climate science community (or more accurately, those with the most power/influence in this community)
In parallel Sarewitz & I (along w/ Rad Byerly RIP) had just completed a major NSF project focused on the use & misuse of predictions/projections
The most telling part of their letter
"It is preposterous, however, to suggest that climate science is primarily policy driven"
This is wrong
Congress support for climate research wasn't due to their curiosity (ha) but bc they wanted "usable information for policy" via USGCRP
We presented these ideas before the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the NAS
We did, stating that climate policy needed much more than just climate modeling
The chair exploded at us, saying, "tell me then, how are we going to justify funding for climate modeling?"
It was at exactly this time the RCP scenarios were first being developed with a focus on creating scenarios to meet the needs of climate modeling not policy making
The community was continuing its pattern of needs of science first, needs of society second doi.org/10.1016/j.erss…
So yes
Our view that predictive/projective science of climate modeling has played a dominant & often unhelpful role in climate policy surely pissed off a lot of climate scientists
At some point many forgot or never knew why they hated me & it just became part of the culture
Our recent work on scenarios raises many issues of scientific integrity & social responsibility
Consider:
No one evaluates climate scenarios that drive climate models for their plausibility
That's irresponsible
How can they be fit for policy analysis?
After living these debates for a few decades, my view is that the most vocal climate scientists who criticize me have chosen to make this personal - about me not the research - because they can't/won't take on the substance
That's fine
Says a lot
All for now, let me know any Qs
PS
Another detail
For ~25 yrs I sat as a social scientist in the citadels of climate modeling NCAR & CIRES
So I was expected to be "on the team"
Critical social science was thus even more of a shock, viewed even as a betrayal
NCAR & CIRES purged both groups I was part of!
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Another systemic misuse of the RCP scenarios involves using RCP8.5 as a reference scenario and the others as mitigation scenarios in impacts, economic or policy studies
RCP creators warned against doing this when RCPs were created
But it is found everywhere, including IPCC
Scenario experts foresaw that this type of misuse was getting baked into the RCP methodology, drawing 4 scenarios from different models and renaming them as if they were comparable (when they weren’t)
The desire for RCP pathways of radiative forcing overrode considerations of the proper use of scenarios for impacts, economics, policy research
The perceived needs of climate modeling were explicitly expressed as the priority
Scenario misuse in climate science is far deeper and nuanced than semantics of reference scenarios (as some would have us believe)
They are also very pedestrian mistakes, common to efforts to use scenario methods in research
Not surprising or unique to climate, but significant
The petulance, name-calling and invented quotes we saw earlier today suggests that our first recommendation won't be easily taken😉
Easier to attack messengers than hear their messages
We all all suffer the consequences when science gets off track and some try to keep it there
The responses I've had today the this discussion have me optimistic that the powerful few gatekeepers in the climate space of 2009 are not so powerful in 2021
The teeth gnashing & name calling remains the same, but most now see it for what it is, and that's good news
Schmidt's refusal to acknowledge the incredible work @jritch and focus on me suggests that this is once again more of a personal issue he has with me than anything else
That would explain why his letter pretty much agrees with & acknowledges our claims while posturing otherwise
🧵 @ISSUESinST several climate scientists & Marcia McNutt (@theNASEM pres) respond to @jritch & my recent article on misuse of climate scenarios, offering a unified defense of RCP8.5
With the IEA now projecting a near-term emissions trajectory <RCP4.5 I've been taking a peek at the gatekeeping on RCP8.5 debates over recent years
A rich vein to explore
Really remarkable public evidence of how scientific progress gets stunted by a few powerful people
Examples
Despite @bradplumer recognizing implausibility of RCP8.5 in 2017 (props!) the NYT has apparently never written anything critical about the misuse of the scenario (my NYT search finds only 6 articles that explicitly mention RCP8.5 or "RCP 8.5")
With powerful figures Mann & Hayhoe (they weren't alone) warning critique of RCP8.5 is "denial," no wonder it has taken so long for researchers and journalists to deem its discussion to be legitimate
What's the difference between a for-profit climate analytics firm & a non-profit one, both living off of RCP8.5? 🤷♂️
I'm all for people making good money
Especially when they have paying clients for their services
But non-profit expectations are (and should be) different
Don't even get me started on sports organizations!