End US War Machine: June 2013 Obama speech warned of 'more hurricanes,' denying UN IPCC climate science finding that hurricanes aren't increasing. 'What does it say about the climate science community that the Prez says something easily shown false and no one says a peep?' Obama implies to the world that US citizens are responsible for global weather disasters, so countries seek US taxpayer reparations. NY Times front page calls for climate 'compensation' by US taxpayers, also denies UN IPCC science-June 2013, Pielke, Jr. (an Obama voter)

June 29, 2013, "Pielke Jr: "What does it say about the climate science community that the Prez says something easily shown false and no one says a peep?"," Tom Nelson

Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: Hurricanes make the list in ...

"Hurricanes make the list in Obama's weekly address: "more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes" whitehouse.gov/the-press-offi…"

Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: Fact: It has been 2,811 days ...

Fact: It has been 2,811 days since the US was last hit by a Cat3+ hurricane, the longest such period since at least 1900.

Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: Fact: On climate time scales ...

Fact: On climate time scales there's been no increase in US hurricanes, normalized US hurricane damage or tropical cyclone landfalls globally

Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: What does it say about the ...

What does it say about the climate science community that the Prez says something easily shown false and no one says a peep? #climatesilence"

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Added: Roger Pielke, Jr. voted for Obama in 2012. "Postscript: And in case anyone is curious, I am voting for the incumbent." 9/4/2012
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Added:

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"With the president (Obama) implying US responsibility for weather disasters (in 2013 State of the Union address), it should be no surprise that developing nations are taking him at his word and are asking for compensation."..."Sunday's New York Times included a 1,500-word, front page article on the issue of climate "compensation","

11/19/2013, "After Haiyan: how to act on scientific advice that's politically inconvenient?" UK Guardian, Roger Pielke, Jr.

"In the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan, debates over extreme weather require us to think harder about the relationship between the evidence, politics and institutions of scientific advice."

"The proposal, advanced by the G77 plus China, that the US and other nations should pay tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries that suffer disasters, is a central theme of the climate negotiations now taking place in Warsaw, Poland.

It's an idea that has been made more tangible by the tragic loss of life and devastation in the Philippines caused by super typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful observed storms of recent decades. This disaster in the Philippines is part of a long-term trend of increasing damage resulting from extreme weather events around the world.

The US has already provided $6bn to developing countries in "climate finance" over the past two years and has committed to spend more. In light of the demands for even more money in the form of climate reparations, last week a leaked US diplomatic cable expressed the Obama administration's concern that poor nations will be "seeking redress for climate damages from sea level rise, droughts, powerful storms and other adverse impacts".

In principle, this debate should be a short one. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently issued two major assessments on extreme weather. Its report last month found little evidence to support claims that tropical cyclones (that is, hurricanes and typhoons), floods, drought, winter storms or tornadoes had become more frequent or intense. In the Western Pacific, where Haiyan occurred, in addition to a decreasing number of landfalls, the strongest storms have actually become weaker in recent decades, according to a recent analysis.

More to the point, a 2012 IPCC special report focused on extreme events and concluded that "long-term trends in economic disaster losses adjusted for wealth and population increases have not been attributed to climate change, but a role for climate change has not been excluded". In other words, if changes in climate – whether due to human or other influences – are influencing the rising costs of disasters, we can't detect that influence in the data. Yet, despite the IPCC's findings, the issue of compensation for historic emissions has continued to gain traction in the international community.

The Obama administration is right to be concerned about this issue because it risks derailing discussions about energy policies, and wider actions to reduce vulnerabilities to disasters that might actually prove effective in the context of the very real threats posed by climate change.

Yet partial responsibility for the emergence of a debate on historical reparations lies squarely with President Obama. Despite the scientific evidence to the contrary, President Obama declared in his 2013 State of the Union Address that "Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods – all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen, were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science."

According to the IPCC, only one of these claims is correct – we have indeed seen more heat waves.

With the president implying US responsibility for weather disasters, it should be no surprise that developing nations are taking him at his word and are asking for compensation. And the Obama administration is not being helped by its supporters. For instance, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Columbia Earth Institute, tweeted in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan that: "Climate liars like Rupert Murdoch and Koch Brothers have more and more blood on their hands as climate disasters claim lives across world." Similarly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a thinktank influential with the White House, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post that claimed Haiyan shows that, "There is a theological prescription, in a classical sense, for what we must do: confession, repentance and change." Climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State, in between campaigning for Terry McAullife in the Virginia governor race and lobbying the California governor to halt fracking for natural gas, found time to claim that "global warming likely put [Haiyan] on steroids".
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More prominently, Sunday's New York Times included a 1,500-word, front page article on the issue of climate "compensation", citing Philippine and Indian typhoons, as well as African drought, as indicative of "possible consequences of climate change [that] have surged". It went on to suggest that "the current global turbulence, consistent with what scientists expect to happen as the climate changes, is already taking a toll".

None of these examples referenced the conclusions of the IPCC's recent reports on extreme events, and the incorrect claims of the New York Times were made without any supporting evidence or attribution.
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That politicians, academics or journalists express outlier or even incorrect views is usually not problematic: both science and democracy are self-correcting, and challenging ideas helps to make them stronger. However, in cases where evidence matters in policy making, decision makers need a way to separate the reliable from the hyperbole.

The IPCC, despite the fact that it has made some missteps in the past, is exactly the sort of institution for providing scientific advice to help evaluate conflicting and uncertain empirical claims. In the case of loss and damage from extreme events, the evidence is extremely strong. There is at present no evidentiary basis to support demands for reparations. That may change in the future, but the IPCC's recent assessments are an accurate reflection of where the science is today.

Disasters are important because people die and economies are disrupted. Abandoning the conclusions of the institution that we depend upon to evaluate evidence in climate science for policy making in this context may be politically popular in some circles. However, ignoring that evidence is unlikely to help us arrive at solutions that will improve future outcomes related to disasters, which will only get worse as global population and wealth continue to grow, and will be exacerbated if climate extremes become more frequent or intense, as expected by the IPCC.

For the Obama administration, it is not too late to recover – "to restore science to its rightful place", as the phrase goes. But this means relying upon institutions of scientific advice for evidence, rather than on political campaigners or error-strewn media reports. It shouldn't be a difficult choice. For those interested in both scientific integrity and action on climate change, the issue of extreme weather provides a useful case for thinking about institutions of scientific advice. Are they only useful when the results are politically convenient?"

"Roger Pielke Jr is professor of environmental studies in the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado."
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Added: The US government beginning with President Obama ignores UN IPCC climate science research on extreme weather even in the face of two recent reports. "It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally."

7/18/2013, "Roger Pielke Jr: Testimony On The Current State Of Weather Extremes," GWPF

"Take-Home Points"

"It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.

• Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960.

• Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970 (when data allows for a global perspective).

• Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940.

• Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined.

• Drought has “for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.” Globally, “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”

• The absolute costs of disasters will increase significantly in coming years due to greater wealth and populations in locations exposed to extremes. Consequent, disasters will continue to be an important focus of policy, irrespective of the exact future course of climate change.

To avoid any confusion

Because the climate issue is so deeply politicized, it is necessary to include several statements beyond those reported above.

• Humans influence the climate system in profound ways, including through the emission of carbon dioxide via the combustion of fossil fuels.

• Researchers have detected and (in some cases) attributed a human influence in other measures of climate extremes beyond those discussed in this testimony, including surface temperatures and precipitation.

• The inability to detect and attribute changes in hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and drought does not mean that human-caused climate change is not real or of concern.

• It does mean however that some activists, politicians, journalists, corporate and government agency representatives and even scientists who should know better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence and research
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• Such false claims could undermine the credibility of arguments for action on climate change, and to the extent that such false claims confuse those who make decisions related to extreme events, they could lead to poor decision making.

• A considerable body of research projects that various extremes may become more frequent and/or intense in the future as a direct consequence of the human emission of carbon dioxide.

• Our research, and that of others, suggests that assuming that these projections are accurate, it will be many decades, perhaps longer, before the signal of human-caused climate change can be detected in the statistics of hurricanes (and to the extent that statistical properties are similar, in floods, tornadoes, drought).

The remainder of this written testimony provides data and references to support the claims made in the “take-home points” above. The “take-home points” are broadly supported by peer-reviewed research, US governmental assessments of climate science and the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Special Report on Extreme Events (IPCC SREX 2012)." ["No statistically significant change in cyclone intensity (Zhang et al., 2004)."]

Full testimony
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Added:

"Short Biographical Note" on Roger Pielke, Jr.

My academic degrees are in mathematics, public policy and political science. I began studying extreme weather and climate in 1993 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. Over the past 20 years I have collaborated with researchers around the world to Publish dozens of peer-reviewed papers on hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, Australian bushfires, earthquakes and other subjects related to extreme events. Since 2001, I have been a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. A longer bio can be found as an appendix to this testimony. My views on climate policy and politics, not discussed in this testimony, can be found in my recent book, The Climate Fix (Basic Books, 2011)."

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Added: 3/2/2015 Denver Post Editorial Board in support of Pielke, Jr. against political bullying and intimidation from US government forces that desperately want to blame human CO2 for hurricanes, droughts, floods, and tornadoes. UN IPCC climate science reports (cited above) continue to find no evidence to link humans to these extreme weather events. Obama implied the US is the cause of most or all global extreme weather events (see above Pielke Jr UK Guardian article). Following his cue, countries are seeking climate "reparations" from US taxpayers. The entire US political class (including so-called Republican 'leaders') has allowed this cancer against the American people to grow for many years.

3/2/2015, "University of Colorado rightly stands behind Professor Roger Pielke, Jr."-Denver Post Editorial Board

3/2/15, "CU rightly defends Roger Pielke Jr. against political bully," Denver Post Editorial Board

""We stand behind him."

It was good to see University of Colorado-Boulder Provost Russell Moore rally decisively on behalf of Professor Roger Pielke Jr. after the ranking Democratic member of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, launched an inquiry into the professor because of his academic views.

Grijalva has written CU (and six other institutions that employ researchers whose views on issues related to climate change he dislikes) demanding a mind-boggling amount of information, including Pielke's funding sources, communications and "all drafts" of testimony before "any government body."

Grijalva's purported purpose is to ferret out "conflicts of interest," specifically funding by energy companies, but in fact his gambit amounts to a bold, abusive assault on academic freedom.

Moreover, as Pielke noted on his blog, "I have no funding, declared or undeclared, with any fossil fuel company or interest. I never have. Rep. Grijalva knows this too, because when I have testified before the U.S. Congress, I have disclosed my funding and possible conflicts of interest. So I know with complete certainty that this investigation is a politically-motivated 'witch hunt' designed to intimidate me (and others) and to smear my name."

Pielke, by the way, has never disputed a role of human activity in climate change. He even favors a carbon tax and supports federal regulatory attempts to crack down on carbon emissions.

But his sin, it seems — as Grijalva tells it — is to have told the U.S. Senate that it is "incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases."

In short, he disagrees with the Obama administration and various environmental groups, which repeatedly claim — contrary to what Pielke documents as mainstream scientific thinking— that natural disasters have gotten more frequent, intense and costly as a result of global warming.

Pielke happens to have spent much of his career studying disasters and climate change, and is an international authority on the subject,. But his careful opinions have resulted in repeated attacks by those who demand fidelity to the most alarmist view of present-day climate — to the point that he's apparently had it.

"The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt. I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate issues," he wrote on his blog.

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Added: Peilke, Jr. back in the Beltway in 2017:

On 3/29/2017, Dr. Pielke Jr. speaking before Congress confirms Denver Post Editorial (above) that years of attacks against him by members of Congress and the Obama administration successfully caused him to re-orient his career away from climate-related research. He also states that there continues to be a lack of evidence for increased frequency or intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and tornadoes (see below, p. 3 of 23).

"Dr. Pielke-House SST Testimony Page 1 of 23, 29 March 2017, STATEMENT OF DR. ROGER PIELKE, JR. to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the United States House of Representatives Hearing on Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building 29 March 2017"

"My testimony focuses on how members of Congress can better support scientific integrity in climate research and the steps that members can take to avoid contributing to the pathological politicization of science....