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Comment by ben_WG | Hacker News Reader

Global warming is not a matter of belief, but of trust in the scientific community. What you may be criticising is how some media report on the climate catastrophe, which itself has been scientifically studied since the 1970s and has been concluded to be caused by humans as much as scientists can agree on anything. Whether people "believe" in global warming is only relevant in terms of policy, just like it took some time in the late 19th century for people to accept that some illnesses are caused by bacteria and implement policy accordingly. Understanding the mechanisms of a threat is the first of many steps, but the threat itself doesn't care about whether you believe in it.

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There is a difference between accepting bacteria which is something that is happening at the present to accepting predictions about the future of the climate and the state of the world which is something that might happen in the future. Predicting the future is always harder, especially when trying to predict complicated systems like climate, so there is here an element of believing.

That's a good point regarding scientific claims about the future, thanks. You are right that the future of a complex system is impossible to predict precisely, and maybe that's often misleadingly communicated.

I think in terms of negative consequences, though, the effects of anthropogenic climate change are already here in the present. Although it is scientifically debated to what extent one can attribute single weather extremes to co2 emissions, it's not really disputed that today's climate, which is already severely impacting humans negatively, is due to past human emissions.

Basically: it's already happening right now, and to identify the mechanisms responsible for the present climate does not require belief that goes beyond other scientific insights that are otherwise widely accepted.

Is there a specific example that you could cite about weather extremes?

Most of these claims I've seen are either wrong or fail to take into account several obvious factors.

For instance, claims of rising property damage amounts or lives lost fail to account for the amount of property that has accumulated in these locations or the population explosions in these places.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand correctly. Do you mean a) examples for increasing frequency of weather extremes? Or b) present day damages attributed to climate change (which can only be attributed in probability: this heat wave is X times more likely thanks to human emissions..)

If it's a), examples are that the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the past 13 years; also increasing are the volatility of rainfall, the likelihood, duration, and intensity of heat waves, the arctic temperature, the temperature in the tundra, the acidity in the oceans, etc..

If it's b) you can look at area of bush and forest fires, duration of droughts, areas of flooding, desertification etc. which are all increasing, and which cause tangible damage.

Of course you have a good point; it's nontrivial to "distribute" the damage of, say, the flood in Pakistan last year, into: climate change, bad urban planning, high population density, bad political response etc. But the bottom line is: the climate is changing quicker than we are adapting to it. The fact that many factors come together, and that it's complicated, doesn't mean that this isn't a factor.

I think one of the main misconceptions is that the discussion is too centred on average global temperature, or average rainfall. It's the increasing frequency of wild fluctuations (droughts, floods, heat waves) that creates the challenges.

If you like I can dig out references etc., I just wasn't sure what kind of specific examples you were looking for.

Bacteria cannot be seen with the naked eye so for almost anyone, and especially at the time there is a huge element of 'believing' for bacteria as well. So today we can buy our own microscopes, and maybe you have but certainly back at the time when policies on health were changed in response to science on bacteria, it wasn't because every single person who implemented them had a microscope or the appropriate training - they had to trust some other people who had done the background work - much as today. The biggest problem I see with the same trust applied to the work done on climate change is the human lifetime. Antibiotics, for example can have a positive effect in a timescale appreciated by everyone but changes to policy that can help climate change take place over many years and are much harder to visualize or associate cause and effect.

How is trust in the scientific community not belief? If you aren't checking their claims directly, then it's just that you believe them and others don't.

BTW it's not really trust in the scientific community. There are lots of scientists calling foul on this kind of story. What happens is, we get told they're the wrong kind of scientists, or "fringe" or whatever. It's social signalling all the way down and the message is Follow The Science.

> There are lots of scientists calling foul on this kind of story.

Could you please list some of them along with their field of expertise?

Within climatology people like Roy Spencer or Judith Curry. Outside, there's stuff like these papers I posted a couple of days ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36559554

Note the response - yes they may be nuclear physicists or hydrologists but they can't possibly comment on climate, they're the wrong sort of scientists. Also they even say they have a good understanding of science and then define science as "what 99% of experts believe" which is just hilariously medieval.

These are just examples. I can't be bothered trying to draw up huge lists. Other people have done that, it doesn't matter, the crisis true believers just use a circular definition of expert in which if you disagree the world is doomed you can't be an expert, therefore, are not worth listening to.

Yeah, typically I don't trust Neurologists with brain surgery, I prefer to go to a Podiatrist but people tell me they're the wrong sort of doctor.

Yeah, but you would probably listen to a Neurologist about your lack of a foot problem if 99 out of 100 podiatrists told you 20 years ago that your perfectly healthy foot would fall off in 10 years if you didn't stop driving your car or you didn't pay them the money every day for the rest of your life.

It's more like how you have to be careful with psychotherapists because they may try to sell you therapy you don't really need, and maybe your mate who's a surgeon points that out to you.

But thanks for illustrating my point so perfectly. All the people who think they're most rational on this topic are actually the least rational. Relying purely on mental shortcuts and social cues works right up until someone figures out how they can game you for profit, which is what's happening here (cry crisis = funding, grants, status, fame).

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