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In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players. There is also zero introspec

In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players. There is also zero introspection - the people who were wrong about covid-19 are simply denying they said what they said. The truly scary part is they are getting away with it in real time, and changing a large populations' memory of contemporary events. I realize it's hard to remember further back with the enormous amount of information we're all bombarded with, but you can just go back to 2005 and see Larry Kudlow (Dir. NEC) just as wrong about economic policy and the depth of the financial crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kudlow#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kudlow#Economy) but here he is again. Consider Navarro vis a vis trade. I don't think anyone will learn anything, and for smart enough people, that needs to be the lesson.

pdonis 7y ago
> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life Before making such a confident statement, I would recommend re-reading this particular statement in pg's essay... "These people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it, because the things they make predictions about either have mushy enough outcomes that they can bluster their way out of trouble, or happen so far in the future that few remember what they said." ...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Central America (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/eye-of-the-storm/fifth-straight-year-of-central-american-drought-helping-drive-migration/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/eye-of-the-storm/fifth-...), Syria (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629816301822 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262981...), Australia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bus...), and Alaska https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/sockeye-salmon-and-climate-change https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/sockeye-salmon-and-cli... might beg to differ, among others. It is happening now. It's happening in line with predictions by IPCC. It gets pretty bad. I can't help what people have said that has been wrong, but the world is measurably and visibly warming and that itself was denied for a long time. Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening, have agreed for quite a while, and think the impact will be dire and potentially irreversible in the timeframe of human lifetimes. It feels like the zoonotic coronavirus situation played out over 50 years, rather than the 15 or so since SARS. Epidemiologists told everyone for a decade and a half this would happen, but here we are. A large group of experts in another field is telling us a similar thing with similar urgency. That's my only point.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    Your reply, while valid in isolation, isn't a meaningful response to the parent post. There is no single "global warming prediction", there have been thousands. The parent was speaking to those, not whichever one ends up being closest to the truth. >>consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.
    - mempko 7y ago
      There have been thousands of predictions, but only a subset of them have consensus. The IPCC is that consensus across varying stakeholders. It's looking like the consensus has been too conservative with it's predictions and that's the scary part.
      - shakermakr 7y ago
        Science and proof is not based on consensus. It’s not a vote. A best bet. Until then we should of course act towards the most probable act and cause but remain healthy in our skepticism of the effect of global warming and our faith in computer modeling of inherently chaotic systems.
        rriepe 7y ago
        I see this sentiment a lot. It seems really obvious to me that no, science is actually about consensus now. If you disagree, you're shunned and labeled "dangerous." Maybe this is in conflict with what science should be. But it's also definitely what science is now.
  - lliamander 7y ago
    > Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening, have agreed for quite a while, and think the impact will be dire and potentially irreversible in the timeframe of human lifetimes. The consensus regarding climate change (and human's role in it) has been exagerated[0] [0]https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falsehood-you-can-check-for.html https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falseh...
- avip 7y ago
  Could you share some of these confident predictions regarding global warming?
  - lliamander 7y ago
    Confident predictions regarding climate change over the past 100 or so years[0] [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
    - avip 7y ago
      I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. It reads: "So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years. . . Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know . . . We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually."
      - jshevek 7y ago
        >I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. The original conversation was regarding all public statements, not scientists. This is more about journalists than scientists. >...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.
        avip 7y ago
        Who cares what journalists say? IPCC and nasa reports are publicly available and use plain language anyone can read.
        jshevek 7y ago
- moultano 7y ago
  If you actually look at what those predictions have been, you'll find that they're pretty consistently on the mark. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
  - balnaphone 7y ago
    There is no quantification of the predictive power of any of these models presented in the linked-to article. In fact it appears highly misleading, since they directly contrast (a) data from 1970-2017, with (b) a model written in 1973 predicting out to 2016, and (c) a model written in 2013 that can be compared to the data up until 2017. So for this "pretty consistently on the mark" model, it only encompasses predictions for the years 2014-2017, based on observations from 2013. Many ARMA-type regression models do that well, since on average each year is mostly similar to the previous one. In short, this doesn't support the credibility of this body of work.
    - moultano 7y ago
      You aren't giving any indication in what you've written that you've read and understood the article.
- moosey 7y ago
  You are comparing subjective predictions and mathematically modeled predictions. They are not the same thing. We have enormous amounts of mathematical modelling and a vast history of information about our atmospheric history. Using this, we can make inferences about what is likely to happen due to climate change. If I were to just make a rando statement about what will happen when climate change comes, that's different. Learning to separate the two is an important tool.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- FabHK 7y ago
  Your response is quite remarkable. PG's article contrasts 1) the careful predictions of experts, who study an issue in depth their entire life and pronounce on it carefully based on scientific models, with 2) the remarks of politically motivated hacks that seek to distract from the consensus for their own political agenda, often with remarkable (but unjustified) confidence. PG warns against 2), the hacks, and points out that here we can see how utterly wrong they are, because the time frame is so short. Now, GP points out that something similar happens regarding climate change, with 1') climate scientists and 2') climate change denial, and you take PG's warning against facile hacks (ie 2') and apply it to 1'), the climate scientists and experts? That's quite some nerve.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    You're misrepresenting what GP said. They didn't say "experts", they said: > all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming. You can't deny that most of the people speaking publicly, and by far the loudest people, are not experts, they are politicians, journalists, and filmmakers. (And tech entrepreneurs...) Many of those have predicted disasters that never happened. But judging by the downvotes, I guess that's an inconvenient truth.
    - bad_user 7y ago
      No, it is the scientists that have predicted the disaster, with an overwhelming consensus, hence the downvotes.
      - leereeves 7y ago
        No, journalists and politicians are misrepresenting what the IPCC says. The IPCC are not alarmists, and they aren't predicting "The world is going to end in 12 years." The actual report is far more balanced. Yes, they are predicting some negative consequences, alongside potential benefits and measures for adapation and mitigation. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm...
graeme 7y ago
This happened over a longer timescale with the Iraq War too. Pretty much everyone who was right remained marginal. Those who were prominently wrong became more prominent.
- nradov 7y ago
  Barack Obama wasn't exactly marginal.
  - AndrewBissell 7y ago
    Obama lucked out that he didn't have to cast an actual vote on the Iraq War due to vicissitudes of his congressional career; based on how he actually governed and the allegiances he has demonstrated, we can reasonably guess he would have voted in favor. He also cemented our endless imperial interventionism in the broader Middle East including with an absolutely disastrous campaign in Libya. And, just like George W. Bush and his lackeys, paid zero price for it.
  - fsagx 7y ago
    It is true that Obama was not yet in the senate for the original Iraq war vote, so we can only speculate what his vote would have been. Support for the war among his peer moderate Democrats in the senate was near unanimous: Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry all voted in favor. It's not unfair to assume he would have as well. https://progressive.org/op-eds/clinton-s-iraq-war-vote-still-appalls/ https://progressive.org/op-eds/clinton-s-iraq-war-vote-still... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/10/kerrys-claim-that-he-opposed-bushs-invasion-of-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-bi... http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-lieberman-iraq-war http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-lieberman-iraq-war His withdrawal of forces from Iraq for which many give him credit was on the schedule of the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration before he took office. It would likely have happened the same under a McCain administration. He bears 100% of the responsibility for the shit-show that happened in Libya. The US policies that prolonged and worsened the Syrian civil war were birthed under his watch as well. The "we're fighting ISIS" while simultaneously arming anti-government Al-Qaeda-aligned groups was a recipe for disaster. Obama "surged" to double US troop levels in Afghanistan shortly after taking office. Also from this era: The drone assassination program. Lots of extra killing, to no lasting effect. https://www.wired.com/2012/09/surge-report-card/ https://www.wired.com/2012/09/surge-report-card/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/oba... Let's not pretend that Obama was in any way but rhetorically anti-war.
lliamander 7y ago
So what do we do about all of the doom and gloom climate predictions of the past that failed to materialize[0]? If something has changed about either the science or the media reporting of scientific results, what evidence do lay folk have that this is the case? [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
- moultano 7y ago
  How about you look at what they actually predicted? https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
  - lliamander 7y ago
    That's a useful start. I'll definitely dig into this. The question still stands as to why, even if the problem lay with journalists/media rather than scientists, is why did they get it so wrong? Also, if I as lay person am going to be getting my information from sources like NYT and National Geographic instead of IPCC reports directly, have they fixed the problems that led to the erroneous reporting?
    - moultano 7y ago
      A list of cherry picked quotes from a motivated contrarian is not evidence that they "got it so wrong."
      - lliamander 7y ago
        That the media have (with some regularity) promoted the most catastrophic predictions, predictions that were subsequently falsified, is not exactly news.
        moultano 7y ago
        If your only experience of how the media has covered climate change is through posts like the one you linked, then you'll naturally come to that conclusion, but I don't think it has any basis in reality.
lliamander 7y ago
> exact same dynamic with the exact same players. There are some who might be in the climate skeptics/deniers camp who were concerned about coronavirus[0] [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/why-some-early-maga-adopters-went-against-trumps-virus-doctrine https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/why-some-early-maga-...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
klenwell 7y ago
This is a topic near and dear to Philip Tetlock's heart and something he pragmatically tries to address in books like Superforecasting and the Good Judgment Open project (which unfortunately seems to be becoming less open over time). It's also a preoccupation of his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/PTetlock https://twitter.com/PTetlock On the subject of predictions and credibility, when the question "what's your brilliant startup idea" comes up, one of my half-joking responses: an ESPN site for CNBC and other cable news sites where talking heads spend all data talking about the prediction performance of other talking heads and making predictions about future prediction performance of those talking heads.
sgt101 7y ago
There's a really nasty that is looming in my nightmares. Hurricane season is coming earlier now, due to warming, and the Hurricanes are bigger. And The South is going to be in the thick of the epidemic in mid to late may.
- nradov 7y ago
  Yes that's a real risk. The current consensus forecast is for a slightly above average hurricane season. In a few months we may have thousands of people evacuated into shelters.
  - sgt101 7y ago
    Obviously the US Administration is urgently planning and preparing for this?
eanzenberg 7y ago
And they both use the same scare statistics. (covid) 2 million Americans will die. (global warming) If we don't stop emitting CO2 the world will collapse by 2030.
- thelean12 7y ago
  You're exaggerating, which is just as bad. NYT reported that "200,000 to 1.7 million" people could die on March 13th [1]. Most of those calculations had to do with the fact that the hospital system would get overwhelmed at some point, compounding the deaths. None of that is "scare statistics". It's useful modeling. I think what you consider to be "scare statistics" is more lack of education. Similar to how people saw the Trump win as meaning "The media/polls were wrong! They had Clinton winning at 85%! They can't be trusted!". When in reality, flipping a coin and getting 3 heads in a row is all it takes for Trump to win. Or rolling a standard 6-sided die and correctly guessing the number once. It suddenly doesn't sound outlandish. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-est... Edit: The downvotes are concerning. If you have a problem with my argument, please respond.
  - jnbiche 7y ago
    Exactly. Both the media and the anti-media/anti-expert crowd both have a poor understanding of probability and confidence intervals. With the media, I think it's sometimes intentional and not ignorance, as a ploy to get clicks. With the anti-media, anti-expert crowd, I have to believe it's usually simple ignorance.
    - thelean12 7y ago
      Mostly agree. Some media is certainly better than others. The NYT article I linked has a very responsible title (IMO) of "Worst-Case Estimates for U.S. Coronavirus Deaths". It clearly says that the estimates they're about to talk about are worst-case and estimates.
      - 7y ago
runeks 7y ago
> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players. No, global warming has a very different dynamic. With a virus, if you do the right thing and protect yourself, you’re more likely to survive. With global warming, if you get a lot of people to emit less CO2, you might just end up making CO2 emissions cheaper for everyone else.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  That's a very reductive and defeatist way to view the problem, and potential solution. The reality is there is no silver bullet. Emissions have to be reduced by means of an energy revolution. Sure, some will benefit in the short term. But everyone will benefit in the long term.
  - hanoz 7y ago
    It's not reductive and defeatist to point out that the global warming issue has a tragedy of the commons aspect, on both personal and national levels, which could hardly be more different to the current pandemic.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  So what should we do?
  - vkou 7y ago
    Carbon taxes, and protectionist trade tariffs against countries who don't adopt carbon taxes. Make non-compliance painful enough, and the defectors will fall in line.
    - banads 7y ago
      >Make non-compliance painful enough, and the defectors will fall in line. Maybe they don't, or maybe in the end that's all too little too late, which is why I'd suggest adding adaptation initiatives to your list.
maps7 7y ago
> but here he is again what do you mean by this?
robomartin 7y ago
> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players Oh, please, enough already! Global warming is nowhere near to what a virus can do. This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it. The comparison is nonsensical on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant of them is the reality of climate change: We cannot do a thing about it. Period. We cannot change it. We cannot reverse it. We cannot magically fix it in fifty years. This is already well understand by the scientific community. Researchers don't get out there and expose it because they would instantly destroy their careers, lose grants and generally ruin their lives. It's a truly dishonest and damaging feedback loop driven by ideology, money and politics. All you need to do in order to understand this reality is analyze ice core atmospheric sample data. That's it. It's that simple. Calculate the rate of change with CO2 increasing and decreasing. Write down those numbers. Then realize this is what would happen if humanity left earth next Monday. It would take somewhere around 50,000 years for CO2 to decrease by 100 ppm. We cannot accelerate this rate of change by 1000x without likely killing all life on earth. We can't. It would require such vast amounts of energy and resources that it might even be beyond what's available on this planet. In other words, everyone is lying: Climate change deniers are nuts and those who claim we can fix it within even a few generations and just as crazy. The entire thing has become politicized beyond all comprehension. Science has left the building. So, no. Let's focus on pandemics, they are far more likely to wipe us out than the entire "save the planet" fantasy.
- Trasmatta 7y ago
  > This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it. What? No, there's not a single credible model that predicts that this virus could have wiped out half the population, even with 0 mitigation efforts. Such a virus is a possibility, but it certainly wasn't this one.
  - robomartin 7y ago
    You clearly haven't done the math. EDIT 1: Even if my statement is off and the number is 10% to 25% --pick a number, any number-- it is still more serious than the fantasies we have been choosing to focus on. The calculation must also include the massive mortality rate that would result from the collapse of all supply chains, medical systems, transportation, etc. People with "minor" medical conditions would die on the streets everywhere. The virus would kill indirectly by destroying society. Think it through. If the world did nothing the loss of life would be massive. EDIT 2: Imagine a world without hospitals (at scale), doctors, nurses, transportation, factories, food, water, medicine, power, gas, petroleum. You are focusing on direct mortality from the virus while ignoring that, without any mitigation at all, it would absolutely destroy society. Look at what happened in Italy. Now shut down all hospitals and remove all mitigation. Get the picture? Now, go do the math on that scenario. A scenario where people die from strokes, heart attacks, infections from cuts, appendicitis, diabetes (no drugs), hypertension, tooth infections, etc.
throwaway294 7y ago
PARTITION I OF II It's time to drive a stake through the heart of this climate change alarmism, to kill off this dangerous monster forever. We can do a good job just in this little post. Everything here is from just common sense or good references. Overview There is: >ALARMIST CLAIM: Extra CO2 from current human activities will soon cause significant extra warming and, thus, climate change, a climate crisis, etc. In one word, this claim is nonsense. In simple terms: (A) There is no serious evidence that CO2 from human activities at anything like probable concentrations will have any significant effect on the temperature or climate of the earth. (B) The warming of maybe 0.9 F since year 1900 cannot have been caused by CO2. (C) Human life was long burdened with nonsense from bad information, superstition, ignorance, and fear, but slowly science provided high quality information and means to reject the nonsense. The ALARMIST CLAIM is taking us back to the nonsense. (D) Proposed efforts to respond to the ALARMIST CLAIM by reducing CO2 are from massively wasteful, strongly destructive, a shot in the gut of standards of living, economic contraction, and maybe to disasterous world wide economic depression and global nuclear WWIII. There is some very good news: >To respond to the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is NOTHING to do. NOTHING. In music, the easiest note to play is just the rest -- make no sound. For responding to the ALARMIST CLAIM, the situation is similar: Do NOTHING and because there is nothing good to do. The rest of this note is in three parts: (I) Debunking (II) Additional Points (III) Alarmist Threats (I) Debunking Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it is a long logical path from there to any claims of a significant effect. We can debunk the ALARMIST CLAIM in just two easy steps, (I.1) from the historical data and (I.2) from the physics, next: (I.1) Data from History There is NOTHING in the climate history from the present back to about 1 million years ago that supports the ALARMIST CLAIM; there is NOTHING in that history that can support a claim that anything like realistic concentrations of CO2 from human activities will have any significant effect on temperatures. NOTHING. Here we give details in (i) -- (iii): (i) For the ice core records going back ~1 million years, yes, both temperatures and CO2 concentrations went both up and down. BUT, if we just look carefully at the big graph of that ice core record in Al Gore's movie (I assume the graph is essentially correct) and other graphs of that ice core data elsewhere, with high irony that graph totally destroys the ALARMIST CLAIM and Gore's claim from that graph: Gore badly misread the graph. The main point is that in the graph there is an 800 year delay; CO2 concentrations changed 800 years AFTER the temperature changes, from whatever cause. Specifically: (a) When temperatures started increasing, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were LOW, not high. (b) About 800 years later CO2 concentrations were HIGH, from increased biological activity from the higher temperatures. (c) When temperatures started to fall, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were still HIGH, not low. (d) The HIGH CO2 concentrations did not keep the temperatures from falling. (e) Once the temperatures fell, about 800 years later so did CO2 concentrations. Net, CO2 did not cause the higher temperatures or keep the higher temperatures from falling. (ii) In the last 2000 years we had the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and there is not even a suggestion that CO2 concentration changes caused either. (iii) Starting in the 1940s and through about 1970, we actually had some significant cooling, but in those years CO2 from human activities -- WWII, pulling out of the Great Depression, and the economic boom after WWII -- increased. So, with the additional CO2 from human activities, we got COOLING, not warming. Net, there is NO data from the historical record that supports the claim that higher concentrations of CO2 will cause higher temperatures. (I.2) Theory from Physics Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The absorption spectrum is at https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&Type=IR&Large=on https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&... So, CO2 absorbs in three narrow bands, one for each of bending, stretching, and twisting of the molecule, out in the infrared. No, Tom Friedman of the NYT: CO2 does not absorb sunlight, and anyone can confirm this by looking at a source of CO2, e.g., exhaling or the bubbles from soda pop, and simply observing that the CO2 is not visible and does not cast a shadow. Since the historical record can't support the ALARMIST CLAIM, to support the claim we would have to rely on the theory from physics, the absorption spectrum of CO2, and computation. Well, the computations were done by dozens of teams, and the results are summarized in http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg Net, as in this graph, nearly all the results predicted rapid, significant increases in temperatures soon. Well, the time of predicted increases came and went years ago with no sign of anything like the predicted increases. In science, when predictions are made and found to be false, we junk the science. No doubt, the failures in that graph are some of the worst in all the history of science. GOOD science, e.g., the hunt for and finding the Higgs boson at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the observations that confirmed the predictions of black holes, many other confirmed predictions of special and general relativity, the A-bomb, the H-bomb, the design of the Hubble telescope, to the quantum mechanics in semi-conductors that are the core of current digital electronics, the science was just rock solid. We are just awash in super solid science, and the global warming computations in that graph are just a humiliation as anything scientific and just sick. In summary of (I.1) -- (I.2): > For the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is no scientific support. (II) Additional Points There is the video documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg (II.1) Big Changes Since 2000 Years Ago That documentary argues that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the rates of sun spots. More sun spots increase the solar wind which, from more links in a causal chain, in the end slows cloud formation and has a net warming effect. Similarly, fewer sun spots can cause cooling. (II.2) Warming Since Year 1900 In the video we can see the remarks of MIT Professor R. Lindzen that from "good theoretical reasons" any warming we might be getting now, e.g., maybe an increase in temperature of 0.9 F from year 1900 to the present, cannot be from CO2. (II.3) Too Many Climate Scientists Professor Lindzen also explains that there was suddenly an increase in funding for climate science from a hundred or so million dollars a year to over one billion dollars a year, funding that didn't just buy off the climate scientists but HIRED climate alarmists pretending to be climate scientists, maybe 10 times more alarmists than real scientists.
umvi 7y ago
Heck, tobacco is a greater threat to human life than covid-19. How many millions die every year, year after year, because of tobacco?
- ed_balls 7y ago
  vehicles killed more than WW2. Coal kills more than Chernobyl, but our instincts are bad in assessing risks like that.
yters 7y ago
I like how all our problems get tied to global warming these days. Certainly boosts the theory's credibility.
concordDance 7y ago
COVID-19 just isn't that important on the global scale. Car accidents last year almost certainly cost way more QALYs* than COVID-19 will this year (particularly if Imperial College in their 13th report is right about how badly undercounted the case numbers are). * Car accidents affect most ages and health levels relatively equally, while COVID-19 mostly kills the old and infirm who are unhealthy, with poor quality of life and have few years left.
- ryguytilidie 7y ago
  You guys are still doing this..?
  - concordDance 7y ago
    1.3 million people a year killed by car crashes, biased moderately towards the young (around 3 to 1 is comparing a 30 year old and a 60 year old). In contrast, COVID-19 has a fatality rate that looks roughly like the normal yearly death rate for the UK (so you'd expect as many people to die at least partially of COVID-19 as of every other cause combined this year)... Making it around 50 million people killed if everyone got it (many won't) and if the world age distribution matched the UK. But the average person killed by COVID-19 is a lot closer to death. Even if you just go by age the actuarial tables put for remaining life years, those killed will average a fifth as many years as those killed by car accidents. Hmm Ok, maybe COVID-19 WILL cause more QALY loss after all. But it's certainly not entirely clearcut. Particularly if Imperial is right about >15% of Spain having already been infected (which would imply a MUCH lower death rate than that commonly reported given that Spain has only recorded 13 thousand deaths and has already passed their peak), in which case cars last year might still "win".
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    Being rational? Yes. This is not smallpox. This isn’t even MERS from a mortality perspective. It’s real, rapid-spreading, and terrifying in how it kills those few who succumb, but people need balanced perspective. All they are getting is impending doom reported on television 24/7 and it’s nothing but. The future is bright. The 1918 Spanish Flu was followed by the roaring 20s!
mirimir 7y ago
Yes, for sure. You have experts who admit that they aren't sure, and then say what the evidence seems to show. And you have bloviators who spew BS, based on some more or less hidden agenda. But about global climate change, it's crucial to keep in mind that it's just one aspect of human population growth and "economic development". Another huge impact is increasingly intensive and extensive land use, plus pollution with excess nutrients and toxic chemicals, which leads to loss of biodiversity and species extinctions. Indeed, it's possible that COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases, such as HIV and ebola virus disease (EVD), are also consequences of increasingly intensive and extensive land use. That might seem ironic, but it's just how ecosystems work.
WalterBright 7y ago
Trying to retroactively excoriate people for under reacting to a crisis is a little unfair. Nobody knew how this would play out, and going off half-cocked at every threat that appears, and there are a lot of them, is destructive. Nobody likes to be wrong, and people always try to rewrite history so they were right all along. Rush Limbaugh made hay by hanging democrats with clips of their previous statements, and Jon Stewart made hay by doing the same thing to republicans.
- lemming 7y ago
  Nobody knew how this would play out Yes they did, because most of the people we're talking about had real time examples going on while they were denying there was a problem. In Italy, they could have looked at what happened in China, but chose not to. You could perhaps forgive that, possibly they thought that population density, smoking rates or other demographics made a huge difference. But Spain has no excuse at all because they literally had an example of an (for all intents an purposes) identical country right on their doorstep and still chose to ignore it. My wife is Spanish so I followed a lot of the reactions there and they were flat out ridiculous. Similarly with the e.g. the US - did they really think the virus was going to act differently there than in other parts of the world?
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > Yes they did If it was all so obvious, the stock market would have dumped weeks before it did. Did you sell in early February? Did you take out shorts on the market? Why not?
    - lemming 7y ago
      I'm a passive investor, I don't try to make money by playing the market. But yes, in mid-Feb I moved all my investments from growth funds into conservative ones, and avoided a major haircut.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
pishpash 7y ago
That's the so-called free media's fault. You can very easily discredit these people by deep-diving into their performance during nightly news or some program after, but the media actively avoids that in favor of infotainment and propaganda. You can even argue that the contemporary age is devoid of substance and there is no true mass news organization in existence. It is characterized by a high degree of anti-intellectualism and thought control.
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pdonis 7y ago

> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life Before making such a confident statement, I would recommend re-reading this particular statement in pg's essay... "These people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it, because the things they make predictions about either have mushy enough outcomes that they can bluster their way out of trouble, or happen so far in the future that few remember what they said." ...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.

throwaway5752 7y ago
Central America (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/eye-of-the-storm/fifth-straight-year-of-central-american-drought-helping-drive-migration/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/eye-of-the-storm/fifth-...), Syria (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629816301822 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262981...), Australia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bus...), and Alaska https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/sockeye-salmon-and-climate-change https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/sockeye-salmon-and-cli... might beg to differ, among others. It is happening now. It's happening in line with predictions by IPCC. It gets pretty bad. I can't help what people have said that has been wrong, but the world is measurably and visibly warming and that itself was denied for a long time. Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening, have agreed for quite a while, and think the impact will be dire and potentially irreversible in the timeframe of human lifetimes. It feels like the zoonotic coronavirus situation played out over 50 years, rather than the 15 or so since SARS. Epidemiologists told everyone for a decade and a half this would happen, but here we are. A large group of experts in another field is telling us a similar thing with similar urgency. That's my only point.
- jshevek 7y ago
  Your reply, while valid in isolation, isn't a meaningful response to the parent post. There is no single "global warming prediction", there have been thousands. The parent was speaking to those, not whichever one ends up being closest to the truth. >>consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.
  - mempko 7y ago
    There have been thousands of predictions, but only a subset of them have consensus. The IPCC is that consensus across varying stakeholders. It's looking like the consensus has been too conservative with it's predictions and that's the scary part.
    - shakermakr 7y ago
      Science and proof is not based on consensus. It’s not a vote. A best bet. Until then we should of course act towards the most probable act and cause but remain healthy in our skepticism of the effect of global warming and our faith in computer modeling of inherently chaotic systems.
      - rriepe 7y ago
        I see this sentiment a lot. It seems really obvious to me that no, science is actually about consensus now. If you disagree, you're shunned and labeled "dangerous." Maybe this is in conflict with what science should be. But it's also definitely what science is now.
- lliamander 7y ago
  > Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening, have agreed for quite a while, and think the impact will be dire and potentially irreversible in the timeframe of human lifetimes. The consensus regarding climate change (and human's role in it) has been exagerated[0] [0]https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falsehood-you-can-check-for.html https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falseh...
avip 7y ago
Could you share some of these confident predictions regarding global warming?
- lliamander 7y ago
  Confident predictions regarding climate change over the past 100 or so years[0] [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
  - avip 7y ago
    I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. It reads: "So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years. . . Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know . . . We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually."
    - jshevek 7y ago
      >I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. The original conversation was regarding all public statements, not scientists. This is more about journalists than scientists. >...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.
      - avip 7y ago
        Who cares what journalists say? IPCC and nasa reports are publicly available and use plain language anyone can read.
        jshevek 7y ago
moultano 7y ago
If you actually look at what those predictions have been, you'll find that they're pretty consistently on the mark. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
- balnaphone 7y ago
  There is no quantification of the predictive power of any of these models presented in the linked-to article. In fact it appears highly misleading, since they directly contrast (a) data from 1970-2017, with (b) a model written in 1973 predicting out to 2016, and (c) a model written in 2013 that can be compared to the data up until 2017. So for this "pretty consistently on the mark" model, it only encompasses predictions for the years 2014-2017, based on observations from 2013. Many ARMA-type regression models do that well, since on average each year is mostly similar to the previous one. In short, this doesn't support the credibility of this body of work.
  - moultano 7y ago
    You aren't giving any indication in what you've written that you've read and understood the article.
moosey 7y ago
You are comparing subjective predictions and mathematically modeled predictions. They are not the same thing. We have enormous amounts of mathematical modelling and a vast history of information about our atmospheric history. Using this, we can make inferences about what is likely to happen due to climate change. If I were to just make a rando statement about what will happen when climate change comes, that's different. Learning to separate the two is an important tool.
deleted 7y ago
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FabHK 7y ago
Your response is quite remarkable. PG's article contrasts 1) the careful predictions of experts, who study an issue in depth their entire life and pronounce on it carefully based on scientific models, with 2) the remarks of politically motivated hacks that seek to distract from the consensus for their own political agenda, often with remarkable (but unjustified) confidence. PG warns against 2), the hacks, and points out that here we can see how utterly wrong they are, because the time frame is so short. Now, GP points out that something similar happens regarding climate change, with 1') climate scientists and 2') climate change denial, and you take PG's warning against facile hacks (ie 2') and apply it to 1'), the climate scientists and experts? That's quite some nerve.
- leereeves 7y ago
  You're misrepresenting what GP said. They didn't say "experts", they said: > all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming. You can't deny that most of the people speaking publicly, and by far the loudest people, are not experts, they are politicians, journalists, and filmmakers. (And tech entrepreneurs...) Many of those have predicted disasters that never happened. But judging by the downvotes, I guess that's an inconvenient truth.
  - bad_user 7y ago
    No, it is the scientists that have predicted the disaster, with an overwhelming consensus, hence the downvotes.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      No, journalists and politicians are misrepresenting what the IPCC says. The IPCC are not alarmists, and they aren't predicting "The world is going to end in 12 years." The actual report is far more balanced. Yes, they are predicting some negative consequences, alongside potential benefits and measures for adapation and mitigation. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm...

graeme 7y ago

This happened over a longer timescale with the Iraq War too. Pretty much everyone who was right remained marginal. Those who were prominently wrong became more prominent.

nradov 7y ago
Barack Obama wasn't exactly marginal.
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  Obama lucked out that he didn't have to cast an actual vote on the Iraq War due to vicissitudes of his congressional career; based on how he actually governed and the allegiances he has demonstrated, we can reasonably guess he would have voted in favor. He also cemented our endless imperial interventionism in the broader Middle East including with an absolutely disastrous campaign in Libya. And, just like George W. Bush and his lackeys, paid zero price for it.
- fsagx 7y ago
  It is true that Obama was not yet in the senate for the original Iraq war vote, so we can only speculate what his vote would have been. Support for the war among his peer moderate Democrats in the senate was near unanimous: Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry all voted in favor. It's not unfair to assume he would have as well. https://progressive.org/op-eds/clinton-s-iraq-war-vote-still-appalls/ https://progressive.org/op-eds/clinton-s-iraq-war-vote-still... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/10/kerrys-claim-that-he-opposed-bushs-invasion-of-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-bi... http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-lieberman-iraq-war http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-lieberman-iraq-war His withdrawal of forces from Iraq for which many give him credit was on the schedule of the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration before he took office. It would likely have happened the same under a McCain administration. He bears 100% of the responsibility for the shit-show that happened in Libya. The US policies that prolonged and worsened the Syrian civil war were birthed under his watch as well. The "we're fighting ISIS" while simultaneously arming anti-government Al-Qaeda-aligned groups was a recipe for disaster. Obama "surged" to double US troop levels in Afghanistan shortly after taking office. Also from this era: The drone assassination program. Lots of extra killing, to no lasting effect. https://www.wired.com/2012/09/surge-report-card/ https://www.wired.com/2012/09/surge-report-card/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/oba... Let's not pretend that Obama was in any way but rhetorically anti-war.

lliamander 7y ago

So what do we do about all of the doom and gloom climate predictions of the past that failed to materialize[0]? If something has changed about either the science or the media reporting of scientific results, what evidence do lay folk have that this is the case? [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...

moultano 7y ago
How about you look at what they actually predicted? https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
- lliamander 7y ago
  That's a useful start. I'll definitely dig into this. The question still stands as to why, even if the problem lay with journalists/media rather than scientists, is why did they get it so wrong? Also, if I as lay person am going to be getting my information from sources like NYT and National Geographic instead of IPCC reports directly, have they fixed the problems that led to the erroneous reporting?
  - moultano 7y ago
    A list of cherry picked quotes from a motivated contrarian is not evidence that they "got it so wrong."
    - lliamander 7y ago
      That the media have (with some regularity) promoted the most catastrophic predictions, predictions that were subsequently falsified, is not exactly news.
      - moultano 7y ago
        If your only experience of how the media has covered climate change is through posts like the one you linked, then you'll naturally come to that conclusion, but I don't think it has any basis in reality.

lliamander 7y ago

> exact same dynamic with the exact same players. There are some who might be in the climate skeptics/deniers camp who were concerned about coronavirus[0] [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/why-some-early-maga-adopters-went-against-trumps-virus-doctrine https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/why-some-early-maga-...

deleted 7y ago
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klenwell 7y ago

This is a topic near and dear to Philip Tetlock's heart and something he pragmatically tries to address in books like Superforecasting and the Good Judgment Open project (which unfortunately seems to be becoming less open over time). It's also a preoccupation of his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/PTetlock https://twitter.com/PTetlock On the subject of predictions and credibility, when the question "what's your brilliant startup idea" comes up, one of my half-joking responses: an ESPN site for CNBC and other cable news sites where talking heads spend all data talking about the prediction performance of other talking heads and making predictions about future prediction performance of those talking heads.

sgt101 7y ago

There's a really nasty that is looming in my nightmares. Hurricane season is coming earlier now, due to warming, and the Hurricanes are bigger. And The South is going to be in the thick of the epidemic in mid to late may.

nradov 7y ago
Yes that's a real risk. The current consensus forecast is for a slightly above average hurricane season. In a few months we may have thousands of people evacuated into shelters.
- sgt101 7y ago
  Obviously the US Administration is urgently planning and preparing for this?

eanzenberg 7y ago

And they both use the same scare statistics. (covid) 2 million Americans will die. (global warming) If we don't stop emitting CO2 the world will collapse by 2030.

thelean12 7y ago
You're exaggerating, which is just as bad. NYT reported that "200,000 to 1.7 million" people could die on March 13th [1]. Most of those calculations had to do with the fact that the hospital system would get overwhelmed at some point, compounding the deaths. None of that is "scare statistics". It's useful modeling. I think what you consider to be "scare statistics" is more lack of education. Similar to how people saw the Trump win as meaning "The media/polls were wrong! They had Clinton winning at 85%! They can't be trusted!". When in reality, flipping a coin and getting 3 heads in a row is all it takes for Trump to win. Or rolling a standard 6-sided die and correctly guessing the number once. It suddenly doesn't sound outlandish. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-est... Edit: The downvotes are concerning. If you have a problem with my argument, please respond.
- jnbiche 7y ago
  Exactly. Both the media and the anti-media/anti-expert crowd both have a poor understanding of probability and confidence intervals. With the media, I think it's sometimes intentional and not ignorance, as a ploy to get clicks. With the anti-media, anti-expert crowd, I have to believe it's usually simple ignorance.
  - thelean12 7y ago
    Mostly agree. Some media is certainly better than others. The NYT article I linked has a very responsible title (IMO) of "Worst-Case Estimates for U.S. Coronavirus Deaths". It clearly says that the estimates they're about to talk about are worst-case and estimates.
    - 7y ago

runeks 7y ago

> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players. No, global warming has a very different dynamic. With a virus, if you do the right thing and protect yourself, you’re more likely to survive. With global warming, if you get a lot of people to emit less CO2, you might just end up making CO2 emissions cheaper for everyone else.

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
That's a very reductive and defeatist way to view the problem, and potential solution. The reality is there is no silver bullet. Emissions have to be reduced by means of an energy revolution. Sure, some will benefit in the short term. But everyone will benefit in the long term.
- hanoz 7y ago
  It's not reductive and defeatist to point out that the global warming issue has a tragedy of the commons aspect, on both personal and national levels, which could hardly be more different to the current pandemic.
cortesoft 7y ago
So what should we do?
- vkou 7y ago
  Carbon taxes, and protectionist trade tariffs against countries who don't adopt carbon taxes. Make non-compliance painful enough, and the defectors will fall in line.
  - banads 7y ago
    >Make non-compliance painful enough, and the defectors will fall in line. Maybe they don't, or maybe in the end that's all too little too late, which is why I'd suggest adding adaptation initiatives to your list.

maps7 7y ago

> but here he is again what do you mean by this?

robomartin 7y ago

> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players Oh, please, enough already! Global warming is nowhere near to what a virus can do. This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it. The comparison is nonsensical on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant of them is the reality of climate change: We cannot do a thing about it. Period. We cannot change it. We cannot reverse it. We cannot magically fix it in fifty years. This is already well understand by the scientific community. Researchers don't get out there and expose it because they would instantly destroy their careers, lose grants and generally ruin their lives. It's a truly dishonest and damaging feedback loop driven by ideology, money and politics. All you need to do in order to understand this reality is analyze ice core atmospheric sample data. That's it. It's that simple. Calculate the rate of change with CO2 increasing and decreasing. Write down those numbers. Then realize this is what would happen if humanity left earth next Monday. It would take somewhere around 50,000 years for CO2 to decrease by 100 ppm. We cannot accelerate this rate of change by 1000x without likely killing all life on earth. We can't. It would require such vast amounts of energy and resources that it might even be beyond what's available on this planet. In other words, everyone is lying: Climate change deniers are nuts and those who claim we can fix it within even a few generations and just as crazy. The entire thing has become politicized beyond all comprehension. Science has left the building. So, no. Let's focus on pandemics, they are far more likely to wipe us out than the entire "save the planet" fantasy.

Trasmatta 7y ago
> This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it. What? No, there's not a single credible model that predicts that this virus could have wiped out half the population, even with 0 mitigation efforts. Such a virus is a possibility, but it certainly wasn't this one.
- robomartin 7y ago
  You clearly haven't done the math. EDIT 1: Even if my statement is off and the number is 10% to 25% --pick a number, any number-- it is still more serious than the fantasies we have been choosing to focus on. The calculation must also include the massive mortality rate that would result from the collapse of all supply chains, medical systems, transportation, etc. People with "minor" medical conditions would die on the streets everywhere. The virus would kill indirectly by destroying society. Think it through. If the world did nothing the loss of life would be massive. EDIT 2: Imagine a world without hospitals (at scale), doctors, nurses, transportation, factories, food, water, medicine, power, gas, petroleum. You are focusing on direct mortality from the virus while ignoring that, without any mitigation at all, it would absolutely destroy society. Look at what happened in Italy. Now shut down all hospitals and remove all mitigation. Get the picture? Now, go do the math on that scenario. A scenario where people die from strokes, heart attacks, infections from cuts, appendicitis, diabetes (no drugs), hypertension, tooth infections, etc.

throwaway294 7y ago

PARTITION I OF II It's time to drive a stake through the heart of this climate change alarmism, to kill off this dangerous monster forever. We can do a good job just in this little post. Everything here is from just common sense or good references. Overview There is: >ALARMIST CLAIM: Extra CO2 from current human activities will soon cause significant extra warming and, thus, climate change, a climate crisis, etc. In one word, this claim is nonsense. In simple terms: (A) There is no serious evidence that CO2 from human activities at anything like probable concentrations will have any significant effect on the temperature or climate of the earth. (B) The warming of maybe 0.9 F since year 1900 cannot have been caused by CO2. (C) Human life was long burdened with nonsense from bad information, superstition, ignorance, and fear, but slowly science provided high quality information and means to reject the nonsense. The ALARMIST CLAIM is taking us back to the nonsense. (D) Proposed efforts to respond to the ALARMIST CLAIM by reducing CO2 are from massively wasteful, strongly destructive, a shot in the gut of standards of living, economic contraction, and maybe to disasterous world wide economic depression and global nuclear WWIII. There is some very good news: >To respond to the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is NOTHING to do. NOTHING. In music, the easiest note to play is just the rest -- make no sound. For responding to the ALARMIST CLAIM, the situation is similar: Do NOTHING and because there is nothing good to do. The rest of this note is in three parts: (I) Debunking (II) Additional Points (III) Alarmist Threats (I) Debunking Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it is a long logical path from there to any claims of a significant effect. We can debunk the ALARMIST CLAIM in just two easy steps, (I.1) from the historical data and (I.2) from the physics, next: (I.1) Data from History There is NOTHING in the climate history from the present back to about 1 million years ago that supports the ALARMIST CLAIM; there is NOTHING in that history that can support a claim that anything like realistic concentrations of CO2 from human activities will have any significant effect on temperatures. NOTHING. Here we give details in (i) -- (iii): (i) For the ice core records going back ~1 million years, yes, both temperatures and CO2 concentrations went both up and down. BUT, if we just look carefully at the big graph of that ice core record in Al Gore's movie (I assume the graph is essentially correct) and other graphs of that ice core data elsewhere, with high irony that graph totally destroys the ALARMIST CLAIM and Gore's claim from that graph: Gore badly misread the graph. The main point is that in the graph there is an 800 year delay; CO2 concentrations changed 800 years AFTER the temperature changes, from whatever cause. Specifically: (a) When temperatures started increasing, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were LOW, not high. (b) About 800 years later CO2 concentrations were HIGH, from increased biological activity from the higher temperatures. (c) When temperatures started to fall, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were still HIGH, not low. (d) The HIGH CO2 concentrations did not keep the temperatures from falling. (e) Once the temperatures fell, about 800 years later so did CO2 concentrations. Net, CO2 did not cause the higher temperatures or keep the higher temperatures from falling. (ii) In the last 2000 years we had the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and there is not even a suggestion that CO2 concentration changes caused either. (iii) Starting in the 1940s and through about 1970, we actually had some significant cooling, but in those years CO2 from human activities -- WWII, pulling out of the Great Depression, and the economic boom after WWII -- increased. So, with the additional CO2 from human activities, we got COOLING, not warming. Net, there is NO data from the historical record that supports the claim that higher concentrations of CO2 will cause higher temperatures. (I.2) Theory from Physics Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The absorption spectrum is at https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&Type=IR&Large=on https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&... So, CO2 absorbs in three narrow bands, one for each of bending, stretching, and twisting of the molecule, out in the infrared. No, Tom Friedman of the NYT: CO2 does not absorb sunlight, and anyone can confirm this by looking at a source of CO2, e.g., exhaling or the bubbles from soda pop, and simply observing that the CO2 is not visible and does not cast a shadow. Since the historical record can't support the ALARMIST CLAIM, to support the claim we would have to rely on the theory from physics, the absorption spectrum of CO2, and computation. Well, the computations were done by dozens of teams, and the results are summarized in http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg Net, as in this graph, nearly all the results predicted rapid, significant increases in temperatures soon. Well, the time of predicted increases came and went years ago with no sign of anything like the predicted increases. In science, when predictions are made and found to be false, we junk the science. No doubt, the failures in that graph are some of the worst in all the history of science. GOOD science, e.g., the hunt for and finding the Higgs boson at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the observations that confirmed the predictions of black holes, many other confirmed predictions of special and general relativity, the A-bomb, the H-bomb, the design of the Hubble telescope, to the quantum mechanics in semi-conductors that are the core of current digital electronics, the science was just rock solid. We are just awash in super solid science, and the global warming computations in that graph are just a humiliation as anything scientific and just sick. In summary of (I.1) -- (I.2): > For the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is no scientific support. (II) Additional Points There is the video documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg (II.1) Big Changes Since 2000 Years Ago That documentary argues that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the rates of sun spots. More sun spots increase the solar wind which, from more links in a causal chain, in the end slows cloud formation and has a net warming effect. Similarly, fewer sun spots can cause cooling. (II.2) Warming Since Year 1900 In the video we can see the remarks of MIT Professor R. Lindzen that from "good theoretical reasons" any warming we might be getting now, e.g., maybe an increase in temperature of 0.9 F from year 1900 to the present, cannot be from CO2. (II.3) Too Many Climate Scientists Professor Lindzen also explains that there was suddenly an increase in funding for climate science from a hundred or so million dollars a year to over one billion dollars a year, funding that didn't just buy off the climate scientists but HIRED climate alarmists pretending to be climate scientists, maybe 10 times more alarmists than real scientists.

umvi 7y ago

Heck, tobacco is a greater threat to human life than covid-19. How many millions die every year, year after year, because of tobacco?

ed_balls 7y ago
vehicles killed more than WW2. Coal kills more than Chernobyl, but our instincts are bad in assessing risks like that.

yters 7y ago

I like how all our problems get tied to global warming these days. Certainly boosts the theory's credibility.

concordDance 7y ago

COVID-19 just isn't that important on the global scale. Car accidents last year almost certainly cost way more QALYs* than COVID-19 will this year (particularly if Imperial College in their 13th report is right about how badly undercounted the case numbers are). * Car accidents affect most ages and health levels relatively equally, while COVID-19 mostly kills the old and infirm who are unhealthy, with poor quality of life and have few years left.

ryguytilidie 7y ago
You guys are still doing this..?
- concordDance 7y ago
  1.3 million people a year killed by car crashes, biased moderately towards the young (around 3 to 1 is comparing a 30 year old and a 60 year old). In contrast, COVID-19 has a fatality rate that looks roughly like the normal yearly death rate for the UK (so you'd expect as many people to die at least partially of COVID-19 as of every other cause combined this year)... Making it around 50 million people killed if everyone got it (many won't) and if the world age distribution matched the UK. But the average person killed by COVID-19 is a lot closer to death. Even if you just go by age the actuarial tables put for remaining life years, those killed will average a fifth as many years as those killed by car accidents. Hmm Ok, maybe COVID-19 WILL cause more QALY loss after all. But it's certainly not entirely clearcut. Particularly if Imperial is right about >15% of Spain having already been infected (which would imply a MUCH lower death rate than that commonly reported given that Spain has only recorded 13 thousand deaths and has already passed their peak), in which case cars last year might still "win".
- rpiguy 7y ago
  Being rational? Yes. This is not smallpox. This isn’t even MERS from a mortality perspective. It’s real, rapid-spreading, and terrifying in how it kills those few who succumb, but people need balanced perspective. All they are getting is impending doom reported on television 24/7 and it’s nothing but. The future is bright. The 1918 Spanish Flu was followed by the roaring 20s!

mirimir 7y ago

Yes, for sure. You have experts who admit that they aren't sure, and then say what the evidence seems to show. And you have bloviators who spew BS, based on some more or less hidden agenda. But about global climate change, it's crucial to keep in mind that it's just one aspect of human population growth and "economic development". Another huge impact is increasingly intensive and extensive land use, plus pollution with excess nutrients and toxic chemicals, which leads to loss of biodiversity and species extinctions. Indeed, it's possible that COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases, such as HIV and ebola virus disease (EVD), are also consequences of increasingly intensive and extensive land use. That might seem ironic, but it's just how ecosystems work.

WalterBright 7y ago

Trying to retroactively excoriate people for under reacting to a crisis is a little unfair. Nobody knew how this would play out, and going off half-cocked at every threat that appears, and there are a lot of them, is destructive. Nobody likes to be wrong, and people always try to rewrite history so they were right all along. Rush Limbaugh made hay by hanging democrats with clips of their previous statements, and Jon Stewart made hay by doing the same thing to republicans.

lemming 7y ago
Nobody knew how this would play out Yes they did, because most of the people we're talking about had real time examples going on while they were denying there was a problem. In Italy, they could have looked at what happened in China, but chose not to. You could perhaps forgive that, possibly they thought that population density, smoking rates or other demographics made a huge difference. But Spain has no excuse at all because they literally had an example of an (for all intents an purposes) identical country right on their doorstep and still chose to ignore it. My wife is Spanish so I followed a lot of the reactions there and they were flat out ridiculous. Similarly with the e.g. the US - did they really think the virus was going to act differently there than in other parts of the world?
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > Yes they did If it was all so obvious, the stock market would have dumped weeks before it did. Did you sell in early February? Did you take out shorts on the market? Why not?
  - lemming 7y ago
    I'm a passive investor, I don't try to make money by playing the market. But yes, in mid-Feb I moved all my investments from growth funds into conservative ones, and avoided a major haircut.
    - WalterBright 7y ago

pishpash 7y ago

That's the so-called free media's fault. You can very easily discredit these people by deep-diving into their performance during nightly news or some program after, but the media actively avoids that in favor of infotainment and propaganda. You can even argue that the contemporary age is devoid of substance and there is no true mass news organization in existence. It is characterized by a high degree of anti-intellectualism and thought control.

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