Comment by scottlocklin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scottlocklin | Hacker News Reader

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Your prediction isn't correct if your time estimate is wrong. I bet some Pacific islands will be beneath the ocean some day with probability very close to 1 (I dunno we could get hit by an Asteroid first). Betting they will be last month is a failed prediction. As far as I can tell they're not having any particular problems now they didn't have 50 years ago. I'm happy to entertain evidence to the contrary.

The greenhouse effect is totally human controllable. You don't even need to stop using fossil fuels or resort to absurdities like industrial carbon sequestration. Geoengineering used to be a thing; if climatologists believed in their models, they'd be able to come up with a solution that works. Painting Australia white, pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere; whatever. Someone could at least make a suggestion which doesn't involve everyone living in a yurt and eating gruel. One becomes suspicious people whose only solution is the latter are millenarian cultists rather than science minded.

So you demand that scientists produce predictions that are bang on not only in 'what' will happen, but also 'why' and 'when'? A single early incorrect time estimate in an ever-changing world with accelerating access to more and better data is somehow entirely disqualifying?

Maybe if we lived in mile-high ecumenopolis mega cities instead of 8-lane-gridlock-highway-connected-cookie-cutter-5-bedroom-McMansion-suburbs we wouldn't have to live in "yurts" and eat "gruel".

The question was whether there were any overly negative predictions about climate change that failed to pass. Facts were presented. It is a fact that there are many climate change predictions that were the opposite of conservative. That some of those overly negative predictions might happen many decades later wasn't questioned and therefore commenting about it just derails the discussion.

> So you demand that scientists produce predictions that are bang on not only in 'what' will happen, but also 'why' and 'when'?

Yes, actually: if I'm supposed to take "scientists" seriously, the only reason we listen to them over astrologers is they're supposed to get things right, not make shit up. Why is this confusing to you? Do you think there is some other reason to listen to "scientists?"

You’re asking for something that isn’t possible. The climate is an extremely complex system and we don’t have perfect and complete information of all of our current variables, let alone future variables. I don’t understand why you would equate people who work extremely hard to create models and try to understand our complex world to astrologers who make shit up.

What a horrible perspective.

Are you shitting me? You're asking me ... on one hand to "trust the science," to the point humans change our use of power, transportation: basically upend industrial civilization, but you're also telling me this "science" isn't capable of producing models accurate enough for geoengineering? You do realize CO2 mitigation is only one form of geoengineering, right? If they can't suggest another one, why should anyone listen to them regarding CO2?

You can't have it both ways. Either "the science" predicts something or it doesn't. Which one is it?

No, they are not supposed to get things right.

They are supposed to evaluate scientific theories by checking testable predictions to find out if the theory is the correct explanation about how things work in our universe. Which means that scientists try to proof themselves wrong most of the time.

A prediction is also often multidimensional and can be accurate about what will happen, while being off about when it will happen. This article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction uses the solar cycle as an example of that under the Science category.

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