When the Popular Technology.net peer-reviewed paper list was first published in 2009 an alarmist notified Roger Pielke Jr. that some of his papers as well as his fathers appeared on it. Contacting him was intentional as Roger Pielke Jr. is an enigma in the climate science debate. He is someone who spends extensive amounts of time arguing against alarmist positions but outright refuses to be labeled a skeptic and will spend just as much time arguing that he is not. He is thus great for alarmists to use for soundbites, in this case against the list. Roger Pielke Jr's position on ACC/AGW is well known - he "supports it". Alarmists foolishly believe this will magically mean skeptics will not be allowed to use his papers to support their arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm. No attempt was ever made to imply a specific personal position to him or any of the authors. All of this was explained to him in the comments to his blog post. The irony here is every single ACC/AGW proponent using Roger Pielke Jr.'s comments to attack the list would never use his papers in support of their arguments.
1. He falsely assumed why his papers and his father's were listed, "Assuming that these are Hypothesis 1 type bloggers..."
Papers can be listed for two reasons,
(1) They support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW (His Hypothesis 1)
(2) They support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm defined as, "concern relating to a negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic." (Not defined or mentioned by him)
All of the Pielke's papers were listed because they support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm not because they support skepticism of ACC/AGW (His Hypothesis 1).
2. Various clarifications have been made to the list to make this more clear,
(1) The title was change to make it more scientifically accurate and clear to the intent of the list by adding the words "ACC/AGW" and "Alarm",
Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm
(2) A disclaimer was added,
"Disclaimer: The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific personal position to any of the authors. While certain authors on the list cannot be labeled skeptics (e.g. Harold Brooks, Roger Pielke Jr., Roger Pielke Sr.) their paper(s) or results from their paper(s) can still support skeptic's arguments against ACC/AGW alarm. "
(3) Various notes were moved or added to the beginning of the list,
"The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm.
ACC/AGW Alarm (defined), concern relating to a negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."
3. Roger Pielke Jr. has failed to show that his papers cannot be used by a skeptic to argue against an alarmist position relating to ACC/AGW,
Instead he refuses to answer direct question out of some absurd fear of "endorsing the list" by doing so. He has never been asked to endorse the list and will never be asked to endorse the list. Since he is unable to show this it is quite clear that his papers can be used to support a skeptic argument against an alarmist position relating to ACC/AGW.
4. Alarmists only bring Roger Pielke Jr. up to use for soundbites against skeptics, they never actually endorse or reference his papers because his papers do not support alarmist positions,
Nine Fallacies of Floods (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 42, Number 2, pp. 413-438, June 1999)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.
"Fallacy 2: Damaging flooding in recent years is unprecedented because of global warming" - Roger Pielke Jr.
Hurricanes and Global Warming (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 86, Issue 11, pp. 1571–1575, November 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Christopher W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch
"The paper concludes that with no trend identified in various metrics of hurricane damage over the twentieth century, it is exceedingly unlikely that scientists will identify large changes in historical storm behavior that have significant societal implications" - Roger Pielke Jr.
Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005 (PDF)
(Natural Hazards Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42, February 2008)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Joel Gratz, Christopher W. Landsea, Douglas Collins, Mark A. Saunders, Rade Musulin
"Across both normalization methods, there is no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage in the data set, which follows the lack of trends in landfall frequency or intensity observed over the twentieth century." - Roger Pielke Jr.
- Are there trends in hurricane destruction? (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 438, Number 7071, pp. 11, December 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.
"My analysis of a long-term data set of hurricane losses in the United States shows no upward trend" - Roger Pielke Jr.
5. Finally he concedes, "You can of course characterize my papers however you want," - Roger Pielke Jr.
Update:
Roger Pielke Jr. updated his blog post with an emailed comment from Professor Russell Dickerson,
The paper in question is,
Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases (PDF)
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 90, Number 45, pp. 413, November 2009)
- Roger Pielke Sr. et al.
It does not include any of the following words,
man-made (Ironically Roger Pielke Jr. criticized my used of this word as "not scientific")
substantial
danger
human health
While Professor Dickerson may believe these things the paper he coauthored does not make those arguments.
The paper was not listed as "skeptical" but as, "supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm".
The email I received from Professor Russell Dickerson included various strawman arguments unrelated to why the paper was listed,
(Professor Dickerson)
Please remove this article from your list of 'skeptics'
Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases (PDF) (Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 90, Number 45, pp. 413, November 2009) - Roger Pielke Sr. et al.
the article contains these lines:
"our scientific view is that human impacts do play a significant role within the climate system."
and as a coauthor of that paper, I object to the contention that it "support(s) skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC)"
Professor Dickerson incorrectly believed the list to be a "list of skeptics", this is incorrect. As explicitly stated at the top of the list,
The list is a resource for skeptics not a list of skeptics.
Disclaimer: The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific personal position to any of the authors. While a minority of authors on the list cannot be labeled skeptics (e.g. Harold Brooks, Roger Pielke Jr., Roger Pielke Sr.) their paper(s) or results from their paper(s) can still support skeptic's arguments against ACC/AGW alarm. Various papers are mutually exclusive and should be considered independently. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.
He then stated a strawman argument about why that paper was listed, it was not listed because it "support(s) skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC)". Papers can be listed for this reason but they can also be listed if they, "support skeptic arguments against ...ACC/AGW Alarm." In this case this paper was listed because it supports skeptic arguments that CO2 is not the sole dominant human forcing as the IPCC has argued.
