Broad in the New York Times

Apparently union regulations require all climate bloggers to weigh in on Bill Broad’s story in today’s New York Times about Al Gore etc. In brief, there’s not much more I could add to what Chris Mooney and Andrew Dessler have said:

  • “surprised it didn’t happen sooner” (Mooney) given that Gore was largely solid on the science but strayed a couple of times from the mainstream consensus: “Why include the 1 to 5 percent of more questionable stuff, and so leave onself open to this kind of attack?”
  • Is this all he’s got? (Dessler) A story that largely draws on predictable scientific outliers to criticize Gore is a story stating the obvious. We know Richard Lindzen didn’t like the movie. For Broad to make the case that there is unease in the fat scientific middle – “rank-and-file scientists” – he needs better than this.

If you look at the comments over on Gristmill and here on my own blog in a post that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Roger Pielke Jr., you’ll see why I was tempted to publish a new edition of my semi-regular “Pielke watch” feature. But I’m awfully busy, and this whole thing where I have to be Roger’s lead cheerleader just takes too much time.