6 ms·

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the articl

by timr 4y ago

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estimates were based on long-term goals set out by countries including India, the world’s third-biggest emitter, which is aiming for net zero emissions by 2070. > By contrast, the sobering assessment of a rise of 2.4C from Climate Action Tracker (CAT), the world’s most respected climate analysis coalition, was based on countries’ short-term goals for the next decade. It's worth pointing out that the "world's most respected climate analysis coalition" bit is some rather blatant editorializing. There's simply no way that's an objective fact (what did they do, survey the entire world?) Even if there were a way to defend such a statement, it's little more than an appeal to authority, to try to get you to believe this estimate, versus other estimates. After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature), I give zero credibility to the Guardian as a source of objective information. They routinely play these kinds of rhetorical and selective-reporting games to play up the most extreme angle for any story. It's sad, but we've gotten to the point where you simply cannot trust major news organizations to report on science without ridiculous levels of clickbait spin.

throwaway5752 4y ago
We're not going to hit the targets, not even close. The models are trending worse than expected. As someone that has spent some time on this topic in my lifetime, all I can do is thank fate that I'm likely to be dead from natural causes around 2050. Maybe the Guardian is bad (and I disagree with your opinion of them, I think they are generally reliable) but in this case, they are correct.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  I've found that Guardian has by far the best environmental news coverage out of basically all mainstream outlets.
chimprich 4y ago
> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an appeal to authority, to try to get us to believe your opinion, rather than highly-respected international organisations. > I give zero credibility to the Guardian as a source of objective information. The Guardian is not perfect, but generally gets the science pretty much right most of the time - at least compared to other news organisations. Saying it has "zero credibility" is hyperbole that rather reveals your biases. Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate?
- evilos 4y ago
  My interpretation of the "spectrum" comment was that, out of a number of predictions by different papers, the one cited is on the outer ranges of given values. That seems like an objective statement by itself.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > The Guardian is not perfect, but generally gets the science pretty much right most of the time - at least compared to other news organisations. That caveat is a really low threshold, think of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and "wet pavements cause rain" level of wrongness in the things other news orgs report.
- timr 4y ago
  > It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. It's a fact reported by the very same article (but buried). I didn't make it up. > Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate? All projections are theoretical, but one needs only go to the IPCC to see that the range of reputable predictions varies: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM1_figure-final-947x1024.png https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM1... Source of that figure: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/ Most recent IPCC commentary on predictions to underscore that current estimates land in a range, and that the Guardian-cited source is definitely not in the middle of it: https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr
carpenecopinum 4y ago
> ...was based on countries’ short-term goals for the next decade What else though? There is no "long-term" for politicians that have to face another election in less than 4 years. "This will happen in 10+ years" is just a thinly-veiled "We aren't going to do it.". If we can't get any short term commitments and hold people accountable for it, nothing substantial will get done.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > What else though? There is no "long-term" for politicians that have to face another election in less than 4 years. Politicians used to have long term vision though. See the American founding fathers, Churchill, de Gaulle, etc. Something changed, it wasn't always like that
  - undersuit 4y ago
    Look at the New Green Deal proposed by some Democrats in 2019. It was a non-binding resolution. An attempt to give the US congress a long-term vision. There wasn't an attempt to compromise. Every Republican Representative could have attempted an amendment to temper language they didn't like. There could have been a debate on the merits of the resolution. It was turned into a hit piece so every time AOC is mentioned in social media some smarmy user pops up and screeches about hamburgers or cow flatulence.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  How I see this unfolding, at the very least, is full-on militarization of the youth (mass protest, boycott, and terrorism) when they see that no one is doing anything substantive to solve the problem. You can already see quasi-violent climate change protests in the EU/UK. They will organize via TikTok, or whatever social media dujour, and stop life as we know it. Just keep bickering.
w0de0 4y ago
It’s sad, but we will simply never get past the point of rearranging the furniture while we argue about the accuracy of estimates of the iceberg’s size. Why is this the font of your passion, rather than the desperate situation of our planet?
- googlryas 4y ago
  Why do you care about climate change when the world is going to end in nuclear war before we even hit +1.2C? Don't question my projections, if you do, you're just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I wonder how many nuclear bombs it would take to raise global temperature by an average of 1.2C? I'm sure a physicist could tell you, but I bet the number would be best expressed in exponential notation at least. And if we were setting off that many bombs every day, I bet people would be a bit concerned.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      No one will care about the temperature when there is no one.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- colpabar 4y ago
  What are they supposed to do? They said they don't trust the guardian for scientific news because they have read the actual scientific literature and noticed that the guardian engages in clickbait and hyperbole. They seem to understand the situation, they just don't like this particular outlet because in their experience it doesn't do a good job. Should they be typing in all caps about how we're all going to die instead? Like it or not, a lot of people have lost trust in mainstream media outlets because they have seen said outlets engage in hyperbolic clickbait bullshit.
lamontcg 4y ago
> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. The upper bound of scientific predictions of climate change have generally been correct over the past 20 years.
clairity 4y ago
> "It's sad, but we've gotten to the point where you simply cannot trust major news organizations to report on science without ridiculous levels of clickbait spin." news may have waxed and waned on reputability but it's never really been highly reputable. we had a blip from the 70s-90s where it was contextually limited enough that our national narrative was fairly aligned and unchallenged. but that exposed the natural weakness of monoliths, which provided an opening to folks like murdoch to exploit, followed by the explosion of social media, which increased noise several-fold while increasing signal much less than that. there is no shortcut to thinking for yourself. that's a civic responsibility as much as an individual one. folks need to dig past the veneer presented to examine the veracity and credibility of the narrative presented. when it comes to climate change, mediopolitical narrative imposes too much bullshit and religious fervor for most of us to make real sense of it, and that's why we mostly shortcut to tribal affiliation as a proxy for what we should think/believe. personally, i think we should focus on (air, water, land) pollution first and foremost, as that is concretely a problem yesterday, today, and tomorrow, starting with reducing coal worldwide. strategically, that has the advantage of narrowing our focus (less bullshit and influence potential), doing something that materially helps us now, and potentially does something to help the far off climate future.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  Science reporting could be skewed on some issues in the old days (floridation, marijuana) but it was rarely as hasty and sloppy as it gets now, frequently. The business model and technology then didn't support the same volume of publication, but it supported reporters well enough to allow them more time to investigate and write. Headline writing was another matter back then, though. It was bad; just some dude trying to fit the space under time pressure because the ads were carefully planned, then the articles were quickly chopped to fit around them. Truncated headlines often reversed the meaning of the story or just went off the rails.
janef0421 4y ago
Making a press release saying that you are going to do something in 20 years is not a strong indication that you will actually do that thing. Unless a government is taking substantial short-term action that is consistent with that goal, then we should skeptical of those goals, and not put too much weight on projections based on them.

by timr 4y ago

throwaway5752 4y ago

We're not going to hit the targets, not even close. The models are trending worse than expected. As someone that has spent some time on this topic in my lifetime, all I can do is thank fate that I'm likely to be dead from natural causes around 2050. Maybe the Guardian is bad (and I disagree with your opinion of them, I think they are generally reliable) but in this case, they are correct.

enraged_camel 4y ago
I've found that Guardian has by far the best environmental news coverage out of basically all mainstream outlets.

chimprich 4y ago

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an appeal to authority, to try to get us to believe your opinion, rather than highly-respected international organisations. > I give zero credibility to the Guardian as a source of objective information. The Guardian is not perfect, but generally gets the science pretty much right most of the time - at least compared to other news organisations. Saying it has "zero credibility" is hyperbole that rather reveals your biases. Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate?

evilos 4y ago
My interpretation of the "spectrum" comment was that, out of a number of predictions by different papers, the one cited is on the outer ranges of given values. That seems like an objective statement by itself.
ben_w 4y ago
> The Guardian is not perfect, but generally gets the science pretty much right most of the time - at least compared to other news organisations. That caveat is a really low threshold, think of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and "wet pavements cause rain" level of wrongness in the things other news orgs report.
timr 4y ago
> It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. It's a fact reported by the very same article (but buried). I didn't make it up. > Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate? All projections are theoretical, but one needs only go to the IPCC to see that the range of reputable predictions varies: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM1_figure-final-947x1024.png https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM1... Source of that figure: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/ Most recent IPCC commentary on predictions to underscore that current estimates land in a range, and that the Guardian-cited source is definitely not in the middle of it: https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr

carpenecopinum 4y ago

> ...was based on countries’ short-term goals for the next decade What else though? There is no "long-term" for politicians that have to face another election in less than 4 years. "This will happen in 10+ years" is just a thinly-veiled "We aren't going to do it.". If we can't get any short term commitments and hold people accountable for it, nothing substantial will get done.

lm28469 4y ago
> What else though? There is no "long-term" for politicians that have to face another election in less than 4 years. Politicians used to have long term vision though. See the American founding fathers, Churchill, de Gaulle, etc. Something changed, it wasn't always like that
- undersuit 4y ago
  Look at the New Green Deal proposed by some Democrats in 2019. It was a non-binding resolution. An attempt to give the US congress a long-term vision. There wasn't an attempt to compromise. Every Republican Representative could have attempted an amendment to temper language they didn't like. There could have been a debate on the merits of the resolution. It was turned into a hit piece so every time AOC is mentioned in social media some smarmy user pops up and screeches about hamburgers or cow flatulence.
datavirtue 4y ago
How I see this unfolding, at the very least, is full-on militarization of the youth (mass protest, boycott, and terrorism) when they see that no one is doing anything substantive to solve the problem. You can already see quasi-violent climate change protests in the EU/UK. They will organize via TikTok, or whatever social media dujour, and stop life as we know it. Just keep bickering.

w0de0 4y ago

It’s sad, but we will simply never get past the point of rearranging the furniture while we argue about the accuracy of estimates of the iceberg’s size. Why is this the font of your passion, rather than the desperate situation of our planet?

googlryas 4y ago
Why do you care about climate change when the world is going to end in nuclear war before we even hit +1.2C? Don't question my projections, if you do, you're just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I wonder how many nuclear bombs it would take to raise global temperature by an average of 1.2C? I'm sure a physicist could tell you, but I bet the number would be best expressed in exponential notation at least. And if we were setting off that many bombs every day, I bet people would be a bit concerned.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    No one will care about the temperature when there is no one.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
colpabar 4y ago
What are they supposed to do? They said they don't trust the guardian for scientific news because they have read the actual scientific literature and noticed that the guardian engages in clickbait and hyperbole. They seem to understand the situation, they just don't like this particular outlet because in their experience it doesn't do a good job. Should they be typing in all caps about how we're all going to die instead? Like it or not, a lot of people have lost trust in mainstream media outlets because they have seen said outlets engage in hyperbolic clickbait bullshit.

lamontcg 4y ago

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. The upper bound of scientific predictions of climate change have generally been correct over the past 20 years.

clairity 4y ago

> "It's sad, but we've gotten to the point where you simply cannot trust major news organizations to report on science without ridiculous levels of clickbait spin." news may have waxed and waned on reputability but it's never really been highly reputable. we had a blip from the 70s-90s where it was contextually limited enough that our national narrative was fairly aligned and unchallenged. but that exposed the natural weakness of monoliths, which provided an opening to folks like murdoch to exploit, followed by the explosion of social media, which increased noise several-fold while increasing signal much less than that. there is no shortcut to thinking for yourself. that's a civic responsibility as much as an individual one. folks need to dig past the veneer presented to examine the veracity and credibility of the narrative presented. when it comes to climate change, mediopolitical narrative imposes too much bullshit and religious fervor for most of us to make real sense of it, and that's why we mostly shortcut to tribal affiliation as a proxy for what we should think/believe. personally, i think we should focus on (air, water, land) pollution first and foremost, as that is concretely a problem yesterday, today, and tomorrow, starting with reducing coal worldwide. strategically, that has the advantage of narrowing our focus (less bullshit and influence potential), doing something that materially helps us now, and potentially does something to help the far off climate future.

Nomentatus 4y ago
Science reporting could be skewed on some issues in the old days (floridation, marijuana) but it was rarely as hasty and sloppy as it gets now, frequently. The business model and technology then didn't support the same volume of publication, but it supported reporters well enough to allow them more time to investigate and write. Headline writing was another matter back then, though. It was bad; just some dude trying to fit the space under time pressure because the ads were carefully planned, then the articles were quickly chopped to fit around them. Truncated headlines often reversed the meaning of the story or just went off the rails.

janef0421 4y ago

Making a press release saying that you are going to do something in 20 years is not a strong indication that you will actually do that thing. Unless a government is taking substantial short-term action that is consistent with that goal, then we should skeptical of those goals, and not put too much weight on projections based on them.