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> I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. That's a nice "No True Scotsman" right there. Unless, of course, you can give me a non-arbitra

> I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. That's a nice "No True Scotsman" right there. Unless, of course, you can give me a non-arbitrary reason why Dr. David Barber of the University of Manitoba speaking in 2008 is a "pre-modern" climate scientist, whereas Dr. James Hansen of NASA writing in 2009 is a "modern" climate scientist.

jshevek 7y ago
That's a good point. The conversation is about a history of irresponsible public statements, but the evidence for this history is dismissed with: >actual modern climate scientist With this rhetorical technique, it could be impossible to provide evidence. Who gets to decide what makes a climate scientist 'modern'? Disregarding alleged 'non-modern' climate scientists is the last thing we should do when discussing prior decades of alarmism.
avip 7y ago
The quote's from a newspaper. However, I did your job (again) digging into that man's actual predictions, and he was wrong not once.
- lliamander 7y ago
  > The quote's from a newspaper. Is the quote a fabrication? > However, I did your job (again) digging into that man's actual predictions, and he was wrong not once. How magnanimous of you. Care to provide a link since you already did the work? Also, you've failed to provide a clarification for what you mean by "modern" scientist. You put the sole blame for these false predictions in the lap of journalists if you want, but is it still a problem? If not, what changed? And if the bright folks at NYT and National Geographic can get it so wrong, what hope do the rest of us have?
outworlder 7y ago
I've seen this game played countless times. "Sources?" Then you do the job of googling for them. Retrieve a few relevant sources. And they proceed to shoot them down, even moving goalposts if necessary. They might come back with their own confirmation biased sources. This instance is even more egregious. There is a growing mountain of evidence for climate change. Multiple books, across multiple disciplines, can and have been written. Numerous peer reviewed papers. What's more infuriating is that you don't need climate scientists to corroborate climate change. Because it's not a prediction anymore, climate has been changing already. Disciplines as diverse as geology and biology can detect the effects. If you want to do projections, sure, biologists may not be able to help. But if you want to see the effects today, they certainly can. With such an enormous pile of data, I can't believe this is a legitimate discussion.
- tstrimple 7y ago
  > With such an enormous pile of data, I can't believe this is a legitimate discussion. Much like flat earthers, climate deniers seem to have attached their identity to this claim rather than viewing the data with any objectivity.
moultano 7y ago
Sure, David Barber was off by a bit in that particular sentence, but arctic sea ice minima are now half of their historical values, and dropping. It is true, that in complex dynamic systems, predictions have to have wide error bars, but he was way less wrong than the charlatans who claim this isn't a problem or isn't a trend. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
- lliamander 7y ago
  I have every confidence that David Barber is an honest scientist doing his best to apply rigorous science to an inherently complicated system. The objection here is that we live in a media environment which continually emphasizes one end of that error bar. So long as we live in that sort of environment claims of catastrophic consequences are going to be taken with a degree of skepticism.
  - moultano 7y ago
    Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies? The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature. You can't explain those away by waving your hands and saying "the media."
    - lliamander 7y ago
      > Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies? If the media present bold predictions intended to reflect the views of scientific bodies, and those predictions fail to come to pass, then we have reason to doubt at least one node in the flow of information. It could be that the media incorrectly portrayed scientific results, or it could be that the scientific model upon which the prediction was based was flawed. For instance, when the NYT says in 1978: > An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. Clearly the statement has been proven false. But why was this false statement made? Is the problem with the NYT, or the international team of specialists? That's the problem with the media environment, because it's not always clear (certainly not to the lay person) when the media is representing their sources faithfully. > The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature. There are a few things one needs to sort out: 1. What are the actual expected range of consequences stated in the literature? 2. What is the confidence with which the literature expects these consequences? 3. What are the necessary interventions to prevent these consequences (if they can be prevented)? 4. How do the costs of the interventions compare with the consequences? It's actually quite hard for a lay-person to sort out. The IPCC reports are a good place to start, but still very dense for most people. Also, every seemingly erudite critic of those reports is viciously attacked as a bad faith actor.

jshevek 7y ago

That's a good point. The conversation is about a history of irresponsible public statements, but the evidence for this history is dismissed with: >actual modern climate scientist With this rhetorical technique, it could be impossible to provide evidence. Who gets to decide what makes a climate scientist 'modern'? Disregarding alleged 'non-modern' climate scientists is the last thing we should do when discussing prior decades of alarmism.

avip 7y ago

The quote's from a newspaper. However, I did your job (again) digging into that man's actual predictions, and he was wrong not once.

lliamander 7y ago
> The quote's from a newspaper. Is the quote a fabrication? > However, I did your job (again) digging into that man's actual predictions, and he was wrong not once. How magnanimous of you. Care to provide a link since you already did the work? Also, you've failed to provide a clarification for what you mean by "modern" scientist. You put the sole blame for these false predictions in the lap of journalists if you want, but is it still a problem? If not, what changed? And if the bright folks at NYT and National Geographic can get it so wrong, what hope do the rest of us have?

outworlder 7y ago

I've seen this game played countless times. "Sources?" Then you do the job of googling for them. Retrieve a few relevant sources. And they proceed to shoot them down, even moving goalposts if necessary. They might come back with their own confirmation biased sources. This instance is even more egregious. There is a growing mountain of evidence for climate change. Multiple books, across multiple disciplines, can and have been written. Numerous peer reviewed papers. What's more infuriating is that you don't need climate scientists to corroborate climate change. Because it's not a prediction anymore, climate has been changing already. Disciplines as diverse as geology and biology can detect the effects. If you want to do projections, sure, biologists may not be able to help. But if you want to see the effects today, they certainly can. With such an enormous pile of data, I can't believe this is a legitimate discussion.

tstrimple 7y ago
> With such an enormous pile of data, I can't believe this is a legitimate discussion. Much like flat earthers, climate deniers seem to have attached their identity to this claim rather than viewing the data with any objectivity.

moultano 7y ago

Sure, David Barber was off by a bit in that particular sentence, but arctic sea ice minima are now half of their historical values, and dropping. It is true, that in complex dynamic systems, predictions have to have wide error bars, but he was way less wrong than the charlatans who claim this isn't a problem or isn't a trend. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/

lliamander 7y ago
I have every confidence that David Barber is an honest scientist doing his best to apply rigorous science to an inherently complicated system. The objection here is that we live in a media environment which continually emphasizes one end of that error bar. So long as we live in that sort of environment claims of catastrophic consequences are going to be taken with a degree of skepticism.
- moultano 7y ago
  Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies? The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature. You can't explain those away by waving your hands and saying "the media."
  - lliamander 7y ago
    > Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies? If the media present bold predictions intended to reflect the views of scientific bodies, and those predictions fail to come to pass, then we have reason to doubt at least one node in the flow of information. It could be that the media incorrectly portrayed scientific results, or it could be that the scientific model upon which the prediction was based was flawed. For instance, when the NYT says in 1978: > An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. Clearly the statement has been proven false. But why was this false statement made? Is the problem with the NYT, or the international team of specialists? That's the problem with the media environment, because it's not always clear (certainly not to the lay person) when the media is representing their sources faithfully. > The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature. There are a few things one needs to sort out: 1. What are the actual expected range of consequences stated in the literature? 2. What is the confidence with which the literature expects these consequences? 3. What are the necessary interventions to prevent these consequences (if they can be prevented)? 4. How do the costs of the interventions compare with the consequences? It's actually quite hard for a lay-person to sort out. The IPCC reports are a good place to start, but still very dense for most people. Also, every seemingly erudite critic of those reports is viciously attacked as a bad faith actor.