Debunking the MAGA Media's Take on Global Warming

Executive Summary: Patrick Brown has yet to substantiate his claim that science journal editors predominantly favor papers aligning with the narrative that climate change is the main cause of adverse environmental impacts. However, certain media outlets, such as Fox, have extrapolated from his specific grievance. They inaccurately suggest that the near-universal consensus in scientific journal articles on human-caused climate change exists only because editors decline to publish counterarguments.

Patrick Brown authored a paper in Nature on the impact of global warming on forest fires [1]. He then wrote an article in The Free Press in which he bemoans the criteria for publishing in prestigious journals like Nature and Science. He argues that top-tier science journals only publish articles that address climate change as the primary factor affecting phenomena like wildfires, because they fit a simple, straightforward narrative that promotes the problem of global warming. He argues that while climate change definitely worsens wildfires, other factors are equally crucial. He believes that the singular focus on negative consequences caused by global warming misinforms the public, impedes practical solutions, and hinders a broader understanding of climate science [2].

In short, Brown doesn’t question that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. He stands by his Nature article’s conclusion that global warming leads to more and more severe forest fires. His only objection is that he claims that prestigious science journals require authors to focus on the relationship between one independent variable (global warming) and one dependent variable (in his case forest fires) rather than expanding the research to give equal consideration to other independent variables.

Since Brown says that editors choose reviewers who share their views, I find it significant that all three of the reviewers who evaluated his first draft had major concerns that he had NOT taken other independent variables into account! [3]

And Nature required Brown to do just that. Here is what he says in the paper:

"Overall, our results indicate that anthropogenic warming (and the influence of warming on aridity, holding all else constant) increases the risk of extreme daily wildfire growth in California. Our findings, however, must be interpreted narrowly as idealized calculations because temperature is only one of the dozens of important variables that influences wildfire behaviour. Nonetheless, temperature is the variable in the wildfire behaviour triangle (Fig. attached) that is the most directly related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and, in our judgement, there is no expert or model consensus on the magnitude or even the direction of change of many other variables relevant to the projection of wildfire behaviour. Despite this, our calculations may result in conservative estimates of changes in risk because at least several important variables that we hold constant (for example, precipitation, wind, absolute humidity, tree mortality, fire-season length and lifetimes of fires) may be changing in a way that would exacerbate the enhanced risk caused by warming rather than ameliorate it. A more comprehensive assessment of future risk would also account for changes in fuel characteristics (from intentional fuel management as well as in response to climate change), changes in fire suppression efforts and changes in ignition patterns." [1]

So while Brown’s main complaint was that Nature authors were not permitted to expand the causal factors beyond global warming, all three referees asked him to do so, and his paper accepted for publication by the editor did discuss those other factors.

After reading his latest Nature article and scanning his long list of publications [4], there is no doubt in my mind that Brown is a top-flight researcher who will make major contributions to the body of knowledge after he gets over the proficient young researcher’s tendency to give his own opinions too much weight and old dogs’ predilections too little [5].

But all of his research acumen goes out the window in his Free Press article. He waves his hands and complains that ALL prestigious science journals suffer from editor narrow-mindedness. But he makes no effort to at least check Nature articles to see how many illustrate his complaint, nor does he tabulate the results from, say, the top 10% of science journals. As every science researcher knows, if you don’t have data you don’t have anything. And Brown has no data to prove his case.

But the real problem here is not Brown’s unproven claim, but the MAGA media’s false generalization of it.

The real problem is climate change deniers and MAGA media such as Fox are misusing Brown’s unproven complaint to argue that the reason that anthropogenic global warming is accepted by 99.97% of the published climate science articles [6] is that editors won’t publish anything that might show the opposite conclusion. That is not at all what Brown is saying. And it ignores the fact that 99.5% of authors themselves [7], not just their published articles, also say that they accept the presence of anthropogenic global warming.

But here’s what Fox said in their headline: “Climate scientist admits editing paper to fit preapproved narratives.” [8] And Fox (falsely) implies that the unsupported opinion of one out of all the climate scientists and the editors of myriad science journals is the opinion of all.

END NOTES

[1] Brown, P.T., Hanley, H., Mahesh, A. et al. (2023) Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06444-3

[2] Brown, P. (Sept 5, 2023). I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published. The Free Press. https://www.thefp.com/p/i-over...

[3] https://www-nature-com.proxy.cc.uic.edu/articles/s41586-023-06444-3#peer...

[4] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-50...

[5] For three decades, I served as a full professor at a Carnegie R1 Doctoral University. In the nascent stages of their careers, many freshly-graduated PhDs, despite their commendable research, held a dismissive view of the seasoned professors who served as editors and reviewers. However, as time passed and they matured in their roles, they developed a profound respect for the insights of these established scholars. Assistant Professor Brown's piece in The Free Press epitomizes the type of content often penned by young, avant-garde academics prior to their full comprehension of the rationale behind journal protocols and guidelines.

[6] Krista F Myers et al (2021) Environ. Res. Lett. 16 104030 DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac2774. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2774

[7] Lynas, M., Houlton, B. Z., & Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 16(11), 114005. https://iopscience.iop.org/art...

[8] Lindsay Kornick, Fox News, Sept 2023. Climate scientist admits editing paper to fit 'preapproved narratives’ https://bit.ly/FoxOnBrown