Joseph Romm reported in 2011 that Professor Matthew Nisbet of American University has written an error-riddled, self-contradictory, demonstrably false report, “Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate”. The 99-page report’s two central, but ridiculous, claims are:
- The environmental movement outspent opponents during the climate bill debate.
- Media coverage of climate change has become balanced and was not a factor in the defeat of the cap-and-trade bill.
- The report makes these untenable claims in order to shift the blame for the bill’s failure to climate scientists, environmentalists, foundations, and most especially Al Gore.
None of the report’s major conclusions can stand the light of day, particularly those two. Climate Shift is not a revisionist history. It is a counterfactual history.
Now I don’t think progressives have tried hard enough to explain why the climate bill failed — including what we and our allies did wrong — leaving the door open for bogus analysis. So in a series of posts, I will not merely refute every aspect of Nisbet’s paper, but I will try to explain what in fact did go wrong (and right) — and why. This post will serve as an overview of the paper’s myriad flaws.
The bombshell is that Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University had his name pulled off the report’s list of expert paid reviewers late last week when he finally saw the finished report — and he returned Nisbet’s check. In an exclusive series of interviews, Brulle, whom the NYT called “an expert on environmental communications,” explained to me that “I think it is really bad and I don’t want to be associated with it.”
Brulle told me the study has “many flaws,” and “selectively used the literature.” Indeed, Brulle, who is past chair of the Environment and Technology section of the American Sociological Association, says “I gave him refereed articles that countered his thesis and he ignored them.”
.... toward the end of the report Romm states:
"Final Note: In the original embargoed report, on the very first page, we can see Nisbet trying to give his treatise the veneer of scholarship by assembling an expert panel of paid “formal reviewers,” which he states was done “to make sure that the report meets the highest standards for rigor, evidence, and accuracy.” Brulle withdrew his name in part because he does not believe the report meets any of those standards. Nisbet later revised this section, but the veneer remains. I was sent the (slightly) revised report [PDF].
As an important aside, normally I would not break be the first to break an embargo, even for a report that was sent to me by a third-party. But once it became clear how the analysis was being misrepresented to the media, and how the media itself might further misrepresent the supposed findings, I realized that if I waited until the report was released, there was a good chance that extremely erroneous stories would be written.
I have no doubt the right wing media, whose impact Nisbet discounts, will take up his misinformation unquestioningly. I hope the traditional media dig harder.
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