Pielke has a new post “Weather Attribution Alchemy” that is misleadingly negative about the practice of (partially) attributing extreme weather events to the accumulation of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. These take the somewhat unfortunate form of “[Event X”] was [Z%] more probable because of climate change”
See [https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane ] for a discussion of why the form of the statement is not quite correct without negating the value of attribution.
Pielke in his post makes a series of negative observations:
“First, event attribution research is a form tactical science — research performed explicitly to serve legal and political ends.”
Could not the same be said of the whole IPCC process? We very properly want to know the effects of the accumulation of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere so as to use “legal and political” means to modify the trajectory of accumulation and reduce future harms.
“Otto and others have been very forthright that the main function of [attribution] studies is to create a defensible scientific basis in support of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies”
This is a misuse of attribution. If legal blame should be assigned for the harms caused by CO2 accumulation, it should be to those who emitted the CO2 or more concretely, to the policy makers who did not create incentives to force emitters to internalize the harm they were causing. The underlying climate model themselves on which attribution is based are sufficient for assigning blame to policy makers. Attribution is unnecessary.
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/legal-remedies-for-climate-change
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/legal-remedies-for-climate-change-e7d
But however attribution has been misused or the intentions of its developers does not necessarily invalidate the concept.
“Second, extreme event attribution was developed as a response to the failure of the IPCC’s conventional approach to detection and attribution (D&A) to reach high confidence in the detection of increasing trends in the frequency or intensity of most types of impactful extreme events — notably hurricanes, floods, drought, and tornadoes.”
This response seems understandable. To the uninitiated (or the ill-intentioned!), this “failure” is easy to confuse with or (to portray) as uncertainty about the harm of CO2 accumulation itself. Attribution is but an example of _one kind_ of harm that past accumulation has caused and that continued emissions will cause in the future. It is a legitimate way to make visible the harm that climate-economic modeling identifies and quantifies.
“The underlying theory of change [among supporters of attribution] appears to be that people must be fearful of climate change and thus need come to understand that it threatens their lives, not in the future, but today and tomorrow. If they don’t have that fear, the argument goes, then they will discount the threat and fail to support the right climate policies.”
Well, there may be many different reasons to support attribution. Supporters should be aware, however that attribution could be counterproductive. If in fact it _does_ create “fear,” then the likelihood of public support for wrong climate policies could increase.
Pielke’s own position,
“I want to once again emphasize the reality and risks of changes in climate due to human activities”
is unobjectionable if perhaps underpowered, as is the recognition,
“some dismiss entirely the possibility of human-caused changes in climate while others quickly claim that every weather event is more extreme or more common due to climate change”
It would be helpful if Pielke would indicate what the proper attitude and consequent policy actions flow from his position.
Finally, it would also have been helpful if Pielke had made a distinction between correct (more probable) and incorrect (less probable) attributions, if for no other reason that incorrect attributions can undermine confidence in correct ones and so create another avenue for arriving at bad climate policy decisions.
Image Prompt: Scientist looking puzzled as he observes an ominous approaching thundercloud.
[Standard bleg: Although my style is know-it-all-ism, I do sometime entertain the thought that, here and there, I might be mistaken on some minor detail. I would welcome comments on these views.]
I want to defend these critiques in large part -- or at least argue there is a valid way to understand them.
First, as to the issue of "tactical science" I agree that there is clearly nothing wrong with focusing scientific research on areas of potential concern to produce information that can usefully advise policy makers.
But a key feature about trusting experts is that it requires you believe those experts aren't delibrately cherry picking arguments and evidence that support their favored outcome. The problem with not being an expert isn't just that you don't know particular facts but that you aren't even aware of what are all the relevant considerations you should weigh. As such, even if I know an expert only speaks the truth, if I believe they will delibrately choose only to present evidence that favors one side I should rationally basically ignore them (because it's rare you can't find some such evidence).
I think there is a valid concern that these attribution studies are -- or at least create the perception -- that experts aren't simply reporting all surprising facts about climate change -- both positive and negative -- equally but are specifically picking studies to do that are particularly likely to reveal harms and not to reveal benefits. To be fair, I feel this is as much or more the fault of the coverage and press offices but it's a reasonable concern. Both as to whether we should update on it at all and whether it does harm by undermining credibility of experts as unbiased.
This is importantly different than the IPCC reports which generally take a full subject matter and then try to synthesize the overall strength of the scientific evidence about that area. Even if you think there might be other areas where the effects of climate change have benefits if you are reasonably sure that within these specific questions evidence on both sides will be weighed that allows meaningful update.
Second, as to the issue of attributing blame I 100% agree that's how it should work but that's not how it actually works. We repeatedly see court cases brought against industries who behaved entirely within the legal framework policy makers set at the time but try to hold those industries accountable for those harms.
Just this term SCOTUS is taking a case against gun manufacturers by the Mexican government where the argument is that because the gun makers knew some guns would end up illegally diverted to Mexico and ran ads that might appeal to cartels (not specifically just via the same mechanisms they appealed to lawful buyers) they should be held legally liable. Similarly, the big pharmacy chains (not Purdue who knowingly lied about their products) were forced to settle lawsuits alleging that they shouldn't have filled all those facially valid opiate prescriptions.
This is a general legal strategy. If you don't like the choices policy makers have selected then try to show private companies they'll be made liable (now or in the future) because they merely followed the law as written. I think it's a bad way to do things and shouldn't be allowed but we keep seeing court cases brought along these lines as an attempt to do an end run around the need to get policy makers to change the law.