What are your current beliefs on climate change? Specifically, would you defer to the view that greenhouse gas forcing is the main source of long-term climate change? How long-term? Would you defer to the IPCC range for climate sensitivity estimates?
I’m fairly confident about the sign, but not the magnitude of climate change. I’m not sure that greenhouse forcing is the principle component. IPCC estimates seem pretty reasonable since they were scaled down a while back.
What were your beliefs on climate change when you first came across the subject, and how did your views evolve (if at all) on further reading (if you did any)?
I didn’t have much of an opinion at first. I saw that warming was believed by scientists and believed it. Then I saw a bunch of politicization and became somewhat contrarian. I went seeking out information to confirm or disprove my contrarianism and found a whole bunch of uncertainty. I became confident that people who were confident about the area were wrong. I investigated economic analysis of best and worst case scenarios and concluded it wasn’t worth paying attention to.
What are some surprising things you learned when reading up about climate change that led you to question your beliefs
Climate sensitivity and public choice issues in climate science. Climate science was my first exposure to a scientific field in disarray with money flowing based on politics rather than truth seeking. This eventually lead me to being more skeptical of claims in lots of other fields as I studied public choice and statistics.
If you read my recent posts linked above, did the posts contain information that was new to you?
No, but this exercise of tracking beliefs was good.
I’m fairly confident about the sign, but not the magnitude of climate change. I’m not sure that greenhouse forcing is the principle component. IPCC estimates seem pretty reasonable since they were scaled down a while back.
I didn’t have much of an opinion at first. I saw that warming was believed by scientists and believed it. Then I saw a bunch of politicization and became somewhat contrarian. I went seeking out information to confirm or disprove my contrarianism and found a whole bunch of uncertainty. I became confident that people who were confident about the area were wrong. I investigated economic analysis of best and worst case scenarios and concluded it wasn’t worth paying attention to.
Climate sensitivity and public choice issues in climate science. Climate science was my first exposure to a scientific field in disarray with money flowing based on politics rather than truth seeking. This eventually lead me to being more skeptical of claims in lots of other fields as I studied public choice and statistics.
No, but this exercise of tracking beliefs was good.