About the National Climate Assessment released yesterday

Before you go off the grid and get a bunch of solar panels and windmills, avail yourself of a saner perspective:

A climate change report published Friday contains cherry-picked data that appear designed to warn of the consequences if steps are not taken to mitigate global warming, according to one climate expert.

The scientists who wrote the National Climate Assessment (NCA) used unreliable information that exaggerates the risks global warming poses, University of Colorado Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. noted in a series of tweets. He fears the report will make it easier for critics to dismiss future climate studies.

“By presenting cherrypicked science, at odds w/ NCA Vol,1 & IPCC AR5, the authors of NCA Vol.2 have given a big fat gift to anyone who wants to dismiss climate science and policy,” Pielke Jr. wrote in a tweet Friday shortly after the White House released the report. “Embarrassing.”

“People are not dumb. Clim chg is real & deserves policy response, but not like this,” he said, referring to volume two of the NCA, a federal report the administration is required by law to submit. Volume one was published in 2017 and “played things straight on the science of extremes,” added Pielke Jr., who has criticized media’ reporting on similar reports in the past.

Here's what Pielke means by cherry-picking:

He says the NCA’s second volume relies on the RCP8.5, one of the four possible pathways in the trajectory. This particular pathway is slowly being phased out of the IPCC’s modeling because scientists believe the model likely overestimates future supply of fossil fuels. Researchers used the most extreme example possible to sell the narrative that wildfires will get worse, he noted.

So, no, we as a species don't need to collectively make drastic changes to the way we're living and the kinds of energy we're producing and consuming. And you as an individual can continue to tell policy wonks who think otherwise that what kind of fuel you use, the temperature at which you set your thermostat, and what kind of vehicle you drive is your damn business and you will not tolerate being coerced into choices other than those you feel like making.