8 ms·

This is very bad (albeit completely unsurprising) news, but I really don't see that the word "threshold" is appropriate. Is there some special bad thing that ha

by gjm11 10y ago

This is very bad (albeit completely unsurprising) news, but I really don't see that the word "threshold" is appropriate. Is there some special bad thing that happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm? Nope. The article itself is quite clear about this: e.g., it quotes one climate scientist as saying "These milestones are just numbers, but they give us an opportunity to pause and take stock and act as useful yard sticks for comparisons to the geological record." I suspect it's the usual story: journalist writes reasonable article, sub-editor puts needlessly overexcited headline on it.

cardamomo 10y ago
How we communicate climate science and its relevance to our world is just as important as the science itself. In my opinion, if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great! Frankly, we need to be "overexcited" about CO2 and stop sitting on our assess.
- icelancer 10y ago
  This is how you end up overstimulating and oversaturating headlines and making people distrust science.
  - cardamomo 10y ago
    Point taken. I would add that fossil fuel companies and mainstream politicians are doing more to cause people to distrust science than headlines like this, however.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Those "people" are already over-saturated on things like "facts". You can't appeal to everyone.
- btdiehr 10y ago
  Let me get this straight, you're saying that people should purposefully mislead the public?
  - cardamomo 10y ago
    To be clear, I'm talking about this specific headline and trying to make a case for using the word "threshold" to capture attention. It's (mostly) a semantic issue. I do not advocate misstating scientific findings.
    - btdiehr 10y ago
      That's good to hear, because whether people want to admit it or not, journalists misreporting studies constantly is one of the reasons why trust has eroded.
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    It's actual scientists saying this. > On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. --Stephen Schneider in APS News, Aug/Sep 1996, p. 5 [0] Note especially: "So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." He necessarily implies that one must be dishonest in order to be "effective." This raises the question: effective at what? The answer is obvious: effecting their policy goals. This raises other questions: If a policy goal requires dishonesty to garner public support, is it a worthy goal? Is it backed by sound reasoning and evidence? Most importantly, why should the public trust such sweeping policy to a few people who have decided that they know better than everyone else, and are therefore entitled to lie to the uneducated masses, for their own good? Is that not authoritarian? Does not madness lie down this path, or are climate scientists immune to lapses in judgment and ethics and morals? 0: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199608/upload/aug96.pdf http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199608/upload/aug96....
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- r3bl 10y ago
  > if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great! There's not a lot of things that I could personally do, and that really bums me out. While my life choices already contributed to at least one person not polluting the planet a lot (as an example, I don't drive a car and I don't use gas for heating), I don't see much more I can do about it. I know I get my electricity from a coal plant, and I can't really save on electricity more than I am now. Recycling is something I'm doing as thoroughly as I can, but it's a bitch in a city where there are only two locations where I can dispose a recyclable waste. I can't really do much more, and I'm not even reducing the waste at all. I'm just living my life avoiding to pollute the earth even more.
codecamper 10y ago
Agreed. It's time to get very very excited here. Well if you only care about yourself, then screw it. If you have an ounce of care for the next generation or the ecosystems of the Earth, then it's time to start doing everything possible to replace our power generation with renewables (solar & wind) and our cars with electric cars. It won't cost all that much. Not doing it will cost a whole heck of a lot more.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Due to what's happening with Arctic methane I'm becoming more and more convinced that it won't just be the next generation's problem, it will be ours.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > It won't cost all that much. Not doing it will cost a whole heck of a lot more. It's possible that it would change 3% year-over-year productivity growth to 0.5%. That "it" might be the difference between a marginally healthy economy and "lost generations" and political upheaval. The "give us the flight controls now or regret it for eternity" position is not necessarily wrong, but there's a real lack of credible evidence with useful confidence intervals that any given combination of approaches will have net desirable outcomes. And there's a justified (I think) lack of trust in that approach. The entire situation is dire, so why don't we see more of a "full court press" on responding to the effects of climate change as well? Investments into dikes and levees, building above sea level more aggressively, more aggressive weatherproofing, relocating populations from increasingly arid to increasingly temperate places, etc.? People worldwide are clearly more and more cynical about centralized seats of power (Washington, Brussels, Davos, etc.), so why are we saying the solution to all this is more special interests (say, 'yes' to American batteries, 'no' to French nuclear tech), more regulation, and more bureaucracy? Alternative plan: If the problem is carbon in the air, just implement and gradually ramp up a (progressive) tax on that, provide a phased-in minimum income to offset general cost-of-living increases, and then just play with those knobs until emissions hit desirable levels.
  - twoodfin 10y ago
tossaway322 10y ago
gjm11 says: "Is there some special bad thing that happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm?" Yes. Climate change proponents post articles such as the OP here and then cry "The sky is falling, the sky is falling and I can prove it! We're at the 410 PPM Threshold, just as we predicted!"
- mtempleton 10y ago
  You're being downvoted, but dissenting opinions should be allowed, even when it comes to climate change. There is a reasonable argument to be made that climate change alarmism is not productive. I saw Bill Nye answer the question of 'what happens due to global warming,' to which he replied, 'people's qualities of life will most likely go down because people will fight over resources,' that said, right now we have a surplus of resources in a very real sense. We already basically have productive capacity to feed every person on earth, but it's politics and greed that makes people starve, not resources. Whether the down-voters like it or not, climate change is a very real and scientifically established fact, but what that will do to people on the world is not a scientific fact. It's just what currently most people predict will happen (and disagreeing with this is feels like some kind of thought crime in the traditional sense--it's not science). The world is not going to end. Biodiversity and Biomass is decreasing. The Northwest Passage is being opened up. Iron fertilization will become a more likely policy to sequester carbon and increase biomass in the oceans. Sea levels will rise. Extreme weather patterns most likely will increase. Productive farm land may or may not increase. Russia actually may have a fair bit to gain from it. But the fact is, there is a lot we really don't know. In the very long run our civilization will need to harvest as much energy from the sun as possible, but in the meantime we've done a pretty fantastic job of screwing up the planet, so it's a pretty good idea to stop emitting so much pollutants into our atmosphere, since we don't really know for sure, but we have a lot of reasons to think it won't be good. That's really the best argument to end climate change, but it's probably not convincing enough to change behavior in large numbers of people. That said, the politics and bureaucracies around climate change have started to resemble the War on Poverty and War on Drugs--institutions which now exhibit bureaucratic intertia (have an inherent perverse incentive structure, and they rationally (evilly) place their own survival over that of solving the problems they're tasked with).
Turing_Machine 10y ago
One thing that is universally ignored in this type of hysteria-promoting article is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels used to be in the atmosphere. Every atom of it. That's why they're called "fossil fuels". Guess what? The earth was just fine.
- mark-r 10y ago
  And the Earth will be just fine after us humans have ceased to exist. As humans I think we should be concerned just a little.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Humans don't start to show negative effects until the CO2 level in air reaches at least 2,000 ppm (and some won't show any effects until about 5,000 ppm). That's around 4 times the "threshold" that the article is concerned about. Humans will also be fine.
    - mark-r 10y ago
      Yes, we'll be safe from the direct effects of CO2 increases. But the indirect effects could be much more severe. That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects. Ecosystems are complicated and fragile.
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        "But the indirect effects could be much more severe." Or they could make things better. "That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects." In fact, we do know that the CO2 level of the earth's atmosphere has been much higher in the past, and that this didn't produce anything like the "all life on earth dies" scenario that the doomsayers keep touting. "Ecosystems are complicated and fragile." The ecosystem survived the Chicxulub event, dude. It's not going to be knocked out by 410 ppm of CO2.

by gjm11 10y ago

cardamomo 10y ago

How we communicate climate science and its relevance to our world is just as important as the science itself. In my opinion, if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great! Frankly, we need to be "overexcited" about CO2 and stop sitting on our assess.

icelancer 10y ago
This is how you end up overstimulating and oversaturating headlines and making people distrust science.
- cardamomo 10y ago
  Point taken. I would add that fossil fuel companies and mainstream politicians are doing more to cause people to distrust science than headlines like this, however.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Those "people" are already over-saturated on things like "facts". You can't appeal to everyone.
btdiehr 10y ago
Let me get this straight, you're saying that people should purposefully mislead the public?
- cardamomo 10y ago
  To be clear, I'm talking about this specific headline and trying to make a case for using the word "threshold" to capture attention. It's (mostly) a semantic issue. I do not advocate misstating scientific findings.
  - btdiehr 10y ago
    That's good to hear, because whether people want to admit it or not, journalists misreporting studies constantly is one of the reasons why trust has eroded.
- alphapapa 10y ago
  It's actual scientists saying this. > On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. --Stephen Schneider in APS News, Aug/Sep 1996, p. 5 [0] Note especially: "So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." He necessarily implies that one must be dishonest in order to be "effective." This raises the question: effective at what? The answer is obvious: effecting their policy goals. This raises other questions: If a policy goal requires dishonesty to garner public support, is it a worthy goal? Is it backed by sound reasoning and evidence? Most importantly, why should the public trust such sweeping policy to a few people who have decided that they know better than everyone else, and are therefore entitled to lie to the uneducated masses, for their own good? Is that not authoritarian? Does not madness lie down this path, or are climate scientists immune to lapses in judgment and ethics and morals? 0: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199608/upload/aug96.pdf http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199608/upload/aug96....
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
r3bl 10y ago
> if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great! There's not a lot of things that I could personally do, and that really bums me out. While my life choices already contributed to at least one person not polluting the planet a lot (as an example, I don't drive a car and I don't use gas for heating), I don't see much more I can do about it. I know I get my electricity from a coal plant, and I can't really save on electricity more than I am now. Recycling is something I'm doing as thoroughly as I can, but it's a bitch in a city where there are only two locations where I can dispose a recyclable waste. I can't really do much more, and I'm not even reducing the waste at all. I'm just living my life avoiding to pollute the earth even more.

codecamper 10y ago

Agreed. It's time to get very very excited here. Well if you only care about yourself, then screw it. If you have an ounce of care for the next generation or the ecosystems of the Earth, then it's time to start doing everything possible to replace our power generation with renewables (solar & wind) and our cars with electric cars. It won't cost all that much. Not doing it will cost a whole heck of a lot more.

m_mueller 10y ago
Due to what's happening with Arctic methane I'm becoming more and more convinced that it won't just be the next generation's problem, it will be ours.
humanrebar 10y ago
> It won't cost all that much. Not doing it will cost a whole heck of a lot more. It's possible that it would change 3% year-over-year productivity growth to 0.5%. That "it" might be the difference between a marginally healthy economy and "lost generations" and political upheaval. The "give us the flight controls now or regret it for eternity" position is not necessarily wrong, but there's a real lack of credible evidence with useful confidence intervals that any given combination of approaches will have net desirable outcomes. And there's a justified (I think) lack of trust in that approach. The entire situation is dire, so why don't we see more of a "full court press" on responding to the effects of climate change as well? Investments into dikes and levees, building above sea level more aggressively, more aggressive weatherproofing, relocating populations from increasingly arid to increasingly temperate places, etc.? People worldwide are clearly more and more cynical about centralized seats of power (Washington, Brussels, Davos, etc.), so why are we saying the solution to all this is more special interests (say, 'yes' to American batteries, 'no' to French nuclear tech), more regulation, and more bureaucracy? Alternative plan: If the problem is carbon in the air, just implement and gradually ramp up a (progressive) tax on that, provide a phased-in minimum income to offset general cost-of-living increases, and then just play with those knobs until emissions hit desirable levels.
- twoodfin 10y ago

tossaway322 10y ago

gjm11 says: "Is there some special bad thing that happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm?" Yes. Climate change proponents post articles such as the OP here and then cry "The sky is falling, the sky is falling and I can prove it! We're at the 410 PPM Threshold, just as we predicted!"

mtempleton 10y ago
You're being downvoted, but dissenting opinions should be allowed, even when it comes to climate change. There is a reasonable argument to be made that climate change alarmism is not productive. I saw Bill Nye answer the question of 'what happens due to global warming,' to which he replied, 'people's qualities of life will most likely go down because people will fight over resources,' that said, right now we have a surplus of resources in a very real sense. We already basically have productive capacity to feed every person on earth, but it's politics and greed that makes people starve, not resources. Whether the down-voters like it or not, climate change is a very real and scientifically established fact, but what that will do to people on the world is not a scientific fact. It's just what currently most people predict will happen (and disagreeing with this is feels like some kind of thought crime in the traditional sense--it's not science). The world is not going to end. Biodiversity and Biomass is decreasing. The Northwest Passage is being opened up. Iron fertilization will become a more likely policy to sequester carbon and increase biomass in the oceans. Sea levels will rise. Extreme weather patterns most likely will increase. Productive farm land may or may not increase. Russia actually may have a fair bit to gain from it. But the fact is, there is a lot we really don't know. In the very long run our civilization will need to harvest as much energy from the sun as possible, but in the meantime we've done a pretty fantastic job of screwing up the planet, so it's a pretty good idea to stop emitting so much pollutants into our atmosphere, since we don't really know for sure, but we have a lot of reasons to think it won't be good. That's really the best argument to end climate change, but it's probably not convincing enough to change behavior in large numbers of people. That said, the politics and bureaucracies around climate change have started to resemble the War on Poverty and War on Drugs--institutions which now exhibit bureaucratic intertia (have an inherent perverse incentive structure, and they rationally (evilly) place their own survival over that of solving the problems they're tasked with).

Turing_Machine 10y ago

One thing that is universally ignored in this type of hysteria-promoting article is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels used to be in the atmosphere. Every atom of it. That's why they're called "fossil fuels". Guess what? The earth was just fine.

mark-r 10y ago
And the Earth will be just fine after us humans have ceased to exist. As humans I think we should be concerned just a little.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Humans don't start to show negative effects until the CO2 level in air reaches at least 2,000 ppm (and some won't show any effects until about 5,000 ppm). That's around 4 times the "threshold" that the article is concerned about. Humans will also be fine.
  - mark-r 10y ago
    Yes, we'll be safe from the direct effects of CO2 increases. But the indirect effects could be much more severe. That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects. Ecosystems are complicated and fragile.
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      "But the indirect effects could be much more severe." Or they could make things better. "That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects." In fact, we do know that the CO2 level of the earth's atmosphere has been much higher in the past, and that this didn't produce anything like the "all life on earth dies" scenario that the doomsayers keep touting. "Ecosystems are complicated and fragile." The ecosystem survived the Chicxulub event, dude. It's not going to be knocked out by 410 ppm of CO2.