Top all-time · #2976
Roger Pielke Jr.
Personal blog · rogerpielkejr.substack.comsciencepolitics
Roger Pielke Jr. writes The Honest Broker, a personal blog at rogerpielkejr.substack.com about science and politics. Since 2020, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 36 times, most often “RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Roger Pielke Jr.'s Substack for counterpoints on climate scenarios (RCP8.5), disaster losses as a share of GDP, and climate policy, including his 'Iron Law' of climate policy.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Making sense of science, policy and politics. Click to read The Honest Broker, by Roger Pielke Jr.,
Most-linked posts?
- RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-04-30
- The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-08
- /p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-07-31
- What the IPCC Actually Says About Extreme Weather2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-07-25
- What the media won't tell you about US heat waves (2022)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-07-16
- Scientific Integrity and the Origins of Covid-192 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-11-20
What Hacker News says?
At the start of the article: "Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario..." Roger Pielke is good about this. He points out that the "business-as-usual" scenario is extremely unlikely: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu... I'm not arguing that the original article is uninformative or unimportant.
Comment linking /p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outdated
on “The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance (2020)”Submitted The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science as a story · 210 points
HN discussionSounds really conclusive, doesn't it? If you look a bit deeper at the statistics, this database "records disasters which have killed ten or more people; affected 100 or more people; resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance." What factors besides frequency and severity of weather events could affect these statistics? Most obvious are population growth (doubled over that period…
Comment linking /p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-report-1e3
on “Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night”Submitted The Global Population Crisis That Never Was as a story · 93 points
HN discussionInteresting take by a scientist who was a witness in this trial: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence
Comment linking /p/false-equivalence
on “Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1M in defamation lawsuit”Submitted More good news from the most recent climate scenarios as a story · 11 points
HN discussionRoger Pielke Jnr has coined "Pielke's Iron Law" . It is : "If there is an iron law of climate policy, it is that when policies focused on economic growth confront policies focused on emissions reductions, it is economic growth that will win out every time." https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-iron-law-of-climate... It looks like a pretty good rule of thumb.
Comment linking /p/the-iron-law-of-climate-policy
on “96% of climate policy since 1998 failed”Submitted Apples, Oranges, and Normalized Hurricane Damage as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe emissions have been near the best-case projections, and far below the average and worst-case projections https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu...
Comment linking /p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outdated
on “The Long Boom (1997)”Submitted What do downward-revised population and GDP projections mean for climate futures as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDoes this help : "Since 1990, the toll of disasters as a proportion of the global economy has gone down from about 0.25% of GDP to less than 0.20%. That is good news and indicates progress with respect to the goals of the Sendai Framework." from : https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/global-disaster-losses1...
Comment linking /p/global-disaster-losses1990-2023
on “Thunderstorms Have Caused $45B in Damages in the U.S. in Six Months”Submitted The Original Pandemic Lab Leak Debate as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAbsolutely, just have to throw out OSHA, take land from people that own it without due process and ignore everything the EPA says. ... in all seriousness, it would be a lot more useful to compare what a developed country has been able to achieve.. even more useful is the country you're talking about. oh look - here you go: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-much-does-it-cost-t... http://euanmearns.com/how-long…
Comment linking /p/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a
on “The future of nuclear energy in a carbon-constrained world (2018)”Submitted The Top Five Climate Science Scandals as a story · 2 points
HN discussion>The same WHO that said COVID-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab Actually a group of scientists published that on Nature Medicine. Fraudulently though, and under tremendous pressure from China and Nature. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-mu...
Comment linking /p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted
on “Revealed: WHO aspartame safety panel linked to alleged Coca-Cola front group”Submitted Welcome to post-apocalyptic climate policy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSpeaking of which, I recently saw this: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-... which is kinda a review of what IPCC report says about "extreme weather". For me, this summary is a lot different than the way I see this aspect talked about in the media (and on Twitter, etc) even by climate scientists.
Comment linking /p/what-the-ipcc-actually-says-about
on “Warning of forthcoming collapse of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation”Submitted Scientific Integrity and the Origins of Covid-19 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe impact of extreme weather events has been declining as a share of global GDP since 1990, people are good at adapting. Source : https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/dont-believe-the-hype One of the high scenarios for emissions, RCP 8.5, which was used for modelling what might happen with climate change, is unlikely to happen: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-good-news-about-cli...
Comment linking /p/the-good-news-about-climate-change
on “Ask HN: Is there any hopeful news about climate change?”Submitted Scientific Integrity and the Origins of Covid-19 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI use the fantastic Inoreader that is better than Google Reader was. I follow things that post maybe once or twice a week or once a month. For things with new information every day, like Hacker News, I check the website. A few of the things that I follow that may be a bit different for people are : Arnold Kling - a PhD economist who worked in technology and is genuinely different. https://arnoldkling.substack.com/ N…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who do you follow via RSS feed?”Submitted RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSome ( somewhat over the top ) analysis: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/a-huge-retraction-the-u... https://issuesinsights.com/2025/12/05/about-that-retracted-c...
Comment linking /p/a-huge-retraction-the-usual-playbook
on “Retraction Note: The economic commitment of climate change”Submitted RCP8.5 Is Officially Dead as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAs pointed out here: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-mu... some of the main reasons why it should be retracted include: 1. The paper was had ghost writers 2. Due to ghostwriting the paper failed to properly disclose COI 3. The paper is intentionally misleading, written with the sole purpose of misleading the scientific process 4. The authors both before and after publication expressed diffe…
Comment linking /p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted
on “STEM professionals ask Nature to retract COVID-19 lab leak paper”Submitted The high-emissions RCP8.5 scenario is Officially Dead as a story · 1 points
HN discussionon topic article that was flagged and dead soon after posting: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-media-wont-tel...
Comment linking /p/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-9f9
on “Heat wave: Tens of millions endure scorching temperatures across the U.S.”Submitted The New Climate Reality as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm gonna plug Roger Pielke Jr (obligatory not a climate change denier by any means disclaimer) who talks a lot about issues like these. Climate change has become an industry now. A lot of people are selling research and solutions and they hype up the problem as much as they can even if it's not realistic. Nobody on the center or left has been checking them because they don't want to be labeled a climate change deni…
Comment linking /archive
on “How Climate Scenarios Lost Touch with Reality”Submitted What the IPCC Actually Says About Extreme Weather as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
