Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) has long been touted as a cornerstone of the federal government’s climate agenda, a hefty tome meant to guide policy and inform the public about the perils of a warming world. But according to Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute, the NCA is less a beacon of scientific rigor and more a megaphone for partisan alarmism.
The U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) has long been touted as a cornerstone of the federal government’s climate agenda, a hefty tome meant to guide policy and inform the public about the perils of a warming world. But according to Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute, the NCA is less a beacon of scientific rigor and more a megaphone for partisan alarmism. In a recent article for The Breakthrough Journal (Spring 2024, No. 20), Brown lays out five practical recommendations to overhaul the NCA, aiming to make it a tool for genuine understanding rather than a cudgel for political mobilization. For our readers, his critique hits familiar notes—exposing the biases and hype baked into the climate establishment’s flagship report—while offering a path toward something more credible.
Brown’s starting point is a simple truth: the NCA, as it stands, is a one-sided affair. Released every few years under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, it’s a document that reflects the priorities of whoever’s in power—lately, that’s been Democrats with a taste for apocalyptic rhetoric. But with a new administration on the horizon and a growing chorus of skeptics questioning the climate orthodoxy, Brown’s ideas couldn’t come at a better time. Here’s a rundown of his five fixes, and why they matter to anyone tired of being fed a steady diet of climate doom.
1. Include Exposure and Vulnerability, Not Just Physical Hazards
The NCA loves to spotlight “climate hazards”—floods, heatwaves, wildfires—as if they’re solely the spawn of rising CO2 levels. Brown calls this out as myopic. A real assessment of risk doesn’t just tally up weather events; it factors in exposure (how many people or assets are in harm’s way) and vulnerability (how well they can cope). Think about it: a hurricane hitting a sparsely populated coast in 1900 isn’t the same as one slamming into Miami today. Population growth, urban sprawl, and shoddy infrastructure often drive disaster costs far more than a few degrees of warming. By ignoring these, the NCA inflates climate’s role and dodges the messy reality of human decisions.
For skeptics, this is a no-brainer—stop blaming the atmosphere for bad zoning laws.
2. Analyze Total Risk, Not Just “Additional” Risk from Climate Change
Here’s where the NCA’s tunnel vision gets absurd. It fixates on the “additional” risk tacked on by climate change, as if the baseline risk from nature’s tantrums doesn’t matter. Brown gives an example: if heat-related deaths are dropping overall (thanks to air conditioning and better healthcare), but climate change nudges them up slightly, the NCA screams about the uptick while burying the bigger story of progress. This cherry-picking fuels the narrative that every problem is a climate problem, even when the data says otherwise. Readers here know the game—hype the delta, hide the trend. Brown wants the NCA to show the full picture: total risk, not just the climate boogeyman.
3. Address Publication Bias Head-On
The NCA leans heavily on peer-reviewed studies, which sounds great until you realize the academic machine churns out papers skewed toward dramatic findings. Brown points to “publication bias”—the tendency for journals to favor studies showing big, scary climate impacts over those finding little or nothing. A paper saying “warming might not hurt corn yields” doesn’t get the same love as one predicting famines. This distorts the NCA’s conclusions, making climate change look like a relentless juggernaut. Brown’s fix? Force the NCA to wrestle with this bias explicitly—maybe even seek out the ignored studies. For those of us who’ve long suspected the science is cooked to fit the narrative, this is a welcome jab at the ivory tower.
4. Focus on Description, Not Mobilization
The NCA isn’t shy about its agenda—it’s less a report and more a call to arms, dripping with urgency to “act now” on emissions. Brown argues this activist slant undermines its credibility. Science should describe what is, not preach what we ought to do. When the NCA doubles as a policy cheerleader, it alienates half the country—especially those who see climate action as a Trojan horse for bigger government or economic upheaval. Brown wants it to stick to facts: what’s happening, how certain are we, and what’s the range of outcomes? No rallying cries, no guilt trips. It’s a refreshing nod to objectivity in a debate drowning in propaganda.
5. Establish a “Red Team” Review Process
Perhaps Brown’s boldest idea is a “red team” review—a formal challenge to the NCA’s conclusions by an independent group of experts. Think of it as a scientific audit, poking holes in assumptions and testing the robustness of claims. The climate establishment hates this concept (remember the backlash to Scott Pruitt’s EPA proposal?), but it’s hard to argue against if you value transparency. A red team could expose weak spots—like overhyped models or dodgy attribution—and force the NCA to justify itself. For skeptics, this is the holy grail: a chance to break the echo chamber and let dissenting voices breathe.
Why It Matters
Brown’s reforms aren’t about doubting climate change, as he’s a believer, perhaps a lukewarmer, but about making the NCA a document both sides can trust. Right now, it’s a partisan football—kicked around by progressives when they’re in charge, ignored or dismantled by conservatives when the pendulum swings. With Trump back in the White House and Doge eyeing the budget axe, the NCA’s future is shaky. Brown’s vision might save it from irrelevance or deletion by grounding it in reality over ideology.
This critique aligns with what we’ve said for years: the climate narrative is oversold, oversimplified, and over politicized. Brown’s not tossing the NCA out—he’s trying to salvage it from its own excesses. Whether the climate elite will listen is another story. They’ve got a lot invested in the doom train—careers, grants, moral superiority. But if the NCA keeps peddling half-truths, it’ll only deepen the divide between the alarmists and the rest of us who just want straight answers.
Check out Brown’s full piece at The Breakthrough Institute here. It’s a rare case of a climate insider calling out his own side’s nonsense.
The climate establishment are going to great lengths to blame the Los Angeles fires on global warming.
One attempt has already bitten the dust, with claims of increasing winter droughts contradicted by the real world data.
So another team of so-called scientists have come up with an even more ridiculous idea – that it is now both to wet and too dry in California.
The BBC report:
Climate change has made the grasses and shrubs that are fuelling the Los Angeles fires more vulnerable to burning, scientists say.
Rapid swings between dry and wet conditions in the region in recent years have created a massive amount of tinder-dry vegetation that is ready to ignite.
Decades of drought in California were followed by extremely heavy rainfall for two years in 2022 and 2023, but that then flipped again to very dry conditions in the autumn and winter of 2024.
“Scientists” say in a new study, external that climate change has boosted what they call these “whiplash” conditions globally by 31-66% since the middle of the 20th Century.
“This whiplash sequence in California has increased fire risk twofold,” said lead author Daniel Swain from UCLA.
“First, by greatly increasing the growth of flammable grass and brush in the months leading up to fire season, and then by drying it out to exceptionally high levels with the extreme dryness and warmth that followed.”
Once again though the actual data shows the new study to be just as fake as the previous one. Most of California’s rain comes in the winter half, October to March; the last two years have been wetter than average, but no more so than many other years on record:
The same applies to the South Coast Drainage Division, which includes Los Angeles:
Neither is there any evidence of bigger swings from year to year.
Patrick Brown of the Breakthrough Institute has written a full scientific rebuttal here, which demolishes this latest fake science.
This is his summary:
Summary
So, let’s recap. At the annual timescale that is most relevant to the Los Angeles fires…
Figure 1: There is no clear increase in overall whiplash occurrence or wet-to-dry whiplash occurrence in Los Angeles in the premiere observational dataset (ERA5) using data directly from Swain et al. (2025).
Figure 2: There is no clear increase in overall whiplash occurrence or wet-to-dry whiplash occurrence over southern California in the premiere observational dataset (ERA5) using data directly from Swain et al. (2025).
Figure 3: There is a long-term decrease in whiplash events globally over land (where it matters) in the premiere observational dataset (ERA5) using data directly from Swain et al. (2025).
Figure 5: There is no increase in the variability (standard deviation) of annual SPEI either for all months or centered on January) in the Los Angeles grid point using the pre-existing standard SPEI dataset.
Figure 6: There has been a decrease in the variability (standard deviation) of SPEI over global land since the 1980s using the pre-existing standard SPEI dataset.
Figure 7: There is no agreement on the direction of change (if any) in annual precipitation variability (standard deviation) over the Los Angeles area across eight different precipitation datasets.
Figures 8 and 9: There is no agreement on the direction of change (if any) in annual precipitation variability (standard deviation) globally across eight different precipitation datasets.
While “climate whiplash events” may be increasing in frequency under most of the very specific, selected definitions used and datasets investigated in Swain et al. (2025), the general idea that annual precipitation (or more generally, the water cycle, which includes evaporation) is becoming dramatically more variable is not supported when a broader set of datasets and definitions are used.
Would a reader of Swain et al. (2025), or especially its coverage, have any idea about the weakness of its broader conclusions or the lack of robustness of its results to different definitions and datasets? Almost certainly not, and I contend that this is a major problem for public understanding and trust in climate science.
Why don’t we see a robust increase in water cycle variability given the strong theory underpinning “wet gets wetter, dry gets drier”? For one thing, the theoretical size of the effect is known to be quite small relative to natural, unforced variability, making it inherently difficult to detect. For example, we see in Figure 7 above that year-to-year rainfall in Los Angeles naturally varies by as much as 300%, yet the signal we are looking for is one to two orders of magnitude less than this. It is also apparently the case that observational uncertainty is larger than the signal (or there would not be such disagreement between datasets). Physically, perhaps increasing mean precipitation is offsetting the increase in calculated evaporation in the SPEI index, reducing its variability. Maybe reduced temperature variability (via arctic amplification) is reducing calculated evaporation variability.
I don’t know the full answer, but these would be great research questions to identify and outline in a Nature review like Swain et al. (2025). Unfortunately, Swain et al. (2025) missed this opportunity because the paper seemed so focused on assembling evidence in favor of increasing water cycle variability that contradictory evidence was never presented or seriously grappled with.
My main discomfort with Swain et al. (2025) and its rollout is that it appears that the primary goal was to create and disseminate the “climate whiplash” meme rather than conduct a truly rigorous evaluation of the evidence, including countervailing evidence. Ultimately, this makes the research a much larger advance in marketing than an advance in science.
Patrick Brown has crafted an insightful and balanced analysis of the Los Angeles wildfires, breaking down the interplay of factors like meteorology, fuel conditions, and human activity. His post challenges the dominant narratives that overemphasize climate change as the sole culprit, offering a nuanced and data-driven perspective. With clear-eyed attention to practical solutions—like home hardening, fuel management, and ignition prevention—Brown provides a roadmap for mitigating fire risks without resorting to alarmist or impractical global policies. It’s a refreshing, must-read take on an issue too often clouded by ideology.
Patrick Brown has crafted an insightful and balanced analysis of the Los Angeles wildfires, breaking down the interplay of factors like meteorology, fuel conditions, and human activity. His post challenges the dominant narratives that overemphasize climate change as the sole culprit, offering a nuanced and data-driven perspective. With clear-eyed attention to practical solutions—like home hardening, fuel management, and ignition prevention—Brown provides a roadmap for mitigating fire risks without resorting to alarmist or impractical global policies. It’s a refreshing, must-read take on an issue too often clouded by ideology. The following is a section by section commentary on his post.
The article begins by situating the reader in the context of ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles, marked by “tragic loss of life and property.” This straightforward acknowledgment underscores the gravity of the situation, setting up the key questions: What drives these events, and how can we mitigate their impact? The framing of this inquiry is critical—it moves beyond simplistic explanations, paving the way for a nuanced exploration.
The article wastes no time highlighting the triad of wildfire factors: meteorology, fuel conditions, and ignition sources. By doing so, it establishes a holistic foundation. This is a welcome break from the overemphasis on climate change often seen in mainstream discussions.
Meteorological Factors: The Role of Santa Ana Winds
One of the strongest sections is the discussion of the Santa Ana winds, described as a “particularly intense” phenomenon with gusts exceeding 80 mph. The article stresses that these winds are a natural part of the Los Angeles climate, with “little evidence that climate change will make them worse.” In fact, it cites research predicting that climate change could reduce their intensity and frequency.
This point is critical because it disrupts the often-repeated narrative that climate change amplifies every aspect of wildfire behavior. The inclusion of data from a Geophysical Research Letters study supports this assertion, which projects a decrease in Santa Ana wind activity as climate patterns shift. This adds credibility and moves the discussion from speculation to evidence-based conclusions.
The article then addresses fuel conditions, noting that vegetation in the region is “very dry” due to a lack of rainfall. However, it challenges the assumption that climate change is the primary driver of this dryness, citing long-term precipitation data showing no clear trend attributable to climate change (page 3). Instead, it emphasizes that Southern California’s rainfall variability is a long-standing feature of the region.
The article also references the Local Climate Change Snapshot tool, which predicts longer dry spells in some scenarios but acknowledges the region’s inherent variability. The balance here is notable—it doesn’t deny potential climate impacts but carefully refrains from overstating them.
Fire Intensity and Warming: A Complex Relationship
The discussion of warming’s impact on fire intensity is both cautious and data-driven. While the article concedes that the LA area is “about 3°C warmer” than pre-industrial levels and that this warming can “dry fuels,” it tempers this with modeling results. Specifically, it shows that the predicted increase in wildfire intensity due to warming (7.2% by mid-century) is modest and would still be outweighed by effective fuel treatments (page 5).
This section also critiques the prevailing focus on emissions reductions as a panacea, noting that even aggressive mitigation scenarios only reduce the intensity increase slightly—from 7.2% to 5.5%. This challenges the cost-benefit logic of current climate policies while emphasizing the importance of localized interventions.
Human Ignitions: The Often-Ignored Catalyst
A standout aspect of the article is its focus on human ignitions, which it rightly identifies as a major driver of fire outbreaks. From sparks caused by equipment to utility-caused fires, the article provides a thorough catalog of ignition sources. Importantly, it discusses practical measures such as public awareness campaigns, vegetation management near power lines, and utility upgrades like burying power lines or de-energizing systems during high-risk periods.
This section is refreshing for its pragmatism. While global-scale climate policies dominate headlines, simple steps to reduce human ignitions could have an immediate, measurable impact.
Mitigation Strategies: A Balanced Perspective
The article’s mitigation proposals are among its strongest elements. It champions “home hardening”—using fire-resistant materials and creating defensible space around properties—as a proven method for reducing structural losses during wildfires. It also highlights the synergistic benefits of widespread adoption within communities, showing how individual actions can amplify collective resilience.
In addressing firefighting resources, the article emphasizes the need for well-funded, well-equipped personnel and infrastructure. This practical focus contrasts sharply with the abstract, long-term goals of many climate policies, demonstrating a clear preference for actionable solutions over ideological posturing.
Fuel Treatment: A Realistic Solution
Returning to fuel conditions, the article makes a compelling case for mechanical brush removal and prescribed burns. It cites specific examples, such as the protective effect of the Franklin Fire footprint on Malibu, to illustrate the effectiveness of such treatments. Moreover, it quantifies their potential benefits, showing that fuel reduction could offset warming-driven increases in wildfire danger by as much as 15%.
The acknowledgment of trade-offs—such as ecosystem impacts—is equally commendable. This balanced approach lends credibility and avoids the one-sidedness that often plagues environmental debates.
Climate Change: An Overstated Influence?
The article closes by synthesizing its findings, arguing that while climate change may “contribute” to fire danger, it is far from the dominant factor. By framing climate change as one variable among many, it avoids the hyperbolic claims that undermine public trust in environmental science.
The conclusion also critiques the media’s tendency to give “primary billing” to climate change, citing the relatively modest impact of emissions reductions on wildfire intensity. This final point underscores the need for a more nuanced discourse—one that prioritizes evidence over ideology.
Overall, climate change may be contributing to the fire danger of this event, but only if the warming/drying influence outweighs the potential reduction in Santa Ana winds. To me, that means climate change does not deserve primary billing (e.g., https://x.com/dwallacewells/status/1877030739344081343) Fire suppression and the long-term build-up of fuels are not as much of an issue in the Southern California brush environment as they are in the Northern CA Forests, but our machine-learning wildfire intensity model indicates that fuel treatment would still reduce danger substantially. Other than that, the main way these types of events can be mitigated in the future is via reduced human ignitions, potentially increased firefighting resources, and enhanced “home hardening” measures within fire-prone communities.
This article exemplifies the kind of balanced, evidence-based analysis that is sorely needed in discussions about wildfires and climate policy. By addressing meteorology, fuel conditions, human activity, and mitigation strategies in equal measure, it avoids the reductive narratives that dominate much of the debate.
Its practical recommendations—home hardening, fuel treatments, ignition prevention—offer a clear roadmap for reducing wildfire risks without resorting to costly and ineffectual global policies. In doing so, it shifts the focus from abstract climate goals to tangible local solutions, where progress can actually be measured.
For policymakers, the message is clear: stop chasing global unicorns and start addressing the specific, solvable problems in your own backyard.
Spinning climate data to fit a policy agenda undermines public faith in science.
Public trust in many mainstream publications continues to consistently decline. Part of the reason for this seems to be that media outlets cater more and more to the ideological tastes of specific groups, sacrificing their credibility to a wider audience in the process. I have criticized the New York Times, for example, for exaggerating the impacts of climate change, but this type of criticism may be in vain if they are covering climate exactly how their audience wants them to.
It is in a media environment like this, however, that we desperately need reputable sources of scientific information. Sources that will avoid the same temptation to cater to their audiences and prioritize dispassionate reporting of facts instead.
Nature magazine has a reputation as one of the most reliable sources of information on earth. Their publication has a section of peer-reviewed articles as well as softer sections dedicated to science news and the like. I have criticized the landscape surrounding high-impact peer-reviewed scientific studies published in places like Nature, but I won’t elaborate on that here. Here, I want to bring attention to Nature’s science news section. Sadly, this section now appears to be engaged in similar levels of spin on climate information as outlets like The New York Times.
Two recent articles serve to illustrate the point.
Surge in extreme forest fires fuels global emissions. Climate change and human activities have led to more frequent and intense forest blazes over the past two decades.
Climate change is also a health crisis—these graphics explain why…Rising temperatures increase the spread of infectious diseases, claim lives, and drive food insecurity.
Between these two news articles, we have four claims: one on wildfires, one on infectious disease, one on deaths, and one on food security. Let’s scrutinize each claim one by one. Are wildfires and their carbon emissions increasing?
The title and subtitle of the first article conveys the impression that global wildfire activity is increasing, which in turn increases CO2 emissions from wildfires. This idea is also communicated several times in the text of the article (emphasis added):
“Global forest fires emitted 33.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2001 and 2022…Driving the emissions spike was the growing frequency of extreme forest-fire events.”
“Xu and her colleagues found that the growth in emissions had been mostly fuelled by an uptick in infernos on the edge of rainforests between latitudes of 5 and 20º S and in boreal forests above 45º N.”
“The increased numbers of forest fires was partially driven by the frequent heatwaves and droughts caused by climate change”
The article also goes on to raise the concern of a self-reinforcing feedback loop:“In turn, the CO2 emitted by forest fires contributes to global warming, creating a feedback loop between the two.”
There are, of course, many positive and negative feedback loops in the climate system (i.e., responses to warming that either amplify or counteract the initial warming). The relative sizes of these feedback loops are systematically documented in synthesis reports like those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to the IPCC, the CO2 feedback associated with fires is very small relative to other feedbacks. To put it in perspective, it is only about three percent as large as the water vapor feedback (as the atmosphere warms, it can “hold” more water vapor, which is a greenhouse gas, that further enhances warming). Thus, a self-perpetuating cycle of warming leading to more fires and more CO2 emissions is not exactly at the top of our list of concerns.
Second, and more importantly, despite what is communicated in the article, global CO2 emissions from wildfires are not actually increasing!
The Nature article covers a recent non-peer-reviewed report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences that contains one figure on changes in wildfire CO2 emissions over time (with emissions separated by region):
This figure does not indicate an increase in global emissions over the study period (2001-2022).
Independently, the most well-known estimate of CO2 emissions from wildfires comes from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS). This estimate shows a decrease in global wildfire carbon emissions over its record (dating back to 2003):
This reduction in carbon emissions is also in line with a long–term observed decrease in the annual amount of global land area burned by wildfires:
Since all these numbers seem to contradict what is communicated in the Nature article, I emailed the author to get some clarification. She told me that:
“Based on my interview with Xu Wenru, a co-author (of the Chinese Academy of Sciences report), extreme forest fires became more frequent over the past 22 years in areas prone to forest fires (on the edge of rainforests between 5 and 20º S and in boreal forests above 45º N), and their CO2 emissions increased rapidly.”
But this amounts to saying that CO2 emissions from wildfires are increasing…where CO2 emissions from wildfires are increasing. And it completely leaves out the important context that global CO2 emissions from wildfires are decreasing.
And before you even think about it, remember that Dr Brown was referring to a failure to quantify causation, and so pointing to papers that just mention, consider or discuss non-climatic factors will not count. The quantification is essential because only then will you have a measured basis upon which to formulate a correctly prioritised risk mitigation.
I had the idea this morning that it would be a good thing to watch Dr Ken Rice being interviewed on a podcast in which he shares his wisdom regarding the Patrick Brown affair. The podcast runs to the best part of an hour and so my decision had the potential of ruining a Sunday morning. Fortunately, I had the good sense to bail out at the point when Dr Rice and his interviewer started to discuss the evidence for there being any editorial bias regarding climate change attribution papers. Despite Dr Rice’s promise to steelman, it seemed to me quite obvious that he was actually strawmanning. How is it, asks Dr Rice, that Dr Brown can claim bias on the basis of just one paper (with no more than an allusion to a single other paper that got rejected)? Absolutely, agreed his interviewer. Surely you would need to run some sort of extended, controlled experiment. Snorting and sniggering throughout, like Beavis and Butthead, the two professors could not hide their disdain for the flimsy evidence that Dr Brown was deemed to be offering.
Well let me see if I can help Dr Rice out. What Dr Brown is asserting is that the attribution papers that get published invariably control for non-climatic factors in order to isolate the strength of climatic causation (see, for example, everything that Friederike Otto has published). This is all very well, of course, but to complete the causal analysis one should also control for the climatic in order to isolate the strength of the non-climatic causations. Only then can you make meaningful comparisons.
So there is no need to run an experiment, Dr Rice, and no need to just take Dr Brown’s word for it. Just survey the published literature (you might want to start with Nature) and count up the number of published studies that control for the non-climatic and then do the same regarding the climatic. If the papers are about equal in number then you can reject Brown’s allegations. If controlling for the non-climatic is prevalent then an explanation for such an imbalance will be required. Simply saying that it reflects the relative importance of the climatic factors would be begging the question.
And before you even think about it, remember that Dr Brown was referring to a failure to quantify causation, and so pointing to papers that just mention, consider or discuss non-climatic factors will not count. The quantification is essential because only then will you have a measured basis upon which to formulate a correctly prioritised risk mitigation.
Finally, once you have performed the exercise, write it up in a paper and get Nature to publish it.
It is a long-established principle of scientific enquiry that if you want to understand the structure of something, then just give it a bang and see how it rattles. It is a technique that crops up in a number of different guises from seismography and spectrography to magnetic resonance imaging; just excite something and stand back and enjoy the physics.
A climate scientist describes how the consensus game works
It is a long-established principle of scientific enquiry that if you want to understand the structure of something, then just give it a bang and see how it rattles. It is a technique that crops up in a number of different guises from seismography and spectrography to magnetic resonance imaging; just excite something and stand back and enjoy the physics. But the same technique doesn’t have to be restricted to physical enquiry. Rattle any cage and the noises given off will tell you an awful lot about what you are dealing with. Take, for example, the recent cage-rattling of climate scientist Patrick T. Brown, formerly of John Hopkins University. Everything was just calypso and candy until he came along and caused a breach of the peace by suggesting in an article in The Free Press that journals such as Nature and Science were biased towards articles that are focussed upon a particular narrative. The accusations he was making suggested a problem with the structure, but it was actually the howling response that betrayed the structure of the problem.
The essence of Brown’s allegation is actually quite simple: Climate scientists are self-censoring particular details of their research because they anticipate that otherwise they may find difficulty in getting their studies published in the prestigious journals. In his particular case, Brown had deliberately omitted the key fact that 80% of wildfires were started by humans; an omission that facilitates the preferred narrative that wildfires are yet another indication that climate change risk is not just a concern for the future, but also one which is having a serious impact today. In his own words:
I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell. This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society. To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
Readers of Cliscep will recognise this as a key concern of the sceptic. A great deal of trust is placed in scientific consensus, to the extent that its very existence substitutes for evidence. However, the way that communities work, scientific or otherwise, means that consensus can be a poor proxy for wisdom. In practice, scientists do not blindly follow where the evidence takes them. They undertake their journey of discovery within the constraints that society creates for them, whether that takes the form of peer pressure, financial inducement and support or outright censorship. And in many instances, the scientists are enthusiastic game players, since they will often sense the social value and importance of some narratives in preference to others. But the resulting focus can often be to the detriment of a fuller understanding. This particularly matters when deciding upon the best way of tackling a problem. For example, as Brown points out, a preoccupation with the climate change narrative and the push to reduce CO2 output in order to reduce fire risk may cause people to overlook the fact that the recent trend in wildfires could be entirely reversed by re-introducing sound forest management and addressing the social problems behind an epidemic of arsonists.
In any other field, Brown’s observations would be met with mild bemusement. There would be an admission that science operates within constraints, but there may be a counter-argument offered to the effect that any suggestion this leads to a damaging distortion is to exaggerate the extent of the problem. The editor of the journal concerned would probably respond with something along the lines of, ‘We are disappointed that we may be giving certain scientists the impression that we gatekeep narratives, and we are only too happy to reassure such individuals that all avenues of relevant study shall be considered for publication without prejudice. Indeed, promoting a broader knowledge for society lies at the very heart of our ethos’.
Whether true or not, the very tone of the response would reflect how relaxed the scientific community was in seeing their very human and unremarkable frailty highlighted. But no, this is not any other field, this is climate science we are dealing with here. And so this is what was actually said by Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor of Nature:
The only thing in Patrick Brown’s statements about the editorial processes in scholarly journals that we agree on is that science should not work through the efforts by which he published this [study]. We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions; certainly, they reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal.
Skipper added that Nature has an ‘expectation’ that researchers use the most appropriate data, methods and results:
When researchers do not do so, it goes against the interests of both fellow researchers and the research field as a whole. To deliberately not do so is, at best, highly irresponsible. Researchers have a responsibility for their research which they must take seriously.
Or to put it succinctly, she has come out all guns blazing with an accusation of scientific malpractice and a not-so-veiled threat that Nature will not be accepting any further work with Brown’s name on it. It is a gross over-reaction that speaks volumes. A rattled cage wouldn’t be making so much noise if its structure had the required integrity.
To start with, Brown had only talked about self-censoring regarding the scope of work. That is every scientist’s prerogative. Nowhere did he claim not to have used the most appropriate data, methods and results – that’s Skipper’s deliberate misrepresentation of the issues. He didn’t do anything that invalidated his results, as far as they went.
Secondly, she talks of work that did not meet the standards ‘we set for our journal’. This is very odd, because the study concerned had already been happily accepted by the journal despite the fact that the authors politely declined a peer reviewer’s suggestion that they widen its scope. It seems this insistence on maintaining the original scope was acceptable, and only became ‘poor research practice’ and ‘highly irresponsible’ after Brown had said his piece to the press. The implication is that his declared motives for wishing to restrict the scope were indicative of ‘poor research practice’. This is nonsense.
Thirdly, Skipper seems to have completely overlooked the fact that Brown spoke of not trying to ‘quantify key aspects other than climate change’. This is actually a key strategy that every climate scientist religiously abides by. If it is ‘poor research practice’ and ‘highly irresponsible’, then the whole climate science community is guilty as charged. To understand why this is the case, one has to reflect upon the nature of causal analysis and the policy position that climate scientists have taken. The matter is discussed in a paper partly co-written by Judea Pearl, the father of modern-day causal inference, and Friederike Otto, the public face of modern-day extreme weather attribution studies. In that paper a contrast is made between the probability of necessity (PN) and the probability of sufficiency (PS). PN is equated to the concept of culpability (the higher the PN, the higher the supposed levels of guilt). PN also happens to be the facet of causality that extreme weather event attributions are designed to calculate. Such studies are therefore focussed upon the extent to which blame can be attributed to AGW. What they can’t address is how such levels of culpability compare to other factors that lie outside the scope of the climate models. Consequently, even when such factors are mentioned, you rarely see them quantified and encapsulated in a full causal statement covering both PN and PS. This is precisely what Brown has accused the climate science community of doing. And, as it happens, that is precisely what that community sets out to do. The only issue seems to be the extent to which this is achieved through principled self-censorship rather than through a self-censorship that is running scared of editorial favouritism. There may be a bit of both, but in Brown’s experience, there is plenty of the latter:
When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula I outlined here, my papers were promptly rejected out of hand by the editors of high-profile journals without even going to peer review.
Every time Otto publishes an attribution study that talks of the impossibility of something happening without climate change, she is referring only to a probability of necessity and in so doing chooses a deliberately narrow scope that fails to cover the probabilities of sufficiency and fails to ‘quantify key aspects other than climate change’. But is Skipper stepping forward to accuse her of ‘poor research practice’ or being ‘highly irresponsible’? Is Otto’s research failing to meet the standards of Skipper’s journal? Of course not. So what is the difference between Otto and Brown? As far as I can see, the difference is simply that Otto is keeping her mouth shut, because she knows that if she were ever to make this common practice of self-censorship public (and particularly if she were to point out its ramifications, as did Brown) then the self-protective mechanisms of the culture that such disclosures threaten would kick into place and suddenly the once golden girl of extreme weather attribution would become a pariah and a disgrace to science. Professor Otto may be many things, but foolhardy she is not.
Finally, it should not have escaped Skipper’s attention that Brown did not restrict his concerns to matters of editorial bias in journals. If anything, it is the bias shown by the media in reporting upon climate change that causes the most damage. In fact, his article leads with:
If you’ve been reading any news about wildfires this summer—from Canada to Europe to Maui—you will surely get the impression that they are mostly the result of climate change.
He goes on to provide examples of such reporting before adding:
I am a climate scientist. And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus. So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.
So Brown is making an important point about narrative and the need to keep it simple and focused. Again, this is a point that has been made on this blog, both here and here. It is very telling that a climate scientist cannot make the same point without generating so much noise and heat.
I am not quite sure what motivated Brown to say what he did. From where I am stood, it just looks like an act of breathtaking honesty and common sense. He said what needed to be said, but he must surely have known that his profession would immediately throw him under the bus and seek to reverse all previous plaudits bestowed upon him. As a consequence, he used to be a much-respected member of the scientific community, but now he’s just a guy they used to know. It’s the same old cultural kickback; if someone criticises the culture, the culture protects itself by vilifying the critic. It’s a defamation that is only to be expected from a system that protects itself through social sanction. You can’t accuse such a system of censorial behaviour without expecting it to be censorious in return. Society, (and the scientific community that acts on its behalf) seems to have settled upon an orthodoxy that drives and frames our courses of enquiry. It also demands a simple narrative both within the scientific journals and, more importantly, in the publications charged with reporting to the public.
I will be following this news item in the coming weeks since I fear cancellation may be around the corner. Dr Ken Rice of ATTP fame has already declared his position:
Given that there can be preferred narratives within scientific communities, it is always good for there to be people who are regarded as credible and who push back against them. Even if you don’t agree with them, they can still present views that are worth thinking about. In my view, Patrick used to be one of those people.
It can be of little comfort to Patrick T. Brown that Dr Ken Rice’s views of him carry next to no weight.
Footnote
If you have not already done so, you are advised to read Professor Brown’s article in full. I could have written several posts on the many important issues it raises.
Much reporting of the wildfires in Maui has said climate change contributed to the disaster by contributing to conditions that helped the fires to spark and spread quickly.
The fires, which killed at least 115 people, are believed to have been started by a downed electricity line, but observers have said rising temperatures caused extremely dry conditions on the Hawaiian island.
The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP)
Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, claimed the world’s leading academic journals reject papers which don’t ‘support certain narratives’
He also took aim at the media for focusing ‘intently on climate change as the root cause’ of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii
The approach ‘distorts a great deal of climate science research’, Brown wrote in a piece for The Free Press
A climate change scientist has claimed the world’s leading academic journals reject papers which don’t ‘support certain narratives’ about the issue and instead favor ‘distorted’ research which hypes up dangers rather than solutions.
Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science – two of the most prestigious scientific journals – select ‘climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives’.
In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way ‘the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause’ of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii. He pointed out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans.
Brown gave the example of a paper he recently authored titled ‘Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California‘. Brown said the paper, published in Nature last week, ‘focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior’ and ignored other key factors.
Brown laid out his claims in an article titled ‘I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published’. ‘I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work,’ the article begins.
Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University with a PhD in earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science – two of the most prestigious scientific journals – ‘want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives’
Brown said one of his studies on the subject was published by Nature ‘because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like’
He also took aim at the media for focusing ‘intently on climate change as the root cause’ of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii. Pictured: A search, rescue and recovery member conducts search operations of areas damaged by Maui wildfires in Lahaina
‘I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell,’ he wrote of his recently-published work.
‘This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
‘To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.’
The journals Science and Nature were approached for comment.
Brown opened his missive with links to stories by AP, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times and Bloomberg which he said give the impression global wildfires are ‘mostly the result of climate change’.
He said that ‘climate change is an important factor’ but ‘isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus’.
Much reporting of the wildfires in Maui has said climate change contributed to the disaster by contributing to conditions that helped the fires to spark and spread quickly.
The fires, which killed at least 115 people, are believed to have been started by a downed electricity line, but observers have said rising temperatures caused extremely dry conditions on the Hawaiian island.
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