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Wadhams is controversial, to say the least, and he's been wrong in the past. See e.g. here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-a
by hannob 5y ago
Wadhams is controversial, to say the least, and he's been wrong in the past. See e.g. here:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-d...
This is an issue I've been struggling with myself to navigate sometimes. There's sometimes a thin line between scientists who rightfully say that some of the "mainstream" climate predictions (aka the IPCC) have underestimated risks vs. those that spread baseless doomism.
- kaesar14 5y agoIt does seem like the mainstream estimates were pretty wrong in how aggressive warming would be.
- hannob 5y agoSo what? Wadham was also pretty wrong. "X was wrong, so I'll support the words of Y who was wrong in a different direction" is not a very smart position to have.
- kaesar14 5y agoI don’t really know anything about Wadham. I’m only commenting on the balance between mainstream estimates of climate milestones and what ended up happening - some more pessimism thrown into the models might be necessary.
- DennisP 5y agoHis prediction was overly pessimistic, but based on OP's article it appears his account of the current state of the ice was spot on. This doesn't seem surprising since his specialty was observing the ice, not modeling the future.
- rewgs 5y agoThe meme of “scientists spreading doom and gloom” just doesn’t appear to be rooted in reality, though. A much more obvious explanation is that what they’re revealing and proposing is unbelievably dark and holistically bad that people can’t wrap their heads around the complexity of it all, and if they can’t, they choose to ignore it. Our reactions to our own mortality explain a lot here.