Billionaire Tom Steyer used his wealth to target a lone climate researcher, according to a new video by John Stossel. Roger Pielke Jr., whose research on climate and disaster policy has won awards and is cited by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), found himself in the crosshairs of Steyer and the Center for American Progress.
Pielke’s views are mainstream, he says. His work is cited by all three working groups of the IPCC, and there is nothing contrarian about it. Both Steyer and Pielke agree that greenhouse gases warm the climate, but Pielke’s sin was stating that it is not the apocalypse. This led the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning group that pushes climate hysteria, to target him. The group runs articles claiming that climate change is fueling more deadly floods and that extreme weather is intensifying, labeling anyone who disagrees as a climate denier.
Steyer, now running for governor of California, provided the Center for American Progress with sufficient funds to produce hit pieces describing Pielke’s work as fantastical falsehoods and calling him a disinformer who ignores data on climate science. Pielke was unaware of the funding source until WikiLeaks revealed an email from ThinkProgress’s editor thanking Steyer for his support, stating that without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change.
The Persecution of a Researcher
In Stossel’s video, Pielke describes his persecution, which began after Al Gore’s Oscar-winning movie claimed that temperature increases create stronger storms. Pielke disagreed, noting that while warmer water can create bigger storms, the atmosphere is complicated, with factors like windshear that knock over storms. He asserted that changes in frequency or intensity beyond natural variability have not been observed. His research acknowledged increasing impacts of extreme weather in terms of economic costs and loss of life, but attributed these to what we build, where we build, and how much wealth is in harm’s way, not to bigger storms.
When the climate advocacy movement shifted to extreme weather, Pielke found himself on the wrong side. He had a choice: call things as he saw them or succumb to pressure. He chose the former and paid a price. An enormous effort was made to silence him. Testifying before Congress, he stated that it is misleading to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or drought have increased, a finding also supported by the IPCC. However, the Obama White House issued a 3,000-word memo attacking him, calling his statements seriously misleading and not representative of mainstream views.
University Pressure and Aftermath
The University of Colorado, where Pielke worked for 24 years, caved to the pressure. They closed his research center, canceled his classes, and moved his office into a closet. Pielke noted that what he went through was not what a university is supposed to be for. The state-funded school, after dumping his actual scientific research, now makes climate change and sustainability the central focus of its campus-wide initiatives, hosting climate summits with panels on youth climate advocacy.
Fortunately, Pielke found another job at the American Enterprise Institute, one of many think tanks that now conduct research universities once did. As of writing, betting sites have Steyer in second place in California’s governor’s race. Stossel posts new videos every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, focusing on the battle between government and freedom.
