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Comment by nod | Hacker News Reader

SMDH at how they see fit to include, in the second-to-last paragraph, a scientist calling the words "tipping point" inaccurate and irresponsible... and then still made it their headline.

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It is inaccurate and irresponsible for you to suggest that the scientist in question used the words inaccurate and irresponsible. What she said was, "I take issue with using ‘tipping point’ to describe the accelerating mass loss Greenland is experiencing,” because “it makes it appear as if we have passed, or soon will pass, the point of no return.”

At worst, she said she "takes issue with" with the "tipping point" phrase, which is not remotely the same as saying it's inaccurate and irresponsible.

Furthermore, her "issue with" it appears to be related to a political concern that the phrase will sap people's sense of agency. It's not entirely clear.

(As far as her reasons for thinking it's too soon to give in to despair is, all the reporter gives us is, "She said she saw reasons for hope." There is zero additional information provided as to what those reasons might be.)

If someone asked me to summarize what you just said, I would say the scientist described a “tipping point” as inaccurate and irresponsible.

Inaccurate because she said it’s claiming something that isn’t true.

And irresponsible because it will sap the political will to do something about it.

True, though without greater specificity I, at least, interpreted the original comment to mean that the scientist believed the phrase "tipping point" was overly alarmist.

You're right, that his use of "innacurate and irresponsible" is sensationalist. But he is right in claiming that this is a bullshit clickbait headline.

The scientist literally told her that the entire concept of a tipping point did not apply here. That gives a totally different sense of urgency to the title.

>it makes it appear as if we have passed...return

The scientist is concerned over the literal definition of a turning point.

However, the same scientist characterizes the research as showing that “a little bit of a nudge is going to have an outsized impact” on the Greenland ice pack, which is basically the paradigmatic definition of a “tipping point.” She objects to the term because it could discourage effective policies that could slow or otherwise mitigate climate change. Not a bad reason, but one rooted in politics, not science per se.

Presenting science to politicians is hard. Sometimes it comes down to using the right words to explain something. Even something seemingly basic such as expressimg confidence or certainly on a non-numeric scale is tricky. I vaguely remember that studies have been performend to find out how to best map probabilities to natural language expressions like "very certain" so that people without scientific training get the right idea.

I really wish scientists wouldn’t do this as it completely undermines the data. The opponents of doing something about climate change jump on these political statements to show scientists are somehow making up the risks to keep themselves employed. Just the science please.

I disagree, just the science was attempted for quite some time but science has been derided in American culture lately, people don't accept facts and so a more emotional approach is required to break through to the public.

Australia's much the same. Our novelty Prime Minister even brought a chunk of coal into Parliament to demonstrate convincingly how nice and safe and clean it is.

No coincidence that both nations are big fossil fuel producers.

Just because something hasn’t worked doesn’t mean that it is a good idea for science to get into politics. Once science is seen as just a wing of one political side then it is doomed.

There is no evidence that more emotion will help get the political support required to do anything. Using emotion just enable your opponent to more easily block out your message.

I do agree that we need to change approaches. We aren’t going to win by fighting the fossil fuel owners head on (they are too rich and powerful), but by buying them out. Let’s stop with efforts that effectively steal their assets (i.e. forcing them to keep the carbon in the ground) and start by buying the carbon off them at market rates and then leaving it in the ground.

But in fact what climate scientists are doing here, and what they're doing in general, is leaning hard to downplay the science, because they're afraid of being described as chicken little or afraid of terrifying the public into inaction.

Scientists are politically leaning on the data to downplay what the science shows.

Things are bad, and getting worse fast (and faster each year than the year before).

Totally. I know a couple of climate scientists here in Aus, and a number of ecosystem experts on three continents. They are personally far more alarmed than would be indicated by the mild statements the universities (and IPCC) lean on them to make. There's a lot of chatter amongst them of existential dread and depression. They painstakingly follow the data, struggle for research funding, work long hours, and still get excoriated by the fossil fuel industry and its leagues of useful idiots.

As long as politicians insist on playing science, scientists must play politics. If we could have a nice clean separation that would be great, but we’re far from it. If scientists don’t get political then they’ll just be trampled.

But if they do get political they ruin the perception of their objectivity. We have very few climate scientists and many other people who can be politicians.

Politicians have already ruined the perception of objectivity for climate scientists. They have nothing to lose now.

Tipping point implies a hard boundary of "too far," making politicians believe it is someone else's problem until we reach that point.

What we have is an accelerating process that will soon pass beyond our ability to absorb, deflect, or survive. The words absolutely affect the thinking for how to deal with the problem. The words also affect the arguments one will have to overcome in order to act. (Not counting the head in the sand argument of "no it isn't".)

It's against HN guidelines to insinuate a commenter didn't read the article, but I'd at least suggest you read it again. She only pulls back from tipping point on the basis that political action could head it off. This is identical to saying that on a BAU basis, we are approaching a tipping point.

Aw... (Stopping by later and seeing this at the top)

SMDH at myself, too, for giving in to the temptation to just blat out a quick frustration despite knowing this is exactly the kind of nerd-sniping that can get us commentariat more worked up than the actual issue.

Sorry for the noise, folks. I mean, the meta isn't total noise, but remember to spend focus on the actual climate change too, shall we?

I'm not a climate change denier, but the New York times has become a pretty trashy magazine. They're like the MSNBC of print.

Well it is complicated and there are no easy solutions regarding the terminology and psychology. The scientific community and press need to indicate urgency without causing despair/surrender.

This is a rare case where the title is underselling the drama of the article as we’ve likely already passed a tipping point.

SMDH == Shaking My Damn Head

I think it is “darn.”

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