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Comment by Clanan | Hacker News Reader

Already, the discussion here swings toward the climate change vs. "denialist" debate. Instead of politicizing it, maybe read the article? According to those interviewed, the trend until last year was to see more ice.

    > “It is tempting to say that the record low we are seeing this year is global warming finally catching up with Antarctica,” Meier said. “However, this might just be an extreme case of pushing the envelope of year-to-year variability. We’ll need to have several more years of data to be able to say there has been a significant change in the trend.”

Ironically, all those accusing others of being "denialists" are themselves failing to look at this scientifically, and resorting to the rudely unscientific tactic of name-calling.

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No. Implying a single piece of decontextualized evidence--sea levels not rising--casts doubt on AGW is a classic denialist tactic. Multiple lines of evidence provide compelling arguments for AGW. It's an intellectually dishonest gambit to try to play a game of "gotcha" instead of trying to come up with the most powerful explanation for a phenomenon, and toxic to scientific discourse.

I did not say what you think I said. In a topic as complex (and contentious) as weather, climate, global warming, etc. I think we should focus on understanding the science and employing civic discourse. I simply repeated what the scientist said: no conclusions yet, need more data. And in response I receive the blatant accusations of "classic denialist tactic[s]"? You think that's not toxic to discourse?

(Disclosure to pre-empt the common accusation of ignorance: I'm scientifically trained and work in renewable energy R&D.)

Unfortunately I think the level of discourse is already at rock-bottom. I would like to agree with you and I think people do need to be careful and not jump the gun (and thereby provide fodder for the denialist camp) but at some point we can't simply be academic about it all - the evidence for AGW (or ACC preferably) is overwhelming at this point and while an objective academic is preferable it can also be damaging to the goal of changing public opinion.

The denialist camp has a simple and effective strategy for disputing anthropomorphic climate change: First, always call it global warming to make it less understood and then if its cold [1], dispute GW and if any single piece of information doesn't 100% fit with GW (ie, a single datapoint that shows global temperatures cooling by ignoring ocean temperatures [2]).

However, if you are being 100% honest about any climate measurements you cannot say anything other than "Well, this single measurement doesn't tell us anything but it fits with the trend of rising temperatures globally and we need more data and research.". This may be true, but its not winning the argument. People will follow simple, easy narratives and will shy from complex arguments whose consequences are also terrifying and potentially apocalyptic. By sticking to our guns and taking the high road, we might be dooming ourselves and by the time people really feel climate change it will be too late. Is our high-minded discourse worth that? I'm not saying we rabidly jump on every datapoint and say "SEE CLIMATE CHANGE", but until I see a lot more credible information I think its time to stop taking such a passive stance.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe-snowball... [2] https://weather.com/news/news/breitbart-misleads-americans-c...

So, just to be clear, you're saying that the attribution of reduced Antarctic sea ice extent to global warming is unclear, and not that the phenomenon referred to as global warming is itself somehow brought into doubt by the lack of clarity on that particular issue?

Hum, sea levels rise is a so systematic symptom of AGW that if it were lacking, it would be a reason to doubt other measurements. It would at a minimum require a very good explanation.

Unfortunately, the predicted sea level rise understates what we observe. That also warrants an explanation (there have been a few articles about it here), but in the other direction.

The person being called a "denialist" said that this measurement isn't a problem, because if it was a problem then sea levels would be rising. This is so incorrect that it's hard to see it being a legitimate misunderstanding, and it seems quite likely to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people. Either way, how exactly do you think we should handle people who barge into the conversation with ridiculous arguments like "sea ice must not be decreasing, because if it was then sea levels would be up"?

Is that the flagged comment? I didn't see that comment, but I was very nearly called a denialist, and was downvoted into oblivion for pointing out that we'd need to make sacrifices to stop climate change.

Clanan was basically called a denialist for quoting the article and calling out the name-calling.

Someone else was warned about posting "denialist-type stuff" because they asked what caused CO2 levels to drop after the Pliocene epoch.

The level of discourse in this thread is as low as I've seen it on Hacker News.

"Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist.

The responses you got in this thread look pretty reasonable to me. The downvotes don't seem very justified, but the discourse looks fine.

Clanan took a part of the article discussing Antarctica and discussed it as if it applied to the Arctic as well. The trend in the Arctic has been decreasing sea ice for decades, with a speed that overwhelms the slow increase in the Antarctic. The climate change caution is only for the Antarctic. The article doesn't say either way, but my understanding is that the changes in the Arctic are very much believed to be linked to climate change.

And despite that highly misleading cherrypicking from the article, Clanan got pretty reasonable responses, even though shrill criticism would be pretty well justified for this.

> "Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist.

"Synthetic" was the word used. What does that refer to if not an agent of someone being paid to distribute (denialist) propaganda? Also "naive".

And were you calling this a reasonable response to Clanan: "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit"

Name-calling with sophisticated insults is still name-calling. If this is what you mean by "shrill criticism", I don't see how that's intended to do anything but control the discourse by driving people away.

"a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit"

This quote was used to describe the flagged comment, in which the person said that the article was misleading because if sea ice were really decreasing then sea levels would be rising. That seems completely accurate and justified to me.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

The comment to which you're referring could be shortened to "sea levels are rising".

Calling out extremely bad arguments as extremely bad seems reasonable to me. That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. It would be like a comment on a math article saying that if multiplication were real then 2+2 would equal 5.

Keep in mind that this is not just an area where there are some ignorant people. There's a ton of money and powerful political organizations (one of which happens to be running most of the US federal government right now) trying very hard to convince people that climate change is a fraud, and using tactics just like this to do it.

> That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice.

Your misunderstanding of the knowledge of an average person is either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice.

See how unproductive such comments are?

But seriously, how many people do you think actually understand buoyancy? A simple explanation that floating ice displaces an equal amount (mass, not volume) of water would be both more civil and more productive.

The actual replies that comment got are completely benign:

"Sea ice melting doesn't cause sea level increases."

"Arctic sea ice thickness and volume are decreasing too."

The word "denialist" only came up when someone tried to explain to this person why they got downvoted. And it doesn't even accuse the commenter of being one, it just says that their argument is along those lines, and explicitly admits the possibility that it's unintentional.

The quote you dislike didn't come out until some other person posted a comment trying to defend the "denialist" side, and incidentally using a dishonest summary of part of the article to do it.

I really don't see what you want here. What you say should have been done seems to be what was done.

Edit: also, how many people do I think actually understand buoyancy on HN? All of them.

Why did you leave out the top voted reply?

> So, you seem flummoxed by the downvoting. I'm not sure it's warranted, but here's an explanation so you don't run into it in the future:

> Most climate change denialists don't know how science works. Or, if they do, they cynically prey on the public's ignorance. I'm not up to date on sea level data, but even if what you say is true, you didn't just disprove climate change and proved that scientists are a bunch of conspiratorial UN socialists.

The most popular reply to that comment here was basically saying "asking questions is denialist, don't do that."

I didn't leave it out. I devoted an entire paragraph to it.

Characterizing it as "asking questions" is completely off base. The flagged comment asked no questions. It merely made statements, all of which were wrong or worse.

I'm starting to wonder if you're engaging in this conversation in good faith.

You left out the actual words of that comment (while quoting two others), then you accused me of not acting in good faith.

This topic has brought the level of discussion here to record lows.

Reply to your edit:

If characterizing it as asking questions is incorrect, I apologize. As I said, I haven't seen the actual comment (because someone flagged it, apparently without good reason).

Perhaps I should say "raising counterpoints is denialist, don't do that". To me, that's equally unacceptable here.

"This topic has brought the level of discussion here to record lows."

At least we can agree on that, but IMO the blame rests entirely with the people who go out of their way to defend people posting nonsense in an attempt to discredit the entire idea of climate change.

No serious discussion can forbid disagreement or punish people for not understanding everything already.

"Raising counterpoints is denialist, don't do that" should be the recipient of the flags.

To me, this just seems like the usual public overreaction to a single observation.

Thirty months ago NASA reported Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reach...

That made a similar impact in different circles.

To me, that statement sounds more like "Clutching at straws, it might be an outlier extreme case of year-to-year variability, but it's probably global warming; if you want a definitive answer, wait a couple years".

But looking at the data is hard, name calling is easy.

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