I don’t think much about the climate debates; the problem seems so multivariate, and each part of it so difficult, I don’t see a solution. Accordingly, I really appreciate the people who do think about and cover it because goddam, it really needs covering.
Anyway, when I read about the Paris agreement, I was most struck by all those countries with all their agendas still agreeing that the scientists knew what they were talking about, while this country — this science-rich country — is full of blowfish with no scientific credentials all over the media, still arguing about whether warming is real. I don’t mean that the science is a slam-dunk because it never is, but this argument didn’t seem to be about science.
And that reminded me of a post I wrote that I liked, about arguments in which the arguers are talking past each other from points of view that are nonoverlapping but still confused, about what happens when this confusion happens between two brothers. I hope you like it too.
Science is the art (gawd, did I just write that?) of balancing probabilities against evidence and drawing out hypotheses which can then be tested. Anybody who doesn’t think that is just plain wrong, and shouldn’t be allowed to use the word ‘science’. Well anyhoo, that’s my theory.
“I don’t think much about the climate debates; the problem seems so multivariate, and each part of it so difficult, I don’t see a solution.”
I don’t understand this. The debates aren’t multivariate, the climate is. (Well, duh.)
Despite that the science isn’t a problem any longer, even the signal is model less correlated with the anthropic forcing factor of CO2 alone now. You just need to do a principal component analysis, and there you are.
The solutions to AGW – if that is what solutions refer to – are multivariate too. But mainly by lowering CO2 release the rapid global warming climate change is mooted at some temperature peak, and it isn’t the usual economical problem since it pays off. It is cheaper than the increased frequency of problematic climate events. The remaining problem is political, and to a large problem media which prefer public debate over a decided fact.