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As someone who does statistical modeling for a living (though not climate related), one thing I've found fascinating is that many climate skeptics, particularly
by time_to_smile 5y ago
As someone who does statistical modeling for a living (though not climate related), one thing I've found fascinating is that many climate skeptics, particularly on HN, will focus on the difficulty scientific models have in making accurate predictions about the near term impact of climate change.
While this is true (modeling a complex system such as the Earth's climate and all of it's positive and negative feed back loops is incredibly challenging), the implied assumption from people that use this critique is that uncertainty will always fall on the side of "better than expected".
People that have been closely following human ecology for the last decade or so have repeatedly found the opposite to be true. "Faster than expected" is somewhat of a joke in certain communities since it seems that the more we learn the more we realize how large the impact of rapid accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere really is, and how quickly this impact develops.
That's not to say model uncertainty == doom, but assuming that model uncertainty == "this is fine" is a more dangerous and naive assumption.
- refurb 5y agoNobody is saying “it will be better than expected” they are saying “the models could be wrong”. And that’s played out already? So not exactly a low probability scenario.
- rp1 5y agoSo if the models are wrong, and wrong in such a way that the impact of climate change is much worse than they predict, then what?
- refurb 5y agoBut that goes both ways? If I told you “my model predicts a 50% chance you be diagnosed with cancer and a 50% chance you wont” how do you make a decision. When both are equally probable?
- notreallyserio 5y agoWhen the options are keep smoking or stop smoking, the obvious choice is to stop smoking to improve your odds. The positive side effects are worth it on their own.
- refurb 5y agoThat’s if you have solid evidence that smoking harms you.
- syshum 5y agoExcept here the options are not as simple as "stopping smoking" which in this context would be "stop emitting co2" doing so would cause extreme economic harm, lower living standards SUBSTANTIALLY, and be very regressive to the poorest people. Smoking is not needed for life to function, energy production, food production, heating, etc is very much needed for life to function.
- notreallyserio 5y agoPut another way, ignoring the risks and contining our reliance on CO2 and methane and etc emissions has put our economy and living standards in jeopardy, especially for the poorest people. It didn't have to go down this way but certain powerful folks have been more interested in maintaining the status quo than making improvements, and that pattern continues today. Even basic economic concepts like externalities are ignored because folks embrace thought-terminating terms like "job-killing policies".
- triceratops 5y ago> cause extreme economic harm, lower living standards SUBSTANTIALLY, and be very regressive to the poorest people. Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? "Extreme" economic harm? Define extreme, please. Also account for all the increased economic activity related to climate change mitigation (renewable energy, carbon capture, construction). "lower living standards SUBSTANTIALLY" - Climate change will do that too. Try cooling your house cheaply, or getting enough freshwater or fresh produce when the climate goes haywire. "be very regressive to the poorest people." - Again, needs context. The "poorest people" are precisely the ones who will suffer the most if climate change isn't averted. The Indian subcontinent, to take one example, will have acute water shortages and/or sea-level rises (in Bangladesh) which will lead to crop failures and famine.
- dtech 5y agoSo far over time the climate has been warming faster and there have been more problems consistently than the median of models up to that point predicted, so "And that's played out already" is very wrong.
- mrfusion 5y agoSo you’re saying we can’t be sure about our models but we can be sure that they’re wrong in a certain direction.
- tdrdt 5y agoThe problem is that since the sixties scientists are predicting doom and this is causing people to become skeptical about new insights. For example, after decades of sea level doom scenario's people are saying it is "slower than expected".
- lostcolony 5y ago"scientists" No. Popular media. Scientists will say something like "wow, this particular study shows us hitting 1 degree of warming by 2010, and 2 degrees of warming by 2030 at the current rate, which would lead to gradual melting of the ice caps", and in the popular media that becomes "SCIENTISTS PREDICT ICE CAPS WILL BE ENTIRELY GONE BY 2010!" Because the nuance was not understood, and alarm gets readers/watchers. I will also remind you the same people who would claim it's slower than expected because of what scientists have said in the past are the same people who will call out that in the 1960s scientists were predicting global cooling as evidence why the science is wrong. I.e., even though those positions are counter to each other, they both work in service to "the science is always wrong" narrative, and that's really the bias at play.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- time_to_smile 5y ago> people are saying it is "slower than expected". Can you give me some citations for this? I've looked around a bit and all I can see is "faster than expected" In fact sea-level rise is another great example of what I'm talking about. Dr. Richard Alley gave a fantastic talk this summer about how we can expect very rapid, very sudden ice sheet collapse, and therefore should also experience potentially very rapid sea level rises[0]. However, as he repeatedly points out in the talk, because these sudden collapses are incredibly hard to simulate and predict they are excluded from all IPCC models. He doesn't deny that predicting when and exactly the impact is an incredibly hard modeling problem, but at the same time makes it pretty clear that this known unknown, so to speak, is very real and very likely to have a major impact. Edit: you should watch at least the beginning of the talk because he explicitly mentions a 2008 piece in the guardian and other cases of "slower than expected".[1] 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MnX_sjXMio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MnX_sjXMio 1. https://youtu.be/0MnX_sjXMio?t=100 https://youtu.be/0MnX_sjXMio?t=100
- someguydave 5y agoOk but as a statistical professional don’t you thibk that all “X than expected” stories be written with a preregistered hypothesis from some earlier date which can be linked? Otherwise they are a press release.
- dls2016 5y agoI've always been worried that estimates and predictions in the IPCC reports, for instance, are much too conservative. The reports are averages, in some sense, of thousands of peer-reviewed publications. It's hard to get your publication accepted into the scientific mainstream if your predictions make you sound like an alarmist crank.
- refurb 5y agoWell all be dead of Omicron before global warming gets us.
- xscott 5y agoI've seen this sentiment a lot, and it doesn't make any sense to me. How can you "trust the science" and peer review, but only when it's scary? If it's not scary enough, you hypothesize it being biased? How is that better than the crowd who thinks it's biased the other way? It's just as easy to imagine your publication won't get accepted into the scientific mainstream unless it conforms to the prevailing narrative. What's the value of peer review if either of these biases (deniers or alarmists) is correct?!?
- dls2016 5y agoIn the IPCC case, the report itself says the evidence rules out less than 1C of warming but can't rule out more than 5C of warming by the end of the century. My views are perfectly consistent with the science... it's simply that the science is very limited when it comes to analyzing "tipping point" scenarios. But, yes, I also have some qualms about peer review.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- xscott 5y agoIf the science is limited in that area, why do you believe tipping points (positive feedback) will be horrific? There's just as much reason to believe that negative feedback (the good kind) will keep things from going off the charts. Either way, it's not scientific thinking, and it isn't trusting the experts either.
- projectileboy 5y agoOh my god, I wish more people would say this, and understand it. When thinking about any projection, “might not be that bad” == “could be much worse”.
- Unbeliever69 5y agoI must not pay attention, but how common are climate skeptics on HN?
- krastanov 5y agoMight be some confirmation bias on my end, but it seems common, especially if you turn on "show dead comments" in your account settings.
- Unbeliever69 5y agoI didn't know dead comments was a thing. What is the correlation between dead comments and climate denialism being common on HN?
- krastanov 5y agoMy bad, I was vague. It is *very* common to see one or two conspiratorial crazy "global warming is a hoax" comments that are just flagged and dead. It also definitely happens, but less reliably, to see "middle brow" "polite but trivially wrong" climate change denialism comments that are either downvoted or dead. I have also seen non-downvoted comments of that nature, but these were not what I was referring to (and they usually have well argued factual responses).
- scollet 5y agoIt's more a correlation of dead comments and value added. I haven't seen a compelling denialist argument, so maybe they're dead because they're not compelling? From a distance I'd estimate maybe 40-50% of commenters are in the leaning neutral sceptic to oil apologist zone but I'm probably biased.