Most legitimate news organizations put restrictions on things their reporters should be doing outside of their regular jobs. Nate Silver decided he would hire a Global Warming denialist for his "science" team, so he might want to take notice of what his reporters are saying and doing outside the job. When your "science" reporter starts promoting political economics that are the exact opposite of what the science says you should be doing, you might want to ask what's going on?
First, lets take a look at a portion of the NPR ethics handbook.
Outside NPR, you still represent us. Be accurate.
NPR journalists and managers often get the opportunity to deliver speeches and appear on other news outlets’ programs. Bear in mind that everything we say in those forums must meet NPR’s standards for accuracy. The general standards are:
If you wouldn’t report it on NPR, don’t say it in public elsewhere.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a diary about
A new wave of Global Warming denialism. Pielke is a perfect example of this new wave, and it's going to be a lot harder to convince the public that they are simply Global Warming denialists.
The new breed of denialists don't deny Global Warming is happening, they don't deny it's man made, they don't even deny the effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. This is truly an Orwellian world where you agree with what the other person is saying, then you propose the exact opposite in order to fix the problem. They try to disarm their critics by agreeing with them, then they bog down any action by disagreeing about what to do.
This is like saying, I love the ACA, the ACA has helped millions of uninsured people, it's made insurance affordable, it's expanded Medicaid, it's been just great for America. We need to expand the ACA to help many more millions of people in need. The best way to do this is to eliminate the exchanges, stop the subsidies, and let the insurance companies decide if they want to have life time caps, cover people under 25 on their parents insurance, or exclude preexisting conditions. So lets get on with helping millions of needy people!
This is sophisticated propaganda, so lets see how Pielke does it.
Pielke has signed on to a paper called Our High-Energy planet (pdf) from the "breakthrough" institute. Like I said, the new wave of denialism is very sophisticated and they try to muddy the water as much as possible before proposing absurd solutions to the Climate crises.
Heres what Thinkprogress.org had to say about them back in 2011;
TBI, however, has been engaged in a wholesale attack on clean energy standards and energy efficiency for months now, using talking points that right-wing think tanks have pushed for years (see The intellectual bankruptcy of conservatism: Heritage even opposes energy efficiency). This shouldn’t be terribly surprising to longtime followers of TBI. After all, last year they partnered with a right-wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, to push right-wing energy myths and attack the most basic of clean energy policies, a clean energy standard.
First the paper describes how badly 3rd world nations need affordable energy. Throughout the paper there are paragraphs describing the poor conditions of the people in these nations, and of course this is all true. The purpose is to play on your sympathies so you'll be willing to accept their "solution". But isn't helping poor nations develop decentralized solar and wind the best solution for their problems? Nope, they dismiss it out of hand without even attempting a rational explanation.
Faced with a perceived conflict between expanding global energy access and rapidly reducing greenhouse emissions to prevent climate change, many environmental groups and donor institutions have come to rely on small-scale, decentralized, renewable energy technologies that cannot meet the energy demands of rapidly growing emerging economies and people struggling to escape extreme poverty.
Those darn Sinister "donor institutions"! Them and their environmental cronies are always ruining things. What in the world is a "donor institution"?
Distributed renewable energies can't meet the demands of people in extreme poverty, because people in poverty really want to spend huge amounts of their limitless capital on infrastructure to deliver fossil fuel based electricity to power the gazillions of electric appliances they have stashed away in their 3rd floor storage rooms. And it gets more absurd.
Pielke and his associates make it clear in the 28 page report that they are really, really, really concerned about clean energy and the environment. How do I know? Why here is a collection of just some of their statements expressing their deep concern for the environment.
Societies that are able to meet their energy needs become wealthier, more resilient, and better able to navigate social and environmental hazards like climate change and natural disasters.
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A reconsideration of what equitable energy access means for human development and the environment is needed.
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Rather than limiting energy access and consumption on the basis of their potential climate change impacts, a coherent strategy for human development begins with the assumption that energy equity is necessary for a just, prosperous, and environmentally sustainable society.
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A high-energy planet with universal access to affordable, cleaner, and plentiful energy, we argue, is the most practical way to secure this socioeconomic development while ensuring environmental protection .
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Modern energy is crucial not just for human development, but also for environmental quality, as it allows developing nations to move away from traditional, polluting energy sources and toward cleaner fuels.
Well now, after reading page after page of their concern over the environment, I'm feeling pretty bad for being so critical. I helped organize my high school for the first Earth Day and I've been supporting candidates who care about the environment for the past 40 years. But I feel like a dirty, polluting, scum-bag compared to these archangels of environmental protection. I'm thinking of just holding my breath so I stop emitting CO2.
So by now, you must be like I was, wondering what is this great Alchemy secret that can make us a high energy planet that keeps the planet clean at the same time?
High population densities require large-scale, centralized energy sources such as hydropower , coal with carbon-capture and sequestration (CCS), advanced nuclear, and natural gas, along with the efficient networked configurations of gas pipelines and electricity grids.
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Transitioning from dung and wood to coal, natural gas, nuclear, and other advanced energy sources alleviates many problems caused by a lack of energy access ...
Building out efficient grid infrastructure and modernizing the energy sector—including shifting from coal to coal and natural gas with carbon capture, hydroelectric, and advanced nuclear power
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Highly urban and industrialized China, with its huge coal reserves, may profitably invest in carbon capture and storage technologies for its base-load coal power plants
Foolish, foolish me! All this time I've thought we would need to reduce burning fossil fuels in order to stop the collapse of civilization from the effects of Climate change. When the answer all along has been, Clean Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear! Oops, excuse me, as I get older I tend to have a lapse of memory now and then. Now where have I heard something similar before, that the answer to our energy problems was Clean Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear and Oil. Oh well, it'll come to me.
And I guess I need to apologize for not being informed enough. I had no idea that desperately poor 3rd world countries that are transitioning from "dung and wood" have already developed "carbon-capture and sequestration" technologies, along with "advanced nuclear power". We really need to send our utility companies over to these 3rd world countries so they can learn to do this.
And then there's China. Here's a country that's built a gazillion coal fired power plants over the last couple of decades, and they didn't even know that they "may profitably invest in carbon capture and storage technologies for its base-load coal power plants". All those profits gone to waste. If only this report had come out earlier.
I'm so darn anxious now to get to our high-energy Planet, all I need to know is how to get there. It's a darn good thing this report that Pielke signed onto has a pathway described in the conclusion.
Groups and governments seeking to productively engage with the least-developed countries must address sector-wide energy problems through technical assistance, subsidy support , financing, and institutional capacity building, in order to help these countries take full advantage of their energy resources for the benefit of their citizens.
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It will take tremendous effort, capital, and political will to ensure that the ongoing expansion of the energy sector in developing nations provides all people with access to energy they can afford as soon as possible, and to support efforts that will make that energy progressively cleaner.
So lets see if I understand the path forward. After we provide "technical assistance, subsidy support , financing, and institutional capacity building", the desperately poor nations will have "energy they can afford". Then we need to "support efforts that will make that energy progressively cleaner". Hmmm, since solar, wind, and hydro don't need to be made "progressively cleaner", then we must be talking about, Clean Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear and oil. So the solution to our Climate change problem is not to burn less fossil fuels, but to burn more!
So it's pretty tricky stuff here. First build up the readers sympathies, then make sure you mention some Alternative energies whenever you mention the dirty or dangerous fuels you are trying to promote, and don't forget to clean up those dirty fossil fuels by mentioning technologies that aren't economically viable for developed countries much less 3rd world countries. This new wave of denialism will soon expand into adaptation. A sea wall over here, a drainage system over there, and a new dam or two and we can just keep on burning that carbon.
Well Nate, so this is your science guy? You had to publish a rebuttal to his first article, and now he signs on to this "report" about a high energy carbon based future? Hey! Good luck with being taken seriously with that new website.