From Nicolas Nierenberg, Victoria Tschinkel, Walter Tschinkel

We feel the article “Jason and the secret climate change war” completely misrepresents the early years of climate research as well as the contribution of Dr. William Nierenberg.

There is a central error, which is that the report, “Changing Climate” was not “commissioned” by the Reagan Administration, but was actually requested by an act of Congress under then President Jimmy Carter (see correction above). The report was in fact a product of the independent National Academy of Sciences. The chair of the committee, which produced the Academy report, was Nierenberg, and the members of the committee were some of the most distinguished scientists of the time. The committee membership was in place by October 1980 prior to Ronald Reagan’s election.

The article also misrepresents the contents and nature of “Changing Climate.” Unlike the JASON and Charney reports, which focused solely on atmospheric temperature sensitivity to CO2 increases, “Changing Climate”, as the US Congress mandated, was the first comprehensive look at climate change. As such it dealt with a broad range of issues. One chapter dealt with forecasts of future fossil fuel emissions, another with the carbon cycle, and the likely timing of CO2 increases, still another estimated future sea level rise based on the forecasted increase in temperatures. In addition Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling wrote a final chapter on the potential societal impacts of these physical changes. Since the topics were so diverse the committee decided that different authors would be responsible for the contents of the different chapters and that each would be separately peer-reviewed.

To bring all this together the committee decided to create a synthesis, which would include the key points from the various chapters. These were also considered to be the conclusions to which, as they put it, they could all “wholeheartedly agree.” A staff member of the committee, Jesse Ausubel, wrote the synthesis with some editing by Nierenberg. A review of the synthesis shows that it simply follows the contents of the various chapters. It did not, as the article claims, play up positive effects of climate change, play down the likely effects or emphasize the uncertainties. It reported fairly and accurately the scientific and social conclusions of the separately written chapters. It also included a brief set of policy recommendations that were the conclusions of the committee.

An Executive Summary was created from the synthesis, and printed essentially verbatim on the front page of the New York Times the day after the report was officially published. We are not aware of any record of any dissent from climate scientists, or anyone else for that matter, to the published contents of the report. The obvious conclusion is that the report’s conclusions and recommendations were considered absolutely mainstream at the time.

It is unclear why the article claims that the JASON report was never officially published. Naomi Oreskes’ own academic work references the published version of the paper. In addition the article is misleading in implying that neither the Charney nor the Jason report made any policy recommendations. In fact the JASON report questioned whether future policy actions would be desirable, and the Charney report disclaimed sufficient scientific knowledge to predict the impacts on society.

It is difficult to prove a negative, but we know of no case where Nierenberg stated that CO2 increases were not a problem. We also are not aware of his stating that there were no temperature changes or that all the changes were due to natural variability. Later he did become skeptical of the ability of large-scale climate models to accurately predict the impacts of increasing CO2, and it was his opinion that the likely warming would be on the lower end of the ranges typically discussed during the late eighties and nineties. He was also highly skeptical of the efficacy of the political solutions that had so far been proposed at the time of his death in 2000. We feel that he had earned the right to those opinions even if many, or even most scientists disagreed.

Characterizing JASON as a secret or shadowy organization is just silly. Every year when they meet there are signs all over La Jolla indicating that they are in town. This has been true throughout their history. In addition the membership is well known. It is true that in many cases they work on classified reports, but the climate report referenced in this article was never a secret, and eventually was published in book form. Copies can be obtained easily on the Internet.

William Nierenberg was a remarkable scientist and administrator. He served as an advisor to both Republican and Democratic Administrations and he deserves better than this article.

For readers who are interested in more details about this subject, as well as a discussion of the broader academic issues involved we refer them to our web site www.nicolasnierenberg.com.

Nicolas Nierenberg is a technology entrepreneur who currently serves on the board of several companies, he is also a former chairman and currently member of the board of trustees of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and is a member of the Director’s Council at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Victoria Tschinkel is Chairman of 1000 Friends of Florida, former Director of the Nature Conservancy in Florida, and former Florida Secretary of Environmental Regulation. Walter Tschinkel is an R. O. Lawton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

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