'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts | Hacker News Reader

'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts

theguardian.com

27 pointspseudolus7 comments

“The bad news is there is still a lot of work to do yet as climate deniers continue to persistently attack the scientific consensus.”

The impact of climate change deniers who are simply rejecting the scientific consensus is vastly overblown IMO. Those who actually impact climate change on a large scale (executives at large corporations, policymakers across the globe, etc.) are choosing to ignore scientific consensus for financial and power related reasons.

It’s a red herring to focus on the last 1-3% of true “non-believers”. Everyone should be focusing on explicitly calling out nefarious actors.

On the part about researching evidence for other accelerated climate events through trees, ice, and sediment; does anyone know if nature contributes to any long term “smoothing” of these types of evidence? I’m not too familiar with the processes used by scientists in these related fields but would love some reading materials.

> It’s a red herring to focus on the last 1-3% of true “non-believers”

Your estimate of 1-3% is too low by an order of magnitude, at least in the US [0]:

> Majorities of Americans overall say most scientists think global warming is occurring (66%), it is caused by human activities (64%) and its effects have begun (60%).

[0] (2018) https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-s...

There's also the issue of what level of impact man has had, or can have moving forward. Of course, a lot of the actions suggested and proposed won't have meaningful impact or will overburden societies with even more minimal impact... Or a Socialism program named an environment program.

No air freight shipping. Work weeks limited to 4 days a week for employees, and stiff tax penalties for employers with employees with longer work weeks. Those two would be more of an impact than replacing all the straws and several other options being explored with minimal real impact. Forcing farmers to rotate the grazing lands for their livestock as well as addition grass seeding, watering and planting of trees. Fines for local power companies that effectively block home generated power. Higher taxes on regions using Fossil fuels for electricity generation. Makers/sellers of electrical equipment must be built to last at least 10 years under a full, no cost warranty. Makers of computing devices no longer receiving security updates within the first 10 years must release the source and appropriate keys for users to self-maintain their devices. All electrical devices with a battery must be user serviceable.

I'm not really a fan of raising taxes... but it wouldn't take much for significant impact.

Ah, I misread where the 97% and 99% consensus was attributed to, good catch. I do wonder where the Americans who don’t believe global warming is occurring fall on the socioeconomic ladder and potential large-scale impact on climate outcomes.

This part still worries me the most though: “The pushback has been political rather than scientific. In the US, the rightwing thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CPI) is reportedly putting pressure on Nasa to remove a reference to the 97% study from its webpage. The CPI has received event funding from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Charles Koch Institute, which have much to lose from a transition to a low-carbon economy.”

The article is quite emphatic that there is "no doubt left", but is rather sketchy on what exactly the claim is that there is no longer doubt about.

Almost nobody thinks that CO2 has zero effect on climate. The debate is about the magnitude of the effect. It is not a yes/no question.

Strange that there is no link to the three studies the article reports on. Here is the editorial that links to them:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0428-1

Reply on news.ycombinator.com