The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming Hardcover – September 28, 2010

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Overall, I think that The Climate Fix was a very informative read. Pielke Jr. manages to cover a wide variety of topics relevant to the climate debate from many fields. While this is a definite bonus for anyone who has a background in one of the topics and is looking to get information on the other facets of the current climate change debate, the variety of information present probably means this book isn't for people new to the issue. I imagine it could be a little overwhelming in sections, despite Pielke's explanatory writing.

I applaud Pielke Jr. for taking a neutral stance on the topic and putting fault where it is due on all sides of the issue. It is becoming increasingly rare to find books on climate change that aren't biased in some way. Pielke simply reports the facts.

The first half of the book focuses more on the dry facts: the basic science behind climate change and geoengineering, as well as the politics and economics behind decarbonization. Pielke's arguments follow a clear line of reasoning, and he has a talent for explaining things in understandable terms. The latter half of the book is where I thought that things really started to get interesting. His understanding and explanation of how the scientific community and politicians interact are, again, insightful. His opinions on why issues have developed and why climate policy has played out the way it has are clear, logical, and impartial.

I come from a scientific background, and Pielke has definitely made me change the way I think about politics, economics, and how they interact with each other and science. I began reading this book with the typical scientist opinion that Pielke even mentions in the first few pages, and I will now attempt to avoid such biases in the future.

This is a remarkable book. it is a book about the political implications of climate change that is not a political tract like so much of the rest of the literature on AGW. This is not the book of the activist scientist which plagues this field.

The Climate Fix (2010) by Roger Pielke Jnr is a remarkable book on climate policy. Pielke Jnr is a highly regarded, widely published author on science and public policy and is a world leading expert on extreme weather damage. His work has been referenced in the IPCC reports and his work has been published

Pielke's position on Carbon Dioxide (C02) and temperature rises is simple is outlined in the first chapter. He believes that C02 is responsible for possibly all but certainly a substantial part of the observed temperature rise in the last 150 years. He also believes that there are other factors involved, referring to his father the renowned climate scientist Roger Pielke Snr who believes that the IPCC is obsessed with C02 emissions and ignores land use change and other factors. He also states that there is considerable uncertainty in climate projections and that this will not go away. The skill in the climate models used is low because they do not have the ability to validate their outcomes against enough data. Pielke contrasts climate models with weather models and states:

It would take 3000 years to obtain as much knowledge of the skill of 100-year climate forecasts as we obtain every month with respect to daily weather forecasts

Pielke goes on to state that attempting to reduce the uncertainty for political purposes is unwise. Pielke also looks at the examples of acid rain and ozone depletion and points out that action was taken on both those issues before international agreements were made and with considerable scientific uncertainty.

After briefly summarizing his view of climate science Pielke goes on to look at the political facts of climate change. Here he says that there is a clear majority of support for action on decarbonisation and that there is political will. He points to large numbers of polls in numerous countries over considerable periods of time that show solid support for decarbonisation policies. Pielke says that people believe there must be trade offs between economic growth and climate policy. Pielke here makes the point that people will not give up much for climate policy and that policies that have a high cost are doomed to failure. He quotes polls showing that an annual cost per household of about $100 is as far as people will support spending on decarbonisation. Finally he makes the point that the technology to decarbonise the economy does not exist and that developing new energy technologies should be at the centre of any effort to decarbonise the economy.

In the third chapter Pielke points out how much energy is going to be required in C21. In the fourth chapter he looks at various decarbonisation policies including those of the UK, Japan, Australia, the US, China and Europe and makes the points that the goals of climate policy in many of these countries are unlikely to be achieved by 2020 as the rates of decarbonisation are substantially higher than have been achieved. He calls the massive efforts to achieve targeted decarbonisation rates magical thinking.

In the 5th Chapter Pielke looks at the technologies that could decarbonise the world economy and handle climate change. He thinks that geo-engineering is unlikely to be successful and is very risky as well. He does, however, think that direct decarbonisation and capture could work. In chapter 6 Pielke looks at how climate policy went wrong. He looks at how abatement to the consequences of climate change has been ignored in favor of mitigation.

In chapter 7 Pielke Jnr goes into some detail about extreme weather events which is one of his main areas of expertise. He points out that in the IPCC reports people have been deliberately misleading about what he has written and have made up what he has said. It's a shocking revelation. Pielke Jnr also highlights some examples of environmental scientists deliberately misleading people with published scientific work. It is, again, a devastating critique. The quotes by the scientists involved are damming. It shows, to a considerable extent, why people distrust environmental scientists and see them as issue advocates with PhDs.

In the 8th Chapter where climate policy has gone wrong is discussed. The revelations in the East Anglia emails are discussed and Pielke describes how he thinks that if climate scientists had not attempted to drive policy by fear and distortion the effects would be far less. Pielke goes on to state how he believes that if issue advocacy was kept out climate science the case would still be sufficient for action but would not be subject to the problems it is now.

Finally Pielke outlines what he thinks the policy regarding climate change should be, which is a low tax of around $10 per tonne of C02 emitted. This suggested solution is similar to the one suggested by Bjorn Lomborg and is also that of the economist Richard Tol.

The book is the best single book I've read on climate change and climate policy. Pielke writes well and clearly. The book makes its points very well. It describes how decarbonization is a desirable policy but not at any cost.

This is an important book for those studying climate science. I'm not sure why Pielke clings to the conclusions of the IPCC if he shows so masterfully how broken the process is. That part is a mystery. He's a policy guy, so you should be interested in policy, but he takes the IPCC processes apart and shows their political motivations, exposing the organization as essentially a fraud. Pielke is very thoughtful and it's probably too much detail for most people, but it's full of good stuff.