Why are people cynical about the use of “scientific” data in public policy? Here are two examples.

Washington Snowpack

Last weekend, Washington’s state climatologist and assistant state climatologist authored a piece warning that climate change is reducing snowpack. Although the authors add caveats, the tone echoes climate legislation this year which proclaimed, “Our state is already experiencing…depleting snowpack.”

The authors rely on two key data points. First, they cite 2015 as evidence of the “variability” in snowpack. Snowpack over the last decade, however, has been fairly consistent. Including 2018’s strong snowpack, ten of the last twelve years have seen snowpack above normal on April 1. Far from being variable, it has been consistently above average. It is not an accident that the authors chose 2015 because it is the only recent year they can point to with below average snowpack.

Second, they point to a study from Phil Mote, at Oregon State University, which notes, “over 90 percent of snow monitoring sites with long records across the western U.S. show declines.” There is a reason Mote uses “long records.” The declines in snowpack only appear if you go back to the 1950s or before. The early 1950s saw the highest snowpack in the last century, meaning virtually any line will slope downward if you include those years.

Climate change is supposed to be accelerating, meaning that loss of snowpack is supposed to be getting worse. The data show that isn’t happening.

Does this mean temperatures aren’t increasing? No. Does it mean climate change is a hoax? No. It does, however, mean the discussion about climate change, the magnitude, and the risks, is being skewed in a way to support a particular policy agenda.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour was from 8:30-9:30 pm on March 24, where people are asked to turn off their lights from to save electricity and signal their concern about climate change. Although some Earth Hour supporters claim it saves electricity, it makes almost no difference. This is the graph of electricity demand for the California grid, and you can see that electricity demand was exactly as was predicted without a drop at 8:30 when people were supposed to turn lights off.

What stood out at me, however, was the timing of Earth Hour. It is supposed to begin at 8:30 local time, wherever you are. Notice that 8:30 is almost exactly the peak of electricity demand. In other words, Earth Hour is set to coincide with the exact moment people always begin turning off lights and reducing electricity use.

Like the snowpack trick of beginning in 1950, Earth Hour supporters can point to the decline in demand and claim it fits their narrative – people are honoring Earth Hour! Really, the trend is a result of cherry-picking a particular time. If Earth Hour begin one hour earlier, at 7:30, the trend would be significantly upward.

The public understands data are manipulated to achieve a desired message. The result is that people choose to believe what they want, as the truth-value of data is undermined.

In an environment where policymakers choose the information most convenient to their ideology, focusing only on public policy is unlikely to deliver reliably positive results.

Returning power, and accountability, to individuals is one way to overcome this nihilist approach to data. I can claim buying a Tesla will save me money in the long run, but when I have to pay the price of the car, it becomes clear that, no matter my ideology, it will be expensive. Without skin in the game, however, advocates will continue to skew the data to suit their political ends. These two examples, from the last week alone, are more evidence of that problem.