ITTAKESA I

TO I Economist ROSS MCKITRICK talks about why he ' dE

) HANDLE THE CRITICS he debunked the "HOCKEY STICK" graph

BY LORI BONA HUNT PHOTOS BY ROSS DAVIDSON-PILON

U 0 f G economics pro-fessor Ross McKitrick did not set out to be

the poster child for " the other side" of the

climate change debate. In fact, his initial

interest in the subj ect was casual.

A doctoral student at the Universi ty of

British Columbia in the 1990s, he was

studying an empirical tool called computable

general equilibriwn modelling - a technique

that uses actual economic data to estimate

how an economy might react to changes in

policy, technology or other external factors.

" I needed a topic to apply it to," he

explains.

"People were just starting to talk about

carbon tax and climate policy, and I was inter-

ested in environm.ental policy as a fi eld to

teach, so I picked climate change. That is how it got started."

" It" would be a nearly 20- year career

devoted to researching the economics of cli-

mate change and environmental policy, espe-

cially the models and statistical techniqu es

used to make dir redictions.And almost froni the start cKitrick 's ~esear ,h and namb have b en linked with contr versy.

He's know internationally for his s~eptical views of any aspects of the climare issue

everyt ng from rising temperatures to tHe

ben ts of green energy. I e's challenged high-pr6file ~erzlts and

/:

OliCies, including questionint~idence

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~;~:;!:~:~~~:~;e~:~ u~ta~et~~: (!PCC) to justifY the Kyo Protocol.

/ McKitrick's controversial 2005 study

//I found fundamental laws in the so-called

"hockey stick" model of global warming,

which was ea by IPCC to argue that the 19905 were the warmest decade of the mil-

lennium. The analysis he conducted with

Canadian mineralogist and analyst Steven

McIntyre sent the world of climate change

science into a tailspin. Everything McKitrick

has written since has been heavily scruti-

nized, analyzed and challenged.

Then there was the study published last

spring that found global warming has been on hiatus for nearly 20 years. McKitri ck 's

research shows that model projections of a

globa l warming emergency have been

greatly exaggerated.

His critics continue to disagree - vehe-

mently and loudly - but he has grown to

expect that response and even to accept it.

Climate change is a contentious issue, he

says. " It 's extremely complicated and every-

thing that makes it complex is important."

Early in his career, McKitrick co-wrote

Taken by Stonn: 771e Troubled Science, Polic), and

Politics of Global Warming with Christopher

Essex, Wester n University. The book was

rUlmer-up for the 2002-2003 DOllller Prize.

AU ofG faculty member since 1996,

M cKitrick is also a senior fellow of Canada's

Fraser Institute. The independent public pol-

icy organization has released some of his lat-

est rese h,lncluding a study of Ontario's "'-

Gre Energy Act (.~). In that study, he 10 ked at the cost to

axpayers of wind an solar power ($20

billion and countiji, he says) and the

resulting skyrocke~.ing energy prices . His

report says more conventional pollution

control methods would have yielded the

same environmental benefits as the GEA, /

but at a tenth of the cost.

But 'it's his " hockey stick" research that

has reclaimed attention south of the border.

The American professor who wrote the

/ original study containing the hockey stick

graph continues to pursue defamation law-

suits against critics in the United States.

M cKitrick, while not part of the legal

actions, is getting queries from lawyers,jour-

nalists and academics.

The Portico sat down with McKitrick to

talk about his work and about coping with

controversy.

How would you describe your

research to someone you just met?

I study the economics of environmental

policy and the use of econometric methods

in climatology, including data quality evalu-

ation and model tes ting. When evaluating

environmental data, the answers that people

get depend heavily on subtle differences in

the techniques they are using. What looks like

an obscure change in the statistical method-

ology can lead to different conclusions on a

topic that is feeding directly into debates'

about legislation . So you cannot avoid the

complexities, even if you think you are just

going to work on some policy issue.

When did you first realize that your work was going to be controversial?

I knew pretty much from the beginning.

When I started, there were not many econ-

onlists writing about climate change, let alone

critical pieces related to the Kyoto Protocol.

Plus, when you go into som eone else's field,

you inunediately provoke a reaction. It 's also

a field where there is a very large activist

community, a huge environmental movement

that is heavily invested in a certain narrative.

So it didn't come as a surprise to me that, if

I was going to challenge that narrative, there

was going to be a lot of controversy. '

You are an economist, not a scien-

tist. Is that problematic in this field? Physical scientists have areas of expertise

that allow them to do a lot of data collection

and know what it is that they should be mea-

suring. Where I found an entry point was

when I started looking at what they were

doing with that data - at the statistical tech-

niques. Half of my publications in the past

decade have been in physical science journals.

You talk about challenging the

"doctrine of certainty" around climate

change. What d~ you mean?

Winter 2015 17

In fields where yo~ have incredibly com-

pli cated problem s, in most applications no

one would think to declare that they've got

the whole thing fi gured out. Yet in climate

modelling, the messaging is that the models

are accurate, that we can make these predic-

tions and we've got the theory all figured out.

O n the policy side, there is a background

to this narrative, which is: " the issue of cli-

mate change is settled, we know it's a big

hazard and we know that we have to ac t -

and we have to act now." So this idea, th e

doctrine of certainty, is used to shut down

debate before the debate even starts - to say

"why would we even question this?"

But on all of these topics that are

supposedly settled, w hen we look

U1idern eath the surface, we find th at

things are not settled and the things that

make them unsettled actually matter. It

might be a difficult debate, but it's one

that we actually need to have.

How do you respond to claims

that you are denying climate

change?

I publish heavily in the field , so I have to read and study it. Far from deny-

ing the science, I actually understand it

pretty well. The irony is that in our

hockey stick work we were arguing

against a study that we felt suppressed

evidence of climate change. In that case

it was historical variability present in the

underlying data that was downplayed in

the final graph, making modern trends

look larger by comparison .

I've also published studies showing

that climate models are diverging signi.fi cant-

Iy from observations, with a tendency to over-

state modern warming.You can read my arti-

cles about these issues at rossmckitrick.com.

That's not "denying climate change:' it's a ques-

tion of evaluating the tools we use to study it.

At tlus point the models and data are not say-

ing the sam e thing, so you have to choose

wluch to believe. I primarily believe the data.

What is the No.1 thing that people

misunderstand about your research?

When people are attempting to margin-

alize you from a debate, they paint you as

refusing to take th e issue seriously; so that

would be th e main misunderstanding. O f

co urse I ta ke the issue seriously, w hi ch is

18 TH E P ORTI CO

why I devoted so many years to studying it,

to working on it. W hat I don't always take

seriously is the alarmist rhetoric that peo-

ple use to try to get attention.

What else?

People often claim or assume that my

research is funded by the oil industry, which

has never been true. The fa lse claim carries

with it an implied attack on your in tegrity.

Any contrary opinions I formed over the

years came about beca use of studying the

data. What I say is based on the research I

publish and th e co nclusions that I form

based on the research.

U of G is known as an environmen-

talist institution. Have you found it dif-

ficult to work here, given the positions

that you tend to take on climate change?

Well, sometimes I feel like the diversity

candidate Oaughs). But, actually, I have fOUl1d

U of G to be extremely hospitable.Yes, there

are a lot of people who see tllemselves as part

of a progressive, green culture, and Guelph

as a progressive, green city.At the same time,

this is a curiosity-driven institution. If you

are expressing views that are based on

research that you've done carefu.lly and pub-

lished in legitimate j ournals, then whether

people like your conclusions or not doesn't

really figure in to how they react to yo ur

work.You're contributing to the fundamental

mission of the college and the University,

which is to do research on important topics

and engage in current debates .

What is the most frustrating p art of

your research?

My work overlapped with the rise of the

In tern et and social media, so suddenly it

became really hard to get away from the

rhetoric. As long as you have a phone or a

laptop, it is going to be in your face. Thirty

years ago, if you did or said somerhing con-troversial, th e next day there would be

peopl e ta lkin g around the \Yater cooler or

so m ew here, and someone might say

something disparaging or nasry ~bout

yo u, but they would be saying it to a

small gro up of people. O\Y they are

going to say it on Twitter and in blogs

and spread it everywhere. You have to

remind yourself that it's still the same

inconsequential , tossed-off opinion; ir

j ust happens to be broadcast widely.

It seems your latest research on

the climate change hiatus has been

received more favourably. What

has changed?

In tl1e case of the hockey stick graph,

we were criticizing a position that IPCC

had rea.lly staked its reputation on. But

in its last report, IPCC included a clear

acknowledgment that the hiatus in glob-

al warming is happening, tim the mod-

els and observations are bas ica Ll y on a

c1i fferent page at tills point. So this time

I am arti culating information that is

actually in an [PCC report but just not wide-

ly recognized, which is a big difference.

You play the Scottish smallpipes and

pennywhistle in a band, The Wild Oats. You 've released a couple of CDs to

raise money for charity and now you're

producing independent local artists.

How did this evolve?

It started as a hobby and ju t grew. I

found it rea lly fun to perform and later to

produce music and build up a record label.

Celtic music is a velY social tradition. A key part is listening to what others around you

are doing and playing in a group. Ir's relax-

ing; it 's sociable and a great \ya\ to put the

work week behind you .