(People without that monomaniacal background and focus still write about science, but they’re prone to making basic errors. We call them “journalists.”)
Climate science is full of well-meaning laypeople rehashing basic facts, and doing so poorly. I’m not a climate scientist, and I don’t know the details, but I know enough to know that figuring out historical temperatures is a whole branch of science with massive amounts of work and research behind it. This amateur comes along with a naïve data collection methodology and gets some results that casts doubt on one of the fundamental facts of climate science—that the world is getting warmer.
At this point, he could have stopped and said, “this data is completely out of line with the established science. Maybe there’s something I don’t understand.” Perhaps do a literature search to find out how data is collected and confounding factors are addressed.
Or he could throw his crap data up “without comment,” implying that he’s found some secret. Pfeh. Lazy and irresponsible. At the bare minimum, he could have shown a little intellectual courage and asked what he was missing, and why his data was at odds with the scientific consensus.
The scientific community encounters these sorts of well-meaning amateurs all the time, particularly in physics. They combine ignorance and enthusiasm into an unending firehose of time-wasting ideas. They’re called “crackpots.”
These alarms bells have been pulled repeatedly over the past 50 years. Calls for imminent catastrophe in just 10 years if nothing is done. That was 20 years ago. At some point, you have to wonder just who is profiting off of your fears while flying around in their private jets. That should tell you something.
I'll let you have the last word.
Shellenberger and Lomborg have presumable studied the issue for decades, so at what point does one cross into "being a scientist" territory? Years of study apparently doesn't do it, so what does? Obama's seal of approval?
You are confusing science and specific systems of doing science, like say a countries university system. A specific system of doing science does not automatically produce good science.
All he did so far was provide some data points. The "real" scientists should be able to explain them easily.
Btw, since I was just talking about her elsewhere, would you say Greta Thunberg qualifies as a scientist?