The "AEI vs. AR/4" story has gotten a surprising amount of play in the mainstream press over the last few days. Briefly: last summer conservative think tank AEI sent letters to two of my colleagues asking them to participate in a "critique" of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR/4). Oh yeah, and they offered them $10,000 to do this.
My initial blog post from July can be found here. It got picked up by the mainstream press and has been widely reported on over the last few days (e.g., here and here).
This morning I received an email from AEI, asking me to post a statement about this kerfuffle, as well as a revised description of their examination of the AR/4. I posted them on my personal blog here.
Here is my critique of AEI's new proposal to critique the AR/4.
There is a strong emphasis on examining policy responses:
... the time seems propitious for a fresh round of discussion of climate policy.
...
One idea is to solicit essays in two categories. The first category would be along the lines of a blue-sky essay on "What Climate Policies Would I Implement If I Was King for a Day." The second category would be specific critiques of existing or proposed policy responses such as will appear in Working Group III or have been put forward in reports such as the Stern Review. (Such essays might take as their focus a single chapter from Working Group III, or an aspect of the Stern Review.)
This is exactly where the discussion needs to be focused. Most discussions start and end with cap-and-trade systems, and the argument is over whether it's 10 percent cut in 10 years, or 50 percent cut in 50 years, etc., etc. We need to begin thinking outside the box and come up with new and innovative ideas about what we can do to address the problem. Cap-and-trade and taxes are certainly important options, but the debate should not end there.
AEI's previous plan to critique the AR/4 had a much greater emphasis on examining the science. However, providing a review of climate science would be an utter waste of time. After all, the IPCC goes through many, many levels of review: the report is written by hundreds of climate scientists from 130 countries, and based on the peer-reviewed literature. It is then reviewed by thousands of other climate scientists, by hundreds of government agencies, and opened for public review as well. The IPCC's 2001 report then went through review by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which endorsed its findings. The conclusions of the 2001 IPCC report was also endorsed by the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and others. What is a review by AEI going to add?
Their new proposal has much less of an emphasis on science. They must know that any report that seriously questions the reality of climate change is going to be dismissed by just about everyone.
For a contribution to the climate change debate that will be taken seriously by the vast majority of those interested in the problem, I suggest AEI start its critique with:
We accept the scientific summary of climate change provided by the IPCC. Our goal it to investigate how we can and should address this issue ...
That would be a report worth reading.
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Comments
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Benny Big Eye Posted 5:00 am
08 Feb 2007
Benny Big Eye
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Andrew Dessler Posted 8:33 am
08 Feb 2007
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BobAegerter Posted 10:16 am
08 Feb 2007
Usually scientific folk submit ideaas and a budget to a committee and wait around with an acid indigestion waiting for results.
In this case they hang a sum of money out and say, "go for it." Does not seem like the "Good Old Days." With integrity and ethics it may be OK, but what about the appearance of fairness doctrine?
Bob Aegerter
Pacific Northwest
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KenGreen Posted 1:26 am
09 Feb 2007
Your posts on this insanity have been somewhat more moderate than most, but you're still missing the story entirely. Every single paragraph of the letter to North and Schroeder focused explicitly on climate policy. I'll put some emphasis on the words here, as they seem to have been hard for some people to see in the letter you posted:
The very first sentence of the letter to Schroeder and North reads: "The American Enterprise Institute is launching a major project to produce a review and policy critique of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report..." This is exactly what Nicholas Stern did - reviewed the science with scientists to find what he felt was most relevant to economics, then discuss policy. Think his people worked for free?
The next paragraph begins by saying that the purpose of the project is "to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change.
What we specifically requested of North and Schroeder in the third paragraph was a "well-supported but accessible discussion of which elements of climate modeling have demonstrated predictive value that might make them policy-relevant and which elements of climate modeling have less levels of predictive utility, and hence, less utility in developing climate policy."
We expected them to co-author the paper, and split the honorarium. $5,000 would not buy Gerry North's integrity, no more than $50,000 would.
Why Steve Schroeder gave you the letter to post (leading to an unpleasant bout of character assassination) is a complete mystery to me. We had previously co-authored papers, and he should have known I do not reject the scientifically-conservative claims of the IPCC, and never have. Steve could simply have asked who else would be involved, rather than assume we'd be taking extreme voices on board. That would have been far more honorable than setting the stage for a political attack on a former co-author and, I had thought, a collegial friend.
While I will respect Steve's privacy more than he did mine, out of a sense of fairness, I would like you to ask Steve if he did the previous work for Reason or Fraser Institute for free and post his response here, as you did our letter.
Kenneth Green
-----------------------------
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Andrew Dessler Posted 3:56 am
09 Feb 2007
Thanks for your comments. Your original letter to Steve Schroeder read to me like the preface to an attack on the scientific results of the IPCC.
Here is an example of why I thought that:As with any large-scale "consensus" process, the IPCC is susceptible to self-selection bias in its personnel, resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent, and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work of the complete Working Group reports. An independent review of the FAR will advance public deliberation about the extent of potential future climate change ...This reads to me like an old-fashioned IPCC hatchet job.
The argument that the SPM does not represent the full reports is an old canard that was settled by the 2001 NAS report. The statement that the IPCC is resistant to criticism is simply unfounded, again suggesting a hatchet job. Finally, the IPCC reports are self-selecting, in the sense that the authors are selected by their expertise in climate science. There is no evidence that the views of the IPCC represent the views of only part of the relevant expert community.
While I do not know what you were intending, and your letter does talk about policy critiques in place, there was ample ambiguity in the letter to interpret it as the beginning of yet another assassination attempt on the IPCC. I'm extremely happy to hear that that's not correct.
As far as Steve Schroeder goes, don't be too hard on him. I can honestly say that neither of us had any idea this would go where it did. It was one of the first entries on my blog, and when I wrote it I wasn't even sure anyone read my blog. I'm quite certain I would handle this differently now.
Regards.
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EliRabett Posted 1:45 am
10 Feb 2007
Further, in the following interview Green states that the letter was sent to mostly policy people and economists. As you have shown there were two letters. Note that the $10K was UNCONDITIONALLY offered to Schroeder and North, but the offer in the second letter is UP TO $10K, e.g. conditional on AEI's approval. It is not clear to me that anyone north of Fred Singer would bite on this, and even he would negotiate the fee first.
The next step for this story is to figure out whom the second letter was sent to. Since Tim Ball is well known to Green I'll toss him and Richard Tol into the pot. Any other guesses?
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