Willfully missing my point. And I said nothing about vaccines.
He assembled a straw man to knock him down.
!Most recent U.S. data (Spring 2025) shows 15 % of Americans say global warming is not happening (climatecommunication.gmu.edu).
Comparison with earlier data:
- Spring 2024: 13 % explicitly thought global warming was not happening; 82 % believed it was or leaned that way (climatecommunication.gmu.edu).
- Fall 2024 (Yale): 14 % said it wasn’t happening versus 73 % who said it was (en.wikipedia.org).
Confidence: high.
You should spend some time on this guy’s substack. (I have others, but this will get you started.) But only if interested in facts, rather than received wisdom.
Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder (now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute), has been a prominent voice in climate policy discussions for decades. He accepts the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change and supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon taxes and regulations. However, he is highly critical of what he sees as overstatements in attributing specific extreme weather events or their overall trends to climate change, arguing that such claims often exceed the evidence and serve political or advocacy purposes rather than rigorous science. His views are based on peer-reviewed research, IPCC assessments, and data on disasters, which he says show no clear signal of climate change in most metrics of extreme weather over recent decades. Below, I’ll outline his key positions on this topic, drawing from his publications, testimony, and recent commentary.
Core Argument: Attribution Is Often Unsupported by Evidence
Pielke emphasizes that while climate change (via increased greenhouse gases) is a measurable driver of global warming, it does not equate to causing or worsening most extreme weather events in observable ways. He points to the IPCC’s own assessments, which he has contributed to, as supporting this nuance. For instance:
- The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, 2021) states with high confidence that human influence has contributed to more frequent and intense heatwaves globally, but for other events like hurricanes, floods, droughts, and tornadoes, it finds low to medium confidence in detection or attribution of changes. No robust trends in frequency or intensity have been detected for many of these over the past century, largely due to natural variability overwhelming any signal from climate change.
- In his 2014 book The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change, Pielke argues that increasing economic damages from disasters (e.g., hurricanes or floods) are primarily driven by societal factors like population growth, urbanization in vulnerable areas, and rising wealth—not more frequent or severe weather. When normalized for these factors, disaster losses show no upward trend attributable to climate change. He cites data from sources like Munich Re and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), noting that claims otherwise politicize science and erode public trust.
Pielke has testified before Congress multiple times on this, including in 2017, where he stated: “There is little scientific basis in support of claims that extreme weather events, and specifically hurricanes, floods, drought, and tornadoes, and their economic damage, has increased in recent decades due to the emission of greenhouse gases.” He reiterated that there’s no evidence of increasing hurricanes globally or in the U.S., aligning with IPCC conclusions.
Specific Types of Extreme Weather
Pielke breaks down attribution by event type, often using IPCC summaries for support:
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Heatwaves: He agrees there’s high confidence that climate change has increased their frequency and intensity, as warmer baseline temperatures make extremes more likely. However, he cautions against overhyping single events, noting that even here, natural variability plays a role.
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Hurricanes/Tropical Cyclones: No detected increase in frequency or intensity globally or in the U.S., per IPCC AR6 and NOAA data. Warmer oceans may slightly boost rainfall in storms (by ~7% per 1°C warming), but overall, trends are flat or declining when normalized. He criticizes media and advocates for linking events like Hurricane Ian (2022) directly to climate change without evidence.
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Floods and Heavy Precipitation: IPCC AR6 detects increases in heavy precipitation in some regions but not a global trend in river flooding. Pielke notes that flood damages have not risen when adjusted for exposure; in fact, U.S. flood disasters have declined sharply since the 1920s. A 2025 study he references (Ishmam et al.) found no increasing extreme precipitation in Texas, challenging regional claims.
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Droughts: Mixed signals; some regions (e.g., U.S. Southwest) show exacerbation from warming, but globally, no clear trend. He highlights that projections under extreme scenarios like RCP8.5 (a high-emissions pathway) predict more droughts, but observed data doesn’t match.
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Tornadoes and Severe Storms: No evidence of increases; data shows stability or declines. The chaotic, small-scale nature makes attribution unreliable.
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Wildfires: Increasing in some areas due to warming and drier conditions, but Pielke attributes much of the rise in damages to land-use changes and fire suppression policies, not just climate.
In a 2024 Substack series “Climate Fueled Extreme Weather,” Pielke uses IPCC data to illustrate “time of emergence”—the point when a climate signal becomes detectable over natural variability. For most extremes (e.g., floods, droughts), this won’t happen by 2050 or even 2100 under worst-case scenarios, meaning current events can’t reliably be blamed on climate change.
Critique of “Event Attribution” Studies
Pielke is particularly skeptical of rapid “event attribution” analyses by groups like World Weather Attribution (WWA), which claim specific events (e.g., 2023 Maui fires or 2024 Hurricane Helene) were “made more likely” by climate change. He calls this “tactical science”—designed for media headlines, lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, or policy advocacy rather than pure inquiry. Key issues he raises:
- These studies rely on climate models with large uncertainties, often assuming high-emissions futures like RCP8.5, which he argues is implausible today due to real-world shifts (e.g., declining coal use). A 2022 paper co-authored with Justin Ritchie in Issues in Science and Technology titled “How Climate Scenarios Lost Touch With Reality” shows RCP8.5 overestimates emissions by ignoring tech advances and policy.
- They conflate correlation (warmer world) with causation, ignoring other drivers like El Niño or poor infrastructure. In a 2023 blog, he outlined “three rules” for evaluating such studies: Check if they detect a long-term trend first (most don’t), ensure models match observations, and avoid cherry-picking.
- Motive matters: WWA’s Friederike Otto has said these studies aim to create “immediacy” for climate action and support litigation. Pielke sees this as “noble lies”—exaggerations to spur policy, which he believes backfire by undermining science’s credibility.
In 2025, responding to an Associated Press query on a Department of Energy report questioning climate impacts, Pielke graded it an “A” for sparking debate, while criticizing mainstream assessments for gatekeeping dissent.
Broader Context: Politics, Media, and Personal Experience
Pielke attributes much of the hype to a “fear factor” in advocacy: Scientists and media amplify extremes to build support for emissions cuts, even if it means straying from evidence. He cites a 2024 Nature study showing that attributing events to climate change boosts policy support, regardless of actual frequency trends—calling it “bad science is good politics.” This echoes his 2010 book The Climate Fix, where he argues policies must be politically plausible, not just alarmist.
His views have drawn controversy; critics like those at Skeptical Science and DeSmog label him a “denier” for downplaying extremes, and he’s faced harassment, including a 2015 congressional probe by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) into his funding (which found no wrongdoing). In a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “My Unhappy Life as a Climate Heretic,” he described campaigns to silence him, including efforts to get him fired from FiveThirtyEight. Despite this, he continues via his Substack The Honest Broker, emphasizing viewpoint diversity in science.
In summary, Pielke’s stance is that yes, climate change influences some extremes (like heat), but broad attributions to events like floods or hurricanes lack evidence and risk misleading policy. He urges focusing on adaptation, innovation, and emissions reductions without exaggeration. For deeper dives, check his Substack or books like The Rightful Place of Science.
| Scenario |
Description |
Projected Median Warming by 2100 |
Comparison to 2°C Target |
Key Sources |
| Current Policies |
Based on implemented laws and measures (e.g., energy efficiency gains, partial renewable adoption), but without full NDC fulfillment. Global emissions are projected to peak by ~2030 but decline too slowly. |
2.7–3.1°C |
Overshoot by 0.7–1.1°C; 33% chance of ≥3.1°C and 10% chance of ≥3.4°C. This would lock in severe risks like widespread sea-level rise (0.6–1.0 m), intensified extremes, and ecosystem collapse. |
CAT (November 2024 update)[0][1][10]; UNEP EGR 2024[40][41] |
This is clearly on the climate deniers.
Hey, by the way, he doesn’t seem to mention the biology deniers. Why might that be? Who here would be presumptuous enought to think they can provide the definition of a woman? Any biologists can help us out?
