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I wish we could stop attacking the character of the scientists and instead consider the merit of their arguments. I find it disturbing that so many people crit

I wish we could stop attacking the character of the scientists and instead consider the merit of their arguments. I find it disturbing that so many people criticize some of the signers for ties to gas and oil, or to 'denier' groups. Yes, that just means they have had reason to study the issues. It does not mean they are evil or crazy. Does what they say make sense?

ryansmccoy 7y ago
This is an interesting point. I know nothing about climate science but do know a little about human behavior. I often had to figure out whether I thought a CEO was good at running a company or full of shit. So, the difficult part for me is figuring out what is true. One thing I often try to figure out who/what is incentivizing/motivating people to hold their viewpoint. While it's easy for people to see the oil/gas money, isn't the other side, and obviously, correct me if I’m wrong, also being incentivized/motivated by grants for academic studying and clean energy companies? Another thing I often look at is the track record of people, especially if they are making predictions about the future. I’ve found that it’s a good indicator of how they will act in the future.
Isinlor 7y ago
What arguments are they actually making? There is just declaration without any references. Nothing to argue against, besides blunt lies like: "Only very few peer-reviewed papers even go so far as to say that recent warming is chiefly anthropogenic." https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/04... The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686 The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. You should take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_...

ryansmccoy 7y ago

This is an interesting point. I know nothing about climate science but do know a little about human behavior. I often had to figure out whether I thought a CEO was good at running a company or full of shit. So, the difficult part for me is figuring out what is true. One thing I often try to figure out who/what is incentivizing/motivating people to hold their viewpoint. While it's easy for people to see the oil/gas money, isn't the other side, and obviously, correct me if I’m wrong, also being incentivized/motivated by grants for academic studying and clean energy companies? Another thing I often look at is the track record of people, especially if they are making predictions about the future. I’ve found that it’s a good indicator of how they will act in the future.

Isinlor 7y ago

What arguments are they actually making? There is just declaration without any references. Nothing to argue against, besides blunt lies like: "Only very few peer-reviewed papers even go so far as to say that recent warming is chiefly anthropogenic." https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/04... The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686 The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. You should take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_...