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"Some researchers have argued that it is unfair to attack the IPCC too strongly, pointing out that some errors are inevitable in a report as long and technical
by nfnaaron 17y ago
"Some researchers have argued that it is unfair to attack the IPCC too strongly, pointing out that some errors are inevitable in a report as long and technical as the IPCC's round-up of climate science."
Yeah, especially if you willfully ignore them when they're known, in favor of a position.
I'm getting the sense that advocacy is playing too high a role in both the science and the policy of climate change. Indeed, advocacy seems to have coupled science and policy into one large system.
I'm also wondering if "climate change" shouldn't even be a phrase in common usage, at least not the way we use it to refer to an accepted direction in policy and earth science.
- barrkel 17y agoThe problem is that there are concentrated vested interests in disputing and denying the evidence. It's in this kind of environment that pro climate change advocacy formed, to counteract self-interested lobbies. There isn't a simple solution here. When profit-making corporations have unlimited free political speech, how does science make itself heard, without also seeming to turn into political advocacy?
- tome 17y agoThis is a problem. Indeed "politics has no place in science", but if politics does have a place in business (and it does whether we like it or not) then how are important scientific challenges to entrenched businesses to be approached?
- fauigerzigerk 17y agoI think the notion that profit-making corporations with vested interests are to be found on only one side of this debate is completely false. Companies such as GE, Siemens, the renewables industries and essentially all industries that are users of energy as opposed to producers of energy from fossile fuels have a massive vested interest in driving the current climate panic forward. Even auto makers, who have indeed been lobbying against far reaching regulation, are in a double bind situation. I cannot imagine a greater opportunity for them to make loads of money than governments forcing people to buy expensive electric vehicles and subsidising them massively. Last (and probably even least) there are the climate scientists themselves whose funding and career prospects depend heavily on politics and advocacy.
- barrkel 17y agoThat only adds fuel to the fire, though. It doesn't reduce the temperature of the conversation such that there's more light than heat, more reason than emotion involved.
- cema 17y agoUnlimited free political speech should not be a problem, whichever way you approach it.
- jbooth 17y agoEspecially from corporations with billions of dollars to burn on it and a clear profit incentive. I mean, who do we think should run government, the people? We the people? Pssh.
- DanielBMarkham 17y agoFor years I've heard this, and I think I've reached the limit of my credulity with the line of reasoning that goes something like this: "X has billions of dollars! Billions of dollars! They will control politics as we know it!" Lots of entities have billions of dollars. People who sell peanut butter have billions of dollars. Billions of dollars spent every day trying to get me to do something or another -- buy soap, change deodorants, purchase a new car, go to the mall. Very little of it has any impact. We're a society that is extremely used to outsiders using all sorts of clever tactics to try to get us to do things. So unless these corporations have "special" billions of dollars that somehow magically control my mind, they are welcome to bring their message to the political discussion. In fact, everybody who wants to speak are welcome. Bring them on. All I require is that you disclose to me who you are and what you're trying to sell. Welcome to the party. Not trying to pick a fight. I actually held the opposite view and have been slowly changing my mind over the last ten years or so.
- pfedor 17y agoWasn't there a chapter in Freakonomics about how, contrary to the popular perception, the amount of money spent on a candidate's campaign has very little impact on the outcome of the election?
- jbooth 17y agoWell, I'm sure you could put together a graph that supported that point, but every single full-time politician who gets elected to a living seems to disagree with them, based on the amount of time they spend fundraising. The health insurance industry spent 750 million dollars this year lobbying against healthcare reform. That pretty much guaranteed that the bill we wound up with would be a piece of garbage.