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Here's the Daily Wire article (paywall, so here's a mirror): https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-fo

by wl 6y ago

Here's the Daily Wire article (paywall, so here's a mirror): https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-beha... And here's a reasonable analysis of what it gets wrong: https://sciencefeedback.co/evaluation/article-by-michael-shellenberger-mixes-accurate-and-inaccurate-claims-in-support-of-a-misleading-and-overly-simplistic-argumentation-about-climate-change/ https://sciencefeedback.co/evaluation/article-by-michael-she... Flagging it as misleading seems fair. I cannot find the Washington Examiner oped in question.

lazyjones 6y ago
The "reasonable analysis" is hilarious. E.g.: climate change is affecting wildfires, BUT fires have decreased. Says a Geography professor from Swansea. This kind of stuff only serves to create more doubt about climate science and, unfortunately among some people, science in general.
- wl 6y ago
  Your summary of his comment is misleading because you omit his explanation of how both are true. > “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003″. > It is correct that the total global area burned has OVERALL declined over the last decades, BUT this is incorrectly used to argue that climate change is not affecting wildfires. The overall decrease is largely due a substantial reduction in flammable vegetation in African grasslands arising from human land use changes.
- vangelis 6y ago
  I'd hope HN posters would understand that systems aren't that simple and read the full content of that analysis.
SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
The analysis is, ironically, guilty of the same cherry-picking it accuses the original article of. The checkers identify two false claims and two misleading ones out of Shellenberger's bulleted list of twelve "facts few people know". But the summary never engages with the article's core claim, that climate change won't be the end of the world or of human society even though many in the general public think it will. The first checker explicitly agrees with that claim! There's also a larger question here. If claims which dispute scientific consensus are fact-checkably false, what does that mean for scientific debate? If Facebook had been created in the 60s, would Freudianism have been forever locked in as an effective form of psychiatry?
- wl 6y ago
  If this were a debate for or against a proposition, your criticism would make a lot of sense. Even if there's some false and misleading information used to support the proposition, the proposition can still be adequately supported by other information and arguments. However, that's not the context of the analysis. The question isn't "Does this guy have a point?" It's "Does this article spread misinformation?" The analysis rightly concludes it does.
  - SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. A claim that the article "mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change" strongly suggests that the guy doesn't have a point. Perhaps more importantly, a "partly false" tag on Facebook suggests the same - fact check tags will inevitably be interpreted as a claim that the article's not worth reading.

by wl 6y ago

lazyjones 6y ago

The "reasonable analysis" is hilarious. E.g.: climate change is affecting wildfires, BUT fires have decreased. Says a Geography professor from Swansea. This kind of stuff only serves to create more doubt about climate science and, unfortunately among some people, science in general.

wl 6y ago
Your summary of his comment is misleading because you omit his explanation of how both are true. > “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003″. > It is correct that the total global area burned has OVERALL declined over the last decades, BUT this is incorrectly used to argue that climate change is not affecting wildfires. The overall decrease is largely due a substantial reduction in flammable vegetation in African grasslands arising from human land use changes.
vangelis 6y ago
I'd hope HN posters would understand that systems aren't that simple and read the full content of that analysis.

SaltyLemonZest 6y ago

The analysis is, ironically, guilty of the same cherry-picking it accuses the original article of. The checkers identify two false claims and two misleading ones out of Shellenberger's bulleted list of twelve "facts few people know". But the summary never engages with the article's core claim, that climate change won't be the end of the world or of human society even though many in the general public think it will. The first checker explicitly agrees with that claim! There's also a larger question here. If claims which dispute scientific consensus are fact-checkably false, what does that mean for scientific debate? If Facebook had been created in the 60s, would Freudianism have been forever locked in as an effective form of psychiatry?

wl 6y ago
If this were a debate for or against a proposition, your criticism would make a lot of sense. Even if there's some false and misleading information used to support the proposition, the proposition can still be adequately supported by other information and arguments. However, that's not the context of the analysis. The question isn't "Does this guy have a point?" It's "Does this article spread misinformation?" The analysis rightly concludes it does.
- SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. A claim that the article "mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change" strongly suggests that the guy doesn't have a point. Perhaps more importantly, a "partly false" tag on Facebook suggests the same - fact check tags will inevitably be interpreted as a claim that the article's not worth reading.