4 ms·
I think the larger issue is the lack of credibility. Having read many of the papers, been involved in some research myself, etc. I thoroughly believe the field
by lettergram 5y ago
I think the larger issue is the lack of credibility. Having read many of the papers, been involved in some research myself, etc. I thoroughly believe the field has no credibility. We simply don't know and it's unknowable depending on what we are attempting to measure, predict, etc.
Here are the criticisms I have seen and share myself:
1. Define "climate change"
2. Funding tends to be provided to those who agree politically
3. Funding is typically tied to particular research objectives. Because of that, outcomes are often per-determined, particularly when we're looking at trend lines in particular predictable ways. For instance, we are likely funding research into "what are the human causes of climate change" -- which implies an outcome.
4. While there may be consensus that it's human caused, that doesn't necessarily mean there's consensus on the reasons, outcomes, scale, etc.
5. Journals / Reviewers actively block publication of counter points.
6. There's significant evidence climate change will benefit humanity, aka the characterization from politicians misrepresents the actual data. This reduces the credibility of the field and influences desired outcomes.
7. Many of the predictions from scientists in the field have been wildly off. If you go through old papers you can see there were predictions of an apocalypse every few years, which never comes. This makes it seem like a giant grift.
8. There's a MAJOR sampling issue. Where are the data samples taken to determine "warming", there are many papers cherry picking data. Certain regions are getting cooler, others warmer, etc. Additionally, we only have data reliably for a hundred years and we're exiting an ice age. We see correlations at that scale, causation are not discoverable; at least for what most people consider climate change (global temperature change & weather patterns).
9. Obvious counter examples exist. Per-industrialization, North Africa went fro a lush land to a desert. It wasn't human industrialization that did that. North America was covered in a sheet of ice a mile thick 20,000 years ago. These events are rarely considered in papers examining human influence.
- igorkraw 5y agoOn a quick glance I see numbers 1 ,43,44,48,90,96, of the climate change deniers list (1), and that's just from a 30 second skim. You are doing the classical playbook of "just asking questions" which either can't be settled (but what really is climate change?) or have been settled and you are willfully ignoring them (the IPCC has a clear definition of climate change, anthropogenic climate change etc.), in order to make it appear that the debate is ongoing and there is substantial doubt. There isn't. Like a sister comment pointed out, there is more consensus on climate change than on evolution. I expect you to wine about being downvoted and "silenced" as the next move of this playbook 1. https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
- lettergram 5y agoI’m pointing out the papers in the linked study literally have different definitions. Highlighting how this stuff really isn’t credible. It’s junk. Regarding your link, those counter points are... very unscientific or well reasoned. Take point #1, we all agree climate changes, it snows half the year in the northern hemisphere. What caused the snow isn’t anything we did. But I’m 100% sure you could find correlations, which is all these papers do. Just like humans likely didn’t cause the earth to heat 20,000 years ago when the North American ice sheet melted. But that correlates to when humans arrived in North America. The problem with correlations are that you need a large volume of data to suggest causation. We don’t have that. Because of those claims of causation, the field has lost significant credibility
- finite_jest 5y agoI think seasons aren't really a relevant example of climate changing. Here's the Wikipedia definition of climate: "Climate is the long-term pattern of weather in an area, typically averaged over a period of 30 years." [1] You do have a point on credibility though, in that over-politicization causes the field to look much less credible. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate&oldid=1049943343 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate&oldid=104...
- lettergram 5y agoI was simply trying to illustrate -- assume we didn't know about earths tilt; one would suspect something like the moon or stars causes the seasons (as they did historically). IMO as we don't have accurate data measuring far enough back we're effectively shooting in the dark. It's fine to say, these two things could be correlated, it's another to say these things are correlated AND to fix it we have to force everyone to stop traveling, be less healthy (eating a worse diet), etc.
- cycomanic 5y ago> The problem with correlations are that you need a large volume of data to suggest causation. We don’t have that. Just based on this sentence I have a hard time believing you really are a scientist as you claim. There is no requirement on large volume of data to suggest causation. In fact no amount of data and correlation by itself can establish causation, because they are very different concepts (Hence the correlation!=causation). You need mechanisms to explain the causations, and you need to verify the mechanisms. This has been done extensively for climate change. > Because of those claims of causation, the field has lost significant credibility I would say your claims lost you a lot of credibility just now.