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Professor Brian Cox clashes with Australian climate sceptic
- tominous 10y agoVideo and transcript are here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4499754.htm http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4499754.htm It's rare to see such a civil debate on this issue. I was impressed with everyone except for Shadow Minister Linda Burney who went straight to personal anecdote. Minister Greg Hunt and mathematician Lily Serna had very reasonable positions for lay people: that they accepted the advice of the experts and wanted to find solutions. Scientist Brian Cox was his usual charismatic self but did get flustered by the end. Skeptic Malcolm Roberts was composed and polite and clearly had a considered opinion. The meat of the debate was a bit weak. Brian Cox had a cherry-picked temperature graph (land temperature). I have no idea why he rejected vehemently the claim that CO2 rise comes after temperature rise in the long-term record -- maybe he thought the claim was about current times? He was plain wrong on this. He was right to point out the potential damage from climate change in many areas. Malcolm Roberts was weak in cherry-picking the Central England temperature record. He lost the audience in saying "NASA" was untrustworthy, when he could probably have pointed to James Hansen's record of activism and the close network revealed in the Climategate emails. The key scientific point was whether the climate models have been validated or refuted. No real information was presented here, just assertion on either side.
- vixen99 10y agoThoroughly convincing then for a skeptical public? What do they deduce from not seeing Cox trounce Roberts?
- twelvechairs 10y agoWe should find better representatives for science than Cox
- humanrebar 10y agoYou use the word 'science' like it's an ideal and not a practical set of techniques used to discover natural truths and convince each other of them.
- austinjp 10y agoWell, Cox is Professor for Public Engagement in Science [1] so perhaps twelvechairs feels he's not very good at his job. [1] https://royalsociety.org/news/2015/01/professor-for-public-engagement-brian-cox/ https://royalsociety.org/news/2015/01/professor-for-public-e...
- twelvechairs 10y agoThanks. Yes this is my point. Im surprised its apparently not clear to some
- twelvechairs 10y agoI honestly dont know how you infer that from a single use of the word. Hes there to represent the outcomes of the worlds climate science research and is being out argued by a loon. That gives all practitioners of science a bad name in my view
- humanrebar 10y agoScience is a set of techniques and tools. It's not synonymous with the conclusions that come from it. It's not 'science' that gravity exists. It's 'science' that we can prove it exists, model it, measure it, and understand its impact in various circumstances. Likewise, AGW is not science. It's good science that proves AGW. Conflating the two is actually harmful because it encourages untrained people (anti-vaxxers, homeopaths, etc.) to misunderstand what science is.
- twelvechairs 10y agoI agree. All im saying is that Cox is doing a bad job of representing this
- madeofpalk 10y agoIs the public really skeptical of climate change? I believe in it, but think that any chance to move the needle on it comes to policy makers so I end up caring very little about the issue practically either way.
- mrmincent 10y ago> No real information was presented here, just assertion on either side. So just a regular episode of qanda then? It's honestly one of the more frustrating shows to watch most of the time.
- cam_l 10y ago"This is my question to you: if you don't model it, how can you go about trying to answer the question?" (brian Cox) Yeah, validate or refute is not a reasonable representation of the truth. The more accurate question is model or more accurate model. The spread of current models is unpredictable consequences in 20 years or in 80 years.
- sprash 10y agoSadly Brian Cox stepped into the common pitfalls (like mentioning "consensus") when arguing with climate sceptics. You can shut down any climate sceptic with two points which can be easily measured and verified in any laboratory: * We know the absorption spectrum of the CO2 molecule to be true * We know the first law of thermodynamics to be true Hence global warming. Finished. Arguments like the fact that some models can not accurately predict the exact amount of heat oceans can absorb or that the NASA data might be biased are suddenly irrelevant.
- ocschwar 10y agoNot quite. There's still the matter of the Callendar effect: CO2 increases. -> World warms a litte. -> Baseline level of water vapor in the atmosphere increases. -> water warms a little more. -> Baseline level of water level... That's where computer modeling becomes important.
- reitanqild 10y agoAs a former more than sceptic: The first sentence is spot on. Sadly (or not, I'll come back to that) I think the rest is a misunderstanding: These two points are easy. What you are arguing against is people like my former self who accepts measurable physics but find (found) the A of AGW thing fishy for other reasons: * The broad push that seems to come from non-scientists. * No mention about how much of the annual CO2 releases are anthropogenic vs coming from other sources. * Any question, however reasonable, get shouted down with "consensus", "denialist", "troll", "shill" etc etc. It was only when I started reading the actual report that I got a more enlightened (hopefully) look at it. All this shouting and bullying does little good and is basically collecting sheep and preaching for the choir IMO. Now the good part is I think a lot of us aren't evil, trollish shills paid by big oil, we just had a strong false positive on on BS detectors, asked and have been flamed ever since. (Full disclosure: not pushing AGW hard myself but it seems reasonable to assume it is correct and take action to reduce anyway. It also aligns with things I already do because I find them smart anyway like trying to conserve energy by using public transit (oil independence, economic reasons, can work on my way to work), recycle(reduce need for mining, conserve energy, pollute less) etc etc.)
- quink 10y agoThe guy's also a sovereign citizen nutter. Here's a letter he wrote to the prime minister at the time, Julia Gillard. Or rather, The Woman Julia Eileen: Gillard., acting as The Honourable JULIA EILEEN GILLARD. > http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-05/one-nation-senator-denies-link-to-sovereign-citizens/7695442 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-05/one-nation-senator-den... He's a Queensland Senator now. Awesome.
- Nursie 10y agoOh god, a proper nutter then.
- bcraven 10y agoOh yes here we go: https://theconversation.com/one-nation-climate-denial-and-those-jewish-bankers-62176 https://theconversation.com/one-nation-climate-denial-and-th...
- prawn 10y agoWhat. "I, Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul has not seen or been presented with any material facts or evidence that I, Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul am not living in a free and equal society or should pay for it in some further spurious tax levied supposedly on carbon dioxide, and believe that none exist."
- joantune 10y agoThis needs more upvotes. Like creationism, global warming denial is one of the myths that has strong support on the 'developed' USA yet no basis in actual proof. The thing is: this issue is vital to our survival (while creationism isn't)
- philliphaydon 10y agoWhere do I fall in? I believe in climate change. I don't believe climate change is the result of only humans. And if climate change turns out to be bullshit, I'm glad it's being a driver for alternative energy sources, better production of goods, more environmentally friendly packaging, etc. I just believe the cause being humans is over hyped and the fact that we renamed it from global warming to climate change because the models didn't support global warming....
- joantune 10y agoWhat caused it then? Volcanoes? please, farming, livestock and fossil fuels produce much more quantity of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide than anything else? whose fault is that? fertilized plants and Cows? but who mass produces those? Humans. And can we really take the risk of betting that it's not us? Yet, you are fundamentally right, there are also other punctual events that contribute to it, but decisively that the major factor is us. This is like the leaded gasoline incident in the 60s or 70s, now everyone sees how obvious it is but all of the white noise built by special interest groups that control one major party in the US makes it look like it's feasible for it not to be a thing. It isn't When Brian Cox talks about consensus, he is not talking about consensus among the average Joe or Jane, he is talking about the scientific community, the ones that are experts in the matter.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- l33tbro 10y agoIt's "NASA", BBC. Not "Nasa".
- longwave 10y agoLowercasing of acronyms is a common stylistic choice made by UK media to aid readability. "Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec)."
- l33tbro 10y agoI see. Fair enough, I thought it was odd that it was repeated more than once. Thanks.
- Xophmeister 10y agoInteresting how your comment exemplifies perfectly a valid and common style that refutes your point: Abbreviations that are pronounced as words are written in title/inline case (e.g., Nasa, radar, etc.), whereas those that are read letter-by-letter are written in capitals.
- madeofpalk 10y ago"It's BBC, not "bebeca"
- DanBC 10y agohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130702112133530 http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021... > Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). > Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).
- throwaway1974 10y agoDebates like this make me realize we as a species have little hope. Brexit, Trump, Climate Change just shows he who shouts loudest and repeats the most lies gets attention and support.
- madeofpalk 10y agoBut on the panel, it was the skeptic that was made out to be the crazy person. The audience (which admittedly skews towards more educated, political-left) was clearly behind the majority of the panel.
- lordnacho 10y agoWould it be hard for a climate scientist to present the numerical evidence in something akin to a Jupyter notebook? So, something that says "Here's how we collected the data, and here it is" "Here's some transformations on it" "If we're right about xyz, this bunch of statistical tests will turn out like so..." I tend to give the experts the benefit of the doubt, also on this issue. But everything I hear in the media is simply "consensus" vs "conspiracy". I actually would like to understand how the data works, and how the models work.
- Kenji 10y agoIt doesn't work that way. Climate change is so politicised that pretty much every source of information is biased. It is impossible to get a clear picture. Politics is absolutely toxic to science. Many people would like to establish something like a world government by leveraging issues like climate change. Even though we really have no idea about the severity and magnitude of the problems ahead of us. I personally think scientists are exaggerating massively; here we have climatologists who cannot even predict correctly whether it rains next week, yet they make predictions about how in 20 years the climate is such and such.
- the_why_of_y 10y agoAverages (climate) can be much easier to predict than particular values (weather). As a mathematical analogy, we cannot predict accurately whether flipping a fair coin is going to come up head or tails, but we can predict that if you flip it 1000 times it's going to be between 450 and 550 heads with 99.8% probability.
- Nursie 10y agoClimate is not weather. "World Government" is an utterly crazy conspiracy theory.
- Kenji 10y agoClimate is not weather. Clearly you have no idea how modeling works and how similar such computer models for weather and climate are (usually splitting up the area in smaller parcels or a volumetric approach and running equations on them in parallel). Unless the scientist is really dumb and just extrapolates arbitrary temperature data points with a polynomial of degree 1 (aka a line) to predict the climate. "World Government" is an utterly crazy conspiracy theory. Look at governmental bodies like the EU that spread and grow like cancer. It is obvious that in today's world, more than ever, there are strong forces in play that want to centralize power. It is a fact that climate change is already used to push regulations onto people by unelected governmental bodies.
- lumberjack 10y agoThis is counterproductive. All he's doing is legitimising the shill's position by debating him on TV.
- gd1 10y ago"By who? NASA? The people the… Hang on a minute. No, no, see this is quite serious. But can I just – just one thing. NASA, NASA… The people that landed men on the moon?" Can anyone explain to me what is happening in this bit? It's either: a) Brain Cox doesn't know that NASA is responsible for GISTEMP and is completely incredulous at the mention of NASA (The people that landed men on the moon?), as if they aren't relevant to the discussion. or b) Brian Cox is aware that NASA maintains one of the major surface temperature datasets, but thinks that it is completely beyond the pale to question any of the decisions (adjustments, station selection) that go into the construction of GISTEMP, because they are NASA (The people that landed men on the moon!!!). So which is it? Is he clueless, or just a dick?
- kbart 10y agoI'm surprised we don't have flat Earth debates on TV yet.
- sklivvz1971 10y ago"I brought the graph, right." is the new tableflip. I also have no tolerance for science skeptics. Enough.