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Comment by dbingham | Hacker News Reader

The conclusion of the article is that even though we don't have conclusive research, the early signs are worrying and the risks are far too high to wait for better data to act.

This is the problem with things like climate change and ecological collapse. Science is extremely slow to measure and understand the phenomena. But the disasters can move far faster than the science, wrecking havoc as they go. Scientists are naturally cautious and skeptical and so will dismiss the kind of claims it takes to move people until those claims are overwhelmingly supported.

By the time scientists have enough data to comfortably support the claims, it's far too late to act on them.

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> The conclusion of the article is that even though we don't have conclusive research, the early signs are worrying and the risks are far too high to wait for better data to act. > > This is the problem with things like climate change and ecological collapse.

This is absolutely not the problem with climate change. The problem is some people decided to believe a comforting fairytale instead of the scientific facts.

It's not the scientists fault. They are highlighting that there is an issue and the consequences are potentially catastrophic. Scientists always uses measured language in papers, but in the example of global warming Scientists have effectively been screaming about it for decades in a public outreach context, politicians have not listened though.

It is easy to put this on politicians, but you must remember that politicians are largely a reflection of the people they represent. We are all to blame for finding the truth too inconvenient to handle.

Not just politicians, regular people have not heeded the warnings.

Yeah, and even now, calling for more research doesn't mean "not doing anything until we know more". We need to start moving and send out more scouts, we can do both, one doesn't have to take away from the other.

I don't think the problem is that the scientists are not heard, but that the reiki-practicioners-heavy-drug-users-no-responsabilty-whatsoever-metaphysical crowd are much louder, effectibily diminishing the seriousness of the scientists' warnings

We know about climate change since decades. It's not the fault of science that politicians and big business lie about it to the public.

We've had several successes in similar matters (CFC ban and ozone layer, leaded fuel ban and crime levels), so it's clear the problems aren't impossible to solve.

We should be focusing on the place where the problems appear - on politicians and companies lobbying to ignore the warning signs. Science does its job.

Agreed. There are horrendous arguments on both sides (as well as convincing ones), which makes it difficult for the average joe to come to a conclusion about who is right.

Science needs better marketing to be able to sell its conclusions in a more effective manner.

Note: I'm on the scientist's side, in case it was ambiguous.

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