Pielke then disappeared from FiveThirtyEight for a while, and when he returned began posting about sports. He never again had a post on climate at FiveThirtyEight. Now this:



Roger Pielke, Jr., a climate analyst with a contrarian streak, is no longer writing for Nate Silver's data journalism website FiveThirtyEight.

Pielke, who wrote several sports-related items for FiveThirtyEight but almost nothing else about climate, told Kloor that Silver's site showed "reluctance" to keep publishing his work, but that he wished them well and remains a fan. However, Pielke also criticized the way Silver handled criticism of the March story on disasters, noting, "I do wish that 538 had shown a bit more editorial backbone."

Contrarian streak is an extremely generous framing, as my earlier post elucidates, but Pielke doesn't seem too happy about losing his position at FiveThirtyEight.Of course, backbone is exactly what FiveThirtyEight did show. Just not in the way Pielke would have liked.

The real story here is that Silver and FiveThirtyEight have answered the questions about their credibility, and will no longer be used to promote disinformation about climate change. This is a victory for the cause of accurate and honest climate change messaging. The criticism of Pielke was substantive, and Silver and FiveThirtyEight have disassociated themselves from Pielke. They deserve credit for that. For the sake of accuracy, the BBC also recently decided to stop giving air time to climate change deniers. If only more media cared as much about accuracy and credibility, and stopped posting, publishing and broadcasting climate disinformation.