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Why do you think that academics investigating themselves carries any weight? Of course they'll conclude there was no problem. If you want a writeup that takes a

Why do you think that academics investigating themselves carries any weight? Of course they'll conclude there was no problem. If you want a writeup that takes a rather different view on what happened you need it to be written by outsiders. Try this one: https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/climategate.10yearsafter.pdf https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/climat...

autoexec 4y ago
I'd have hoped that those outsiders would still involve climatologists, but it appears in this case the paper you linked was written by a economist affiliated with a conservative think tank and a man who spent his entire career working for mining and fossil fuel industries. These are clear conflicts of interest, which doesn't bode well for the paper. It'll still be interesting to see how what they say compares with the reports by actual experts working at places like the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the National Science Foundation, and the EPA, but I'm not expecting much to be honest.
- origin_path 4y ago
  Please consider the following questions. 1. How could a climatologist be an outsider? Climatologists are by definition not outsiders when criticizing climatology. 2. Why is working for a conservative think tank a conflict of interest? There are no such conflicts. If you think there are then, well, academia is well known to be dominated by people on the left, is that also a conflict of interest? If so then you have to write off most of climatology. 3. The whole problem climategate exposed is that "actual experts" are manipulating the scientific process to ensure that anyone who disagrees with their claims can't get published, and therefore gets labelled as "not an expert" and kicked out of the institutions. That's why the only people who can properly actually openly criticize that edifice are those entirely outside the sphere of government run science - but that fact is then used to write off anything they have to say. Do you therefore recognize that the argument you're making here is a circular one? 4. Given that, do you agree that climatologists are by definition conflicted - if they were to admit they had been manipulating the scientific process as was shown by the climategate emails, they would lose status, power, influence and quite possibly open themselves up to prosecution. They will obviously never do that.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Seriously, people are still claiming Climategate demonstrated anything significant other than "scientists are human" and "deniers will go to extreme lengths to hang on their world view" after 10 frigging years? I can just envisage you crying out "but climategate!" as your house is finally claimed by the rising seas and you desperately try to scavenge the last remaining cans and packages of food that are no longer economical to produce due to disrupted rainfall patterns and annual heatwaves, all while doing your best to help burn up the fossil fuels that could never have possibly been the reason for any of this happening because only nutjob communists could possibly make up such extraordinary lies.
    - origin_path 4y ago
      What a bizarre, ugly and incredibly unscientific fantasy. Are you aware that absolutely nothing in any IPCC report (which presumably you trust?) depicts anything even close to that scenario? The worst they can come up with is a few percent lopped off GDP by 2100. Also, "scientists are human"? What the emails showed is that scientists were willing to totally distort the scientific process to ensure their claims won the day even in the face of contradictory evidence. If you blow off terribly unscientific behavior with "they're only human" then you can't be upset when people decide they aren't really scientists and can safely be ignored.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        From ch. 13: "It is virtually certain that global mean sea level rise will continue beyond 2100...For a radiative forcing that corresponds to above 700 ppm CO2-eq but below 1500 ppm, as in the scenario RCP8.5, the projected rise is 1 m to more than 3 m." That doesn't even include the possibility of storm surges that far exceed that, which are expected to become more frequent/extreme. "A study simulating analogous conditions to the Dust Bowl drought in today’s agriculture suggests that Dust Bowl-type droughts today would have unprecedented consequences, with yield losses about 50% larger than the severe drought of 2012 (Glotter and Elliott 2016). Damages at these extremes are highly sensitive to temperature, worsening by about 25% with each degree centigrade of warming. By mid-century, over 80% of summers are projected to have average temperatures that are likely to exceed the hottest summer in the Dust Bowl years (1936)" I can continue if you like. I read many of the climate-gate emails. At worst you could claim there were a few cases where scientists were applying techniques to paint their research results in a more favourable light than it might otherwise appear.

autoexec 4y ago

I'd have hoped that those outsiders would still involve climatologists, but it appears in this case the paper you linked was written by a economist affiliated with a conservative think tank and a man who spent his entire career working for mining and fossil fuel industries. These are clear conflicts of interest, which doesn't bode well for the paper. It'll still be interesting to see how what they say compares with the reports by actual experts working at places like the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the National Science Foundation, and the EPA, but I'm not expecting much to be honest.

origin_path 4y ago
Please consider the following questions. 1. How could a climatologist be an outsider? Climatologists are by definition not outsiders when criticizing climatology. 2. Why is working for a conservative think tank a conflict of interest? There are no such conflicts. If you think there are then, well, academia is well known to be dominated by people on the left, is that also a conflict of interest? If so then you have to write off most of climatology. 3. The whole problem climategate exposed is that "actual experts" are manipulating the scientific process to ensure that anyone who disagrees with their claims can't get published, and therefore gets labelled as "not an expert" and kicked out of the institutions. That's why the only people who can properly actually openly criticize that edifice are those entirely outside the sphere of government run science - but that fact is then used to write off anything they have to say. Do you therefore recognize that the argument you're making here is a circular one? 4. Given that, do you agree that climatologists are by definition conflicted - if they were to admit they had been manipulating the scientific process as was shown by the climategate emails, they would lose status, power, influence and quite possibly open themselves up to prosecution. They will obviously never do that.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Seriously, people are still claiming Climategate demonstrated anything significant other than "scientists are human" and "deniers will go to extreme lengths to hang on their world view" after 10 frigging years? I can just envisage you crying out "but climategate!" as your house is finally claimed by the rising seas and you desperately try to scavenge the last remaining cans and packages of food that are no longer economical to produce due to disrupted rainfall patterns and annual heatwaves, all while doing your best to help burn up the fossil fuels that could never have possibly been the reason for any of this happening because only nutjob communists could possibly make up such extraordinary lies.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    What a bizarre, ugly and incredibly unscientific fantasy. Are you aware that absolutely nothing in any IPCC report (which presumably you trust?) depicts anything even close to that scenario? The worst they can come up with is a few percent lopped off GDP by 2100. Also, "scientists are human"? What the emails showed is that scientists were willing to totally distort the scientific process to ensure their claims won the day even in the face of contradictory evidence. If you blow off terribly unscientific behavior with "they're only human" then you can't be upset when people decide they aren't really scientists and can safely be ignored.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      From ch. 13: "It is virtually certain that global mean sea level rise will continue beyond 2100...For a radiative forcing that corresponds to above 700 ppm CO2-eq but below 1500 ppm, as in the scenario RCP8.5, the projected rise is 1 m to more than 3 m." That doesn't even include the possibility of storm surges that far exceed that, which are expected to become more frequent/extreme. "A study simulating analogous conditions to the Dust Bowl drought in today’s agriculture suggests that Dust Bowl-type droughts today would have unprecedented consequences, with yield losses about 50% larger than the severe drought of 2012 (Glotter and Elliott 2016). Damages at these extremes are highly sensitive to temperature, worsening by about 25% with each degree centigrade of warming. By mid-century, over 80% of summers are projected to have average temperatures that are likely to exceed the hottest summer in the Dust Bowl years (1936)" I can continue if you like. I read many of the climate-gate emails. At worst you could claim there were a few cases where scientists were applying techniques to paint their research results in a more favourable light than it might otherwise appear.