The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change

by Roger Pielke Jr.

After nearly every hurricane, heatwave, drought, or other extreme weather event, commentators rush to link the disaster with climate change. But what does the science say? This fully revised second edition of Disasters & Climate Change features updated data, analysis, and peer-reviewed science related to understanding recent weather-related disasters in the United States and around the world. The updated volume also offers an inside look at Roger Pielke Jr.'s most recent experiences on the front lines of the bitter climate debates as he has sought to share consensus scientific understandings with the public and policymakers. He concludes with a proposal for a pragmatic way forward on climate policy, one that recognizes the importance of both evidence and politics.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book amazed me, by reporting that, while climate is changing, extreme weather has not measurably changed. There's more heat energy going into the weather/climate system, indisputably, yet what we expect to happen hasn't happened. There's more to research and understand - many mysteries remain.

[Juha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Pielke is often classified as a 'climate denier,' a very unfortunate misnomer as he is anything but. He is just opposed to hype and exaggerations - 'noble cause corruption' as he calls it - and stands for scientific evidence. In this slim and highly readable volume he tackles the links between climate related disasters and global climate change. Using IPCC and other data, he shows that at our current levels of scientific measurement it is impossible to find a correlation. This doesn't mean that the climate isn't changing, or that disaster losses are not escalating - using 'normalized' data sets, Pielke shows that the latter are primarily a function of increased exposure.

The scientific analysis is very sober minded. The reason why I dropped one star pertains to the policy prescriptions. First, Pielke reduces policy options to one equation with rather nihilistic conclusions: basically you can't do anything about climate change because population, the economy and energy consumption will inevitable continue growing. There is no technological fix that can work fast enough and no realistic economic tools (forget about carbon tax, as no politician will ever instill one at adequately high level) that will prevent the climate from changing. However, in the final chapter, he still does refer to tools and policies with a glimmer of hope.

Irrespective of these quibbles, this book is highly recommended.