Welcome to the club. Yah, that is the current state of environmental research. It's just junk. This is why I started this thread with "Because environmentalist

Welcome to the club. Yah, that is the current state of environmental research. It's just junk. This is why I started this thread with "Because environmentalists have a truly terrible track record.". And this is also why so many people are so distrustful of what "experts" say about this topic. Environmental research is so dependent on assumptions it's basically impossible to do it honestly. Usually an author will have a goal in mind, then write a paper to reach that goal, and he'll have no trouble doing so - just change an assumption here or there, and you'll be successful. If you want a way to cut through the nonsense just follow the money: Resources cost money, the method that is cheapest, to a rough approximation, is the one that uses the fewest resources.