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>there are many more people that you are turning away from believing you because of the things above

The 'things above' being two insignificant newspaper articles over the last 13 years? Get real. People reject AGW[1] because of a very well funded propaganda campaign that spreads disinformation and because the existence of AGW is incompatible with the conservative, capitalist political philosophies held by most people in the anglosphere. There are studies demonstrating the latter effect:

Why does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the “Science Comprehension Thesis” (SCT), which identifies defects in the public’s knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the “Identity-protective Cognition Thesis” (ICT) which treats cultural conflict as disabling the faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. In our experiment, we presented subjects with a difficult problem that turned on their ability to draw valid causal inferences from empirical data. As expected, subjects highest in Numeracy — a measure of the ability and disposition to make use of quantitative information — did substantially better than less numerate ones when the data were presented as results from a study of a new skin-rash treatment. Also as expected, subjects’ responses became politically polarized — and even less accurate — when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun-control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992

A few misguided newpaper articles that over excitedly exaggerated uncertain predictions didn't make any difference to anything. Neither did Al Gore's personal finances. People ranting about Al Gore were never going to be won over by scientific arguments, their position is based on emotion and politics, not logical reasoning.

[1] people in the aglosphere that is, it's a much less prevalent phenomenon elsewhere

Could it be that your position is influenced by emotion and politics, and you are projecting this attitude onto the other side?

It could be.

Then again, he's not the one saying Al Gore's (manbearpig! hurr hurr hurr) finances prove or disprove climate change

For the record, who is saying that the climate doesn't change? We live on a ball of rocks flying through space, not in a museum diorama.

> Then again, he's not the one saying Al Gore's (manbearpig! hurr hurr hurr) finances prove or disprove climate change

No one said this. Are you interested in actual discussion or snide comments?

Did you bother to read the parent? It explicitly said Al Gore should "stop trying to profit off of AGW," which has tragically little to do with an article about geo-engineering.

What's the point of implying that climate change is just a scam to pad people's banks accounts?

As far as I can tell from the parent post 300bps does not reject the science of AGW. He/she just thinks the public debate is being lost for the reasons cited. So I wouldn't say I was on the 'other side'.

I'm often frustrated by media coverage as well. What I once heard a professor describe as 'climate porn'; photos of polar bears on ice bergs along with cataclysmic predictions of 20 meter sea level rise. It's not productive because it makes the problems seem totally intractable and causes many people to just give up because they feel hopeless. Often the articles like that are based on a single more pessimistic paper/scientist[1] when really we should be looking at all the available models not cherry picking the most extreme (which of course is the purpose of the IPCC reports).

[1] although I will say that the more conservative IPCC 2007 predictions for arctic ice sheet loss are looking pretty unlikely and the more pessimistic ones have been much closer to what has happened over the last 5 years. I've no idea if those dates have been revised downwards in the new report.

As far as I can tell from the parent post 300bps does not reject the science of AGW

You're right - I do not reject the science of AGW. Here is my absolute concrete position:

It is foolish to squander finite resources. I believe fossil fuels and clean air are finite resources.

So while I don't reject AGW science, I think its messengers are terrible at PR and practice a level of dishonesty to attempt to further their cause (which so far has had the opposite effect). Having said that - I think for the most part we want the same thing - conservation.

I have 3 kids; I want them and their descendants to have the same chance at life that I had. It sickens me to think that we might selfishly destroy the world's ability to sustain human life.

Capitalism in the sense you're using it isn't exactly a 'political philosophy'. Manufacture and trade is how human beings organize themselves and interact. If you're not taking that into account as you tackle the problem of a heating planet, you're bound to run into a brick wall.

The fact is that the current warming is well below projected temperatures. It could reverse in the next ten years and prove everyone right, but the problem with global warming (which I agree is happening) is that it doesn't give us a scientific playground where we can try different things out. It is more like economics than it is like material science.

>The fact is that the current warming is well below projected temperatures.

That is pretty misleading. We don't claim to be able to model temperature over periods of time that short. You can easily pick other 15 year spans where the rate of warming was well above 'projected temperatures'. For example 1992 - 2006 was 0.28 deg.C/decade[1]. Were you going around in 2006 talking about how badly climate scientists had screwed up because warming was so much faster than they predicted? If not why are you doing it now?

[1] http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/double-standard/

> We don't claim to be able to model temperature over periods of time that short.

Right, that's why we get graphs with confidence intervals, right? From my understanding, the previous warming was still within the alleged confidence intervals. However, instead of accelerating as expected, it's about to fall out of the projected intervals completely[1]

[1]http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2157446...

> The fact is that the current warming is well below projected temperatures.

Well, no.

Actually, yes. Even the IPCC has been lowering predictions.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wXkm-8pKPKE/UjhUMlXq44I/AAAAAAAAC8...

Actually, no. Your chart, by omitting the prediction range for each of those, does not speak to the original claim that "global warming is well below predicted temperatures".

It is not.

(And you should perhaps read that chart again if you think it is showing you that the "IPCC has been lowering predictions".)

It is just incredibly embarrassing that global warming deniers can't even read the reports which they so vehemently believe to be false.

People in general, perhaps. But for myself, my biggest problem with AGW is indeed the fact that its predictions have an ever-longer history of not coming true.

As a person interested in science, I consider this a fatal objection to any theory. AGW is not excepted. Anyone who has the mental gymnastic strength to talk themselves past this problem is merely demonstrating that they are not actually interested in science at this point, as the disparity between theory and fact is pretty clear at this point.

If "the public" are having problems with AGW for the wrong reasons, well, it's hardly the first time the correct conclusion has been reached for the wrong reasons.

What do you mean by "its predictions have an ever-longer history of not coming true"? Which predictions in particular have disappointed you?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooli...

That article is complete bollocks. http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/s...

That article is complete bollocks.

At best, you are exaggerating. Tell me which of the following claims in the article are false:

1) BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013

2) Almost a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than in 2012

You said it's complete bollocks so let me know how the two items above are false or kindly admit you were exaggerating which does nobody advocating for AGW any favors.

There are obviously serious problems with the article - for example - I thought this part was ridiculous:

The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year. More than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it have been left ice-bound and a cruise ship attempting the route was forced to turn back.

Their apparent surprise of "The Northwest Passage" being blocked as being a major thing is just silly. It was blocked for most of the year until 2009. But I think it's better to point out things like that than to dismiss it as "complete bollocks" which is fairly easily falsifiable which reduces your credibility.

Oh for goodness sake. The article is deliberately misleading. A few nuggets of 'truth' within doesn't change that at all.

>1) BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013

Well that isn't strictly true. The BBC reported that some US scientists had made a prediction that the arctic 'could' be ice free by 2013. Of course the BBC reporting of that was pretty irresponsible, at least in the headline. Maslowski's actual prediction was for a range of years, with 2013 being at the low end and he is quoted in the article[1] saying "It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040". For what it's worth I still think his productions will prove closer to reality than the not ice free till after 2040 ones.

>2) Almost a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than in 2012

I will assume that this statistic is correct, but it is still very misleading. That is not a 'recovery' when you look at the longer trend: it doesn't make up for the losses to extent over recent years never mind decades. That is why I linked the above graph to put it into context. An increase from the all time low is hardly surprising at all. So this is an example of a lie of omission: they neglect to put the figure into the wider context. We could also quibble about mentioning only extent and not volume.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm

The "60% increase" story is mis-reporting regression towards the mean. Long story short is, 2012 was a particularly bad year for arctic sea ice, 2013 was significantly better, but still on the thirty year trend line.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/...

Oh for goodness sake. The article is deliberately misleading. A few nuggets of 'truth' within doesn't change that at all.

So here's the lesson. Say what you mean without exaggeration.

Because when you said it's "complete bollocks" what you actually meant was that it was misleading. When you exaggerate like that, it makes it seem like you're pushing an agenda.

Oh hey, a relevant news article from this week:

"Sometime earlier this week a cargo ship passed through the Northwest Passage into Baffin Bay, along Greenland’s southwestern coast, making it the first bulk carrier ever to make the voyage. This journey was completed by the Nordic Orion, a 225-meter, ice-strengthened vessel loaded with coal in Vancouver, British Columbia and headed for Finland."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/26/2683481/northwes...

>the fact that its predictions have an ever-longer history of not coming true.

Which predictions in particular?

The important ones, basically. It's not 1990 anymore. There have now been many predictions made for times now in the past based on the same climate models being used to predict disaster, and they are now almost uniformly wrong.

The Met Office in Britain is one of the clearest. Are they predicting a wet summer for Britain? Brits should buy suntan lotion. Are they predicting a hot, dry summer? Brits should plant something that likes wet, dark conditions. They are the source of one of the models in the IPCC report, and they're predictions for a year or two out are wrong, consistently.

And I find the idea that a climate model can't predict a year in advance, consistently, but can be used for 10 or 100 years in advance to be absolutely ludicrous. Utter mathematical illiteracy is required to think that is true of a chaotic system. It remains unclear to me whether climate researchers actually understand that "a chaotic system" is actually a mathematically meaningful statement and not "an excuse for why we were wrong, again". (No sarcasm, it truly remains unclear to me. Chaos theory is a real thing, and I'd really like to think that climate researchers would know a lot about it, but I've only seen faint traces of it, where I expect the terminology to dominate the discourse.)

Given the utter failure of these predictions on a year and a decade scale (as I've said before, had the climate scientists said "hey, there's going to be a 15-year plateau because of this and this which will mask the problem but then this is going to happen", I'd be fine with that), I see no reason to believe they'll work on a century scale.

At the moment, the most reasonable explanation is that the models used by the IPCC up to this point have been grossly wrong about their positive heating feedback claims, which if you dig, were never really that well substantiated by actual evidence, they have always been modeling choices. In the real science world, those claims are being walked back quite rapidly with a variety of peer reviewed studies providing both evidence of this and potential models for explanations; this has not penetrated to the political portion of the AGW crowd yet. This is probably because the science, to my eyes, is rapidly converging on "global warming is unlikely to be a problem in this century, and may even be a net benefit to humanity". I wouldn't be surprised this is the dominant science consensus in ten years.

Well, there's definitely some "utter mathematical illiteracy" going on here. One of the fundamental properties of chaotic systems that, no matter how well characterized the system is, beyond some horizon you cannot predict the exact state the system will be in at a particular point in time - for example, whether a particular summer will be wet or hot and dry.

That doesn't mean that you cannot predict the kinds of behaviour the system will exhibit. You can still predict, for example, that in the long term summers will be hotter and drier. In fact everyone relies on this to some extent - even though it's impossible to predict the weather more than a few days in advance for the same reason, you're still more likely to pack shorts in summer than winter.

The same is true of simple, rigourously analysed chaotic systems like the Lorentz attractor - someone's actually proved that the long-term behaviour of that system is completely stable and will remain that way even in the face of outside noise, but also that even the slightest noise makes it impossible to predict the exact state of the system more than a small amount of time into the future.

> my biggest problem with AGW is indeed the fact that its predictions have an ever-longer history of not coming true.

Are you saying that global temperatures aren't rising? Is the arctic icecap not rapidly getting smaller? I believe even the rising sea level is already measurable (though still small at this point).

The predictions are coming true in a quite alarming fashion.

>Are you saying that global temperatures aren't rising?

They haven't for the last 15 years, so that may be exactly what he is saying.

>Is the arctic icecap not rapidly getting smaller?

It is, but is the antarctic icecap not rapidly getting larger?

> is the antarctic icecap not rapidly getting larger?

To the best of our knowledge the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is gaining mass[1] due to increased precipitation and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass[2] due to acceleration of glaciers. I believe there is also an increase in Antarctic sea ice extent [3]. As far as I know these increases are not enough to offset the reduction in mass in the Arctic but I don't have a comparison to hand. Wait a few days and the IPCC report will probably have a decent summary.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet#Ice_m... [2] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/12/the-he... [3] http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/antarctic-sea-ice-gai...

I don't see how they could offset reduction of mass in the arctic; they're different systems. Note that loss in sea ice doesn't lead to rising sea levels; it's land ice that matters. If Antarctica indeed has a net gain in land ice, then it would be interesting if that offsets the projected loss in glaciers on Greenland. Also relevant is to what extent it's really long term gain in land ice.

> They haven't for the last 15 years, so that may be exactly what he is saying.

I hear people claim that, but I can't find anything that backs it up. From what I can tell, average global temperature in the mid-90s was lower than today. Since about 2000, the rapid rise from before seems to slowing or halting, but it seems a bit early to say that this is a persistent change in the long term trend. The steep climb from before is undeniable.

In other words, the last 15 years have still been a lot warmer than anything before.

Ah, we have a liar.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500....

> Are you saying that global temperatures aren't rising?

Yes, see http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-climate-change-uncerta...

> Is the arctic icecap not rapidly getting smaller?

Well, it's not. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooli...

> I believe even the rising sea level is already measurable

Sure. Global Sea Level Rise Dampened by Australia Floods - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819141610.ht...

Giving the links to the articles which present the views of denialists as facts aren't proof of anything but that there are journalist and media that distort what the most scientist believe.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451344

Three of the Rules of Radicals:

#3: Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.

#5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

#13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

All in one sentence at that. Excellent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

But I wasn't attacking, I was congratulating.

Unlike ACQQ[1], I'm not going to assert that these are climate change denialists, they may well be, but it's irrelevant. You're using news/op-ed citations as evidence for basic questions of fact.

Science news almost universally overstates the effects of particular findings. These sources are more or less fine for announcing a new finding, but when you start to get into debating particular facts, they are utterly inappropriate sources.

In a forum such as Hacker News, you can expect most participants to be capable of reading the relevant portion of a peer reviewed study, and so that is the sort of citation that should be offered. News/op-ed articles bring nothing to the discussion.

And just to be clear, the ancestors our posts made unsubstantiated assertions based on their interpretation of the evidence, so in a sense, they are citing themselves, which in this sort of discussion, I think is fine. It's the appeal to low quality scientific authorities that is the issue.

[1]No offense intended by this at all, just giving a different perspective. ACQQ's comment was a catalyst for my own comment.

> Well, it's not. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooli....

Really? The Daily Mail? And you think a one-year fluctuation contradicts a long term trend?

Had you actually looked into this subject, instead of clinging to some random image that seems to say what you wish to be true, you might have known that 2013 is still the sixth lowest year for arctic icecap size. And the other 5 are in the past 6 years.

You think a random image proves anything, but the only thing it proves is your own ignorance on the subject. The arctic icecap is rapidly getting smaller.

Do you object to climate change in general, or just the anthropocentric portion?

More the catastrophic portion. Is Man affecting climate? Sure. So are ants. Probably less so. Does Man have a good track record predicting what his effects are? No. Do we currently appear to be on a catastrophic course? No.

You specifically said that climate scientists had made predictions that hadn't come true. Now you repeat again that we don't have a good track record. Which predictions in particular are you talking about? How good do our predictions have to be for you to accept them as good enough?

What is your evidence for the current course not being catastrophic? How are you defining catastrophic? To the human species? Or to the daily lives of a couple of billion people? Those are quite different, and the first at least isn't seriously being suggested by scientists that I'm aware of.

See my other reply.

And to be honest, as far as I'm concerned one must seek out predictions that have come true, quite selectively. If you randomly sample the ones that have completion dates in the past, they are almost uniformly false. You speak as if you feel yourself in a position of moral authority, but I do not accept the moral authority of people who choose words over the plain science.

And there's always the big one... those big curves drawn where temperatures go up, up, up over this entire century, where instead they've stayed flat, flat, flat, and we've fallen out of most of the confidence intervals (and very nearly out of the rest). The spinning on how this really is what we predicted all along is getting quite mind boggling. No, the temperature trend of the last 15 years is never what was predicted. It is merely what actually happened.

Goodness help us all if those who think the solar activity level actually sets our temperature on a several-year delay are correct, and the global temperature starts going down. How will that be spun, I wonder? (Though that is merely one possibly theory. At this point I consider the late-1990s catastrophic model that still dominates the discourse plainly false, but it remains rather unclear what is true. I'd still put quite a bit of probability on "the chaotic system is fundamentally unpredictable past a few years" myself. It's been the smart money for the past 20 years and I don't see a lot of reason to move it.)

15 years just isn't long enough: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/double-standard/

Since 1975, global average surface air temperature has increased at a rate of 0.17 deg.C/decade (estimated by linear regression using either the NASA GISS or HadCRUT4 data sets). But the rate of increase hasn’t been perfectly constant over that entire time span.

As a matter of fact, there’s a 15-year time span during which the rate is notably different. Fifteen whole years!!! By at least one calculation, the difference is “statistically significant.”

That 15-year time span covers the years 1992 through 2006, during which the rate of warming was 0.28 deg.C/decade. That’s a lot faster than the warming rate from 1975 to now.

What was your position in 2006, given that 15 year trend? Is your argument that when the 15 year trend is above the longer term trend it's due to natural variability and doesn't indicate a long term change but when it's below then it's due to a real shift and that global temperatures are about to start going down?

Wait, so you're saying the predictions made 15 years ago about the last 15 years are wrong but that's okay because 15 years isn't enough time to make an accurate prediction?

Do we currently appear to be on a catastrophic course? No.

What measure of evidence do your require?

Ditto the case for anthropocentric (human caused) contribution to climate change.

I find this whole report to be rather uplifting. I think that getting off of carbon is going to be much harder than doing something about the carbon. The cost of going carbon-free will be huge. I'm willing to bet that for less money we can find a way to pull it out of the atmosphere. And if there's money to be made, someone will figure out how to recycle it out of the atmosphere.

If only there were money to be made planting trees.

Actually there is. Logging companies do it all the time. Of course they plant the fast growing varieties so they can cut them down as soon as possible so I'm not sure of the benefit of that. Well, maybe if it prevents them from logging other established forests.

The 'things above' being two insignificant newspaper articles over the last 13 years? Get real

Another piece of advice - stop verbally attacking people that are sympathetic to your cause.

They must squash any dissent!

He didn't attack you, he simply dismissed nonsense you stated as he should have.

Irrelevant political rabble rousing about Al Gore's personal finances is not a productive debate from somebody 'sympathetic'. It's just text book concern trolling.

Irrelevant political rabble rousing about Al Gore's personal finances is not a productive debate from somebody 'sympathetic'. It's just text book concern trolling.

For full disclosure, I voted for Al Gore in 2000. Tell me again how I'm politically rabble rousing against him.

Is it at all possible I'm just calling out hypocrisy when I see it?

Because it has no bearing on the science of climate change, and it's very emotive -- a lot of people get the red mist if you mention the name Al Gore. (Note that I'm not American so this is just my impression from afar, but in a UK context you could substitute Thatcher or Blair as politicians that are so polarising that reasoned debate becomes very difficult and inevitably gets bogged down in very angry arguments about coal miners or Iraq).

It might be relevant if we were talking about carbon credits or some specific policy that Al Gore is involved in, but the rest of the time it's just going to take the discussion in a bad direction.

It may seem like I'm saying 'ignore the problem and it will go away' (the problem being Al Gore's hypocrisy). But there will always be people involved with or supportive of a cause that one can find negative things about. Expecting purity from everybody who just happens to agree with you, especially if they are politicians, means you will be waiting forever before you get anything done.

Well, you claimed oil companies and the like have a financial interests in disproving global warming. Why is it not fair game to say the likes of Al Gore and others who push green energy might have the same financial motivations? Because they agree with your views? Where do you draw the line?

Why are Al Gore's finances any less relevant than the finances of those producing reports which are skeptical? It seems to me completely reasonable to consider one if considering the other.

> Why are Al Gore's finances any less relevant

Because Al Gore is not a part of the scientific community and has no relevance to whether anything is happening or not. Any invocation of his name in this debate is simply a sign of severe bias and an attempt to manipulate the argument with emotions instead of facts.

In addition, it would be nice if these people (I'm looking at you, Popular Science) would stop pretending that the opposition is not qualified to challenge their doctrine.

This kind of behavior does not help the pursuit of scientific knowledge in any way.

But that seems to be how it works. I'm mostly sympathetic to the whole climate change thing but every time one of them talks down to me simply based on their assumptions about me, I get a tad upset about it. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Especially when they presume to tell me what my opinion on the matter is before I've even stated it.

> So what they're saying is they are not confident that some degree of warming may occur within a huge band which may do something that sounds really bad (but they don't actually spell out the bad things) in the next 1,000 years.

What? In the quote you included, they do spell out the bad things: the complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, resulting in 7 meters of global sea-level rise. What's unclear about that?

A bit more subtle is what that 1-4 degrees warming means. That's not how much they think the earth will get warmer, that's what they think the threshold for the complete melting of Greenland's ice sheet is. So if we manage to limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees C, there's a good chance it won't melt completely, but if the threshold turns out to be on the low end of the range, it might still melt.

There's also nothing excessively alarmist about this. It's up-front about the 1000 year time scale.

Also, don't blame the scientists for what less-informed alarmists are shouting. Though I agree that it would be easier to inform people if there weren't a ton of people shouting nonsense.

What? In the quote you included, they do spell out the bad things: the complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, resulting in 7 meters of global sea-level rise. What's unclear about that?

Well, it sure sounds bad. But to most people it will be an abstract concept - what does that mean? It's like saying, "dihydrogen monoxide is the principal ingredient in acid rain". Makes water sound scary, doesn't it?

So what does a 7 meter rise in water over 1,000 years mean? Like I said, it sounds scary but is that:

a) We'll lose 3 miles of coastal land scary

OR

b) We'll be in Kevin Costner Water World scary

I don't know the answer to that. They should spell out what the actual impact will be, not make an abstract statement few people have a point of reference about.

You can't just assume away human capability for adaption.

If we have 1000 years to prepare for it, it most likely means that we will gain several miles of coastal land as we discover the best places (which may well be some way out to sea) to build dikes around the (relatively few) places where it's impractical to just move the population.

The Netherlands are often mentioned as the first place to go, but that's disingenuous: Nowhere else is better prepared to slap 50cm each century on top of their existing dikes. No, it's not quite that simple, but it's orders of magnitude simpler than constructing building a dike from scratch around, say, New York City.

At this rate, 50cm is not going to be enough. And you don't slap it just on top, you have to widen the entire dike to make it stronger.

No, we won't be the first place to go; that'll be the Maldives. And we probably can afford the extreme expenditure necessary to increase those dikes. But wouldn't it have been better to prevent that extreme expenditure in the first place?

No, sorry, 50cm per 100 years is too little. It should be 70cm.

The "extreme expenditure" to build dikes is a lot less than the expenditure to not just stop, but revert global warming. Nobody knows if it's even possible, so we might end up wasting all that money and then still having to build dikes.

Do you know how high 7 meters is? It means that all sea dikes in my country need to be increased 7 meters in height (and a lot more than that in width and mass). Or else most of the country will have to be evacuated. Many coastal area (where most of the world's population lives) will be in trouble.

Fortunately, 1000 years is a long time. I've read that Netherland will be able to adapt to a sea level rise of 1 meter in the next century (or maybe two centuries, which would already be a problem), but if it continues to rise at that speed, we'll have to figure out better solutions. In any case, it's going to cost a lot of money. Some minor investment now could prevent a lot of trouble in the future.

But "apres moi le deluge" seems to be the reigning attitude.

I think many of them are stuck with how they can get their message out.

The media won't give them any coverage unless they throw out some disaster quotes, but the public has become tired of the same disaster scenarios that have been possible since 1995.

> So what they're saying is they are not confident that some degree of warming may occur within a huge band which may do something that sounds really bad (but they don't actually spell out the bad things) in the next 1,000 years.

No, what they are saying is that in addition to all the other effects of global warming, melting of a particular chunk of ice will be absolutely irreversible past a particular cutoff point, but the cutoff point is difficult to determine with precision. We are interested in the cutoff point because it will drown billions (sic) of human beings, but any lack of precision about that doesn't mean that the rest of global warming is somehow a mirage.

Most likely we have already passed the cutoff point and melting of the Greenland ice sheet is irreversible.

Just because you're too dim to understand the science here doesn't give you an excuse to mock it.

Just because you're too dim to understand the science here doesn't give you an excuse to mock it.

You right, me stupid.

Does that make you feel better to de-intellectualize someone who gives suggestions? Keep attacking people sympathetic to the cause and see where that gets you.

This is really off topic, sorry in advance.

Why did you use "(sic)"? I always thought it stood for "Spelling InCorrect", but lately I keep seeing people use it in other contexts.

'Sic' is Latin for 'thus,' the meaning in quotations is "no really, what I just wrote." So here it's "actually billions, that's not a mistake"; in a quote with incorrect spelling it's "this is the way it appears in what I'm quoting, it's not my mistake."

I think it's Latin for "I'm not making this quote up!"

Can you explain the mechanism by which billions of people will drown? Displaced perhaps, but drown? I'm fascinated. Are they incapable of, say, walking inland a little bit?

You expect billions of people to walk inland a little bit over the course of a mere 1,000 years?

Well, if only they would learn to swim we could extend that range to at least 1500 years.

Hopefully we've invented boats by then.

> Just because you're too dim to understand the science here doesn't give you an excuse to mock it.

This is "effective" advocacy at its finest. Write an otherwise useful response, then sneak in a personal attack to ensure the other person will not bother listening to you or particularly thinking about what you said.

I will save all of us a bit of time by pointing out in advance the hypocrisy of statements like: "well, if they're going to get emotional instead of being reasonable, piss on them".

> because it will drown billions (sic) of human beings

That definitely fails my sniff-test, but I'm no scholar in the area, so could could please explain how the science do indeed tell us that? Of particular interest is the justification of the word "will", of course meaning definite and inevitable, not some theoretical worst case scenario. The usage of the word also implied that the substantial mitigation efforts surely expected to be undertaken by those at risk will be catastrophically inadequate. Also, the word "drown" strikes me as oddly specific. I always assumed that the most potent causes of death caused by global warming would be secondary, such as starvation, malnutrition, dehydration, severe civil unrest or even war etc.

> Just because you're too dim to understand the science here doesn't give you an excuse to mock it.

What's with the insults?

> Exactly! Global Warming will actually bring more snow!

This is why they renamed it to Climate Change, which is a win situation in any outcome :)

Public opinion is ambivalent on AGW largely due to the efforts of a small group of individuals which spreads FUD for the benefit of powerful interests. In the past, these same hired guns attempted to sway public opinion on acid rain, the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke, the ozone hole, global warming, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the banning of DDT. I recommend the book Merchants of Doubt [1], which documents this in exacting detail.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obs...

The ironic thing is that the only people spreading fear are AGW-theory proponents. If anything, climate change deniers are reducing fear, making your accusation they are spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt a ridiculously easy claim to falsify.

I can't speak as to the agenda of the average climate change denier. However, the fear spread by the anti-AGW lobby is that of a global climate change conspiracy. Uncertainty and doubt are created by casting aspersions on the science.

Unfortunately some AGW proponents are guilty of fear-mongering, but I would also draw a distinction between predicting a bad outcome and spreading fear for fear's sake; it's hard to predict a catastrophe without inspiring a little bit of fear in the audience.

Your use of the word "denier" displays your bias.

But the only fear mongering I've really seen come from climate change "accepters". "Accepters", see how silly it looks when you use silly names?

I've seen people who deny the science, they don't particularly concern me as they are often easy to spot as they refuse to listen to reason. But much the same can be said of the extremes on both sides of a debate.

As for uncertainty and doubt, I thought those were important in science.

That's a naive perspective. AGW Opponents spread FUD about how the proponents want to eviscerate industry and business to serve their feel-good agenda.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you start out criticising the cautious language of uncertainty, and then criticise others for making specific predictions that turn out to be wrong?

I'm perfectly happy with that cautious sentence, as it is as true as it can be stated given today's knowledge (I assume; I haven't looked into it). It's not a very good headline, but reality has a habit of being complicated.

"Luckily", we have plenty of people who are more interested in saying simple things that everybody can understand, like "snow is a thing of the past". Unfortunately, exciting scientific headlines have a habit of being wrong…

You seem to have a severe emotional response to data reports about global warming. The thing to remember is that how that data is reported doesn't actually matter. Reserve your angst for actual errors. The dramatic flashy wrappers people use is to try and reach people who would otherwise be watching ice truck drivers on the "History Channel".

If the reporting of that data includes a one-sided interpretation of that data, including denouncing anyone who may question said interpretation, then how it is reported does indeed matter and is a big part of the problem described.

Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda.

> Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda.

The science says that the Earth is getting warmer, and it's getting warmer because of people. If you think this interpretation is bad science and propaganda, then you are simply mistaken.

You need to read my post again.

I was not commenting on the science, I was commenting on how it is being reported.

It's probably being reported as the Earth getting warmer due to people. As that's what's happening.

Glad to see that you know the whole truth and can go about your life ignoring anyone that may question your ideology.

Sadly, I was educated that perfection is impossible and to always question because sometimes people get it wrong when they thought they were right.

Looks like there's no data in the world that's going to convince you away from what you already want to believe, no matter how overwhelming. Good luck to you.

...stop making inaccurate predictions about what is going to happen.

Really?

You link to an article specifically about snowfall in Britain and then dismiss it with the counter evidence of record snowfall else where.

You need to try harder.

...losing the war of public opinion.

FUD. Good job. Please. Continue.

Please. Continue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9950516/Worst-Marc...

I encourage you to read past the headlines. Assuming your personal scientific methodology permits it.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;ses...

Is that generated text? Mostly unreadable.

Let's review. First article states, perhaps poorly, that snow will become less frequent and more extreme. Pretty much in line with all predictions.

Second, I learned that it can snow in the UK. Terrific.

Third, it actually snowed in the UK. A lot. Everyone's shocked. You cite this as bad PR or bad predictions or something.

I'm going to call this one a push. I'll now give you the benefit of the doubt. You blame the scientists for irresponsible reporting done by the corporate entertainment industry. I think that's unfair. But you probably haven't ever tried to get "the media" to cover an important story, correctly, much less at all.

Well, when years ago someone predicts no more snow at all and suddenly there's more snow than before, it would seem there's a problem somewhere.

Snow becomes less frequent and more extreme as compared to what? On a big enough timeline you could probably show a series of different outcomes relating to climate that will say whatever you want it to say. Who's to say that less frequent but more extreme snow is a bad thing? Maybe it used to be normal, become less common, and now we're returned to what used to be normal.

I admit though that I've never been to the UK nor was I around for the last major ice age so I don't know about snowfall in the UK over the years.

One side effect of anthropogenic global warming is exponential increases in straw and herring.