What a global warming denier from the early 00s can teach us about science communication

An opinion piece by Anna Maria Schuller (CUSAP Secretary), edited by Meira van Schaik (CUSAP Blog Chief Editor), Asmi Manudhane, and Scott McSorley

In July 2001, just a few months after the Bush administration distanced itself from the Kyoto Protocol, an American author and military strategist called Bruce Berkowitz published an opinion piece in the periodical Digest of the Stanford University Hoover Institution titled “The Pseudoscience of Global Warming”.

The core issue that prompted Mr. Berkowitz to write this piece appears to be a call for de-industrialisation from climate activists, which in his view dominated conversations around climate action at the time. Concerned for the American economy, he perceived a commitment to minimizing global warming as a threat to growth and prosperity – a trade off which he deemed unjustified owing to a lack of evidence for true environmental change. 

In the past 25 years, overwhelming amounts of research have been conducted that make a conversation on the reality of climate change redundant. This scepticism however has endured; climate action is still often painted as an adversary to economic growth, prosperity, and national security by its opponents (be they politicians, scholars, or other public figures). 

More recently, this same fear of a forced de-industrialization brought about by a commitment to international treaties led the Trump administration to disavow the Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC, as well as the Energy Charter. The importance of a strong industrial economy has become the stake against which the validity of scientific claims on the necessity of immediate climate action is weighed. In 2001, Mr. Berkowitz believed that existing findings were too flimsy to justify climate action, especially if it were to place American industries in jeopardy. Lamenting the climate discussion’s “technical and arcane” nature, he stated that it would be polemic to orient economic policy on the mitigation of global warming . 

Underlying the point made by Mr. Berkowitz is the call to wait for “better data” to emerge before committing to climate action. It implies that recent scientific progress strips previous, more deductive methods of their credibility. I particularly take issue with the notion that tested scientific methods of obtaining environmental data should be discounted in their validity simply because they are not as intuitive as holding a thermometer in the wind. This line of argumentation is anti-intellectualism masquerading as academic rigour. Our notion of “better data” is furthermore compromised by our own bias – what data will be “good enough” to kick us into gear? 

It can be said that research in the natural sciences does carry with it some inherent exclusivity by merit of being comprehensible only to those with a strong background in a specific field, and is in many cases virtually inaccessible to those without unless through the medium of high-quality scientific communication. Demanding optimal scientific procedure is not in itself problematic either. However, intentionally or not, it has been used to discredit climate scientists, who have (with the backing of the peer review process) been able to provide ample evidence of an emerging climate crisis since the 1970s. Claiming their predictions are “pseudoscience” was a grave misuse of the term in 2001, and is unthinkable in serious academic circles in 2026. 

Fundamentally, this is a straw man argument – placing the onus on climate scientists to not only provide conclusions but also justify their worthiness of our attention and consideration. Climate scientists are forced to almost discredit themselves through numerous disclaimers of uncertainty, while also convincing partisan politicians and the general layperson of the reality of the climate crisis. It is not difficult to see that requiring scientists to publish only data that is “good enough” will open a Pandora’s box of scientific communication challenges and accusations of dishonesty – so what are they to do?

It is not the purpose of this article to pass judgement on Mr. Berkowitz’s academic rigour. His opinion piece however gives us a glimpse into the pathways of thinking that climate policy sceptics follow to justify global climate inaction. It is a masterclass in undermining climate science by listing completely truthful statements in a manner that insinuates incredibility. He points to 1) complications in long-term data collection, 2) vast amounts of assumptions and 3) high computing power required to generate holistic atmospheric models, as aspects that should make us wary of the conclusions they produce. As if added scientific complexity obscures their purpose and strips them of validity. 

The accessibility of scientific methods and conclusions remains climate science’s holy grail, but the lack of a simple answer should not lead to distrust in the scientific community. Challenges to their integrity are particularly hard to navigate for climate scientists, as they are simultaneously asked by policy makers to continuously increase the complexity of their methods and conclusions in a never-ending flood of climate reports. How much responsibility do scientists carry to editorialize their findings to minimize negative impact (that in itself is impossible to predict), or should it be their prerogative to editorialize as little as possible to allow each actor to carry forward their own analysis free of previous bias? Can we bias-proof scientific communication around the topic in a way that does not erode the public’s faith in climate publications? 

This paradox remains unsolved, and has evolved only minimally since the early 2000s. Approaching both new and old findings in the field with curiosity, and trusting the scientists behind these findings, is our only recourse to retaining a productive conversation. Climate action is both fortunately and unfortunately everyone’s business; from layperson to expert, from economist to ecologist, from child to senior citizen; our definitions of “sustainable”, “long-term”, and most importantly – “worthwhile” – vary vastly. Trust in climate scientists does not equal blind faith. The complexity of the scientific method makes its accessibility dependent on the ability of science communication to capture both nuance and urgency implied in evidence. Effective science communication is at the nexus of the climate crisis, and will be the key to restoring confidence in this ever-evolving discipline.