4 ms·

There's been 50 years of climate catastrophe predictions and the one constant is that [everyone] passionate about it has a wicked case of confirmation bias.

Joeri 5y ago
The climate scientists generally haven't been doing the catastrophe predictions. If you go back and read the early IPCC reports, it's not like they were predicting the end of the world was nigh. In fact, they still don't predict that. What they do predict is severe consequences that will have high adaptation costs if we don't limit the amount of warming. They don't predict the end of humanity, but just a big cost to humanity. The activism comes from people who misrepresent the science. The skepticism also comes from people who misrepresent the science. The public debate is almost orthogonal to what the actual science in the IPCC reports says. To give an example, the IPCC AR5 (2013) report says this: "More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region." An activist picks out the second part and ignores the first. A skeptic picks out the first part and ignores the second. They battle it out, each citing "the science", and both are lying by omission. And that's the best case scenario. Often what gets cited isn't even in the IPCC reports, and of a lineage which is more dubious. Which is why, if you want to have an informed opinion on the climate, you should ignore the media, ignore the talking heads, and read the IPCC reports.
wwweston 5y ago
Also constant is the fact that the catastrophe continues to unfold at a rate that falls neatly into the uncanny valley between "slow and marginal enough that most human beings can't seem to comprehend it as a catastrophe" (possibly reflected in your comment) and "fast enough at geological and ecological time scales that human beings have fewer tools for predicting what the hell is actually going to happen" (but some of the possibilities look ugly enough to be alarming).
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Catastrophic events are happening you just live in a country that can deal with it-for now at least. This summer we saw floods kill people in Germany and Belgium while in the Netherlands nobody died because it spent a fuck ton of money on flood defences.
- jimbobimbo 5y ago
  Solutions like that are described in great details in a book False Alarm. It was the first book about climate change (for me) that demonstrated how one can agree with the idea of changing climate, yet approach the problem with a level head and practical solutions. Can't recommend highly enough.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  The flood mitigation that the Dutch have implemented is just unbelievably impressive.

Joeri 5y ago

The climate scientists generally haven't been doing the catastrophe predictions. If you go back and read the early IPCC reports, it's not like they were predicting the end of the world was nigh. In fact, they still don't predict that. What they do predict is severe consequences that will have high adaptation costs if we don't limit the amount of warming. They don't predict the end of humanity, but just a big cost to humanity. The activism comes from people who misrepresent the science. The skepticism also comes from people who misrepresent the science. The public debate is almost orthogonal to what the actual science in the IPCC reports says. To give an example, the IPCC AR5 (2013) report says this: "More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region." An activist picks out the second part and ignores the first. A skeptic picks out the first part and ignores the second. They battle it out, each citing "the science", and both are lying by omission. And that's the best case scenario. Often what gets cited isn't even in the IPCC reports, and of a lineage which is more dubious. Which is why, if you want to have an informed opinion on the climate, you should ignore the media, ignore the talking heads, and read the IPCC reports.

wwweston 5y ago

Also constant is the fact that the catastrophe continues to unfold at a rate that falls neatly into the uncanny valley between "slow and marginal enough that most human beings can't seem to comprehend it as a catastrophe" (possibly reflected in your comment) and "fast enough at geological and ecological time scales that human beings have fewer tools for predicting what the hell is actually going to happen" (but some of the possibilities look ugly enough to be alarming).

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Catastrophic events are happening you just live in a country that can deal with it-for now at least. This summer we saw floods kill people in Germany and Belgium while in the Netherlands nobody died because it spent a fuck ton of money on flood defences.

jimbobimbo 5y ago
Solutions like that are described in great details in a book False Alarm. It was the first book about climate change (for me) that demonstrated how one can agree with the idea of changing climate, yet approach the problem with a level head and practical solutions. Can't recommend highly enough.
andrew_ 5y ago
The flood mitigation that the Dutch have implemented is just unbelievably impressive.