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It's not that absolutely no countermeasures were taken since 1985. Just take Chinas renewable boom alone. There's a few things that wouldn't have happened witho
by rigid 3y ago
It's not that absolutely no countermeasures were taken since 1985. Just take Chinas renewable boom alone. There's a few things that wouldn't have happened without that prediction.
Also don't misinterpret a range. It doesn't say "5-7 degrees", it says "1-7 degrees" covering a best-case and worst-case scenario. It's not less credible just because the worst case is so bad.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoI think to credit these guys you'd really have to ignore a lot of factors that were discovered decades later than this outburst, including many previously unknown natural phenomena that would have curbed their estimates had they been discovered prior. Especially in hindsight, it's alarmist.
- vasco 3y agoLuckily we've finished understanding all the natural phenomena and processes that affect a planetary climate model so we should be good to go now.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoHaha!
- docdeek 3y agoIt actually says that 1 to 7 degrees are the most conservative predictions: > The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown. This at least implies (though doesn’t confirm) that the ‘worst-case scenarios’ from the less-conservative predictions were higher than 7 degrees in 30 years.
- rigid 3y agoWhy would a higher temperature be the more optimistic estimate?
- defrost 3y agoHere 'conservative' means the least extreme best case assumptions. Here higher tempretures are the pessimistic worse case predictions.
- rigid 3y agoI don't think so. Conservative ethymologically means "preserve the current state". Hence the opposite would be pessimistic. Another person mentioning that these are Farenheit units, makes it clear. There were publications in the 80s predicting much higher numbers and shorter timelines.
- defrost 3y agoTempreture rises higher than 7 F degrees were the pessimistic least conservative estimates of the time. Lower tempreture rises were conservative estimates based on "preserving the current levels of CO2" emissions. I am indeed one of the "another person"s that mentioned these are F units.
- rigid 3y agoNah, a more optimistic prediction would already be "-2 to 5" degrees. "Conservative" in this context relates to the method, not the outcome. You're still ignoring the range-characteristic of the outcome and talk like it was "5-7" degrees.
- vasco 3y ago> There's a few things that wouldn't have happened without that prediction. This is how I think most climate activists think, that even if they exagerate, it's all good, we just over prepare or over-correct.
- rigid 3y agoWhere's the exaggeration? When a scientists says "1-7" and in the end it's 3, there was no exaggartion. Also, it's not a way how "climate activists think". It's called "Preparedness paradox" [1] and has been well researched, e.g. with flood disasters and their countermeasures. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox