Part of my problem with arguing about AGW is that it has gotten to the point that it’s not a science question, it’s a political question at this point. So I can be reasonably sure that any “scientific evidence” that will be announced will come from one faction or another, and will have been carefully vetted by the policy board to ensure that it hews to the party line. (Whichever party it comes from. All sides are equally to blame as far as I can tell.)
In this kind of environment, it’s hard to take any evidence at face value. Both (all) sides accuse the others of double-counting evidence, hiding unflattering data points, and shading results and simulations.
The only thing that makes any sense in this context is to compare historical projections to the world. Some AGW proponents seem to have over-predicted doom, so I heavily discount doom projections. It’s not obvious that the worldwide climate is warmer than the (very) long term trend would indicate. There seems to be obfuscation about polar melting. It seems obvious that sea levels rising is miniscule to date. Climate change doesn’t make any specific predictions AFAICT that have been upheld.
There are probably other rules of thumb that ought to be useful in this context, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment.
Part of my problem with arguing about AGW is that it has gotten to the point that it’s not a science question, it’s a political question at this point. So I can be reasonably sure that any “scientific evidence” that will be announced will come from one faction or another, and will have been carefully vetted by the policy board to ensure that it hews to the party line. (Whichever party it comes from. All sides are equally to blame as far as I can tell.)
In this kind of environment, it’s hard to take any evidence at face value. Both (all) sides accuse the others of double-counting evidence, hiding unflattering data points, and shading results and simulations.
The only thing that makes any sense in this context is to compare historical projections to the world. Some AGW proponents seem to have over-predicted doom, so I heavily discount doom projections. It’s not obvious that the worldwide climate is warmer than the (very) long term trend would indicate. There seems to be obfuscation about polar melting. It seems obvious that sea levels rising is miniscule to date. Climate change doesn’t make any specific predictions AFAICT that have been upheld.
There are probably other rules of thumb that ought to be useful in this context, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment.