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"This article was not particularly insightful - it contained lots of classic proof by assertion. It doesn't treat seriously any of the valid criticisms of the c

"This article was not particularly insightful - it contained lots of classic proof by assertion. It doesn't treat seriously any of the valid criticisms of the current thought and research processes on global warming. That said, I'm not going to flag it because I think it deserves some thought and rebutting." It's not really an article about climate change. Ben Goldacre's field is more to do with the public perception of science. In that light, making the assumption that the "scientists in charge" are correct isn't invalid, although he would have done well to point it out as an explicit assumption. However, I would note that your concerns have largely been addressed, both in his article and in the general field. "First, if it's really happening to an extent as to require severe urgency, you ought to be able to say things like this: The current average temperatures and standard deviations of temperatures in these 50 regions are X and Y. We expect the temperatures to rise by A over this period of time in at least 35 of these regions, and the standard deviation to increase by B. If this does not happen over the next five years, that creates serious doubt in our claims and methodologies." This has been done, in several ways. A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable. Predictions of sea-level rise over the shorter term have also been made. These are falsifiable. "Going further - very many, if not most cultures have believed that the world was in danger of ending during their lifetime. This is a recurring theme throughout history. Obviously, they've pretty much all been wrong so far. When people mention the very prominent global cooling that everyone was scared about, that I was taught to be scared about in school, they say, "Oh, scientists never believed that. It was just a media thing."" I suspected global cooling would come up. It always does. Taking a look at one of the lists of refutations mentioned in the article comes up with http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-gl...; however my standard response is that changing one's opinion on the basis of new data and new thinking is called "progress," not "evidence that scientists can't be trusted." "Then you've got things like the fact that there's pretty conclusive records of farming in Greenland as recently as 700 years ago, that died out due to the Earth getting colder." There's farming on Greenland now. "They're pointing to experts as having a consensus, but there's not a consensus, and many of the experts have very recently been shown to do some serious scientific misconduct." Except they haven't. At all. They may have said some stupid things, but that's a different thing entirely. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails. And yes, I have read them. "The burden of proof is much more heavy on the people that wish to add expensive political controls to citizens' lives than it is on the people that don't want those controls." No, the burden of proof is on those who want to show that the null hypothesis, that human-produced CO2 has the potential to cause direct harm through accelerated warming, is incorrect. The reason this is the null hypothesis isn't because the scientists say so, it's because it's the best physical model we have. EDIT: spelling

byrneseyeview 17y ago
A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable. Great. It only takes 40 years! And what kind of model do you use to determine the anthropogenic portion of global warming, given that the whole argument boils down to how you, uh, determine it. ("If we ban vaccines, I can assure you that the number of autistic children born due to vaccines will drop.")
- mbreese 17y ago
  Don't even get started with Austism and vaccines... it has been shown over and over again that there is no link between vaccines and autism. (Plus, the claim was that the children were born normally and then became autistic when given the vaccine) How about this one: If we ban vaccines, I can assure you that the number of children that die each year from diseases you've forgotten about (measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio) will be so high that everyone who clamored for the ban in the first place will say "Who thought this was a good idea? Certainly not me!"
lionhearted 17y ago
This was a great reply - very factual, polite, and informative - thank you. Here's my issues: 1. This has been done, in several ways. A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable. I am always skeptical, in any field, over a claim made over a 50 year timespan. Actually, any predictions made over specifically a 30 to 60 year timespan set off alarms for me. It's the longest timespan that will occur within your own life, so it gains some credibility, but you're not really going to be held accountable to it. Similar claims are made when recommending finance policies, for instance. It's far enough out that you can't test and falsify before taking the recommended course of action. 2. Predictions of sea-level rise over the shorter term have also been made. These are falsifiable. This would be fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for and haven't seen. Do you have links? 3. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article693... "SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based." "The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation." "In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”" 4. No, the burden of proof is on those who want to show that the null hypothesis, that human-produced CO2 has the potential to cause direct harm through accelerated warming, is incorrect. The reason this is the null hypothesis isn't because the scientists say so, it's because it's the best physical model we have. This was actually quite an insightful point, which I'll think about. The models right now come across incomplete at best, so spending trillions on that risks destroying a lot of health, wealth, happiness that those resources could be deployed to instead. If there's global warming, what's the extent of it? How much is caused by humans? What are the pros and cons of climate change? And so on. These questions aren't answered, and there's recommendations for trillions of dollars of resources and great amounts of social and economic controls to be put in place. I tend to think the burden of proof on that should be extremely high, but your point about our CO2 models is interesting and I'll think it over. Thanks for the reply.

byrneseyeview 17y ago

A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable. Great. It only takes 40 years! And what kind of model do you use to determine the anthropogenic portion of global warming, given that the whole argument boils down to how you, uh, determine it. ("If we ban vaccines, I can assure you that the number of autistic children born due to vaccines will drop.")

mbreese 17y ago
Don't even get started with Austism and vaccines... it has been shown over and over again that there is no link between vaccines and autism. (Plus, the claim was that the children were born normally and then became autistic when given the vaccine) How about this one: If we ban vaccines, I can assure you that the number of children that die each year from diseases you've forgotten about (measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio) will be so high that everyone who clamored for the ban in the first place will say "Who thought this was a good idea? Certainly not me!"

lionhearted 17y ago

This was a great reply - very factual, polite, and informative - thank you. Here's my issues: 1. This has been done, in several ways. A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable. I am always skeptical, in any field, over a claim made over a 50 year timespan. Actually, any predictions made over specifically a 30 to 60 year timespan set off alarms for me. It's the longest timespan that will occur within your own life, so it gains some credibility, but you're not really going to be held accountable to it. Similar claims are made when recommending finance policies, for instance. It's far enough out that you can't test and falsify before taking the recommended course of action. 2. Predictions of sea-level rise over the shorter term have also been made. These are falsifiable. This would be fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for and haven't seen. Do you have links? 3. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article693... "SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based." "The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation." "In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”" 4. No, the burden of proof is on those who want to show that the null hypothesis, that human-produced CO2 has the potential to cause direct harm through accelerated warming, is incorrect. The reason this is the null hypothesis isn't because the scientists say so, it's because it's the best physical model we have. This was actually quite an insightful point, which I'll think about. The models right now come across incomplete at best, so spending trillions on that risks destroying a lot of health, wealth, happiness that those resources could be deployed to instead. If there's global warming, what's the extent of it? How much is caused by humans? What are the pros and cons of climate change? And so on. These questions aren't answered, and there's recommendations for trillions of dollars of resources and great amounts of social and economic controls to be put in place. I tend to think the burden of proof on that should be extremely high, but your point about our CO2 models is interesting and I'll think it over. Thanks for the reply.