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>there are clearly agendas on both sides and everything needs to be validated one side features scientists who have been developing the same story for nearly 4

>there are clearly agendas on both sides and everything needs to be validated one side features scientists who have been developing the same story for nearly 40 years with ever-greater detail. they don't have paid PR professionals or troll farms, but they have a body of facts, which, when taken as a whole, are unimpeachable in their prescription for what needs to happen to prevent future global warming. perhaps you may say that an individual paper's finding is refuted. sure. we expect that to occur with no fewer than 5% of all papers within most fields. the other ~95%, while imperfect, will continue to support the same broad stroke conclusions as well as many of the most relevant supporting details. in contrast to this standard of evidence, the other side features people who stand to lose money by allowing the body of facts to be acted upon. they have the money to pay PR professionals and make advertising campaigns, etc. they can pay their own scientists to do some fake research, but the cat is already so far out of the bag that it's career suicide to do so. in other words, their position is so hopelessly lost that they can't even find credible fall guys within the field of climate science to make up nonsense which supports their agenda. think about that for a minute. in this situation, we should expect the scientists to continue doing what they've always done: developing their research to be ever-more comprehensive and detailed, thereby giving the other side a smaller and smaller space to live in. in reaction, the other side will try to muddy the waters as much as possible for as long as possible to give them time to pivot their money to somewhere where the scientists can't harm it by exposing facts. this is what they're doing with the bot campaigns: repeating talking points like you have to muddy the waters and prevent meaningful organized action which would harm their financial bottom line. it's appallingly clear. this isn't really a situation where you talk about "both sides" having agenda and "needing to validate" everything. there's no contest anymore. everything has been validated. the agenda of one of the sides has been exposed as utterly devoid of merit, not to mention egregiously underhanded. the agenda of the scientists has been simply to be listened to all along, so that the common good can be serviced rather than discarded.

datashow 7y ago
> one side features scientists ...... they don't have paid PR professionals or troll farms. Who are "they"? If they means scientists, I can totally believe they don't have paid PR professionals or troll farms. If they means the "side", do they really have no paid PR professionals or troll farms? I doubt it. The article itself reported 5% bots on this "side".
fjp 7y ago
Not to mention that the internal Exxon-Mobil climate predictions matched up with current public scientific consensus forty years ago and nearly exactly predicted the level of warming we had today, as well as the need to combat the public perception of them as the cause. The science is (secretly) correct even on the corporate side too - they just say otherwise. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97... https://skepticalscience.com/1982-exxon-accurate-prediction.html https://skepticalscience.com/1982-exxon-accurate-prediction....
kian 7y ago
[Just an edit to clarify - I'm not saying climate change isn't real, or that we don't need to do something about it. I'm steel-manning the grandparent poster because I don't think the parent to this post was giving them a fair hearing.] Does the term "Baptists and Bootleggers" mean anything to you? One side can have (all?) the scientists and still there could be an agenda on that side to push through legislation that has nothing to do with fixing global warming (and instead be, say, about consolidating power). [Not that I'm saying this is the case, but there are many reasons to be against particular policies besides climate change not being real]. Take, for example, the infamous case of Prohibition in the US. Much of the political agitation was funded directly by bootleggers who stood to make an enormous profit off of alcohol being, and remaining, illegal. Even though it was true that "alcohol had ill societal effects", and even though real people really did want it banned, it was still, in its implementation, mostly a power play by people who had no good intentions. (See, for example, most drug stores having 'medicinal alcohol' for sale during this period, and many high-level political and other actors completely ignoring prohibition in their own daily lives.) And, even if you can convincingly argue that the entire climate change side is completely well-intentioned [which I believe most of them are], that does not mean that scientists' policies are actually going to be effective - an expert in one domain does not automatic translate to expertise in others, and multibillion dollar mistakes have real costs beyond money.
- jshevek 7y ago
  Yes. Another way of looking at this is to say "there are more than two sides". Many lay people have no direct contact with the thoughts of scientists concerned about climate change, but do have direct contact with the thoughts of science illiterate journalists writing clickbait articles, or science illiterate activists making hyperbolic claims. I don't think it is helpful to view all people who agree "anthropogenic climate change is real and a real concern" as the "same side". If we insist on this, then we have to admit that this "side" has a lot of agenda driven liars on it, which is not fair to the scientists.
  - kian 7y ago
    Agreed in the entirety. Thanks for taking the time to write this reply.

datashow 7y ago

> one side features scientists ...... they don't have paid PR professionals or troll farms. Who are "they"? If they means scientists, I can totally believe they don't have paid PR professionals or troll farms. If they means the "side", do they really have no paid PR professionals or troll farms? I doubt it. The article itself reported 5% bots on this "side".

fjp 7y ago

Not to mention that the internal Exxon-Mobil climate predictions matched up with current public scientific consensus forty years ago and nearly exactly predicted the level of warming we had today, as well as the need to combat the public perception of them as the cause. The science is (secretly) correct even on the corporate side too - they just say otherwise. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97... https://skepticalscience.com/1982-exxon-accurate-prediction.html https://skepticalscience.com/1982-exxon-accurate-prediction....

kian 7y ago

[Just an edit to clarify - I'm not saying climate change isn't real, or that we don't need to do something about it. I'm steel-manning the grandparent poster because I don't think the parent to this post was giving them a fair hearing.] Does the term "Baptists and Bootleggers" mean anything to you? One side can have (all?) the scientists and still there could be an agenda on that side to push through legislation that has nothing to do with fixing global warming (and instead be, say, about consolidating power). [Not that I'm saying this is the case, but there are many reasons to be against particular policies besides climate change not being real]. Take, for example, the infamous case of Prohibition in the US. Much of the political agitation was funded directly by bootleggers who stood to make an enormous profit off of alcohol being, and remaining, illegal. Even though it was true that "alcohol had ill societal effects", and even though real people really did want it banned, it was still, in its implementation, mostly a power play by people who had no good intentions. (See, for example, most drug stores having 'medicinal alcohol' for sale during this period, and many high-level political and other actors completely ignoring prohibition in their own daily lives.) And, even if you can convincingly argue that the entire climate change side is completely well-intentioned [which I believe most of them are], that does not mean that scientists' policies are actually going to be effective - an expert in one domain does not automatic translate to expertise in others, and multibillion dollar mistakes have real costs beyond money.

jshevek 7y ago
Yes. Another way of looking at this is to say "there are more than two sides". Many lay people have no direct contact with the thoughts of scientists concerned about climate change, but do have direct contact with the thoughts of science illiterate journalists writing clickbait articles, or science illiterate activists making hyperbolic claims. I don't think it is helpful to view all people who agree "anthropogenic climate change is real and a real concern" as the "same side". If we insist on this, then we have to admit that this "side" has a lot of agenda driven liars on it, which is not fair to the scientists.
- kian 7y ago
  Agreed in the entirety. Thanks for taking the time to write this reply.