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His statements might be correct. But it's interesting to note who is most supportive of him: namely right-wing climate-change deniers. This is a problem in politics. He may be a completely honest actor and yet he will be weaponised against climate research altogether.
Brb, gotta publish that P!=NP proof in a Republican journal.
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Some institutions may have significant expertise on a subject where you don't, making such credentials occasionally very useful.
That’s exactly the point and why it’s laziness. If you lack the knowledge to judge someone’s work then intellectual honesty requires foregoing an opinion on its quality. Saying “well I don’t understand, but his degree doesn’t have climate in its name so he must not know what he’s talking about” is gross laziness. And if you do have the expertise to accurately judge the work in question, then it stands or falls on its…
So how do you decide whom to rely on for medical care? Surely you don’t just roll a die.
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He's one scientist pushing against the consensus scientific view, and the people most keen to promote him to the general public are those who want any excuse to deny climate-change. He himself may be honest, but it essentially doesn't matter, such is politics.
He is not pushing against the consensus scientific view. He is advocating the consensus view in opposition to a distorted pop-sci view.
* https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roger-pielke-climate-science_...
* https://skepticalscience.com/fivethirtyeight-pielke-downplay...
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Which major extinction event? Do you really think this is an appropriate comparison to proven major extinction events of the past (e.g Chicxulub, 66 m. years ago)?
The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the primary attributes of the Anthropocene. Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction. Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction. The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene#Biodive…
New Zealand was the same. Humans arrived around 1300 and we lost the moa and Haarst's eagle (the world's largest flying bird) by around 1400.
Incidentally, the largest species of bird that ever lived was the elephant bird of Madagascar. It weighed up to 730kg (1600lbs) and stood 3m (10ft) tall. It went extinct around the year 1200.
There used to be a lot more interesting animals around, but our ancestors hunted them to extinction. Nobody misses them because nobody alive today ever had them in the first place.
It's sad, but even the extinctions of the coolest, most amazing creatures are quickly forgotten. When the giraffe or blue whale is gone, it will just be another story like the elephant bird.
I think this guy's main problem is that he just doesn't get it. At best he thinks he's sharpening Science by pointing out where it has not yet been conclusive on some subjects (e.g. the link between climate change and extreme weather events). He might actually be right about that specific point, but others with even better credentials dispute that. On a range of other issues, he's got a worse record. Wikipedia quotes him:
"In coming decades the only policies that can effectively be used to manage the immediate effects of climate variability and change will be adaptive."
This isn't him just pointing out that data is missing. He's full-on advocating we do nothing about emissions but adapt to the effects as they come. He uses the telling word "variability"--a dog whistle to all those deniers who think that somehow climate just "varies" and what we are seeing somehow within some "normal" envelope. He's flat wrong, and he's spreading misinformation and feeding deniers and trolls. Worldwide we are in some seriously deep shit and he's taking potshots and seriously mudding the waters for who knows why the hell.
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Some institutions may have significant expertise on a subject where you don't, making such credentials occasionally very useful.
That’s exactly the point and why it’s laziness. If you lack the knowledge to judge someone’s work then intellectual honesty requires foregoing an opinion on its quality. Saying “well I don’t understand, but his degree doesn’t have climate in its name so he must not know what he’s talking about” is gross laziness. And if you do have the expertise to accurately judge the work in question, then it stands or falls on its…
Exclusive first-hand observation is a cripplingly restrictive epistemology. Even much of our own first-hand expertise is based on us learning from and believing sources, professors, textbooks etc.
Dr. Pielke’s credentials are a BS in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Political Science. Regardless of what you think of his points, he presents himself very much as a climate scientist in these slides, yet I don’t think that he really is one. There may be more to this than just some ties to Wikileaks, does any one else that studies the climate take him seriously?
Credentialism is one of the worst forms of intellectual laziness. Judge a person's ideas by their quality, not the piece of paper some institution saw fit to sign.
Edit: But wait, just because I'd have the credentials doesn't mean I'd know what I'm talking about! To assume so would be intellectually lazy!
tldr; Link to a twitter rant in the middle of a messy finger-pointing exercise. Unsurprisingly, the author of said rant considers himself a victim of some kind of witchhunt. I think this guy's main problem is that he just doesn't get it. At best he thinks he's sharpening Science by pointing out where it has not yet been conclusive on some subjects (e.g. the link between climate change and extreme weather events). He…
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Humans are the most adaptable species, but we still depend on the global ecosystem. Sure, our species could probably survive a few tens of thousands of years underground after a meteor strikes, huddled around breeder reactors, but this mode of live doesn't scale to nine billion people. If critical systems like phytoplankton in the oceans get out of whack literally billions will die.
Listen, life has thrived on this planet for well over a billion years. It's seen carbon levels much, much higher and primates literally evolved during such periods. It's ludicrous to suggest that billions will die.
Setting aside snide remarks, the concern most people have for the environment is not about "life", it is about our civilization. We have seen huge advances in quality of life in the past 100 years, because of increases in medicine, trade, and mobility. These characteristics rely on a relatively peaceful coexistence across the globe.
The fear is that increased survival pressure will void most of those advances. If global trade breaks down, we might lose the technology and infrastructure that enables us to feed 7+ billion people. So regardless of whether the Earth's climate will kick us out, we still might end up returning to population levels of the 1900s.
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As far as I know it's been a really long time since the climate changed as rapidly as it's changing now. I'm not sure whether it ever warmed up as quickly before. Evolution needs time. We're already in the midst of a major extinction event. Life will most likely go on, but I see no reason to believe that we'll survive the transition at our current numbers.
I see no reason to believe that we won't, unless you think we'll suddenly lose all technology that we've developed over the past 5000 years. Also, here's a list at some of the dramatic swings in temperature and sea levels over just the past 2 million years, including many events impacting modern human history, such as the Little ice age: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html
Which is normally what happens after a civilisation crash.
Getting back to the level of the Middle Ages is fairly easy to do - many, many people can figure out some of the basics even from first principles. Figure out a windmill, weaving, fulling, irrigation etc just from the basics people got going through school probably in just a few years.
Yet the more advanced tech? That's a system fragility. Easy to lose, hard to get back if lost. If there's mass destruction of cities, relocations, perhaps wars and huge numbers of deaths and displaced people why expect a globalised, technological and mainly online world to survive?
Could just as easily find ourselves in the same boat as those in the worlds after the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians etc. Lots of things we can see but have no idea how to recreate. It could take hundreds of years to claw our way back to creating chips. Once the first generation that remembers high school or uni is passed, it gets even harder...