Roger Pielke, Sr. on Climate Policy

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Roger has a great post of climate-related hypothesis (somewhat technical) at his blog this morning along with a statement of basic policy positions. The posting is here. I agree with each of these:  

There are several policy implications from these conclusions:
  1. The presentation (and funding of model simulations) of regional climate impacts decades into the future is flawed science. It represents a waste of money as there is no demonstrated predictive skill on this time and space scale, or, in fact, any opportunity to validate these predictions until these decades have passed.
  2. A focus on CO2 as the dominate human climate forcing is also a flawed, incomplete scientific perspective. It can easily lead to policy decisions that are costly yet accomplish little if anything in terms of actual mitigation of the role of humans in the climate system.  Policies focused on controlling the emissions of greenhouse gases must necessarily be supported by complementary policies focused on other first-order climate forcings.
  3. Climate policy is not synonymous with energy policy. While there are indeed overlaps,  much of these two topics are separate from each other.
  4. Integrated assessments within the framework of vulnerability, with an emphasis on risk assessment and disaster prevention, offer an underutilized approach to climate issues (e.g. for water resources see].

Number three cannot be overemphasized. There are many good reasons to start moving toward smarter energy sources regardless of climate issues.

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