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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

by 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...
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > journalists and politicians are misrepresenting what the IPCC says. And the IPCC Summary for Policymakers itself misrepresents what the actual science says. All of the caveats, disclaimers, hedges, and so forth in the scientific working group reports (and even more so the caveats, disclaimers, hedges, etc. in the actual peer-reviewed papers on which the working group reports are based) are ignored in the Summary for Policymakers. The policy recommendations are already determined and published before the scientific working group reports are released. So there are actually three levels of misrepresentation involved: first the IPCC WG reports misrepresent the actual primary sources; then the IPCC SPM misrepresents the WG reports; then journalists and politicians misrepresent the IPCC SPM. At each stage the predictions get more alarmist and the recommendations get more draconian.
    - nl 7y ago
      Why would you link to the fifth edition of the report instead of the (complete) sixth edition or the in progress work now?[1] Of course the IPCC doesn't predict the world is going to end in 12 years. That's a strawman - I'm sure you can find someone who has predicted the world will end in 12 years, but that isn't the disaster people are concerned about. Instead, they collect five key "reasons for concern" by "using the following specific criteria: large magnitude, high probability, or irreversibility of impacts; timing of impacts; persistent vulnerability or exposure contributing to risks; or limited potential to reduce risks through adaptation or mitigation." [2] Some of the risks associated with these include: Risk of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other smallislands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea level rise. ... Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes,particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ (click "Assessment Reports") [2] Pg 12, 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...
      - leereeves 7y ago
        I don't think the sixth edition of the assessment report is complete. It's "AR6 Climate Change 2021" so I assume it will be released next year. But if it's available somewhere, let me know. "The world is going to end in 12 years..." is a recent famous quote by a prominent Democrat. I'm surprised you haven't heard it. Personally, I bought into the climate alarmism about 30 years ago, and my skepticism is based on seeing so many things I've heard and read (even from scientists) turn out to be exaggerated.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > it is the scientists that have predicted the disaster, with an overwhelming consensus No, they haven't. The IPCC reports are political documents, not scientific documents. One key fact that shows this: the Summary for Policymakers is written and published before any of the Working Group reports, and the Working Group reports then have to be edited and massaged to be consistent with what the Summary for Policymakers says. A true scientific report with scientific predictions would be the other way around: first you would write, review, and publish the scientific analysis and predictions, and then you would write, review, and publish the policy recommendations.
roenxi 7y ago
GP was incorrect in taking a position that global warming was not a threat. The actual threat of COVID is going to be much lower than global warming, COVID is either going to be temporary or in the long term settle to look a lot like all the other diseases we put up with. Climate change could be a legitimate crisis at some point. However, directionally speaking, they have an excellent point that people who predict the future are very common in the climate lobby; and within that group people who correctly predict the future are going to be rare. It is not a lobby made up of scientists because there aren't that many.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The actual threat of COVID is going to be much lower than global warming, COVID is either going to be temporary or in the long term settle to look a lot like all the other diseases we put up with. Climate change could be a legitimate crisis at some point. I think you are conflating two different possible meanings of the term "threat". Climate change is likely to be much more of a "threat" than COVID-19 in the sense that we are likely going to have to be dealing with it for a much longer time. But humanity has already been dealing with climate change through all of human history, so having to deal with it for the indefinite future is nothing new. It's only more of a "threat" in the sense of it being a long-term thing we need to factor into our planning, as opposed to COVID-19 being (hopefully) a short-term crisis that we weather and then move on. Climate change is not more of a "threat" than COVID-19 in the sense of causing more disruption to our society; COVID-19 has already caused far more disruption in a few months than climate change has caused over decades, if not centuries, and also far more than climate change is likely to cause in the future. Time frames matter. Having to restructure the global economy over a century is one thing; that's already been done multiple times in the past, and happens as a natural result of people gradually changing the way they live and work in response to other changes. Having to restructure it in a few months is a very, very different (and much, much more difficult) problem. In that sense COVID-19 is a far worse threat than climate change.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Hey, wait until the US midwest goes dust bowl.
pdonis 7y ago
> 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. To the extent your 1) and 2) are reasonable categories, I don't see PG giving any examples of 1). I see him giving examples of 2) trying to pass themselves off as 1). Which is what I see happening with claims of catastrophe related to climate change.

by FabHK 7y ago

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...
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > journalists and politicians are misrepresenting what the IPCC says. And the IPCC Summary for Policymakers itself misrepresents what the actual science says. All of the caveats, disclaimers, hedges, and so forth in the scientific working group reports (and even more so the caveats, disclaimers, hedges, etc. in the actual peer-reviewed papers on which the working group reports are based) are ignored in the Summary for Policymakers. The policy recommendations are already determined and published before the scientific working group reports are released. So there are actually three levels of misrepresentation involved: first the IPCC WG reports misrepresent the actual primary sources; then the IPCC SPM misrepresents the WG reports; then journalists and politicians misrepresent the IPCC SPM. At each stage the predictions get more alarmist and the recommendations get more draconian.
  - nl 7y ago
    Why would you link to the fifth edition of the report instead of the (complete) sixth edition or the in progress work now?[1] Of course the IPCC doesn't predict the world is going to end in 12 years. That's a strawman - I'm sure you can find someone who has predicted the world will end in 12 years, but that isn't the disaster people are concerned about. Instead, they collect five key "reasons for concern" by "using the following specific criteria: large magnitude, high probability, or irreversibility of impacts; timing of impacts; persistent vulnerability or exposure contributing to risks; or limited potential to reduce risks through adaptation or mitigation." [2] Some of the risks associated with these include: Risk of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other smallislands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea level rise. ... Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes,particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ (click "Assessment Reports") [2] Pg 12, 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...
    - leereeves 7y ago
      I don't think the sixth edition of the assessment report is complete. It's "AR6 Climate Change 2021" so I assume it will be released next year. But if it's available somewhere, let me know. "The world is going to end in 12 years..." is a recent famous quote by a prominent Democrat. I'm surprised you haven't heard it. Personally, I bought into the climate alarmism about 30 years ago, and my skepticism is based on seeing so many things I've heard and read (even from scientists) turn out to be exaggerated.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > it is the scientists that have predicted the disaster, with an overwhelming consensus No, they haven't. The IPCC reports are political documents, not scientific documents. One key fact that shows this: the Summary for Policymakers is written and published before any of the Working Group reports, and the Working Group reports then have to be edited and massaged to be consistent with what the Summary for Policymakers says. A true scientific report with scientific predictions would be the other way around: first you would write, review, and publish the scientific analysis and predictions, and then you would write, review, and publish the policy recommendations.

roenxi 7y ago

GP was incorrect in taking a position that global warming was not a threat. The actual threat of COVID is going to be much lower than global warming, COVID is either going to be temporary or in the long term settle to look a lot like all the other diseases we put up with. Climate change could be a legitimate crisis at some point. However, directionally speaking, they have an excellent point that people who predict the future are very common in the climate lobby; and within that group people who correctly predict the future are going to be rare. It is not a lobby made up of scientists because there aren't that many.

pdonis 7y ago
> The actual threat of COVID is going to be much lower than global warming, COVID is either going to be temporary or in the long term settle to look a lot like all the other diseases we put up with. Climate change could be a legitimate crisis at some point. I think you are conflating two different possible meanings of the term "threat". Climate change is likely to be much more of a "threat" than COVID-19 in the sense that we are likely going to have to be dealing with it for a much longer time. But humanity has already been dealing with climate change through all of human history, so having to deal with it for the indefinite future is nothing new. It's only more of a "threat" in the sense of it being a long-term thing we need to factor into our planning, as opposed to COVID-19 being (hopefully) a short-term crisis that we weather and then move on. Climate change is not more of a "threat" than COVID-19 in the sense of causing more disruption to our society; COVID-19 has already caused far more disruption in a few months than climate change has caused over decades, if not centuries, and also far more than climate change is likely to cause in the future. Time frames matter. Having to restructure the global economy over a century is one thing; that's already been done multiple times in the past, and happens as a natural result of people gradually changing the way they live and work in response to other changes. Having to restructure it in a few months is a very, very different (and much, much more difficult) problem. In that sense COVID-19 is a far worse threat than climate change.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Hey, wait until the US midwest goes dust bowl.

pdonis 7y ago

> 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. To the extent your 1) and 2) are reasonable categories, I don't see PG giving any examples of 1). I see him giving examples of 2) trying to pass themselves off as 1). Which is what I see happening with claims of catastrophe related to climate change.