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Comment by AutumnCurtain | Hacker News Reader

The question of the impact of climate change on humans seems to me a separate one from the observable reality of climate change and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which is a more tangible data question. It seems odd to describe yourself as a "denier" unless you mean you reject the actual science itself. And if you do, the question of whether it "matters" seems not at all important given that you reject it is happening at all. Or am I misunderstanding you? I guess I'm not sure what you're denying, observable reality or your perception of the projections made from that reality.

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For me, I'm sure the climate is changing, partly because of human activity. Where I differ is that I think the impacts of the changing climate will be so small and gradual and so easy to adapt to that it doesn't warrant the massive upheaval to economies that are being prescribed.

Would you say that you believe Samoa or the Maldives, for example, should anticipate a small and gradual change in climate that doesn't warrant a massive upheaval in their economy?

I honestly think they'll be fine too.

I'm curious: current trends predict that the temperature increase from the pre-industrial age to 2100 might be as much as it was from the last ice age (look it up, it was a very different time). And this will happen roughly within 200 years, not 20 000. What makes you think this will be small and easy to adapt to ?

It isn't current trends, it's model based predictions which are woefully inadequate. These models can't predict historical weather or climate when rewound and started any number of years ago. Different models don't agree with other models.

And yet we're making enormous policy changes with them.

So one, I don't think it's worth trying to use these models for policy. Two, sea level rise has only been 1-3 mm per year since the sixties, temp about 0.08 degrees centigrade per decade. Easily adaptable.

That’s a very serious accusation you’re making and it doesn’t agree with anything I’ve read about those models. On the contrary the predictions seem to match observations very well over the last couple of decades. This is not backtesting either which could be dismissed as overfitting - I’m talking literally take a model from 10, 20, 30 years ago and see what it predicted. Do you have any references to what you’re referring to?

Steve Koonin, one of Obama's former climate experts, does a great job of discussing the fatal flaws in his recent book "Unsettled".

You can also look at the IPCC reports themselves where they admit to model "limitations". Also note the confidence level their far out proclaimations are made with. It is typically "moderate" or "low". The news pieces rarely make mention of this confidence level though.

As far as I can tell he served as Under Secretary of Energy for Science and has zero climate science background. I’m not sure it’s accurate to call him a “climate expert”.

There are plenty of articles debunking his points as outdated strawman arguments, e.g. https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/wall-street-journal-a...

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