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> I'm old enough to remember we were all "science" supposed to be entirely underwater by now. The science never really said that. Bad PopSci reporting did. The

> I'm old enough to remember we were all "science" supposed to be entirely underwater by now. The science never really said that. Bad PopSci reporting did. The science said that was a worst case possibility. Kind of "if we do the worst things possible as much as possible, then this is the worst case scenario". Then you read hacks--and paid disinformation spreaders, which we have documentation of various oil companies in particular doing I might add--reporting that as if it was a sure thing. Because clickbait isn't a new concept. Also - we actually DID change what we did. We did things like ban CFCs, etc. It made a significant difference to models! Hooray us for doing the bare minimum. We're not quibbling over millimeters, not unless you're completely misunderstanding or misrepresenting the topic anyhow. We're pointing out the rate of change is increasing and we haven't even seen the worst case effects yet (like CO2 release from the oceans, Greenland melting, etc). The global temperature is going up, rapidly, and we're at the point were these effects are already starting to be seen. That's... a tipping point.

revelio 3y ago
Unfortunately, if we take what prestigious climatologists have said as "the science" then you're wrong. They have in fact said exactly that. Here's just two examples, of many. James Hansen is perhaps the most famous climatologist, he worked at NASA and testified to Congress about global warming at the end of the 1980s. Back then he was telling people that by ~2010 highways in New York would be underwater, there'd be tape on the windows due to high winds and that crime would have increased due to the heat. https://web.archive.org/web/20110202162233/https://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/23/weather/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110202162233/https://www.salon... Not that it might happen, or there was a worst case possibility that it would happen. That it would definitely happen. None of that occurred (and in fact crime in New York went down a lot) but he didn't learn anything. Here he is in 2008. "Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years the Arctic will be free of ice in the summer". https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=... It's now 35 years after his first prediction and 15 years after his second. New York isn't under water and the Arctic isn't ice free in the summer. When people claim that scientists never get it wrong, that when people remember bad predictions it actually never happened and if it did it was all the journalist's fault, then they are making the problem worse because it teaches scientists that they can be wrong without consequence, that people will side with them over the journalists who in most cases were directly quoting what they had said.
- ohdearno 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - revelio 3y ago
    >> perhaps a likely one, if we didn't change course somewhat... which we did We didn't. CO2 has continuously risen and the rise accelerated with time. Hansen's predictions should therefore have absolutely come true if he was right, but they didn't. Or do you think the graph of CO2 I showed you in the other post is misleading as well? W.R.T. the quotes, now you're getting really desperate. Sure, sure, those poor innocent scientists keep getting ascribed word-for-word predictions they never made and they're all just too polite to complain about having words put in their mouth like that. Come on, wake up! He wasn't being misquoted. Here he is in another 2008 article written by himself in which he makes exactly the same prediction: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/23/climatec... "As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer." Lots more CO2 was added, 15 years passed, the Arctic is not ice free. Nor are ice levels falling. Here's the data from Hanen's own former employer showing that summer ice sea levels stabilized around 2010, which should not have been possible according to these people: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
- autoexec 3y ago
  It's pretty telling that all you've linked to are news stories with zero direct quotes about underwater highways or an "ice free arctic" and very little context to the alleged claims. The point being made, that many people have been largely misinformed about the science and what it predicts by media that misrepresented those things, still stands. The good news though is that even if James Hansen did run around telling everyone wild theories (and some argue that many of his predictions have held up remarkably well https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jun/25/30-years-later-deniers-are-still-lying-about-hansens-amazing-global-warming-prediction https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...) we don't have to depend on anyone's comments to the press, there is actual research being reviewed, modeled, and reassessed constantly that just doesn't get the attention alarmist news stories or interviews by authors trying to cash in on climate fear will generate. That isn't to say that scientists don't get things wrong. Some scientists are just plain bad at their job, some scientists get paid to falsify data and bury results unfavorable to the person signing their paychecks, and some just make mistakes, and those are all things we should be working to minimize, but I'd be shocked if our best understanding of the impacts of our changing climate hadn't changed several times over the last 35 years. Scientists getting things wrong isn't some gotcha that proves science is broken, it shows that science is working. Getting things wrongs is just one step of the process. All science does is provide the tools to give us the best understanding of something we can get with the information we have at the time. The more we learn, the more data we have, the more our understanding will change and evolve. People don't like uncertainty and some might wish science was all about dictating indisputable truths that cannot be wrong or questioned, but that's never been what science does or what it's for.

revelio 3y ago

Unfortunately, if we take what prestigious climatologists have said as "the science" then you're wrong. They have in fact said exactly that. Here's just two examples, of many. James Hansen is perhaps the most famous climatologist, he worked at NASA and testified to Congress about global warming at the end of the 1980s. Back then he was telling people that by ~2010 highways in New York would be underwater, there'd be tape on the windows due to high winds and that crime would have increased due to the heat. https://web.archive.org/web/20110202162233/https://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/23/weather/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110202162233/https://www.salon... Not that it might happen, or there was a worst case possibility that it would happen. That it would definitely happen. None of that occurred (and in fact crime in New York went down a lot) but he didn't learn anything. Here he is in 2008. "Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years the Arctic will be free of ice in the summer". https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=... It's now 35 years after his first prediction and 15 years after his second. New York isn't under water and the Arctic isn't ice free in the summer. When people claim that scientists never get it wrong, that when people remember bad predictions it actually never happened and if it did it was all the journalist's fault, then they are making the problem worse because it teaches scientists that they can be wrong without consequence, that people will side with them over the journalists who in most cases were directly quoting what they had said.

ohdearno 3y ago
[flagged]
- revelio 3y ago
  >> perhaps a likely one, if we didn't change course somewhat... which we did We didn't. CO2 has continuously risen and the rise accelerated with time. Hansen's predictions should therefore have absolutely come true if he was right, but they didn't. Or do you think the graph of CO2 I showed you in the other post is misleading as well? W.R.T. the quotes, now you're getting really desperate. Sure, sure, those poor innocent scientists keep getting ascribed word-for-word predictions they never made and they're all just too polite to complain about having words put in their mouth like that. Come on, wake up! He wasn't being misquoted. Here he is in another 2008 article written by himself in which he makes exactly the same prediction: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/23/climatec... "As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer." Lots more CO2 was added, 15 years passed, the Arctic is not ice free. Nor are ice levels falling. Here's the data from Hanen's own former employer showing that summer ice sea levels stabilized around 2010, which should not have been possible according to these people: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
autoexec 3y ago
It's pretty telling that all you've linked to are news stories with zero direct quotes about underwater highways or an "ice free arctic" and very little context to the alleged claims. The point being made, that many people have been largely misinformed about the science and what it predicts by media that misrepresented those things, still stands. The good news though is that even if James Hansen did run around telling everyone wild theories (and some argue that many of his predictions have held up remarkably well https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jun/25/30-years-later-deniers-are-still-lying-about-hansens-amazing-global-warming-prediction https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...) we don't have to depend on anyone's comments to the press, there is actual research being reviewed, modeled, and reassessed constantly that just doesn't get the attention alarmist news stories or interviews by authors trying to cash in on climate fear will generate. That isn't to say that scientists don't get things wrong. Some scientists are just plain bad at their job, some scientists get paid to falsify data and bury results unfavorable to the person signing their paychecks, and some just make mistakes, and those are all things we should be working to minimize, but I'd be shocked if our best understanding of the impacts of our changing climate hadn't changed several times over the last 35 years. Scientists getting things wrong isn't some gotcha that proves science is broken, it shows that science is working. Getting things wrongs is just one step of the process. All science does is provide the tools to give us the best understanding of something we can get with the information we have at the time. The more we learn, the more data we have, the more our understanding will change and evolve. People don't like uncertainty and some might wish science was all about dictating indisputable truths that cannot be wrong or questioned, but that's never been what science does or what it's for.