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Every time I hear people talk about leaked emails proving a conspiracy I'm reminded of an incident on a Minecraft server I played on when I was 16. One faction

Every time I hear people talk about leaked emails proving a conspiracy I'm reminded of an incident on a Minecraft server I played on when I was 16. One faction (us) leaked some internal chats from another group, they made them look pretty bad, but we were selective about it. We choose the bad quotes and then implied more meaning on top of the words. We took things out of context, and then there was the fact that if anyone had leaked our slack (this was before discord took off), they'd have been able to paint a pretty nasty picture of us. Also here's the wikipedia article about this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_c.... I think Scott Alexander was right when he pointed out that scientists are willing to say pretty unpopular things in anonymous polls, but the vast majority still report, even anonymously that they believe in human caused global warming

jpadkins 3y ago
human caused global warming is a low bar. That part (humans create CO2, CO2 creates some warming) is not debated. The debate is catastrophic change due to CO2, which requires runaway positive feedback loops beyond what CO2 alone can do. A better anonymous scientist poll would be: Will human sources cause catastrophic warming or results by 2100?
- space_fountain 3y ago
  I think the precisely better poll would be: "Will the consequences of continuing to emit CO2 at the current rate be greater than the cost of reaching net 0 by 2100?", but regardless of how weak the idea that humans aren't at least contributing to global warming that's exactly what the link verisimi posted seems to me to be doing. Yes it's true that we're very unlikely to tip Earth into becoming another venus, but tipping it into becoming another Pliocene on a short timetable would be pretty catastrophic. I don't expect global warming to kill me or render the earth uninhabitable, but things aren't looking very sustainable right now and I think most scientists if polled would say we aren't currently doing enough to address the problem.
  - jpadkins 3y ago
    > Will the consequences of continuing to emit CO2 at the current rate be greater than the cost of reaching net 0 by 2100? I think exactly zero humans are qualified to give expert opinion to that question right now. That would require both mastery of climatology, economics, and public policy. I think this makes a great question for a team, but not a great expert poll question. BTW, does anyone even have an estimate of what net zero carbon by 2100 would cost?

jpadkins 3y ago

human caused global warming is a low bar. That part (humans create CO2, CO2 creates some warming) is not debated. The debate is catastrophic change due to CO2, which requires runaway positive feedback loops beyond what CO2 alone can do. A better anonymous scientist poll would be: Will human sources cause catastrophic warming or results by 2100?

space_fountain 3y ago
I think the precisely better poll would be: "Will the consequences of continuing to emit CO2 at the current rate be greater than the cost of reaching net 0 by 2100?", but regardless of how weak the idea that humans aren't at least contributing to global warming that's exactly what the link verisimi posted seems to me to be doing. Yes it's true that we're very unlikely to tip Earth into becoming another venus, but tipping it into becoming another Pliocene on a short timetable would be pretty catastrophic. I don't expect global warming to kill me or render the earth uninhabitable, but things aren't looking very sustainable right now and I think most scientists if polled would say we aren't currently doing enough to address the problem.
- jpadkins 3y ago
  > Will the consequences of continuing to emit CO2 at the current rate be greater than the cost of reaching net 0 by 2100? I think exactly zero humans are qualified to give expert opinion to that question right now. That would require both mastery of climatology, economics, and public policy. I think this makes a great question for a team, but not a great expert poll question. BTW, does anyone even have an estimate of what net zero carbon by 2100 would cost?