This is an extraordinary and daring admission by a scientist who successfully published in the prominent journal Nature by narrowing his view of the truth. That is, he focused only on climate change when studying the causes of wildfires. And even then, he used techniques that showed the impact more dramatically than others would.
Patrick T. Brown is the lead author on the article, just published by Nature, “Climate Warming Increases Extreme Daily Wildfire Growth Risk in California.”
He wrote in The Free Press that he and his team tailored their article to the prevailing views at Nature on climate change.
“The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative—namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines—but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
In response, the chief editor of Nature has reprimanded Brown, and Brown has replied on X (Twitter).
When beginning his research, he was an assistant professor whose more evenhanded papers had been rejected by top journals and published in lesser-known ones. While he is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, he is no longer a tenure-track academic. He works for the Breakthrough Institute.
H-T @JohnHCochrane, @bariweiss,@currya
Evidence of journal bias is beginning to trickle out and the rate seems to be increasing. If an editor is biased and the pool of reviewers is biased I suppose you either change research topics or make your result match with the mainstream.
My viewpoint:
1. I don’t trust extrapolation of complex models.
2. If all climate forcings were suddenly constant, I don’t think the climate would reach equilibrium in 30 years. I suspect it would take at least ten times that long.
3. Sea level research (Jevrejeva et al. (2014) ) suggests that the rate of rise has made small deviations about a straight line for the last 175 years starting well ahead of significant human CO2 emissions. There was no sudden increase in the rate of sea level rise following 1950.
4. During the last interglacial, 120,000 years ago, atmospheric CO2 reached its maximum level and held nearly constant for 18,000 years while temperature fell 8 degrees C (Dome C ice core, Antarctic).
5. In an article published by the BBC concerning China’s increased use of coal, a graph was presented showing that CO2 equivalent emissions have been increasing over the last two decades faster than the previous two decades – ASIA being responsible.
6. According to Peter Ridd (August 4, 2022, AIMS) the coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef show record high coral since 1986.
7. Solar irradiance, following the Dalton minimum (1780-1840), started increasing in 1900 reaching a high at around 1950 (depending on how the 11 year cycle is averaged) and has remained high since.
8. Peer reviewed publications indicate that, for ice core data, CO2 rise lags rise in temperature by about 800 years. My opinion: The “hand waving” feedback arguments make little sense.
9. At around 1875, human life expectancy began to abruptly change from 35 years to a current high of around 80 years – correlating well with the rise in atmospheric CO2 due to increased use of fossil fuel.
10. The work of Alley (2000, p. 9, fig. 12, as shown in USGS Professional Paper 1 386-A) shows ice core data from the central part of the Greenland ice sheet. This data indicates higher temperatures than current at several times prior to the “little ice age” and shows a steady increase in accumulation of snow and ice (variations about a straight line) for the last 9000 years. In an interview with Alley that attempts to disparage use of this data as counter to main stream attitude, Alley says that the data is accurate and the result reproduced in other Greenland ice cores.
So there’s a lot to be explained by the climate emergency activists and the current activist efforts are failing miserably at great cost.
Thank you, Dr. Higginbotham! A great summary.
Can you remember when Nature and Science were honest journals some 45-50 years ago?
They sure jumped on the Green bandwagon with total enthusiasm.
Higginbotham begins with “I don’t trust extrapolation from complex models.” And “trust” is what journal and academic biases have severely eroded. One can argue that the skepticism necessary to science is itself corrosion of trust, but quite the opposite. Hypotheses that withstand skepticism are in themselves more trustworthy and the process, carried out honestly and with transparency increases our trust in science.
Perhaps I do Nature’s editor an injustice, but it seems she wants it both ways–that Nature is not biased but it published Brown’s article despite both peer reviewers and at least some authors of the paper saying it left out important facts.
Nature, Science, Scientific American, and other once trusted publications now seem to have joined the popular media in their recognition that bad news sells. For science, that’s bad news.