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When you don't have expertise in a field and don't have time to study it, the wisest decision is to trust the scientific community with expertise in that field

When you don't have expertise in a field and don't have time to study it, the wisest decision is to trust the scientific community with expertise in that field (and verify as soon as you are able). Even if they are wrong they are the best informed on the matter, and are probably wrong for good reasons. Siding with non-experts who offer no serious counterarguments to the claims and evidence scientists put forth is not rational. I have met and discussed climate change with climate scientists much smarter than me. These people research at institutes world renowned for ground breaking fundamental research and that I personally highly admire. At this point there is no question of whether it is happening or human-induced. They're now using state of the art techniques to research and predict innovation, technology's future ability to reduce climate change, impact on ecosystems and natural resources, impact on urban economies, technologies and social changes that can reduce emissions, infrastructure changes and policy that could be put in place to prevent catastrophe. I understand most people don't have the opportunity to meet climate change researchers like I have. I don't mean to make an appeal to authority beyond acknowledging that I am not an authority and don't know much about climate science compared to these people. But I do think calling it intellectually fashionable is hugely understating the amount of intellectual and financial resources being out into solving this issue. It's the driving academic force of our time.

yters 9y ago
If the case for global warming was so compelling and the driving force of our time, I'd expect there to be a fairly direct way to explain it and easily debunk common counters, and perhaps put it up on a cheap webpage like deniers do. For example, the two crucial points I'd like to see addressed are: 1. what percentage of the greenhouse effect is directly attributable to humans, and 2. if this is a very small percentage why should I believe humans have a big impact on the global climate? If the evidence is so good, the problem is so important, and the dedicated resources are so great, I'd expect proponents to go out of their way to communicate clearly and graciously to deniers like myself, since from a PR perspective browbeating with unclear evidence tends to have the opposite effect on skeptics. Not that I'm entitled to such treatment, I have a duty to investigate the evidence as best as I can, yet my own investigations have led me to the opposite conclusion.
- heurist 9y ago
  Complex problems are not always simple to explain. I sell data about complex social systems and I've found that when my customers are finally deciding whether to buy or not, only very rarely do they want to look at numbers. They want the story and solutions. They want the product. A marketing team that tries to get Americans to remember specific figures about climate change is not going to be effective. There are ways to do it - Gore's Inconvenient Truth did a good job of visualizing global warming in a way that made sense and could be plainly understood without a scientific background. Also, scientists are not marketers. They might present at technical conferences, maybe TED, or other occasional larger venues, but for the most part they hunt for funding, do their research and publish in academic journals full of jargon and abstract formulas. They're not trained to reach the public. Some nonprofits seem to be picking up the marketing torch but that's only started in the last decade or two and the result has been massive pushback by climate change deniers. Strategies for concisely expressing the issue are still being worked out. Personally, I would love to spend a few weeks reading major reports on climate change so I could better understand the precise scope of contemporary research and help provide some of these answers to you and others who are skeptical (or talk myself out of it if need be). My life isn't there yet, though. I know very few people who have that capacity and interest. Here are some resources along the lines of what you were asking for: https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freely-available-download.html https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freely-a... https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/350_or_bust/pdfs/Not_Just_a_Number-v3.pdf http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_inst... https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf And related: http://justmeans.com/blogs/its-companies-not-countries-that-are-contributing-most-to-climate-change http://justmeans.com/blogs/its-companies-not-countries-that-... https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-better-energy-return-on-investment-than-oil/ https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-... http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/22/how-much-does-science-knowledge-influence-peoples-views-on-climate-change-and-energy-issues/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/22/how-much-doe... http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080

yters 9y ago

If the case for global warming was so compelling and the driving force of our time, I'd expect there to be a fairly direct way to explain it and easily debunk common counters, and perhaps put it up on a cheap webpage like deniers do. For example, the two crucial points I'd like to see addressed are: 1. what percentage of the greenhouse effect is directly attributable to humans, and 2. if this is a very small percentage why should I believe humans have a big impact on the global climate? If the evidence is so good, the problem is so important, and the dedicated resources are so great, I'd expect proponents to go out of their way to communicate clearly and graciously to deniers like myself, since from a PR perspective browbeating with unclear evidence tends to have the opposite effect on skeptics. Not that I'm entitled to such treatment, I have a duty to investigate the evidence as best as I can, yet my own investigations have led me to the opposite conclusion.

heurist 9y ago
Complex problems are not always simple to explain. I sell data about complex social systems and I've found that when my customers are finally deciding whether to buy or not, only very rarely do they want to look at numbers. They want the story and solutions. They want the product. A marketing team that tries to get Americans to remember specific figures about climate change is not going to be effective. There are ways to do it - Gore's Inconvenient Truth did a good job of visualizing global warming in a way that made sense and could be plainly understood without a scientific background. Also, scientists are not marketers. They might present at technical conferences, maybe TED, or other occasional larger venues, but for the most part they hunt for funding, do their research and publish in academic journals full of jargon and abstract formulas. They're not trained to reach the public. Some nonprofits seem to be picking up the marketing torch but that's only started in the last decade or two and the result has been massive pushback by climate change deniers. Strategies for concisely expressing the issue are still being worked out. Personally, I would love to spend a few weeks reading major reports on climate change so I could better understand the precise scope of contemporary research and help provide some of these answers to you and others who are skeptical (or talk myself out of it if need be). My life isn't there yet, though. I know very few people who have that capacity and interest. Here are some resources along the lines of what you were asking for: https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freely-available-download.html https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freely-a... https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/350_or_bust/pdfs/Not_Just_a_Number-v3.pdf http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_inst... https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf And related: http://justmeans.com/blogs/its-companies-not-countries-that-are-contributing-most-to-climate-change http://justmeans.com/blogs/its-companies-not-countries-that-... https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-better-energy-return-on-investment-than-oil/ https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-... http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/22/how-much-does-science-knowledge-influence-peoples-views-on-climate-change-and-energy-issues/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/22/how-much-doe... http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080