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Here: 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

by nvm0n2 3y ago

Here: 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.... While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, "If what you're saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?" He looked for a while and was quiet and didn't say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, "Well, there will be more traffic." I, of course, didn't think he heard the question right. Then he explained, "The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won't be there. The trees in the median strip will change." Then he said, "There will be more police cars." Why? "Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up." From looking up that link and double checking it for you, apparently the guy telling this story now says he mixed up 20 years and 40 when retelling it, so he says Hansen's original prediction was always for 2030. Doesn't matter, the claim is still just as wrong. The West Side Highway isn't going to sink beneath the waves in a little over 6 years, nor is there going to be tape across the windows, and the crime rate in New York has fallen over that period.

defrost 3y ago
To be clear then, your "source" is A Salon reporter in 2001 quoting a third party about a recollection of a conversation they had more than a decade ago in ~ 1998 that runs contrary to direct statements that Jim Hansen made in 1998 to both congress and in interviews? > Whatever, doesn't matter, the claim is as wrong as when it was first made. To be honest it doesn't sound as if the claim was actually made. Unless you have that as an actual statement in minutes of congress, a submitted journal paper, or a direct interview. In lieu of anything better your GP comment appears to be strawmanning to poo poo somebody on the basis of something they never officially said.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  That's a huge goal post move. Hansen has never denied making the prediction, only over what timeframe he said it would be over, so your doubt is misplaced. He did really say that. Your dates are all off by the way. The interview dates from 2001. You're looking at the date archive.org snapshotted it, not the date the article was published. The recalled conversation dates from around the time Hansen was doing his testimony to congress (end of the 1980s/early 90s). It's just an example. There's an ample supply. David Viner, a UK climatologist, predicted that "children just aren't going to know what snow is" ... in March 2000. The same news article quotes Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, saying that "even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important". And David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, said "ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow". Those children grew up and it still snows in Europe just like it always did. Climatologists have a long track record of making very long term predictions, insisting that nobody wait before acting to find out whether or not they're any good at predicting, and then eventually being proven dramatically wrong. It's a meme for a reason and this constant insistence that they never made wrong predictions is tiresome revisionism.

by nvm0n2 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

To be clear then, your "source" is A Salon reporter in 2001 quoting a third party about a recollection of a conversation they had more than a decade ago in ~ 1998 that runs contrary to direct statements that Jim Hansen made in 1998 to both congress and in interviews? > Whatever, doesn't matter, the claim is as wrong as when it was first made. To be honest it doesn't sound as if the claim was actually made. Unless you have that as an actual statement in minutes of congress, a submitted journal paper, or a direct interview. In lieu of anything better your GP comment appears to be strawmanning to poo poo somebody on the basis of something they never officially said.

nvm0n2 3y ago
That's a huge goal post move. Hansen has never denied making the prediction, only over what timeframe he said it would be over, so your doubt is misplaced. He did really say that. Your dates are all off by the way. The interview dates from 2001. You're looking at the date archive.org snapshotted it, not the date the article was published. The recalled conversation dates from around the time Hansen was doing his testimony to congress (end of the 1980s/early 90s). It's just an example. There's an ample supply. David Viner, a UK climatologist, predicted that "children just aren't going to know what snow is" ... in March 2000. The same news article quotes Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, saying that "even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important". And David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, said "ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow". Those children grew up and it still snows in Europe just like it always did. Climatologists have a long track record of making very long term predictions, insisting that nobody wait before acting to find out whether or not they're any good at predicting, and then eventually being proven dramatically wrong. It's a meme for a reason and this constant insistence that they never made wrong predictions is tiresome revisionism.