New report from the global scientific authority on climate change: Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn.

[oivavoi]

It goes to show that the BBC isn't a serious organization anymore. They literally report "mickey mouse news from the ghetto".

After the reasonable people leave or are are pushed aside in a fake news organization like the BBC, far left propaganda takes precedence over truth. To an ideologue, truth only has value if it serves his agenda.

You are deluded. Journalistic reports don’t imply editorial approval. I never thought I would say this, but I agree with @Wombat that it’s getting bizarre reading stuff like this on a forum committed to science and rationality.

 

[Cosmik]

It seems to me that the planet's climate is so massive and complex that no one, not even the fabled scientists, can predict what it is going to do in terms of a human lifetime or two. The observation that the temperature graph doesn't track the CO2 level and that temperature can go down in any particular year even though CO2 has gone up can probably be scaled similarly to decades or even centuries. You may not actually observe warming for centuries, but it doesn't mean that the long term average isn't going up because of the CO2.

The problem is that 'evidence' of warming must be provided for the politicians and the people - even though such evidence may not actually exist because of the aforementioned planet-scaled complexity and timescales. It is *this* motivation for probable distortion of science that I object to. It is *obvious* that scientists have a motivation to tweak their models for a desired outcome - double blind they are not! And it is obvious that politicians will use this idea for their own purposes, and that big business will use it as a whole new growth opportunity.

I just hate hearing otherwise intelligent people saying "Weather occurrence X is probably because of Climate Change...", or "This hot summer in country Y proves Climate Change..." because any fool can do the same thing in the opposite direction. The adult argument is that CO2 causes warming regardless of what this month's 'evidence' says - and if this can be proved rationally then it is a 'slam dunk' argument. People might even believe it, whereas at the moment they laugh at the scientists every time we get a cold winter and basically ignore the idea - and they vote accordingly.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I just hate hearing otherwise intelligent people saying "Weather occurrence X is probably because of Climate Change...", or "This hot summer in country Y proves Climate Change...".

I agree. But this is not what scientists say, so it's a red herring in this debate.

The problem is that 'evidence' of warming must be provided for the politicians and the people - even though such evidence may not actually exist because of the aforementioned planet-scaled complexity and timescales. It is *this* motivation for probable distortion of science that I object to. It is *obvious* that scientists have a motivation to tweak their models for a desired outcome - double blind they are not! And it is obvious that politicians will use this idea for their own purposes, and that big business will use it as a whole new growth opportunity.

The scientific method does not require that scientists be double blind, which is impossible.

You seem to be saying that because science can never be perfect, its findings can never be of any value. That's an interesting philosophical position, with which I sympathise, but it leaves us in a position where there is never any reason to act on any evidence of anything. Your bar is too high for the real world IMHO.

As always, we must work within our limitations to make sense of limited evidence. The alternative is to discount all evidence and carry on blindly, in a complete knowledge vacuum.

 

[eugenius]

@oivavoi

I am 100% not deluded regarding fake news BBC. It's not your father's BBC anymore, everything they do has a far left agenda. They are rewriting British history, they are un-personing politically incorrect scientists, the are fighting against free speech, they even have "whites not allowed" hiring practices. At this point you have to be blind not to notice.

Let's agree to disagree and end this BBC tangent.

 

[Wombat]

It seems to me that the planet's climate is so massive and complex that no one, not even the fabled scientists, can predict what it is going to do in terms of a human lifetime or two. The observation that the temperature graph doesn't track the CO2 level and that temperature can go down in any particular year even though CO2 has gone up can probably be scaled similarly to decades or even centuries. You may not actually observe warming for centuries, but it doesn't mean that the long term average isn't going up because of the CO2.

The problem is that 'evidence' of warming must be provided for the politicians and the people - even though such evidence may not actually exist because of the aforementioned planet-scaled complexity and timescales. It is *this* motivation for probable distortion of science that I object to. It is *obvious* that scientists have a motivation to tweak their models for a desired outcome - double blind they are not! And it is obvious that politicians will use this idea for their own purposes, and that big business will use it as a whole new growth opportunity.

I just hate hearing otherwise intelligent people saying "Weather occurrence X is probably because of Climate Change...", or "This hot summer in country Y proves Climate Change..." because any fool can do the same thing in the opposite direction. The adult argument is that CO2 causes warming regardless of what this month's 'evidence' says - and if this can be proved rationally then it is a 'slam dunk' argument. People might even believe it, whereas at the moment they laugh at the scientists every time we get a cold winter and basically ignore the idea - and they vote accordingly.

But the majority/consensus scientists are better at predicting in this matter than you are. Such arrogance. You or they?

Don't take this personally, you are not alone. Such is human nature.

 

[Blumlein 88]

@oivavoi

I am 100% not deluded regarding fake news BBC. Everything they do has a far left agenda. They are rewriting British history, they are un-personing politically incorrect scientists, the are fighting against free speech, they even have "whites not allowed" hiring practices. At this point you have to blind not to notice.

Let's agree to disagree and end this tangent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...gh-says-bbc-still-needs-white-men-explaining/

Yet even if your allegations are true, and they seem to me largely to be so, that doesn't by itself invalidate climate science.

 

[Cosmik]

The scientific method does not require that scientists be double blind, which is impossible.

I am not saying that it can be; merely that if a certain outcome benefits *everyone* in science and politics, then scientific objectivity goes out of the window, especially when the science is an 'observation' of a model we have built and tweaked ourselves!

You seem to be saying that because science can never be perfect, its findings can never be of any value.

I am not saying that. But I am maybe saying that its findings may not be of any value to ordinary people and politicians, and we shouldn't try to change the evidence itself in order to make it so.

That's an interesting philosophical position, with which I sympathise, but it leaves us in a position where there is never any reason to act on any evidence of anything. Your bar is too high for the real world IMHO.

I wouldn't mind if we scientific types in a forum like this could say to each other "*We* know that the models are probably bogus, and that a hot summer doesn't demonstrate anything, but if that's what's needed to convince the people then so be it."! The problem is that my 'peers' in this forum generally don't say that, and I'm not sure if they're pretending, or really believe that climate scientists aren't motivated by politics, etc. If they fall for this stuff, what else are they falling for?

 

[oivavoi]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...gh-says-bbc-still-needs-white-men-explaining/

Yet even if your allegations are true, and they seem to me largely to be so, that doesn't by itself invalidate climate science.

BBC has a policy of increasing the ethnic diversity of their staff, and engage in differential treatment for minorities for some positions. We have been doing that on gender in Norway for ages. You can refer to that as a “men not allowed” policy, or you can refer to it as a way of rectifying an imbalance.

I have no idea how this is related to climate change.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I am not saying that it can be; merely that if a certain outcome benefits *everyone* in science and politics, then scientific objectivity goes out of the window, especially when the science is an 'observation' of a model we have built and tweaked ourselves!

But the model and the science simply don't benefit everyone in science and politics, not by a long shot.

I am not saying that. But I am maybe saying that its findings may not be of any value to ordinary people and politicians, and we shouldn't try to change the evidence itself in order to make it so.

Ok, then how about giving us your specific opinion of what a "slam dunk" would look like?

It seems you're saying that a certain threshold hasn't been reached, without specifying what that threshold is.

The problem is that my 'peers' in this forum generally don't say that, and I'm not sure if they're pretending, or really believe that climate scientists aren't motivated by politics, etc. If they fall for this stuff, what else are they falling for?

You're suggesting that all climate scientists who believe anthropogenic global warming is real are "motivated" by politics, etc? What do you include in that "etc"? Are you meaning to infer that no such scientist is motivated by a desire to objectively collect and assess evidence?

 

[eugenius]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...gh-says-bbc-still-needs-white-men-explaining/

Yet even if your allegations are true, and they seem to me largely to be so, that doesn't by itself invalidate climate science.

People shouldn't use fake news media coverage to make an appeal to authority fallacy ... that is if they want to take part in a scientific debate.

If they want to take part in a political debate ... everything's fair in love and war.

 

[andreasmaaan]

People shouldn't use fake news media coverage to make an appeal to authority fallacy ... in a scientific debate.

It's convenient, self-serving and simplistic to conflate every source within an organisation with the organisation as a whole, and then to discount any piece of evidence you dislike simply because it was merely reported (not generated) by any source within that organisation. That way you never have to engage with anything that doesn't suit you.

 

[Wombat]

@oivavoi

I am 100% not deluded regarding fake news BBC. It's not your father's BBC anymore, everything they do has a far left agenda. They are rewriting British history, they are un-personing politically incorrect scientists, the are fighting against free speech, they even have "whites not allowed" hiring practices. At this point you have to be blind not to notice.

Let's agree to disagree and end this BBC tangent.

'Fake News' is the cry of those whose vacuous views are challenged by truth. It is that simple. "Fake News' can be easily challenged if one presents the clear evidence that leads to the assertion that the news is not credible. It never seems to happen.

Hey, it's just like 'audiophile opinions.

 

[JJB70]

I think too many things are being conflated with climate change and anthropogenic emissions in this thread. That science and politics have often been strange bed fellows is no secret, whether that be the quackery of Aryan physics, white supremacist eugenic theories or the baleful influence of people like Trofim Lysenko in the USSR, it has nothing to do with a scientific/technical argument over whether or not anthropogenic emissions are changing the climate. Similarly, people may enjoy debating arcane points of philosophy and sophistry but I don't see that it has any relevance to considering the validity of research and analysis of the climate, emissions etc. For what it's worth I'm a less is more person when it comes to government and am as profoundly sceptical and suspicious of government as it gets but again that is entirely irrelevant to considering whether or not climate change is taking place.
I think those who have arguments that climate change is either not taking place as the consensus claims or who question the rate of change deserve to be listened to if they can support their case, as whether or not I agree with them it is deeply sinister to suppress any scientific debate simply because anybody not with the program must be wrong and must be some sort of quack or threat. However the other arguments are just a distraction and not credible.

 

[Grave]

Anthropogenic climate change has been known about for decades, it is not worth doubting any more.

 

[SIY]

I think those who have arguments that climate change is either not taking place as the consensus claims or who question the rate of change deserve to be listened to if they can support their case, as whether or not I agree with them it is deeply sinister to suppress any scientific debate simply because anybody not with the program must be wrong and must be some sort of quack or threat. However the other arguments are just a distraction and not credible.

You might enjoy this paper from the American Meteorological Society Bulletin, which very much reflects my own thinking about the uncertainties and the need for less emotion and politics and more research.

 

[amirm]

Time out....

 

[Thomas savage]

You guys know how to spoil a blokes after work beer lol

Iv deleted a few posts that veered off topic and into unacceptable areas.