To continue the theme of the ideological subversion of science, as covered here, here, and here, I thought it would be worthwhile to focus upon the role played by those science journals that have traditionally showcased the finest that science has to offer. In particular, I shall be highlighting the disturbing ideological capture that has caused publications such as Nature, Scientific American and Science magazine to turn their backs upon the imperatives of objective factuality in favour of the pursuit of notions of social justice. This is a matter of grave importance, since these periodicals are gatekeepers ensuring that scientific standards are maintained. In addition, they provide the means by which scientists may publicise their work, thereby furthering their careers. Ideological subversion of such publications not only reflects poorly upon the collective integrity of the scientific community but also provides a framework for the deepening of the malaise. It produces a science that is less interested in the pursuit of the truth so much as the entrenchment of approved narratives. So let us take a moment to see how these once respected and trustworthy publications have fallen from grace.
Nature
Decline is, by definition, a process rather than an event. However, if a single event can be identified as the defining watershed for the decline of the Nature portfolio of journals, it has to be the publication in 2022 of its “ethics guidance” for proposed submissions. The guidance was intended to prevent the publication of articles that do “harm”, whilst simultaneously boosting the cause of scientific excellence. For these purposes, the guidance states:
Regardless of content type (research, review or opinion) and, for research, regardless of whether a research project was reviewed and approved by an appropriate institutional ethics committee, editors reserve the right to request modifications (or correct or otherwise amend post-publication) , and in severe cases refuse publication of (or retract post-publication): …content that undermines – or could reasonably be perceived to undermine – the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant human groupings.
Thus, under such vagary, the editors established for themselves the right to censor or refuse the publication of any scientific findings that they felt undermined the cause of social justice. It is a guidance that cuts Nature free from the obligation to always respect scientific facts, and substitutes instead the prerogative to manufacture alternative truths based upon ideologies favoured by the editorial board.
The implications of these new guidelines did not go unnoticed. Professor Anna Krylov is a distinguished chemist at the University of Southern California who grew up in the Soviet Union. Recognising the obvious parallels with Soviet era hegemony, she responded by publishing a widely circulated open letter in which she declared that she would no longer peer-review or engage with the Nature Publishing Group, citing that the direction the editorial board had taken meant that “papers published in Nature journals can no longer be regarded as rigorous science”.
The letter quickly drew the attention of prominent scientists, in particular Professor Richard Dawkins, who publicly supported Krylov on social media. Of particular concern was the Nature Portfolio’s professed intention to introduce so-called “citation justice”. On 26 October 2025 he posted that:
Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journal. Now it’s one of many accused of favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science.
I am unaware of any bibliometric studies that provide hard evidence for such a trend having developed, nor is there definitive evidence available to confirm whether the guidelines have resulted in a shift in focus of the Nature portfolio. But that doesn’t mean that observers have not discerned such a shift. Critics have pointed out that main editorials, comment sections, and opinion pieces have increasingly focused on themes like citation justice, anti-racism in STEM, and inclusion monitoring. The editors do not dispute such allegations, but rather state that this is actually a good thing. The hard sciences are not being usurped, they maintain. Instead, the range of scientific interest is being expanded, which is a good thing for science, isn’t it? Well, maybe, but only when the expansion is not marshalled along ideological lines, as it most certainly seems to be.
A major problem that accompanies editorial indulgence is the extent to which it encourages self-censorship amongst those wishing to be published. A stark exposé of the problem of a curated narrative and the self-censorship problem that ensues was offered recently by the climate scientist Patrick Brown when he related his own experience in submitting papers on wildfire research:
I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell… When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula I outlined here, my papers were promptly rejected out of hand by the editors of high-profile journals without even going to peer review.
The backlash was extensive and extreme. Suffice to say, Brown’s accusations were rebutted with counter-accusations that he was a scientist of very little brain and even less integrity. In the words of Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor of Nature:
The only thing in Patrick Brown’s statements about the editorial processes in scholarly journals that we agree on is that science should not work through the efforts by which he published this [study]. We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions; certainly, they reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal.
But the bottom line is this: When it comes to wildfire research, if there is no curating of a narrative that favours studies that quantify climatic impacts against those that quantify instead the non-climatic, why then has Nature published an abundance of the former but I have yet to find a single example of the later? I don’t know what I find the more telling – the demonstrably objective validation of Brown’s accusation, or Nature’s desperate attempts to deny it, together with an eagerness to cancel him for his sins. Interestingly, Skipper sought to have the final word:
When it comes to science, Nature does not have a preferred narrative.
Oh, but it does Magdelana, and if you had been taking notice of its ethics guidelines, you would know that.
Scientific American
Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. Over 200 Nobel Prize winners have contributed articles, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, and Stephen Hawking; so it isn’t short of historical prestige. Journal Storage (JSTOR) tells you that it “is the authority on science and technology for a general audience”. However, following a recent shift towards social and political commentary, the gloss has been more than removed from its shiny reputation for scientific objectivity.
Although not a peer-reviewed journal, Scientific American still carries considerable clout. This, no doubt, was well-understood by its editors when they decided to formerly endorse Joe Biden’s campaign for presidency in 2020, followed by that of Kamala Harris in 2024. This overt support for the Democratic Party broke with a 175-year tradition of political impartiality. In explaining its motives, Scientific American pointed towards Donald Trump’s Covid scepticism, his opposition to climate change advocacy and his proposed cuts to federal scientific agencies. This was an all-out war with a politician who was determined to redress a perceived left-wing liberal woke domination of the scientific community.
Whether advocating for the Democratic Party had any effect (other than eroding public trust in the objectivity of scientists) is a moot point. It certainly didn’t do the reputation of the Editor-in-Chief, Laura Helmuth, any good when she posted an expletive-laden tirade on social media following Trump’s victory, in which she branded Trump’s followers as ‘fascists’ and ‘bigoted’. And the journal’s reputation certainly hasn’t been enhanced in light of its deliberate pivoting towards the advocacy of critical social justice (CSJ) as a legitimate subject for scientific reporting. In particular, its obituary of E.O. Wilson went down like a lead balloon, as it clearly demonstrated just how much the publication’s understanding of science had become distorted by CSJ framing.
Edward O. Wilson was a legendary Harvard biologist and conservationist who’s reputation was beyond reproach – that was until Scientific American declared its views. In an op-ed titled ‘The Complicated Legacy of E.O. Wilson’, written by Dr Monica R. McLemore, Wilson was portrayed as a racist and sexist. Why so? Apparently, it was because of his promotion of sociobiology. In the words of the op-ed:
His text Sociobiology: The New Synthesis contributed to the false dichotomy of nature versus nurture and spawned an entire field of behavioral psychology grounded in the notion that differences among humans could be explained by genetics, inheritance and other biological mechanisms.
The author labelled these as ‘problematic beliefs’ and professed her profound disappointment. But this was nothing compared to the disappointment of those who condemned her facile dismissal of a body of science that is viewed with suspicion only by those who see the world through the CSJ lens.
The McLemore op-ed was not just a one-off, although it was singularly ill-informed and ideologically tainted. Rather, it represented the depths to which a once prestigious magazine had sunk. A publication previously well-known for an objective portrayal of the hard sciences is now little more than a vehicle for the espousal of trendy (and quite frankly anti-science) views that disqualify it as an “authority on science and technology for a general audience”.
All of this serves to explain why Scientific American so often explicitly portrays climate change through the lenses of social justice, racial equity, and environmental fairness. Indeed, it has a specific section dedicated to social justice, in which one finds articles such as ‘Discrimination Has Trapped People of Color in Unhealthy Urban Heat Islands’, ‘The Father of Environmental Justice Reflects on the Movement He Started’, ‘How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action’ and ‘New IPCC Report Looks at Neglected Element of Climate Action: People’. Gone are the days when one could enjoy a good old-fashioned, politics-free deep-dive into the science.
Scientific American supports the Democratic Party partly because it objects to Trump’s cuts to funding of federal scientific agencies. However, Trump is motivated by a perception of a woke, leftwing liberal domination of the structures of science. So, if anything, Scientific American’s woke infection helps make Trump’s case for him.
Science
Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is generally considered to be Nature’s main competitor, completing the triumvirate alongside Scientific American. Fittingly, when it comes to matters of ideological capture, it is a case of anything you can do we can do better. For example, following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp accused Trump of a “willingness to tap into xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth.“. That’s 76.9 million people denigrated from a platform of leftwing social ideology masquerading as science advocacy.
If anything, Science is even more blatant than Nature in its promotion of the idea of the scientific activist. In March 2024, Science published an article defending the right of scientists to issue public statements to “shape society”. Critics who argued that the greater obligation had to be to serve as a neutral arbiter of facts were brushed aside. Instead, argued Science, journals and scientific organisations had an obligation to step in and issue specific definitions on matters such as racism and gender. In the case of the latter, Science was quite unequivocal. An article titled ‘The variable nature of sex’ endorsed an anthropologist’s concerns regarding the “problematizing definitions of sex” that emphasised its binary nature at the expense of the continuum of sexual expression. One certainly cannot accuse Science of sitting on the fence when it comes to matters of critical social justice.
Indeed, there can be no greater advocate of so-called ‘affirmative action’ than Science. When in 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against affirmative recruitment policies in higher education, the editorial board of Science condemned the decision. Furthermore, Science has routinely defended the use of mandatory DEI statements in academic hiring. For example, in a 2024 article titled ‘Strengthen the case for DEI’, Shirley Malcom, director of the STEM Equity Achievement (SEA) Change initiative at the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote:
DEI in STEMM is an element of its excellence. It encompasses issues beyond race and ethnicity, including those of gender, disability, and other aspects of identity that have historically been used to constrict opportunities. STEMM should ideally benefit all of society. However, this will not happen until the country creates a STEMM community as diverse as the population it should serve.
Having a STEMM community as diverse as the population it serves is a political objective. The scientific objective would be to have a STEMM community that is as scientifically competent as the population allows.
As for Science journal’s editorial position regarding climate change scepticism, this is exemplified in an article titled ‘The challenge of climate-change neoskepticism’, in which the continued existence of sceptcism is dismissed as a pathology resulting from motivated reasoning and a failure to understand how decision-making works under uncertainty. One always has to wonder how partisan a publication has to become in order for it to consider any reluctance to uncritically accept its own position as a ‘challenge’ rather than a cause for reflection.
Summary
Although I have restricted this discussion to just three prominent scientific publications, the problem of ideological capture is far more extensive. Had I the time and inclination, I could have broadened the critique to include several other publications that have attracted similar criticism. These include The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and various flagship journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA). They are all at it, eschewing useful inquiry in preference for critical social justice guff that has no place in a world of objective, politics-free scientific epistemology. This is not only symptomatic of the way that the scientific community has drifted to the left over recent years, it is also providing the wind of change that contributes to such drift. For a climate sceptic, this phenomenon is of interest, not just because it has helped promote anti-scientific ideas regarding sex and race, and not just because it fuels and condones anti-meritocratic policies for recruitment and promotion. The more fundamental significance lies in the fact that none of this would be possible without an underlying assumption that the consensus view must be the correct one and that all possible measures must be taken to suppress alternative narratives. Critical social justice, with its concept of ‘progressive’ science, has taken hold because such capture will always be possible within a consensus-seeking community that enthusiastically condemns any dissent — even a community that purports to operate in accordance with the precepts of the scientific method. If the possibilities and dangers of ideological capture do not resonate with Cliscep’s readership, then I don’t know what I can offer that would.
Climate Scepticism 
The systemic problem with science that developed since WW2.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/the-systemic-problem-with-science
Can science be saved?
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/can-science-be-saved
How to teach science to get over the situation where college science courses produced two kinds of people – know-nothings and one-track specialists.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/teaching-science-as-a-humanities
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I think that goes to the nub of an over-arching debate here. Of course, everyone is entitled to issue public statements to “shape society”. But if you do it, or I do it, nobody’s listening. If a politically-motivated scientist does it, they’ll have the mainstream media (with the BBC and the Guardian at the front of the queue) rushing to give it publicity (if the views expressed are those the Guardian and the BBC supports). And even that might be OK, were it not for the fact that the statements thus publicised will be eulogised, with demands for them to be taken seriously, simply because the promulgator of the statements is a scientist, and therefore an expert, and therefore (so it is claimed) someone whose pronouncements should be taken seriously.
Yet their expertise in the shaping of society is no greater than anyone else’s. Thus their political views are amplified, and used by others with shared political views, without objective justification. Scientists are, of course, entitled to their political views. But when their views impact on their scientific work, and then their scientific work is used to justify their seeking societal change, it all becomes a complicated mess, and ceases to be good science.
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You may be interested in how the Trump administration is fighting the corruption of science. From the show notes précis of a recent Promethean Action post, with the part on Trump science advisor Michael Kratsios of particular relevance:
“Barbara Boyd argues that Anthony Fauci’s Senate grilling and expected Fifth Amendment stance won’t address the central issue: how he remained protected for so long. Citing Fauci’s recently released diary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role in uncovering it, she claims it shows public deception on COVID origins and policy while the media and institutions helped enforce a manufactured consensus that crushed dissent. Boyd traces this “manufacture of consent” to Walter Lippmann and points to The Lancet’s 2020 anti–lab leak letter organized by Peter Daszak as an example of consensus enforcement tied to funding. She contrasts real science’s adversarial testing with grant-driven conformity, references earlier crises like AIDS and opioids, and highlights a July 21 proposal by Trump science advisor Michael Kratsios to redirect federal science funding toward mavericks, verification, merit, and advanced manufacturing, mandating agencies to reflect the shift in 2027–2028 budgets.”
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David McGrogan has an interesting article at the Daily Sceptic which arguably overlaps a bit with the subject of John’s article. In any event, it offers interesting observations on parallel developments:
“Bloody Awful Work Creeps in When Standards Are Relaxed”
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/08/02/bloody-awful-work-creeps-in-when-standards-are-relaxed/
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The corruption of science as epitomised by the decline of the standards of these journals certainly goes back a long way. I used to treat myself to an occasional copy of Scientific American back in the 1960s when it was a really good read. If I recall correctly, it had turned me off completely by sometime in the 1970s.
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Mark,
When a scientific body is making a public statement designed to correct a societally damaging factual inaccuracy, there is a strong argument that they have a moral right to do so. However, one is often dealing with a value-laden topic, upon which scientific knowledge on its own cannot hope to arbitrate. Too often, the scientist only chooses to clarify in order to provide support for the values that they themselves uphold. It is telling that the example given by SA, immediately after making the point that failure to clarify is itself a political decision, was as follows:
Note the use of ‘targeting’ in the above quote. Also, women’s rights do not appear to be on the scientific radar. And as for flying “in the face of contemporary scientific understandings”, it only flies in the face of the scientific understanding of sexual expression; it certainly does not fly in the face of the scientific understanding of the binary of sex. Getting to decide which of the two is more important to society is not a scientist’s prerogative.
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Rather than “The Death of the Science Journal”, is it not the case that folk now may also have to search for them in the ‘Fiction’ section of thei local library? 🤔
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Dougbrodie1,
I know I am not the only one on this blog that finds Trump a highly problematic figure. Nevertheless, there is surely merit to his attack on federal scientific funding. One only hopes it targets the stuff to which my article refers, rather than the huge volume of good stuff that still somehow manages to get done in the name of science.
I am also nostalgic for the days when I used to fight the other nerds in the school library for a first look at the latest edition of Scientific American to have arrived. The respect SA gave me for science lives with me still. It is that respect that drives me to writing articles like the one above. I just hate to see what is happening.
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Joe,
Yes, yes, the fiction section — not to say Gothic Horror.
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Mark,
That David McGrogan piece was a very good read indeed. It summed up the Jason Arday scandal very fairly. The greatest wonder is how someone like Arday came to enjoy so much academic success. I trust my latest two Cliscep articles throw more than a little light on it. The only thing that Arday has said in his defence that makes any sense at all is that plagiarism is no big deal in academia anymore.
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Two pertinent quotes from Richard LIndzen regarding political capture of science media.
“In another example, I had originally submitted a paper mentioned in the previous section (Lindzen, 2007) to American Scientist, the periodical of the scientific honorary society in the US, Sigma Xi, at the recommendation of a former officer of that society. There followed a year of discussions, with an editor, David Schneider, insisting that I find a coauthor who would illustrate why my paper was wrong. He argued that publishing something that contradicted the IPCC was equivalent to publishing a paper that claimed that ‘Einstein’s general theory of relativity is bunk.’ I suggested that it would be more appropriate for American Scientist to solicit a separate paper taking a view opposed to mine. This was unacceptable to Schneider, so I ended up publishing the paper elsewhere. Needless to add, Schneider has no background in climate physics. At the same time, a committee consisting almost entirely in environmental activists led by Peter Raven, the ubiquitous John Holdren, Richard Moss, Michael MacCracken, and Rosina Bierbaum were issuing a joint Sigma Xi – United Nations Foundation (the latter headed by former Senator and former Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth [19] and founded by Ted Turner) report endorsing global warming alarm, to a degree going far beyond the latest IPCC report. I should add that simple disagreement with conclusions of the IPCC has become a common basis for rejecting papers for publication in professional journals – as long as the disagreement suggests reduced alarm. An example will be presented later in this section.”
“Vincent Courtillot et al (2007) encountered a similar problem. (Courtillot, it should be noted, is the director of the Institute for the Study of the Globe at the University of Paris.) They found that time series for magnetic field variations appeared to correlate well with temperature measurements – suggesting a possible non-anthropogenic source of forcing. This was immediately criticized by Bard and Delaygue (2008), and Courtillot et al were given the conventional right to reply which they did in a reasonably convincing manner. What followed, however, was highly unusual. Raymond Pierrehumbert (a professor of meteorology at the University of Chicago and a fanatical environmentalist) posted a blog supporting Bard and Delaygue, accusing Courtillot et al of fraud, and worse. Alan Robock (a coauthor of Vinnikov et al mentioned in the preceding section) perpetuated the slander in a letter circulated to all officers of the American Geophysical Union. The matter was then taken up (in December of 2007) by major French newspapers (LeMonde, Liberation, and Le Figaro) that treated Pierrehumbert’s defamation as fact. As in the previous case, all references to the work of Courtillot et al refer to it as ‘discredited’ and no mention is made of their response. Moreover, a major argument against the position of Courtillot et al is that it contradicted the claim of the IPCC.”
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In case anyone is interested in the source:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-science-is-it-currently-designed-to-answer-questions/16330
Abstract:
For a variety of inter-related cultural, organizational, and political reasons, progress in climate science and the actual solution of scientific problems in this field have moved at a much slower rate than would normally be possible.
Not all these factors are unique to climate science, but the heavy influence of politics has served to amplify the role of the other factors. By cultural factors, I primarily refer to the change in the scientific paradigm from a dialectic opposition between theory and observation to an emphasis on simulation and observational programs. The latter serves to almost eliminate the dialectical focus of the former.
Whereas the former had the potential for convergence, the latter is much less effective. The institutional factor has many components. One is the inordinate growth of administration in universities and the consequent increase in importance of grant overhead. This leads to an emphasis on large programs that never end. Another is the hierarchical nature of formal scientific organizations whereby a small executive council can speak on behalf of thousands of scientists as well as govern the distribution of ‘carrots and sticks’ whereby reputations are made and broken. The above factors are all amplified by the need for government funding.
When an issue becomes a vital part of a political agenda, as is the case with climate, then the politically desired position becomes a goal rather than a consequence of scientific research. This paper will deal with the origin of the cultural changes and with specific examples of the operation and interaction of these factors. In particular, we will show how political bodies act to control scientific institutions, how scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions, and how opposition to these positions is disposed of.
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Since we are talking about the death of an institution, it would be remiss not to report the sad passing of journalist Rod Liddle. As sceptics go, he was certainly one of the most fearless and articulate.
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Norman Fenton’s latest piece also seems relevant here:
“The Capture of Academia: Why I Had to Write This Book”
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/08/03/the-capture-of-academia-why-i-had-to-write-this-book/
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dougbrodie1 (03 AUG 26 AT 9:20 AM) is certainly right that the problem with Scientific American goes back to the 70s. I remember being interested when they announced that they would be covering the social sciences. The trouble was, the articles were extremely dull.
The problem is that advances in the social sciences don’t come in neat packets that make for short articles that are interesting to the layman. You can write an interesting article about the discovery of a new exo-planet or species of mollusc, but not about a new survey of motivational reasoning among 200 1st year students in psychology. There are no new lost tribes with interesting rituals, no new social structures or sexual perversions to discover.
Advances in the social sciences come about when an original thinker takes a new look at stuff we already knew. The only interesting new ideas in the social sciences I’ve come across in the past 50 years are Emmanuel Todd’s work on the relation between family structure and political systems, and Andy West on climate belief and religiosity. Neither of them will ever get into Nature, Science or Scientific American.
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I recommend the 1st two articles linked by the first commenter here, Rafe Champion. They cover Popper & Tullock on the dangers of Big Science, & a review of a book on the “philosophy” of climate science.
I also recommend to Mr Champion to accompany his links with a brief description of the articles linked to, since not everyone will click on a random link as I did.
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dougbrodie1 – thanks for that Promethean Action post link. I find it odd that UK TV MSM don’t seem interested in Anthony Fauci’s Senate grilling, or did I miss it?
Given the wall to wall Covid coverage at the time & the death toll stats, the lack of MSM follow up seems strange. It almost seems like It never happened, just a bad dream, nobody talks about it.
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PS – John, another great post & sorry for going a bit O/T
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The content of the article I find deeply disturbing, though the general message is nothing new. That is, science journals enforce narratives. The most disturbing part, in my opinion, is that science journals stop dissenting, enquiring opinions from being voiced. Or even allow dumb questions from being publicly asked. People are so shamed into not expressing contrary opinions that, when confronted with some new information that seems inane, they will not voice any gut reaction. Such reactions, in an open society, can lead to research.
Let me be more specific with an example from my area of interest. Climate mitigation is a policy to avert the worst impacts of climate change by cutting (or even eliminating, then reversing) GLOBAL greenhouse gas emissions. See IPCC AR6 WG3 SPM 1.5oC pathway. Logically, the climate impact of any particular mitigation policy is the marginal impact on the global whole. Even at the level of the UK as a whole, and using the IPCC’s very narrow uncertainty bands, that is effectively zero.
Now suppose the recent extensive fires on the moors east of Manchester were made more severe as a result of human-caused climate change. Even if the whole world suddenly decided to follow the IPCC’s 1.5oC pathway, that pathway predicts global average temperatures would still rise by another half degree before declining later in the century. Wildfires will get worse based on these assumptions.
But the severity of wildfires on the moors is due to dry peat catching fire and slow-burning for weeks. Controlled burning (when the peat is damp) gets rid of the dead vegetation and helps form fire breaks. But in recent years, controlled burning has become heavily restricted.
Preventative actions locally can make a large marginal positive difference to wildfires. Conversely, the impact of government regulations (justified by helping to combat climate change) can make a large marginal negative difference.
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Dfhunter,
Thanks for the feedback. You were not terribly O/T. Throughout Covid there were narratives that were portrayed as the science, and anything contrary was branded as anti-science. Of course, that was always a simplistic analysis, and the obvious efforts at narrative curation also did little to calm the sceptical brain. The failure of the MSM to give Anthony Fauci’s Senate grilling the coverage it deserves is just part of the continued curation.
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Kevin,
Yes, that was basically Patrick Brown’s point. Insisting on a simplified narrative that quantifies only climatic factors allows one to focus only upon one aspect when it might not be the most important one as far as practical mitigations are concerned. Impact analysis requires quantification. Comparative impact analysis requires quantification across the board.
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Manic, there are sound ecological reasons to reduce, or eliminate, managed burning on moorland. You may think this is the comment of a townie ecologist, and that theory is not often mirrored by reality in this sort of thing. But the key point is that burning creates a feedback loop that produces a fire-adapted community, which quickly grows up to dangerous size and has to be burnt again. The more frequent is the burning, the more fire-adapted the habitat becomes, and so on.
The alternative view is that alternate plant communities are possible in the same places, given re-wetting or the absence of fire. The problem here would be to isolate the habitat from fire long enough for succession to push out the fire-adapted plants (i.e. heather). In that regard, a no-regrets solution would be strip burning to produce firebreaks. Personally, I would also suggest removing all sheep for a decade, to allow trees to gain a foothold.
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John @ 04 Aug 26 at 8:39 am
Impact analysis for practical policy purposes requires a different skill sets to the modelling of climatology. Indeed, the critical skills required to make sure a proposed policy will achieve its aims are largely the antithesis of those of modelling to support narratives. You need to question assumptions, look at alternative explanations, and consider policy implementation issues.
Most importantly, the IPCC emissions pathways assume that the world acts as a single unified body. They do not consider the marginal impacts of a single country’s policies on the claimed climate problem and the burdens placed on the people of that country. I will go through an example rather better than wildfires, which I did some research on last year. That is a European Court of Human Rights climate case found against the Swiss Government. For speed, I will quote the Google AI summary, which concurs with my own research.
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Here’s some nurture from Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06781-4
‘Public engagement and climate change: exploring the role of hairdressers as everyday influencers’.
Thirty hairdressers were asked whether they thought that badgering their customers about climate change could save the planet. In addition, little stickers bearing ‘eco-tips’ (e.g., ‘Showering too often or for too long can make skin dry and irritated’) were attached to mirrors in 25 salons ‘to prompt sustainable hair care conversations’.
The study was funded by UKRI. The amount isn’t given. Frankly, I think fourpence would be too much – although I confess that I haven’t read it all. My skin got dry and irritated during page 2 and my hair started falling in the middle of page 3.
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Vinny,
And yet people claim that Nature isn’t the journal it used to be 🙂
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Vinny – your link make me laugh & cry at the same time, seems it’s part of – ://www.nature.com/palcomms
Can’t wait for the next “Public engagement and climate change” – exploring the role of taxi drivers as everyday influencers. Suggested driver response, f*ck off and walk home.
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Neil O’Brien (MP for Harborough and Shadow Minister for Policy) has written a good article on his Substack:
“The Arday scandal revealed the rot in our universities”
https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-arday-scandal-revealed-the-rot
It includes the following passage, which I think nicely sums up how I feel about it:
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I mention in my article that The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) could have been included in the analysis if I had the time and inclination. Well, I still don’t, but I do have the time to reference the following example to illustrate the appalling levels of political partisanship that can be found in a supposedly scientific journal:
Jason Arday and the Perils of Being Black in Academia
https://voices.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/VOICESpost2600045
It opens with “They are trying to kill us.” And somehow manages to go down from there. I won’t attempt a detailed response, but will instead quote the following comment posted below it:
Unbecoming of a medical journal
This is an incredibly racist piece. I read that it is not peer reviewed and does not reflect the views of the journal. Even with that disclaimer, I’m surprised this was printed.
When academia decides that facts don’t matter, and any accountability is simply racism, the influence of the institution will only lose more influence.
This article seems to advocate that we provide blanket amnesty to anyone in the future who may engage in plagiarism or fraud.
I also find it chilling– an attempt to be an enforcer of speech codes and cancel culture as a warning to others who might raise similar concerns in similar cases.
Branden Tarlow MD PhD
The Oregon Clinic Gastroenterology
—————
Good on you Branden.
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Don’t know all the details about Jason Arday & his untimely death, so won’t comment on that.
What struck me was this – “In contrast, as a white man, you can rise to be president of Stanford University, and after your falsified data is found and has set back an entire field of research for years — you will only lose your job and then quickly find another one as the CEO of a $1 billion biopharma start-up”
May not be a direct comparison, but the names Mann & Gleick come to mind, so she has a point.
However the list of “white” men/woman that have lost tenure/had to leave is to long to list.
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