Paul Bryan on Steven Koonin: Cancel Culture at Work

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 6, 2021

“Koonin is … not REMOTELY qualified to dispute the conclusions of thousands of working scientists…. Koonin will say whatever he is paid to say.” (Paul Bryan, below)

“Bryan offers only  ad hominem attacks. Sadly, so characteristic of the public conversation about climate science.  If he’d made a specific criticism of what I said about climate science, it might be worth responding to.” (Koonin, below)

Emotions run high in the climate debate between the ‘settled-science’ alarmists and cautious, data-driven critics. There is every reason to listen and learn in a quite unsettled area (climate models?) and not be crude and offensive, much less engage in angry hate speech.

“Fossil fuel troll” … “You are simply shilling for the addiction model of energy and the dealers that profit from it” … “Your arguments are tired, old, oft-debunked pages from the Denier’s Playbook. Goebbels would be proud….” The public insults just would not stop from Paul Bryan … until I shared them last week on MasterResource. He scrubbed his answers in his exchanges with me (you see just my answers here) and has otherwise gone incognito.

Bryan below represents the mentality behind climate alarmism (Malthusianism, nature-is-optimal deep ecology), as well as fire-ready-aim policy activism. He traffics in ad hominem and argument from authority …. He wants to cancel his opponents.

In this part of the exchange (below), the targets are the prominent skeptics of climate alarm, and in particular Steven Koonin, who Bryant claims to know and have insider information about. Bryan needs to give us more details, not go into hiding.

What about humility in the face of the “wicked problem” of understanding global climate? Mid-course corrections? Respect for consumers? Respect for taxpayers? Recognition of government failure and analytic failure along side ‘market failure’? All this is just road kill on the road to energy serfdom to members of the Church of Climate.

The exchange follows:

Bradley: On climate science being ‘settled’, nice try. Please study Steven Koonin and follow Judith Curry.

Paul Bryan: Koonin will say whatever he is paid to say. You know how? We were both at the DOE at the same time, we had a number of conversations on these very issues, and he didn’t say anything like what he says now. Why? His bosses then (Chu & Obama) weren’t paying him to contradict science. Now, they are. As you yourself obviously know, that can be a good gig….

Bradley: What are you saying? Sounds like he had some views during Chu/Obama that were his own and different from the narrative. Then after, he comes out.

Are you saying (“As you yourself obviously know, that can be a good gig”) that he was bought off to come out? Something doesn’t add up….

Bryan: Can’t believe you think it’s even worth debating Koonin’s credibility. He worked for BP, he had BP’s POV. Worked for the Obama Admin, he took on their views. He then went to work for Trump, and guess what??? He was deeply committed to Trump’s views. Hi WSJ Editorial and his more recent book have been roundly criticized and scientifically debunked by actual climate scientists. Koonin’s own background, as well as the last actual scientific work he did, is in theoretical physics. He has no qualification to dispute findings in the climate science field, no ACTUAL work of his own, just cherry-picked nuggets, and no consistent history of “beliefs” except for their connection to his paycheck.

Bradley: … Koonin is good on [ed., the problems of climate models], and The Economist explained it well, See here: https://www.aier.org/article/climate-models-worse-than-nothing/ …

Bryan: … Stop trying to pretend there is a debate that doesn’t exist except among those who are PAID to make it. Koonin is NOT “good” on this, and he is not REMOTELY qualified to dispute the conclusions of thousands of working scientists…. If cell phones were designed by people with as much expertise in electronics as Koonin has in climate science, we’d still be using two tin cans with a string tied between them for mobile communications.

I then emailed Professor Koonin for his reaction to Bryan’s comments. He said simply (September 28, 2021):

Bryan offers only  ad hominem attacks.  Sadly, so characteristic of the public conversation about climate science. If he’d made a specific criticism of what I said about climate science, it might be worth responding to.

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