Outdated scenarios are being used by scientists to misinform about climate change, warns Roger Pielke, Jr., professor of environmental studies at CU Boulder.
Appearing last week before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee in Washington, D.C., Pielke testified the scenario prioritized in most climate research assumes that “all global energy consumption will come from coal” resulting in a 4.8° C increase by 2100.
That is obviously wrong. The real world is actually tracking towards a 2.9° C increase by 2100, he told the Senators.
“Carbon dioxide emissions in the real world are already at a level far less than those projected in the most commonly used climate scenarios, and that gap between scenario assumptions and reality is only getting wider,” Pielke said.
Pielke warned the misinformation is sometimes weaponized because climate change is big business.
Or as we refer to it, Big Climate, which taxpayers now subsidize by the billions.
“That means it is essential that everyone follow well-established standards of scientific integrity – and this includes those funded by fossil fuel interests, renewable energy interests, and, in fact, all financial interests.”
PeakNation™ will recall that Pielke was hounded by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona nearly a decade ago and accused of taking undisclosed funding from fossil fuel companies because the scientist didn’t march lockstep with Democrat politics.
An investigation proved the charge completely unfounded, yet Pielke says those very public accusations were enough to upend his work and upset his career in ways that continue today.
“One important role of experts is to call things as we see them. Sometimes, research results are inconvenient or uncomfortable to certain interests, and that includes political interests.”
It’s so refreshing to hear an environmental scientist speak rationally about climate change, instead of threatening us with extinction if we don’t abandon the planet’s primary means of transportation, commerce, and abandon our primary means of feeding the world.