Time to ditch the climate consensus | Hacker News Reader

Time to ditch the climate consensus

theregister.co.uk

22 pointslaika400026 comments

It should be more often observed that the only reason we see this call for consenus (and opposition) is that they demand government action.

This is a very statist mindset, and that grinding sound you hear is statism running up against science.

In other scientific matters (e.g. If string theory is real) you don't get empassioned pleas for one side.

Environmentalists would do more good by abandoning statism and focusing on private action.

There is nothing stopping people from supporting research into alternative energy themselves. Farmers could be paid by private citizens to slow burn their biomass turning it into stable sequesterable charcoal. The roofs of private buildings could be painted white.

Once those that care about the issue realize their methods and not necessrily their ideas are why they get a lot of resistence, more people will come to their side.

I'm all for private action, but you cannot take the government out of this issue. After all, whether to build the third runway in Heathrow is not a private decision. Likewise, it's hard for private parties to deal with externalities.

Unorganized private action can easily outweigh government action.

With easily provable externalities like toxic waste, private lawsuits can take care of the problem. Other issues like CFCs are easily regulated.

Cap and Trade solutions for climate change are, say, 5 orders of magnitude more costly. With that comes added demand for certainty. The more rigorous the demands for certainty, the greater the indication that a single governmental solution is inappropriate.

A third runway at Heathrow _should_ be a private decision, by a private company that owns and operates an airport. Runways are also completely irrelevant in this discussion.

"Unorganized private action can easily outweigh government action.

With easily provable externalities like toxic waste, private lawsuits can take care of the problem. Other issues like CFCs are easily regulated."

This seems to be a contradiction.

> In other scientific matters (e.g. If string theory is real) you don't get empassioned pleas for one side.

Uh, have you ever read Lee Smolin, Peter Woit, Leonard Susskind, and Lubos Motl?

The complete statement should have read "impassioned pleas for one side ... for government action"

Strong opinions are healthy. Strong opinions mandating an end to discussion in order to take collectivist action are not.

Again, have you read anything by Lee Smolin or Peter Woit?:)

A plea for reasoned discourse and the end of the politicization of science by the left. Excellent article on the quality of the discussion of climate issues. The climate change debate itself, I know, has been done to death here. But I still think that the quality of the discussion, the role of politics in science and vice-versa, are important issues regardless of whether the topic is climate change or not.

Because when a crisis strikes, it's the bankers and derivative traders we really need to here from. Now, you scientists, you need to go out and do something useful. Go shopping.

How about just doing science? Seemed to work just fine for hundreds of years.

But has this ever truly happened?

Even if we go back all the way to Archimedes, we'll find his science intertwined with warfare, ship building, public works and various other 'statist' concerns.

Or take Galileo - surely not just doing science. Darwin. Manhattan Project, and the subsequent roles of various people like Oppenheimer, von Neumann, and Edward Teller. Nazis eliminating 'Jew Science'. Or for example Carl Sagan's comments about sources of funding for physics (so heavily military and 'statist') and their effect on the science.

I think this idea of pure science in isolation is an idealization that does not happen in practice.

I think you're mixing up several issues here.

First, nothing is truly black or white. Scientists are humans, and humans are political and involved in things outside their own field. This humanity, however, poses a conflict of interest from the mechanisms of how science operates: observe, hypothesize, test, reproduce. In other areas where human nature play a conflicting role with job goals, such as the therapist-patient relationship, doctor-patient relationship, or lawyer-client relationship, strict guidelines have been established to ensure that the human part of doing the job doesn't interfere with the job itself. Where's the line? That's outside my pay grade. When scientists start viewing themselves as activists first, scientists second, however, we've crossed it. Science is concerned with both normal science and paradigm-changing work. Whatever else you may be doing could be important, critical, wonderful, whatever -- but it ain't science.

Your second concept is statism. I'd take that up with the other commenter who mentioned the statist issues.

I think your observation that politics and science have always mixed it up is a great one. However, I think it actually proves my point instead of yours. During the time that these people lived, like Galileo, the word "science" could mean many different things. Indeed, science of the day was the church. And the church had a heavy hand in what was "allowed" to be discussed and what had "scientific consensus". It's only in looking back that we're able to say, gee, of course Galileo was the _real_ scientist here. At the time, common opinion was against him.

The A-bomb guys, as far as I know, did not publicly advocate some sort of scientific consensus in atomic policies. The old Soviets, however, had Lysenkoism -- another example of "science" being co-opted by the state and used to shut down discourse. (In many places even today, you'll end up in the insane asylum if you have the wrong political opinions). The Nazis were famous social darwinists. The list goes on. In each case, science and politics got mixed up to the point where politicians were using science as a foil to advance their ends and scientists were in politics to advance their own ends. You're absolutely right. This isn't anything new. We've seen where this ends up. Science ends up like the old church: with dogmas, consensus, political funding, ostracism, etc.

Let's not go there.

Science has always been socially, culturally and politically disruptive.

Any time that you hear someone say, "we need to get beyond debate and act," it usually means they are no longer willing to listen to others and they just want to implement their solution.

Indeed, but that's the nature of people. Equally in the nature of people is to debate round and round in circles until it's too late.

But this is one of the necessary differences between science and politics. Politics requires making decisions, and acting on them, based on imperfect information. There's nothing wrong with saying "I know we don't have 100% certainty on this issue, but even at a level of only 80% certainty, the expected cost of doing nothing is so great, compared to the cost of taking action, that we're better off taking action."

The cost of acting in the way that some people want could do extensive damage to our economy and could have very little effect on the problem that they are attempting to solve. If individuals feel that there are things that should be done, they are free to start implementing themselves and working with business to make the case. It is only when people assume that the government has to force everyone to do what they want is it a question of what everyone agrees on. You don't need complete consensus if you are willing to put your money where your mouth is.

I don't understand why you would argue against using facts as the basis for debate. We're not giving proper weight to people's spiritual beliefs related to climate change?

"Don't use science to get around politics" sounds like a joke. I mean, really?

"...their ultimate authority is a report from a group of scientists, and they’re saying ‘this is where we stand, forget about our moral concerns, forget about our ethical positions, ... forget about whether we are Christians or Buddists, no, none of that matters.’ The only thing that matters is that they’re holding a report from peer-reviewed science that in itself justifies their position. And it’s not just protesters who are hiding behind the authority of science. World leaders are doing it, too."

What?!

[sorry for the long quote, i'm working myself up :)]

Maybe it's a joke, and it's just too early for me to get it.

At first I thought the same thing, but this guy is in the UK where the debate has moved on from 'whether global warming is real' to 'what to do about it'. He says:

"However much we agree on the fundamentals of the physics of climate change, there are huge ethical, political and ideological differences that remain about what climate change signifies for society"

So this is a different debate than what we have in the US, where we watch Fox News, deny global warming, and believe in creationism.

His point is that yes, global warming is here, but we must choose how to handle it, what the trade offs are, what the priorities are, what to give up, and so on. These are political and ideological decisions which the science cannot make.

> What?!

He raises a very pertinent issue; it's just not that clear in this context.

Here's an extreme, yet simplistic analogy:

Suppose scientists discover that green-eyed people are used as transmission vectors by a lethal flu virus. A cure can be found, but it would take at least a decade to complete the research and testing. Scientists estimate that the virus will kill 90% of mankind within 5 years.

Should we round up and isolate all green-eyed people? Should we kill them?

That choice seems more obviously between two evils than the climate change issue. :)

I do acknowledge, as the other commenter suggested, that my view may be warped by being from the USA, where the battle is still about whether it exists at all.

It's not about climate change - it's an analogy. It's not a choice between two evils either (you could round them up AND kill them). And of course you could propose a multitude of different solutions beside or in addition to these.

My point was that science cannot be used to justify all the choices you make in cases like these.

Please note who wrote the article:

Stuart Blackman is a science writer and co-editor of the Climate Resistance blog.

My impression of the blog is they want to continue the debate on climate-change and delay whatever action should be taken because they believe the environmental movement is a crazy cult. This interview serves their purpose.

They also believe that: 4. The scientific consensus on climate change as widely reported inaccurately reflects the true state of scientific knowledge. This is a familiar charge from people who deny human-caused climate change.

Its like the f'ing tobacco industry did for four or five decades. Once they realized the science is against them, they start spraying FUD out every orifice, delaying action for as long as possible.

> Perhaps the most surprising thing to hear from a climate scientist writing about climate change is that climate science has for too long had the monopoly in climate change debates.

Maybe biologists and geologists shouldn't have a privileged position in debates on whether evolution is true, and about the age of the Earth. And should medical scientists have the monopoly in debates over vaccinations and disease control? Popular opinion clearly says no.

FFS. Colour me the stereotypical bad guy in that steaming pile of an article.

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