SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
For example, one on GM foods:
"Consuming foods with ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming foods modified by conventional plant improvement techniques."
The primary conclusion is that for a number of claims that are generally held to be true by consensus, opposition to those results show interesting correlations: opposition correlates negatively with objective knowledge (what the final test indicated that the subject knew about the field), and positively with subjective knowledge (what the subject thought they knew about the field). Those who were most opposed tended to exhibit a large gap between what they knew and what they thought they knew.
Here's the list of subjects and then I'll get to the punch line:
- GM foods
- Vaccination
- Homeopathic medicine
- Nuclear power
- Climate change
- Big bang
- Evolution
Which one wasn't like the others?
Climate change!
The question was in the same vein as the rest:Most of the warming of Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century has been caused by human activities.
Unlike every other field listed in this research, there was a slight positive correlation between opposition to the claim and objective knowledge of the subject (see figure 2).
What other consensus viewpoints are out there where agreement with the consensus correlations with greater ignorance of the subject? Economics maybe?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 21 2022, @06:27PM (41 children)
You're confirming my alleged hope.
Well, how severe again is this drought for the British Isles? I note that Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] mentions two in 1976 and 2003. Seems to be a bunch of them and didn't mention this year as anything special.
And the vague "Miyake Event" happened some point in 774 maybe. If it happened today, we'd have video timestamped to the second.
Our ability to determine rate of change degrades fast as we go back in time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @09:59PM (40 children)
You sure do a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid the glaringly obvious.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 22 2022, @11:58AM (39 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @09:23PM (33 children)
There are some extreme weather events for which the compelling that they weren't possible in a pre-industrial climate. I'm the AC who asked you to provide a source. In fairness, I will cite my source for this: https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/three-extreme-events-that-were-not-possible-in-a-preindustrial-climate/ [ametsoc.org]. It is not altogether obvious that there is historical precedent for the drought and heat wave in Europe. If you believe there is historical evidence, you should be able to provide evidence for it. That evidence may not be direct measurements of the temperature, precipitation, or soil moisture, but historical writings are still useful. Even today, scientists use impacts like low water levels in rivers or a lack of precipitation affecting crops as indicators to measure the severity of droughts. If these indicators were present in the past, show us the evidence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 22 2022, @09:58PM (32 children)
Indeed. I imagine if you had actually looked at history rather than bloviate about history, you would have indeed found written evidence for many nasty UK isles droughts over the historical period.
How about "driest July since 1935" [express.co.uk]? The story mentions five droughts in recent times (including the two I mentioned) as well as a more severe (as in more severe than any of the droughts mentioned so far including the present one) drought that lasted from 1765 to 1768.
There's a reason that extreme weather is the cutting edge pseudoscience of climatology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @11:13PM (31 children)
There is more than one AC in this thread. I've posted a couple of other comments, but I'm not responsible for all the AC comments.
Your first paragraph is BS. You begin by saying that the evidence in two of the studies isn't compelling, but you don't even bother to say why the evidence fails to be compelling. If you think the evidence is insufficient, you need to say why. In the absence of evidence, it's just as possible that you're rejecting those studies because their conclusions are inconvenient for your political views.
You follow up by criticizing the study that used models from CMIP5. Again, you don't provide any justification for why the simulations should be rejected. Attribution studies are difficult because we only have one Earth and, therefore, do not have the ability to have a control against which to compare Earth's climate. Because of this practical limitation, scientists often use models for attribution studies. They can run simulations where everything is equal except that one includes antropogenic forcing and the other does not. Sure, models are imperfect, but that does not mean they should be rejected out of hand. The atmospheric component of climate models is very similar to the models used for weather forecasting. Those models are imperfect, too, but that doesn't mean we should discard all weather forecasts that use numerical models.
From the paper:
The authors cited prior work to support that CMIP5 simulations are useful for attribution studies. If you believe the prior work is wrong, you need to explain why.
Basically, the scientists looked at a large number of models, and none of the models could come close to replicating the extreme event without including anthropogenic forcing. When the anthropogenic forcing was included in the simulations, they could reproduce the event. That supports the hypothesis that the event could not have occurred in the absence of anthropogenic forcing.
If you disagree with the studies, you need to actual provide reasons to do so. Because you haven't done so, it's just as possible that you're rejecting the studies because they're inconvenient for your political views.
As for the comments about the current drought, we're finally getting somewhere. You've actually provided some historical examples to support that there is precedent for what is currently observed. It supports that the current drought isn't severe enough that it couldn't occur in the absence of anthropogenic forcing. It's a severe drought, but I will accept the examples as evidence that the drought is not without precedent, and that the drought could occur without anthropogenic forcing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:16AM (30 children)
The tell: what makes it evidence, much less compelling evidence? Even if there was no climate change, one could pull these sort of stories out of one's ass.
Because they're simulations not actual observations of reality. Reliance on models instead of reality is a common symptom of the problems we have with climatology.
And I did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2022, @06:07AM (29 children)
The evidence is presented in the linked journal papers that discuss each of the three events that were listed. In short, because you don't want to click through and actually look at the papers, you're denying that there's any evidence. It's plainly obvious that you haven't even looked at any of the three papers that are linked on that webpage, and because you couldn't be bothered to click the links, you're pretending there's no evidence provided. That is incredibly lazy, and your reason to claim that no evidence was provided is asinine and disingenuous. The evidence is literally two clicks away from this comment: one to https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/three-extreme-events-that-were-not-possible-in-a-preindustrial-climate/ [ametsoc.org], the second to one of the three journal papers. You do understand how to identify and click links on a webpage, don't you? The linked articles are BAMS articles, which are intended to be more accessible to people with a general science background than, say, an article in Journal of Climate. BAMS is, of course, still a peer-reviewed journal.
This is vague and unscientific. It is not a useful criticism. The models are verified against past climates, and generally do a good job of simulating the past. In this case, the models are simulating climates of the past and present day, which exactly what they've been verified against. This is not the same as the scenario of simulating future climates, which have more uncertainty because the models are being extrapolated into conditions for which there's currently no data to verify them against. But attribution studies involve simulating past and present climates. Models have been verified in these climatic conditions. They do a good job of replicating them.
Now, you could say that there's a problem with a specific model. There are flaws and biases in each model, sure. But you'd also be wrong to involve that argument, because the researchers were using data from CMIP5. It's a collection of data from many models [llnl.gov], so they didn't just rely on one model. They looked at simulations of preindustrial climates from a large number of models and none came close to replicating the extreme event. Because they used an ensemble of models, you can't say that flaws in a particular model prevented them from reproducing the extreme event.
Your criticism is unscientific and would be dismissed out of hand if you provided it as a peer reviewer.
TL;DR: These studies are simulating climates of the recent past. The simulations can be trusted because the models have been verified against those climates. There are many models, so the results aren't because one single model is flawed.
No, you didn't. You are dismissing these studies out of hand because they're inconvenient for your political views.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:09PM (12 children)
I see you present no evidence. If it's easy for me to do, then it probably is easy for you to do as well. As a result, I think there's a slight error in your claim as to who is being dishonest here.
No, it's quite scientific. The huge problem being missed here is that it's quite easy to build models that fit against existing data, but extrapolate to anything you want. And this practice of claiming that something is too extreme for non-climate change scenario is worse than the scenario of simulating future climates because there is no way to check the claim.
Now, we're making a silly argument that because there's a lot of models, then the models must be right. The obvious rebuttal here is confirmation bias. For example, we have a several decade history [soylentnews.org] of that mass of models understating carbon sinks - models running hot and making predictions that overshoot actual warming but interpreted otherwise once one adjusts the model for actual greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Note, that doesn't make it a false claim. Or for that matter, something that would be dismissed out of hand if I were to present it as a peer reviewer. If the journal really would ignore my concerns about paper two, for example, then they would be heavily biased. It's such an elementary concern.
No, they haven't been so verified. You merely claim they have. There's only one genuine test here - testing against unknown, future data rather than fitting to existing data. And as I noted above, they're failing that test collectively.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @07:02AM (11 children)
I literally told you how to see the evidence for yourself, two clicks away from this page. The evidence is in the journal papers. You refuse to click the links and look at the papers, then claim I've presented no evidence, which is basically Pacled-level laziness and stupidity. Your denials might be even stupider than aristarchus claiming that he doesn't have sock puppets, which is truly remarkable. In contrast, when you finally got around to mentioning specific droughts that you stated were on par with the current drought in the UK, I accepted your statement in good faith. You are intentionally being obstinate, just like Pacleds and aristarchus. Holy fuck, your school teachers must have hated dealing with a student who apparently was that lazy.
BS. Models have already been verified against future data: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/ [nasa.gov].
FatPhil's reply to your comment noted that your source is unreliable. You made no attempt to defend the accuracy of your source. That tells me that your comment should be ignored as it is highly likely to be BS. Even if your source wasn't BS, you admit that given the correct CO2 concentrations in the models, they do a really good job of predicting temperatures.
It's not worth my time to discuss this topic with someone who can't be bothered to click a link, then uses his own laziness as an excuse to say that no evidence has been presented. Until you improve the quality of your posting, I'll just stick to pondering whether you're a Pacled because of the extreme laziness, or if you're a Ferengi because of your worship of capitalism. If you want good discussion, post better comments.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM (10 children)
No, you claimed there was evidence there and have provided nothing otherwise. I'm not playing your game. It's your argument, you do the work.
Because I did the work. I provided specific dates and a citation that backed that up. Do you really not see the difference?
They do a better job once we ignore their understating of carbon sinks. We still have the problem that half of predicted warming from existing CO2 increases hasn't happened yet and may not ever happen!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:01AM
So of the 17 model projections, the last four or so are actually massive aggregations of models. And the report found problems with the IPCC aggregates. On page 5:
For IPCC FAR and IPCC TAR (note they are referred to as "models"), it was stronger, a typical symptom of "running hot" bias. Notice also the use of an "implied TCR metric" throughout the paper to ignore these differences.
A typical policy question is when you emit a certain amount of CO2 equivalent, what global temperature increase do you see? By going to a purely radiative forcing viewpoint, they ignore both the increased removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and the positive feedback mechanisms that are supposed to result in higher temperatures in the long term. But that's a huge part of the policy decision!
To be blunt, your link was significantly dishonest. It alleged to compare 17 "models", but we find that it's actually comparing hundreds with at least two large aggregates showing the consistent bias problems I discussed earlier, and emphasizes metrics that hide those bias issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:43AM (8 children)
There is no difference. You provided no evidence that the droughts during those dates were actually more severe, just a link. I provided you a link to a page that includes three peer-reviewed papers. You're just too lazy to actually click the three links on the page and read the papers. If we're applying your own standard, you've given me no evidence that those droughts were actually more severe, because I'd actually have to click a link to read the evidence. I dealt with you in good faith. If you can't be bothered to click an extra link, I can't be bothered to do your work for you.
Your only source for this is known to not be credible. Until you post evidence from a credible source, this should be treated as BS.
AMS and AGU have multiple journals that focus on climate. If this is a known issue, then surely you should be able to provide me a peer-reviewed source from one of their journals. Roy Spencer isn't credible. If he's your only source, then your claim can safely be treated as BS.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @12:43PM (7 children)
More severe than what? You haven't presented evidence that there is an unusual extreme weather event against which I need to provide such counterevidence. Thus, what I presented is sufficient (and ignores that it really is evidence such as that 1765-1768 drought). I guess I'll just have to shrug at your ignorance and move on.
Indeed. So what? You haven't provided any evidence that I'm missing out by being lazy! Keep in mind it's not my job to make your arguments for you.
Same here despite several mild signs of bad faith on your part such as that continued whining about laziness rather than just providing evidence for your claim of unprecedented extreme weather due to climate change.
My "only source" here was your source (the Gavin Schmidt et al paper that a good portion of your rebuttal link was based on) - that's where I got the evidence for understating carbon sinks. The half of predicted warming not yet happening is just using the IPCC's own models and data (I do the work here [soylentnews.org] and found an independent party who did the same math in this journal [soylentnews.org]).
Finally, on being lazy, I think that's a good strategy to use here. With the vast amount of research out there, it's way too easy to do a snow job. So often, when I've dug into research I find it's garbage - heavily biased tripe more suited to acquiring funding than to make serious decisions about humanity's future. And let's face it, there's massive, ridiculous propaganda out there (SN examples, here [soylentnews.org] (TL;DR oil company propaganda is magically vastly better than green propaganda) and here [soylentnews.org](TL; DR discussing that Cook paper, a peculiar thing that ridiculously exaggerated scientific consensus on climate change even though they didn't need to).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:11PM (6 children)
Bless your heart, khallow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:39PM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24PM (4 children)
My take is that you invested your entire retirement savings into fossil fuel companies, and you're afraid that if people believe the truth about global warming, you'll lose your life savings. That's why you spend so much time shilling about global warming. Boomers like you will be dead before the worst effects of climate change are realized. You selfishly want to make sure you can continue to profit from your investments in the fossil fuel industry while leaving future generations to suffer the consequences.
You're not here to discuss the topic in anything resembling an honest manner. I'm right, and I continue to be right.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:27PM (2 children)
Cool narrative bro.
Just here to fight to the forces of ignorance. That would be you, bro.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:30PM (1 child)
If you actually believe that and the other bullshit you're posting, you might want to see a doctor and get checked for cognitive decline.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:34PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:21AM
Just to add to this brilliant gem: of course, I would post anti-climate cooties here since that will cause our many, wealthy thought leaders tol stampede to big oil and bail me out. The plan is flawless. I'll name my third mansion after you!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @05:08PM (15 children)
I find that climate change mitigation proponents tend to be just as ignorant of economics as they are climatology and the scientific method.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @06:37PM (14 children)
"Spurious claims of unprecedented weather detract from the real questions - like how harmful is global warming? Let's not ignore the tradeoffs of global warming versus what we're doing with the economic activity"
There it is folks. Khallow admits defeat, but like all narcissists we find him at the "ok it is true, but it is not that bad." What a shill.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:26PM (13 children)
Since you speak of my narcissism, let's talk about me for a bit. Way back in 1994, I joined a play money betting market (I think it started life as "Idea Futures" and later moved on to the Foresight Exchange [ideosphere.com] where almost 30 years later, I remain the second highest scoring player in that game.
Well anyway, they created a claim way back in 1994 that sea level would rise a meter by 2030. Being of open mind, I considered the possibility and did some research. Turns out sea level rise was somewhere over 3 mm per year back then. I concluded that there was no way it would hit a meter of sea level rise by 2100, much less by 2030. There were some suckers who felt otherwise and could get pretty hysterical about it. Needless to say, they contributed to my score in that game.
Since, I've seen almost 30 years of this sad, ridiculous bullshit. Something terrible was always going to happen in a decade or two, but it never did. Something scary was happening now - if you squinted at the data the right way. Sure, there is climate change, but the rollout is considerably slower than advertised and the consequences far less dire. Yet they keep doubling down with more over-the-top scenarios and fringe statistics like what's been discussed in this thread.
There's a reason I believe that the above study shows more than just a statistical quirk. Even the relatively knowledgeable advocates for climate change mitigation have their brains shut off. And everyone is so absolutely certain about crap nobody has a clue about such as the alleged unprecedented weather of the three studies mentioned earlier. It's precisely the sort of person this study was meant to study.
My take? I was right then, and I remain right now because I understand this phenomena better. It's not about climatology. It's about the human mind and its need for scary stories.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:40PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:18PM (3 children)
Ok boomer.
Don't break a bone trying to pat yourself on the back.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:30PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:32PM (1 child)
Don't worry, there will still be plenty of people here to repeatedly demonstrate how embarrassingly wrong you are about everything other than COVID-19 and Ukraine.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:37PM
I too doubt we'll ever run out of idiots. At least, you're not wrong about everything, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:16PM (7 children)
You're making shit up like you always do.
You find the most outlandish prediction you can, then claim it's somehow representative of what climatologists are predicting. You say the outlandish prediction is false, then pat yourself on the back and proclaim you're smarter than everyone else when the outlandish prediction fails.
Sea level rise was not projected to rise a meter by 2030. Even the most extreme scenario at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf [noaa.gov] only projects sea levels rising by 0.24 m between 2000 and 2030. Going back to a 2004, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003RG000139 [wiley.com] doesn't come even close to projecting a sea level rise of a meter or even half a meter between 1990 and 2030.
The fact that you accurately identified outlandish prediction as false in your game does not mean you're smarter than all of the climatologists. Anyone with half a clue could look at climatologists' actual projections and see that nobody was projecting a meter of sea level rise between 1994 and 2030. If you really had a track record of being right about predicting climate, you would not have chosen an outlandish example like this to validate your supposed expertise. Since you chose this example, it's a pretty good sign that you're not right about very much at all.
The fact that you're patting yourself on the back as being right on the basis of refusing to click three links demonstrates that your ignorance is willful. You don't want to look at the studies because you're afraid they might challenge your views. It's like a toddler putting their hands over their ears and screaming "la-la-la, I can't hear you." Your childish outburst and refusal to look at the studies doesn't mean you're right.
You've been right on two things: COVID-19 and Ukraine. That's it. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
My take? You have a room temperature IQ. We're just not sure if the units are degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celsius.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24PM (6 children)
Like claiming that weather events are unprecedented just because one's model said so? I'm not the only one here providing the outlandish predictions.
The fundamental outlandish prediction here is that an increase of 1.5 C in global mean temperature from pre-Industrial Age is so terrible a thing that we need to stop all greenhouse gases emissions to keep it from happening. I assure you a lot of climatologists are peddling that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:27PM (5 children)
There you go again behind dishonest and misrepresenting things. Climatologists are saying that we need to limit the warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. You already knew that, however. You're just not here to discuss this topic honestly, and we already knew that about you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:33PM (3 children)
[...]
Strange that you think you are disagreeing.
My take is that we need to hit negative population growth for a while or all this concern over climate won't matter a bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:46PM (2 children)
Is the next step where you recommend a eugenics program to encourage the right type of people to continue society? Hopefully not, aside from downplaying the 1/6 insurrection you don't seem to be quite out there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:10AM (1 child)
Should it be? I'll note that much of the climate change mitigation program is an implicit eugenics program. After all, not everyone can have a developed world lifestyle right? We have to make sacrifices somewhere.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:17AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @11:49PM
I see both the EU and California are preparing to ban hydrocarbon-fueled cars by 2035. I bet they're not doing that on a lark, but rather because scary dangerous climate change is getting close to those limits above. What's sad about the exercise is that the people pushing hard for this won't even slow down carbon emissions only the emerging world of China, India, and other similar countries will do that and well, they're not really interested in that these days.
As to the "avoid the worst impacts of climate change", it's a Venus-style atmosphere. Even a 10 C rise in temperature won't get you that. Thus, we have the usual problem of things getting progressively worse as the temperature rises. Most people agree on that. What gets missed is that it's a trade off not a firm line of death that one should never cross. And there are huge benefits to both humanity and the natural world from the economic activity of the next century that would more than justify generating some degree of significant warming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @02:00AM (4 children)
I must say that I find it amusing to see khallow, yet again, dancing around the elephants in the room. Dance, little monkey! Dance! Put on another show!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @03:09AM (3 children)
It's not hard to dance around what isn't there. Stop wasting time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @03:10PM (2 children)
I'm sorry. Am I harshing your narrative?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:27PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:10PM