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What is it about global warming links that bring a deluge of totally stupid fallacious postings on Hacker News every time? There's almost not a single good comm

What is it about global warming links that bring a deluge of totally stupid fallacious postings on Hacker News every time? There's almost not a single good comment here that would show even rudimentary understanding of the subject. I thought this was better than Slashdot. - "Climate has always changed." check. - "I live in a cold place, I welcome warming." check. - "We can just adjust." check. Maybe check if your insightful argument has actually already been debunked here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

jellicle 14y ago
Hacker News is mostly older white men, which is a demographic associated with Republicanism and Fox News watching in the United States. Understanding global warming is not going to be easy for them. The reality is that every set of global warming predictions so far has understated the actual amount of warning observed. Models are giving too much weight to long-term stable trends over the recent data, plus scientists don't want to be tarred as "kooks" for having the most extreme projections. So if their model says 5C increase, it's probably low to start off with and it will be lowered more before publication, and it will end up underpredicting warming. When you read about X or Y amount of warming, it's most likely to be a minimum, not a "most likely" and certainly not a maximum. Current global warming observed has exceeded the absolute maximums predicted in previous generations of warming predictions.
- scarmig 14y ago
  That's false--Hacker News is a demographic mostly of younger white coastal American men who have no particular affection for Fox News. Because they tend to be higher income, they have libertarian tendencies, one of which is denialism. You're also getting a skewed view. Climate change posts on HN always drive out the people with the strongest opinions: an actual poll of HNers would likely have them supporting the consensus position.
- skylan_q 14y ago
  "The reality is that every set of global warming predictions so far has understated the actual amount of warning observed. Models are giving too much weight to long-term stable trends over the recent data, plus scientists don't want to be tarred as "kooks" for having the most extreme projections. So if their model says 5C increase, it's probably low to start off with and it will be lowered more before publication, and it will end up underpredicting warming." Scientists that have to lie to us for our own good. Now that's Science!
jules 14y ago
Not exactly the best arguments: > "Models are unreliable" Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean. There are many aspects to climate change that you need to convince somebody of who doesn't believe in it: * The climate is in fact changing * The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising * The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising because of human activity * The rising CO2 levels cause global warming * Climate change is a bad thing * Human produced CO2 does not have a short term effect that can be absorbed by CO2 sinks in nature * It's economically sensible to take action While there is extremely good evidence for some of these points there isn't as good evidence for all of them as some people would have you believe. IMO simple graphs like this (http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_10000_years.gif http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_10000_years.gif) are far more convincing than complicated climate models that can be fitted to historical data. Having seen first hand how easily conclusions can be drawn without good evidence due to biases and faulty methods in science I have very little confidence in them until proven otherwise. Once climate models start to consistently predict considerably more accurately than simple curve extrapolations it's best to leave them out of climate change arguments.
paganel 14y ago
> "Climate has always changed." Not to rain on anyone's parade, but that's what my Geography teacher taught me and my class ~20 years ago (the general discussion was related to the Quaternary, Jurassic and all that), when I was in 6th or 7th grade, long before all this Climate Change talk. If it matters, he was very passionate about Geology in particular (my teacher was). It's not all about politics and religion.
- scarmig 14y ago
  The reason "climate has always changed" is a spectacularly lame argument is that it totally neglects the actual point. It's about the rate of that change and the effects of that change. There's a whole lot elided in the excuse that the climate has always changed: after all, the KT event didn't involve an asteroid bouncing around and hitting every dinosaur.

jellicle 14y ago

Hacker News is mostly older white men, which is a demographic associated with Republicanism and Fox News watching in the United States. Understanding global warming is not going to be easy for them. The reality is that every set of global warming predictions so far has understated the actual amount of warning observed. Models are giving too much weight to long-term stable trends over the recent data, plus scientists don't want to be tarred as "kooks" for having the most extreme projections. So if their model says 5C increase, it's probably low to start off with and it will be lowered more before publication, and it will end up underpredicting warming. When you read about X or Y amount of warming, it's most likely to be a minimum, not a "most likely" and certainly not a maximum. Current global warming observed has exceeded the absolute maximums predicted in previous generations of warming predictions.

scarmig 14y ago
That's false--Hacker News is a demographic mostly of younger white coastal American men who have no particular affection for Fox News. Because they tend to be higher income, they have libertarian tendencies, one of which is denialism. You're also getting a skewed view. Climate change posts on HN always drive out the people with the strongest opinions: an actual poll of HNers would likely have them supporting the consensus position.
skylan_q 14y ago
"The reality is that every set of global warming predictions so far has understated the actual amount of warning observed. Models are giving too much weight to long-term stable trends over the recent data, plus scientists don't want to be tarred as "kooks" for having the most extreme projections. So if their model says 5C increase, it's probably low to start off with and it will be lowered more before publication, and it will end up underpredicting warming." Scientists that have to lie to us for our own good. Now that's Science!

jules 14y ago

Not exactly the best arguments: > "Models are unreliable" Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean. There are many aspects to climate change that you need to convince somebody of who doesn't believe in it: * The climate is in fact changing * The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising * The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising because of human activity * The rising CO2 levels cause global warming * Climate change is a bad thing * Human produced CO2 does not have a short term effect that can be absorbed by CO2 sinks in nature * It's economically sensible to take action While there is extremely good evidence for some of these points there isn't as good evidence for all of them as some people would have you believe. IMO simple graphs like this (http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_10000_years.gif http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_10000_years.gif) are far more convincing than complicated climate models that can be fitted to historical data. Having seen first hand how easily conclusions can be drawn without good evidence due to biases and faulty methods in science I have very little confidence in them until proven otherwise. Once climate models start to consistently predict considerably more accurately than simple curve extrapolations it's best to leave them out of climate change arguments.

paganel 14y ago

> "Climate has always changed." Not to rain on anyone's parade, but that's what my Geography teacher taught me and my class ~20 years ago (the general discussion was related to the Quaternary, Jurassic and all that), when I was in 6th or 7th grade, long before all this Climate Change talk. If it matters, he was very passionate about Geology in particular (my teacher was). It's not all about politics and religion.

scarmig 14y ago
The reason "climate has always changed" is a spectacularly lame argument is that it totally neglects the actual point. It's about the rate of that change and the effects of that change. There's a whole lot elided in the excuse that the climate has always changed: after all, the KT event didn't involve an asteroid bouncing around and hitting every dinosaur.