Su Nature Chris Woolton riassume la storia penosa e un po' assurda, trovo, della causa per$10 milioni di danni, intentata da Mark Jacobson di Stanford all'Accademia americana delle scienze in quanto editore dei PNAS perché la rivista non ha ritrattato il "report" del matematico Christopher Clack et al. che critica il suo paper sul passaggio alle energie rinnovabili in USA a costo quasi zero:
Jacobson was the lead author of a high-profile PNAS paper published in December 2015 making the case that the continental United States could meet nearly 100% of its energy needs using wind, water and solar sources as early as 2050. A rebuttal written by Clack — then at the University of Colorado Boulder — and 20 co-authors, and published in PNAS in June 2017, questioned Jacobson's methodology and challenged his conclusions. The authors argued, among other things, that Jacobson’s paper overestimated the maximum outputs from hydroelectric facilities and the nation’s capacity to store energy produced by renewable sources.
In the lawsuit, Jacobson says that he had alerted PNAS to 30 falsehoods and five “materially misleading statements” in Clack’s paper before its publication. The complaint states that almost all of those inaccuracies remained in the published version.
La rivista l'ha pubblicata insieme alla replica di Jacobson et al. limitata a 500 parole. Pretende una ritrattazione e si ritiene danneggiato perché a suo avviso i calcoli di Clack dovevano uscire come "lettera" che equivale a un'opinione, e non come "report" che equivale a un paper.
La causa fa discutere da quando Jacobson l'ha annunciata su twitter, rif. per es. Christa Marshall su Chris Mooney sul WaPo, MIT Tech. Rev. e parecchi altri, anche perché attualmente l'unico scenario così ottimista è quello di Jacobson et al. il che tende a suscitare un po' di scetticismo.
Come mi succede spesso, trovo che abbia ragione Gavin Schmidt
Overall, I think this is exceedingly ill-advised. Perhaps a quick correction of factual points & a comment to highlight differences in assumptions could lead to a withdrawal of the action. And if @theNASEM changed their comment policy, that would be good too.
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Sul Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli spiega la scienza alternativa del congressista repubblicano Jim Bridenstine, il primo non scienziato nominato a capo della NASA, quale autore di una proposta di legge che ne sopprimerebbe la ricerca sul clima, nonché famoso per approvare tutte le leggi che garantiscono alle industrie la libertà di danneggiare la salute dei cittadini e di inquinare l'ambiente :
At his Senate hearing last week, Bridenstine tried to remake his image. He said that his previous science-denying, politically polarizing comments came with the job of being a Republican congressman, and that as Nasa administrator he would be apolitical. A kinder, gentler Bridenstine. But while he softened his climate science denial, his proclaimed new views remain in line with the rest of the harshly anti-science Trump administration.
Invece di ripetere che il riscaldamento globale è una truffa e altre bufale come:
global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago. Global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with Sun output and ocean cycles. During the Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D.—long before cars, power plants, or the Industrial Revolution—temperatures were warmer than today
ora Bridenstine le annacqua un po':
It’s going to depend on a lot of factors and we’re still learning more about that every day. In some years you could say absolutely, in other years, during sun cycles and other things, there are other contributing factors that would have maybe more of an impact.
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