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> The overwhelming consensus of experts is that its going to have an enormous impact. How soon? Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" predicted apocalyptic consequ

by ythn 9y ago

> The overwhelming consensus of experts is that its going to have an enormous impact. How soon? Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" predicted apocalyptic consequences in as few as 10 years. 10 years later and it turns out the documentary had tons of erroneous assumptions. Oops. > That's akin to demanding that all engineers accurately predict which piece of the roof will collapse first, where the pieces will hit the floor, how many pieces it will break up into and on which date. If your model has poor predictive power, it's not a complete model. Engineers can accurately predict lots of things using standard models - for example whether a building will be able to withstand shear wind forces. Climate science cannot predict anything except "it will be disastrous with apocalyptic proportions at some non-deterministic point in the future" How is that a useful prediction beyond generating hype?

lurker456 9y ago
>How soon? In a couple of lifetimes, which is still too soon, as reversing the trend will likely take far more effort. For a graphic description of how far we're venturing out of what we're used to as a species, see https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ > If your model has poor predictive power, it's not a complete model - for example whether a building will be able to withstand shear wind forces. To continue with the analogy, we know the building can't withstand shear wind forces. We just don't know exactly how and where the pieces will land.
- ythn 9y ago
  Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. People will start reducing waste once they start seeing real consequences and technological solutions will emerge as exponentially more people start thinking about the problem each year. In the meantime, other factors will contribute to our downfall much faster than climate change ever could such as increasing societal divisiveness over politics, decline in nuclear families as the basic societal unit, selfishness, and abandonment of religion.
  - JshWright 9y ago
    > Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. What evidence are you basing that on?
    - ythn 9y ago
      Mostly intuition. I don't buy into hype as quickly as others because I've seen the scientific community in various diverse fields go through the hype cycle many times over many decades. A new problem is discovered (i.e. the earth can't sustain the current birth rate forever). The problem is hyped up[1] in an effort to find a solution (abortions -> Zero Population Growth[2]). Many in the science community buy into the hype, crunch numbers, and make dire predictions. Public policies in the 70s change in response to this evidence. ZP deniers are shamed for having large families and rejecting scientific consensus. Decades pass and the predictions don't happen. People start examining the evidence with more scrutiny and with observed data in hand retroactively debunk a lot of the assumptions made. The hype dies and everyone forgets it ever happened. So I'm sorry if I don't instantly drop everything to make the hype of the day my top priority, but a lot of hyped problems don't last more than a few decades. If climate change is still being seriously discussed in 2036 (30 years after "An Inconvenient Truth" was published) maybe I'll take it a little more seriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth

by ythn 9y ago

lurker456 9y ago

>How soon? In a couple of lifetimes, which is still too soon, as reversing the trend will likely take far more effort. For a graphic description of how far we're venturing out of what we're used to as a species, see https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ > If your model has poor predictive power, it's not a complete model - for example whether a building will be able to withstand shear wind forces. To continue with the analogy, we know the building can't withstand shear wind forces. We just don't know exactly how and where the pieces will land.

ythn 9y ago
Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. People will start reducing waste once they start seeing real consequences and technological solutions will emerge as exponentially more people start thinking about the problem each year. In the meantime, other factors will contribute to our downfall much faster than climate change ever could such as increasing societal divisiveness over politics, decline in nuclear families as the basic societal unit, selfishness, and abandonment of religion.
- JshWright 9y ago
  > Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. What evidence are you basing that on?
  - ythn 9y ago
    Mostly intuition. I don't buy into hype as quickly as others because I've seen the scientific community in various diverse fields go through the hype cycle many times over many decades. A new problem is discovered (i.e. the earth can't sustain the current birth rate forever). The problem is hyped up[1] in an effort to find a solution (abortions -> Zero Population Growth[2]). Many in the science community buy into the hype, crunch numbers, and make dire predictions. Public policies in the 70s change in response to this evidence. ZP deniers are shamed for having large families and rejecting scientific consensus. Decades pass and the predictions don't happen. People start examining the evidence with more scrutiny and with observed data in hand retroactively debunk a lot of the assumptions made. The hype dies and everyone forgets it ever happened. So I'm sorry if I don't instantly drop everything to make the hype of the day my top priority, but a lot of hyped problems don't last more than a few decades. If climate change is still being seriously discussed in 2036 (30 years after "An Inconvenient Truth" was published) maybe I'll take it a little more seriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth