Pielke's Weekly Memo #13

Disaster Denialism, Coming Attractions and A Few Freshly Ungated Papers

Edvard Munch, The Researchers (1911)

First off, welcome new subscribers! Readership has grown by more than 25% since my last weekly memo. If you are new here, please check out this Reader’s Guide with some pointers and a description of my goals for this platform.

Some announcements:

• On Monday, I am going to open up a discussion THREAD on this open access paper: A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming. The paper, published last January, provides an overview of trends in various weather and climate extremes. It is also being newly investigated by its publisher, apparently based on complaints. I will ask readers here to engage the question of whether or not the paper shows indications of research misconduct or errors that would necessitate a retraction or other action. You can have a look at the COPE Guidelines for guidance on how such judgments are made. Let’s see if we can get an “extended peer review” discussion going on the paper. Sorry for the weekend homework, but I’m a professor and that’s what I do.

• Also next week, I and colleagues have a letter coming out in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled, “Catastrophic climate risks should be neither understated nor overstated” (exciting title, we know). Our letter, which presents some interesting new analyses, is a response to Kemp et al. (2022) which argued for expanding the use of the most extreme climate scenarios. I’ll have a post on our letter when it is available and will make an ungated copy available to paid subscribers.

• Next Friday afternoon (US Eastern Time) I’m giving a public lecture via Zoom, titled “Climate Misinformation.” You can register here — it is free and you are all invited. Here is the blurb for the talk:

  “What does “the science” say about climate change? Are we doomed, or is it no big deal? What’s disinformation, and what’s reliable information?

  For many years, Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado and Distinguished Fellow of Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, has been helping us sort through these questions. He has written extensively on science policy and governance. He makes a specialty of comparing what the data say about climate with what the public is being told about climate.

  Afterwards, I’ll have a post on the talk and, if possible, I’ll also post up the video. I’m happy to have your questions or comments.

After the jump I have a discussion of “disaster denialism” and links to freshly ungated copies of some of my favorite obscure papers that I’ve written but which are well hidden behind paywalls.