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A climate change scientist has claimed the world's leading academic
journals reject papers which don't 'support certain narratives' about the
issue and instead favor 'distorted' research which hypes up dangers rather
than solutions.

Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of
earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science - two of
the most prestigious scientific journals - select 'climate papers that
support certain preapproved narratives'.

In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way
'the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause' of
wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii. He pointed
out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans.

Brown gave the example of a paper he recently authored titled 'Climate
warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California'. Brown
said the paper, published in Nature last week, 'focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior' and ignored other
key factors.

Brown laid out his claims in an article titled 'I Left Out the Full Truth
to Get My Climate Change Paper Published'. 'I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not
the way science should work,' the article begins.

'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,' he wrote of his recently- published work.

'This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be
published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers
for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have
made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject,
that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved
narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader
knowledge for society.

'To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding
the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of
Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate
change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great
deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most
importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.'

A spokesperson for Nature said 'all submitted manuscripts are considered independently on the basis of the quality and timeliness of their
science'.

'Our editors make decisions based solely on whether research meets our
criteria for publication – original scientific research (where conclusions
are sufficiently supported by the available evidence), of outstanding scientific importance, which reaches a conclusion of interest to a multidisciplinary readership,' a statement said.

'Intentional omission of facts and results that are relevant to the main conclusions of a paper is not considered best practice with regards to
accepted research integrity principles,' the spokesperson added.

Science was approached for comment.

Brown opened his missive with links to stories by AP, PBS NewsHour, The
New York Times and Bloomberg which he said give the impression global
wildfires are 'mostly the result of climate change'.

He said that 'climate change is an important factor' but 'isn't close to
the only factor that deserves our sole focus'.

Much reporting of the wildfires in Maui has said climate change
contributed to the disaster by helping to create conditions that caused
the fires to spark and spread quickly.

The blazes, which killed at least 115 people, are believed to have been
started by a downed electricity line, but observers have said rising temperatures caused extremely dry conditions on the Hawaiian island.

Brown said the media operates like scientific journals in that the focus
on climate change 'fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling
it'.

Scientists whose careers depend on their work being published in major
journals also 'tailor' their work to 'support the mainstream narrative',
he said.

'This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate
paper,' he added. 'The authors should ignore—or at least
downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.'

He gave examples of factors which are ignored, including a 'decline in
deaths from weather and climate disasters over the last century'. In the
case of wildfires, Brown says 'current research indicates that these
changes in forest management practices could completely negate the
detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires'.

Poor forest management has also been blamed for a record number of
wildfires in Canada this year.

But 'the more practical kind of analysis is discouraged' because it
'weakens the case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions', Brown said.

Successful papers also often use 'less intuitive metrics' to measure the impacts of climate change because they 'generate the most eye-popping
numbers', he said.

He went onto to claim that other papers he's written which don't match a certain narrative have been 'rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets'.

Brown concluded: 'We need a culture change across academia and elite media
that allows for a much broader conversation on societal resilience to
climate.

'The media, for instance, should stop accepting these papers at face value
and do some digging on what’s been left out.

'The editors of the prominent journals need to expand beyond a narrow
focus that pushes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. And the researchers themselves need to start standing up to editors, or find other places to publish.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12482921/climate-scientist- patrick-brown-wildfires-started-people.html

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