Contrarian climate assessment from U.S. government draws pushback | Hacker News Reader

Contrarian climate assessment from U.S. government draws pushback

science.org

44 pointsWarOnPrivacy22 comments

Their rhetorical strategy only flies if you’re inclined not to believe in climate change…

> Far more often the report follows a familiar pattern, wrote Ben Sanderson, a climate scientist at CICERO, a Norwegian climate research institute, on Bluesky. “Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”

>“Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature.”

I've always said that you can prove anything if you ignore enough data or facts. It's the foundation for all propaganda campaigns - cherry-pick the things that fit the message you want to convey and act like the overwhelming evidence against it doesn't exist. If you can't find anything to serve as a factual basis just invent something and repeat it to your audience, loudly if necessary, until that is the only thing they remember about their interaction with you.

I'm guessing that here, "contrarian" means "lying".

If you adopt an upbeat fatalistic attitude, there's at least humor to be found in letting clowns do their thing.

Absurd nihilism is a phrase I heard I really like. We might as well have fun while making their life as hard as possible.

There are additional nihilist options

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheAntiNihilist

But tvtropes seem to think that they are equally absurd

>It's important to note that, despite the trope's name, the Anti-Nihilist is still a nihilist. A character who is optimistic and life affirming and isn't a nihilist would likely be listed under Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!

Fwiw, Terry Pratchett and the recs from this thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736668

often manage to be fun and funny without being (explicitly?) nihilist. Suggestions for other role models? Especially appreciated would be political writers.. (in the above thread, they came close with "sex similes")

>clowns do their thing

The clowns don't even understand they are clowns. Firing the chief of BLS for weak employment numbers ... it is like beating thermometer for showing unpleasant temperature and going out and finding a different thermometer which would show more pleasant numbers.

I can appreciate that scientists in the field are fighting the good fight and picking it apart but it seems that this is just PhD nerd sniping. Designed specifically to get the world to waste their time going um actually… to a bad faith publication that the people publishing it and the people who will ultimately cite it to justify what they were going to do anyway didn't even believe in the first place. Preying on the, if we're honest left tendency, to believe that truth and facts prevail over power structures and if we just prove that they're wrong they'll be forced to… something. It's a great trick creating a simulacrum of scientific inquiry—literal hopium being provided to their opponents to give the illusion of Doing Something instead of working on challenging the power structures that are the real driving force.

How much federal funding existed for labs that published results contrary to the consensus?

Contrarian work does fine if it's solid and based in reality. It's just that most contrarian work is crap and it's hard to get funding for junk science. You'd have a hard time finding funding for work on phrenology. Doesn't mean it's being artificially suppressed.

I found the book Unsettled quite interesting https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matt...

He was high up in Obama admin

For reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin

> He later became known as a skeptic on climate change, publishing the book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, which was widely condemned for promoting climate denial.

“Climate Denial” is shorthand for anyone who is contrarian to the consensus, no? Or can you provide a single person who opposes the consensus who isn’t labeled the same?

Regardless. It seems like it's less a detailed breakdown of the science and more a pedantic argument about the meaning of science being settled. There's virtually no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science so it seems the entire book is a refutation of a straw man.

The disconnect seems to be that the political apparatus seems to characterize these “no expert who would argue we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks as “experts who argue that we know everything there is to know about climate science” folks.

Hence the whole “settled science” BS talking point.

I'd argue the much bigger problem is the those who argue we don't know enough to take serious action on climate change. Uncertainty about how monsoons are going to react or when the east antarctic might begin to shed mass aren't serious enough uncertainties to justify continuing this out of control experiment with the thermal and chemical properties of the atmosphere and oceans.

There's no time to spend dealing with the many, many contrarians out there. Wikipedia is a good smell test. For climate I believe one source: https://www.ipcc.ch/

If a legitimate study finds some results that are contrary to the mainstream it will end up in the ipcc. Like the study that said the antarctic was (until recently) gaining mass. Most studies that are contrarian are just garbage though. Either the product of idealoges or mercenaries working for the fossil fuel industry.

The IPCC is a political organization, not a scientific one. They have a dismal record for the accuracy of their predictions, and lack consistency in data they've released that overlaps their previous data releases.

https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/when-science-journal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7pDuJgXp8

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