Three climate scientists accessed the pages Nature TO I argue that objectivity in climate science is problematicbecause it hinders their political support, which they claim is too important to deny. Therefore, the values ​​of objectivity in scientific research, the authors argue, should be reconsidered.

“The public has watched as national and sub-national governments have declared climate emergencies while continuing to grant new permits for fossil fuel extraction, seemingly ignoring increasingly urgent scientific messages that this is blocking the world from exceeding 1.5°C of heating. above pre-industrial levels by 2030, if not sooner,” the researchers explain.

While researchers equate the refusal to end fossil fuel production with ignoring science, energy experts argue that these policies will result in enormous economic problems and widespread poverty. The authors of Nature Opinions, seemingly unaware or unconcerned about the impact of such policies, argue that it is unfair to expect climate scientists not to become emotional when governments do not adopt these policies.

“Scientists who express their feelings and concerns about climate change are often not encouraged by their peers and instead are expected to continue without acknowledging or communicating the continued inadequacy of the actions needed to ensure a viable and sustainable future “, say the authors.

Of in almost every measure — inclusive life expectancy, WEALTHand deaths from natural disasters — the human race is doing better than ever. Despite this fact, the authors seem to believe that their fears are based on indisputable facts.

Climate advocacy versus direct reporting

Dr. Matt Wielicki, a former assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama, doubted the authors’ claim that their colleagues oppose their climate advocacy. Wielicki left academia largely because, he says, his views that contradict the climate crisis narrative have been met with hostility from the university administration. Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, who also casts doubt on what she calls “climate hysteria,” tells a similar story about her choice to leave academia and pursue a career in the private sector.

“I’ve never seen anyone lose a position or have an online pile-on for being active on climate. But I have seen this happen with many distinguished scientists, where they have only the simplest questions. I think that’s the classic projection,” Wielicki said Just the news.

Wielicki said he was shocked when he read Nature piece. He said it’s okay for researchers to have feelings. It is a part of being human. But keeping feelings separate from research is fundamental to the fundamental principles of science, he said. This is how research is kept free of bias, and during peer review, bias is one of the things reviewers look for.

“The Nature the article essentially tells scientists that data is no longer important. We know the answer now. Now it evokes emotion,” Wielicki said.

Conflicts of interest

Blurring the line between climate research and policy advocacy is becoming more common and raising concerns among other researchers. Recently, very influential and prestigious US National Academy of Sciences created a committee to examine and further research the ‘science of attribution’.

The science of attribution is used to determine how much greenhouse gas emissions contributed to certain weather events. His methodologies were developed to assist processes against the big emitters, primarily the oil companies. I am dozens of these processes filed by anti-fossil fuel groups and local governments, which critics say are aimed at pushing an energy transition through the courts, as opposed to legislatures where policymakers should face voters.

NAS committee sponsors include The Bezos Earth Fund and Robert Litterman, who serves on the board of Climate Central, a climate change advocacy group that founded Attribution of world weather (WWA). WWA’s goal is to connect climate change to individual weather events in supporting climate processes. Both the WWA and the committee are funded by The Bezos Earth Fund.

On him “The honest broker” Substack, Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., retired professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, points out that committee members include Delta Merner, who leads USC Science Center for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Its mission is also to help promote climate litigation.

Pielke writes that the judiciary has a pressing need for expertise, and there is nothing wrong with advocacy groups organizing experts or creating scientific research to support litigation. However, he argues, it is not appropriate for such lawyers to serve on a NAS study committee that evaluates and legitimizes the information they produce in support of litigation involving these lawyers.

“The failures of scientific integrity here are profound, obvious, and fully publicized,” Pielke writes.

Loss of confidence

Scientists who defend their emotional research seem to think there is no legitimate dispute about their fears, but other scientists disagree.

Its authors Nature op-ed said The Guardian that they were “taunted and gassed” for speaking out about their fears. They claimed that “some scientists” ridiculed them for attending a Tutor survey of climate scientists talking about them mental health problemssuch as depression, which I attribute to climate change. They do not provide details about who these scientists are, what they were told, or how these criticisms were communicated. But they defend their “strong emotions” as “vital” to their climate change research.

One of the Nature the authors of the opinion pieces, Dr. Lisa Schipper of the University of Bonn, stated for Tutor that because of the “sad destruction of the planet” she does not have “the choice now to be unemotional about climate change research”.

Among the things that scare her, she said, are deaths from heat waves, people left homeless by floods and falling polar bear populations. As Pielke pointed out in a 2022 Item substackThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a consortium of the world’s leading climate scientists, is clear that it does not trust general trends in flooding. This also means, Pielke explains, that the IPCC does not have confidence that the frequency or magnitude of flood events can be attributed to climate change. Also, normalized US flood damage as a share of GDP has declined significantly since 1940.

Heatwave deaths are on the rise and there are reasons for concern. However, as temperatures rise, fewer people die from cold events, which are a much greater killer than heat.

“Normalizing Bias”

Schipper’s claim that polar bear populations are declining is not supported by the data. According to one 2021 Status Report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Species Survival Commission’s Polar Bear Specialist Group, polar bear populations have increased by up to 40% since 1960. A 2018 study estimates that polar bear populations have nearly quadrupled since 1950.

On him “Irrational fear” Substack, Wielicki argues that the “normalization of bias” in science, as promoted in Nature and Tutor articles, erodes public confidence in science.

“This shift away from objectivity in climate science, encouraged by major journals, could destroy public trust in the scientific establishment altogether. It is time to admit that what is happening here is not science; it is faith. Climate science becomes a doctrine, where questioning is taboo and faith-based statements replace evidence-based inquiry. And when we let science become faith, we abandon everything that has made it a force for human progress. This is not only dangerous to science; it is dangerous for society,” Wielicki wrote.