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You missed the point of my comment. I personally am a little more familiar with the science than the average American's understanding. What I see published for

You missed the point of my comment. I personally am a little more familiar with the science than the average American's understanding. What I see published for the general audience however, (and I would not rank IPCC reports in that category, even the summary ones,) overwhelmingly references, quotes, or relates to Hansen. If I'm trying to open stubborn minds, and everything comprehensible I can give these people features a name that's readily tarred as a politically-motivated pariah in the denialist community, their distrust of the mainstream media reporting and belief in their own FUD only hardens.

acqq 11y ago
> What I see published for the general audience however, (...) overwhelmingly references, quotes, or relates to Hansen. Red herring, it's not about any person. It's about the scientific process. This is for general audience which was exposed to the claims "it's just sun" or the variations: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wor... I agree that there are people who don't understand how science works (that is, they are effectively illiterate for basic scientific methods and facts), so I always try to explain them the basics of science first. Somebody who believes Earth existed for just 6000 years doesn't even know what science is all about, so you can't even expect him to plan more than until the imminent judgement day, oh happy day (sadly, there are actual influential US politicians who said such things). I start explaining such person that without using the same scientific principles, the mobile phone they carry around wouldn't be possible (just for GPS, the satellites have to carry atomic clocks and the formulas that are used every time have to consider both special and general relativity). Science works. Otherwise, how can you even talk about the fact that we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now (see the chart, max around 300, now we're already at 400 ppm). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period And how we know? The same way we know how to make GPS. Science. And it's nothing US-based, there are other countries very capable of the best science. You know, countries able to send the probe to the comet. Once somebody understands the basics, the start about climate should be learning about IPCC, the process and conclusions.
- pdonis 11y ago
  > Science works. "Science" is not one thing. It works with very different accuracies and predictive powers in different disciplines. The science that makes your mobile phone and GPS work is nailed down by massive amounts of data and controlled experiments confirming theories to many decimal places. That's why those things work so well and so precisely. Climate science is nowhere near that accurate--not by many orders of magnitude. So if you are telling people that they should believe climate science with the same confidence that they should believe the science that makes their mobile phone and GPS work, you are giving them serious misinformation. > we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now Yes. And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now. What we don't know is how the climate works to a sufficient accuracy to bet trillions of dollars on particular predictions about what effect rising CO2 levels now are going to have.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > Climate science is nowhere near that accurate The range is accurate enough to know the problems. We even know that the effects will have a very long time span, certainly longer than a few hundred years during which we've released so much CO2. Those that demand "accuracy" expect to receive one line and not the range. Which less changes how much our children will suffer, and even less for children of our children, only more for us who are old enough to die before the bigger effects come. "After me the floods" is immensely selfish to those that follow us. > And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now. To compare, that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop! The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form. The immense part of that is already now burnt in just around hundred years. Note the difference in magnitudes. And comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions: http://robertscribbler.com/2014/04/11/world-co2-averages-touch-402-2-ppm-daily-values-in-early-april-102-ppm-higher-than-at-any-time-in-last-800000-years/ http://robertscribbler.com/2014/04/11/world-co2-averages-tou...

acqq 11y ago

> What I see published for the general audience however, (...) overwhelmingly references, quotes, or relates to Hansen. Red herring, it's not about any person. It's about the scientific process. This is for general audience which was exposed to the claims "it's just sun" or the variations: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wor... I agree that there are people who don't understand how science works (that is, they are effectively illiterate for basic scientific methods and facts), so I always try to explain them the basics of science first. Somebody who believes Earth existed for just 6000 years doesn't even know what science is all about, so you can't even expect him to plan more than until the imminent judgement day, oh happy day (sadly, there are actual influential US politicians who said such things). I start explaining such person that without using the same scientific principles, the mobile phone they carry around wouldn't be possible (just for GPS, the satellites have to carry atomic clocks and the formulas that are used every time have to consider both special and general relativity). Science works. Otherwise, how can you even talk about the fact that we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now (see the chart, max around 300, now we're already at 400 ppm). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period And how we know? The same way we know how to make GPS. Science. And it's nothing US-based, there are other countries very capable of the best science. You know, countries able to send the probe to the comet. Once somebody understands the basics, the start about climate should be learning about IPCC, the process and conclusions.

pdonis 11y ago
> Science works. "Science" is not one thing. It works with very different accuracies and predictive powers in different disciplines. The science that makes your mobile phone and GPS work is nailed down by massive amounts of data and controlled experiments confirming theories to many decimal places. That's why those things work so well and so precisely. Climate science is nowhere near that accurate--not by many orders of magnitude. So if you are telling people that they should believe climate science with the same confidence that they should believe the science that makes their mobile phone and GPS work, you are giving them serious misinformation. > we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now Yes. And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now. What we don't know is how the climate works to a sufficient accuracy to bet trillions of dollars on particular predictions about what effect rising CO2 levels now are going to have.
- acqq 11y ago
  > Climate science is nowhere near that accurate The range is accurate enough to know the problems. We even know that the effects will have a very long time span, certainly longer than a few hundred years during which we've released so much CO2. Those that demand "accuracy" expect to receive one line and not the range. Which less changes how much our children will suffer, and even less for children of our children, only more for us who are old enough to die before the bigger effects come. "After me the floods" is immensely selfish to those that follow us. > And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now. To compare, that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop! The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form. The immense part of that is already now burnt in just around hundred years. Note the difference in magnitudes. And comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions: http://robertscribbler.com/2014/04/11/world-co2-averages-touch-402-2-ppm-daily-values-in-early-april-102-ppm-higher-than-at-any-time-in-last-800000-years/ http://robertscribbler.com/2014/04/11/world-co2-averages-tou...