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Roger Pielke Jr.
rogerpielkejr.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2020
Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado professor, writes on climate science, extreme weather, scenarios, and scientific integrity.
What HN saysHN commenters cite his posts to argue emissions track below worst-case scenarios, while others question the statistics and call some analysis over the top.
26HN people shared it
12linked it in comments
18stories submitted
340story points
6 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science3 people · 210 points · first shared 2021 · 132 comments on HN
- 2RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead3 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 3Scientific Integrity and the Origins of Covid-192 people · 4 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 4What the media won't tell you about US heat waves (2022)2 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5What the IPCC Actually Says About Extreme Weather2 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 6Why proximal origins must be retracted2 people · first shared 2023
- 7The Global Population Crisis That Never Was1 people · 93 points · first shared 2021 · 272 comments on HN
- 8More good news from the most recent climate scenarios1 people · 11 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Apples, Oranges, and Normalized Hurricane Damage1 people · 4 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 10The Original Pandemic Lab Leak Debate1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 11What do downward-revised population and GDP projections mean for climate futures1 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 12The Top Five Climate Science Scandals1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 13Welcome to post-apocalyptic climate policy1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 14Seasonal Hurricane Forecast Bust1 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 15The New Climate Reality1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
sien · 2026-01-27
I use the fantastic Inoreader that is better than Google Reader was.
I follow things that post maybe once or twice a week or once a month. For things with new information every day, like Hacker News, I check the website.
A few of the things that I follow that may be a bit different for people are :
Arnold Kling - a PhD economist who worked in technology and is genuinely different.
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/
Noah Smith - a PhD economist who writes about economics and the world
https://www.noahpinion.blog/
Roger Pielke Jnr - a guy with a PhD who writes about climate and energy and was excommunicated by the climate priesthood.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/
Andrew Sullivan - a conservative, gay, HIV positive, Catholic writer who campaigned for gay marriage.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/
nwah1 · 2021-04-10
The emissions have been near the best-case projections, and far below the average and worst-case projections
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outda…
kbutler · 2022-01-04
Sounds really conclusive, doesn't it?
If you look a bit deeper at the statistics, this database "records disasters which have killed ten or more people; affected 100 or more people; resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance."
What factors besides frequency and severity of weather events could affect these statistics?
Most obvious are population growth (doubled over that period) and increased urbanization (reversed from 60:40 primarily rural, to 60:40 primarily urban). This means that an event with the same severity is greatly more likely to be reported and included in this database. Similarly for economic effects - because of the growth in assets, infrastructure, and GDP, that doubling of economic losses, even if in constant dollars, represents a decrease in losses relative to total assets. So this data doesn't really represent a measure of change in the weather as much as change in human society (and the page is titled, "The human cost...")
The IPCC report is somewhat equivocal about change in the actual heavy precipitation events, stating "the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased...with increases in more regions than there are decreases". (with "likely" meaning > 2/3 probability)
Roger Pielke, Jr., has done a lot of work on extreme weather events: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-re…
magicalhippo · 2026-05-10
Actual source is here: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/rcp85-is-officially-dead
The submitted page is just the introduction.
RickJWagner · 2025-12-08
Some ( somewhat over the top ) analysis:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/a-huge-retraction-the-usual-playb…
https://issuesinsights.com/2025/12/05/about-that-retracted-climate-rep…
timmg · 2024-02-09
Interesting take by a scientist who was a witness in this trial: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence
grecy · 2024-01-08
Absolutely, just have to throw out OSHA, take land from people that own it without due process and ignore everything the EPA says.
... in all seriousness, it would be a lot more useful to compare what a developed country has been able to achieve.. even more useful is the country you're talking about.
oh look - here you go:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a
http://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-p…
hotdogscout · 2023-08-18
>The same WHO that said COVID-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab
Actually a group of scientists published that on Nature Medicine. Fraudulently though, and under tremendous pressure from China and Nature.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retr…
baja_blast · 2023-07-31
As pointed out here: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retr… some of the main reasons why it should be retracted include:
1. The paper was had ghost writers
2. Due to ghostwriting the paper failed to properly disclose COI
3. The paper is intentionally misleading, written with the sole purpose of misleading the scientific process
4. The authors both before and after publication expressed different conclusions from the paper itself.
5. The paper was published in Nature Medicine without peer review.
fsagx · 2023-07-16
on topic article that was flagged and dead soon after posting:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-abou…
lispisok · 2023-03-11
I'm gonna plug Roger Pielke Jr (obligatory not a climate change denier by any means disclaimer) who talks a lot about issues like these. Climate change has become an industry now. A lot of people are selling research and solutions and they hype up the problem as much as they can even if it's not realistic. Nobody on the center or left has been checking them because they don't want to be labeled a climate change denier. Good to see that's starting to change.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/archive
dash2 · 2021-08-11
At the start of the article: "Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario..."
Roger Pielke is good about this. He points out that the "business-as-usual" scenario is extremely unlikely:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outda…
I'm not arguing that the original article is uninformative or unimportant.