Hi Dylan, thanks a lot for these thoughts I appreciate the openness to criticism a lot. As I mentioned, I think it is extremely difficult to provide a good overview of this topic in part because the literature is so vast. A draft I wrote on climate change a couple of years ago was correctly described as ‘drivel’ by a climate scientist a couple of years ago; I think any assessment of the quality of work on this topic should be forgiving especially when researchers are pushed for time. Some professional scientists think that 3-4 degrees of warming will kill billions of people due to food loss and heat stress, whereas myself and others think this is clearly wrong. I think there is, as lots of people seem to want to say nowadays, a lot of ‘misinformation’ about climate change. Scientists and media organisations who claim that ‘misinformation’ is one of the great problems of our time don’t seem to care about ‘misinformation’ on climate change. One can speculate as to why this might be.
I may be biased, but my report on climate change might be useful. I’d also be happy to provide feedback on any future drafts.
On floods: firstly, I think the per capita death rate is the best metric for assessing whether weather events themselves are getting worse. The global population has increased by 4.3 billion people since 1970 (and there is large net migration to coastal regions). So, attributing all of the increase in flood deaths to changes in weather trends is wrong. The death rate is the measure we should use. Second, the trend in per capita deaths from floods is down.
On wildfires I agree that the indirect effects look more important than the direct effects. However, one also has to consider whether there is a trend in wildfires, what it is, and to what extent it can be attributed to climate change. I think there is considerable doubt about all of these issues, as discussed by Roger Pielke here. As I noted above, the IPCC has low confidence in any trend in fire weather, i.e. the weather conditions that might contribute to wild fires.
Is there a trend in wild fires? Yes, it appears to be downward since 2003.
Canada, which was recently the subject of a lot of attention about wildfires has seen a declining/flat trend since the 1990s. Claims that climate change is driving the non-existent upward trend is presented in the Guardian, New York Times, and NPR.
Hi Dylan, thanks a lot for these thoughts I appreciate the openness to criticism a lot. As I mentioned, I think it is extremely difficult to provide a good overview of this topic in part because the literature is so vast. A draft I wrote on climate change a couple of years ago was correctly described as ‘drivel’ by a climate scientist a couple of years ago; I think any assessment of the quality of work on this topic should be forgiving especially when researchers are pushed for time. Some professional scientists think that 3-4 degrees of warming will kill billions of people due to food loss and heat stress, whereas myself and others think this is clearly wrong. I think there is, as lots of people seem to want to say nowadays, a lot of ‘misinformation’ about climate change. Scientists and media organisations who claim that ‘misinformation’ is one of the great problems of our time don’t seem to care about ‘misinformation’ on climate change. One can speculate as to why this might be.
I may be biased, but my report on climate change might be useful. I’d also be happy to provide feedback on any future drafts.
On floods: firstly, I think the per capita death rate is the best metric for assessing whether weather events themselves are getting worse. The global population has increased by 4.3 billion people since 1970 (and there is large net migration to coastal regions). So, attributing all of the increase in flood deaths to changes in weather trends is wrong. The death rate is the measure we should use. Second, the trend in per capita deaths from floods is down.
On wildfires I agree that the indirect effects look more important than the direct effects. However, one also has to consider whether there is a trend in wildfires, what it is, and to what extent it can be attributed to climate change. I think there is considerable doubt about all of these issues, as discussed by Roger Pielke here. As I noted above, the IPCC has low confidence in any trend in fire weather, i.e. the weather conditions that might contribute to wild fires.
Is there a trend in wild fires? Yes, it appears to be downward since 2003.
Canada, which was recently the subject of a lot of attention about wildfires has seen a declining/flat trend since the 1990s. Claims that climate change is driving the non-existent upward trend is presented in the Guardian, New York Times, and NPR.