32 Comments

This is reminiscent of my recycling company's recent decision to give the reason for taking lids off of recycled bottles as 'flattened bottles have reduced air in them reducing greenhouse gases when shipped'

This is true although improperly explained ("...because it allows each shipment to hold more reducing the frequency of shipments"). It's also 4th on the list of reasons to take off the caps: the types of plastic are different reducing the quality of mixed bottles and caps, the caps can cause wear on the crushing machines, and because it reduces shipments it costs less in fuel

A number of people reacted negatively and I agree. In fact I estimated the cost of the emissions to be 1/40th of a cent per bottle cap removed. We could have just said "remove caps or alternatively donate 10 cents to climate abatement". That would be much more convenient for most people, except for the fact that there are three other reasons to do it. So people get the impression that climate is going to be used as a browbeater to get people to do whatever it is politicians or others might want them to. And I think they would be right

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A great example of a fallacious research paper that attributes something/anything to climate change. The ONLY purpose of a paper like this is to get funding or exposure. It provides no credible academic merit other than possibly an example of what not to do to get published.

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The study has the hallmarks of religious zealots who hope to stand before the climate change version of Saint Peter on the climate change version of judgement day and explain that their faith was unquestionable. The media repetition of the "findings" reflects the descending standards of modern journalism and the absolute absence of media filters if there is a hint of climate doomism in a story.

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Roger - you said in your exchange with the paper's co-author that they have an important paper but essentially tore it to shreds in the first part of your article. I'm confused. I am more than fed up with everything in this world being associated with "climate change." In fact one of the primary reasons I am skeptical about the whole thing is the prevalance of what is nonsense in the mainstream press. To me this is very much like the boy who cried wolf. I'm open to changing my mind but when this type of stuff gets media treatment it only makes me tend to reject the whole hypothesis. Entertaining these papers doesn't help.

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Good analysis. I'll be interested on your take on the paper from Tulane about SLR along the Gulf Coast.

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So why are you surprised they attribute almost everything else to race or gender. Do you see a pattern here?

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It's amazing to me that a study with such elementary errors is even submitted for publication, much less pass peer review.

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Apr 12, 2023Liked by Roger Pielke Jr.

Where does the funding for doing this type of “research” come from? At a school like Dartmouth no less.

As I recall, 77 years ago (1946) the ball was different and so were the bats, gloves, uniforms and ballparks. The players were totally different 1 year after the end of WW II. Jackie Robinson was still a year away from playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. No black, hispanic and certainly no Japanese faces to be found. Comparing home run stats from back then to those from today can probably tease out some interesting effects but climate change is not one of them.

I grew up a Dodger fan. The 8 NL teams were Brooklyn, NY (Giants), The Phillies, The Cardinals, The Reds, The Braves, The Cubs and the Pirates. I didn’t follow the AL teams until the World Series which started in September. An exception was the Yankees. I hated them with a passion. I am not sure that this relates to the discussion about climate change. Just the rambling of an old fan/man that can’t relate to what baseball (and a bunch of other stuff) has become.

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Who in the world funded this "research"? Would the authors have published the research if it found that there WASN'T a causal relationship between climate and home runs. Just another example of the impact of money on the climate change industrial complex.

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This silly study and his “conclusion” will enable the author(s) to obtain more funding for more silly studies. Fortunately, the mainstream media is picking this up and amplifying it. It’s so silly, I believe it will do more damage to the alarmist messaging.

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If you hire climate journalists spend megabucks on climate research... sure enough, every report will have a climate angle or be about climate. So sometimes journalists and scientists have to stretch... with embarrassing results.

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Very nice analysis Roger. This is a great example of how weak much of the climate alarmists' work actually is. The fact that you don't see the same change in other baseball leagues tells you the answer, that it's something else, perhaps just statistical noise. The climate alarmists are crying wolf so much that they are destroying any integrity that may have possessed. If they don't want to be taken seriously by critically thinking people, keep making such provably false assertions.

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Apr 12, 2023Liked by Roger Pielke Jr.

Good post. There is so much "global warming killed your dog" stuff going around that somebody needs to honestly call balls and strikes, and news editors aren't doing it, from Fox to the NYT to WSJ, AP, WaPo, etc.

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And, as important as anything else, you kept on friendly terms with the authors.

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Climate change articles on steroids, resembling baseball

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Good grief! Please tell me this doesn't mean more asterisks for the record book!

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