Michael Larkin
Member
be sure to check out the Q&A at the end, some folks press the issue... her response is interesting.
of course all this plays into what Don is saying about modeling these kinds of systems.
OK--I have now watched the whole video. Once again, I come away mightily impressed with Judith Curry. One can't help but admire expertise coupled with humility. She didn't stand up and rant as some on either side of the debate are wont to do, and to any unbiased observer, I think that should provide food for thought. This is the kind of debate we should have been having right from the beginning, but it hasn't been a scientific debate, has it? It's been an ideology-driven debate, and the pressure has been on from the get-go to come up with the verdict the ideology demanded.
As I see it, with the demise of conventional religion, elements of a moral/ethical framework have been discarded. Something has to fill the vacuum. The new framework depends to a fair degree on ecological concerns, some of which are genuinely pressing, but not, I believe, AGW. Ostensibly, it's a rational, scientific issue being driven by empirical evidence, but IMO, evidence is being manipulated and exaggerated to promote a moral/ideological aim. The effect is very similar to that religion has had in the past on some of the rational aspects of human thought and behaviour: a delaying of societal evolution.
It's one thing to have moral/ethical aims and to recognise that's what they are, honestly putting forward one's case in those terms. It's deeply troubling when that becomes masked in the garb of science. I for one can see a case for a lessening of consumerism in the West, and for less profligacy in resource usage; but for me that's a moral issue, and not one supported by convincing scientific evidence that anthropogenic CO2 is the major evil of our times. It's a case of a fortuitous scapegoat having arisen at around the same period in history that the West was losing its old value system.
The lord only knows what will happen if eventually what I believe to be a latter day cross between Tulip Mania and Lysenkoism is revealed as just that. The implications would be far-reaching, and the culprits would be scurrying under the skirting boards to distance themselves from the fallout; the scientific establishment would become even more derided. I think that's fully understood and accounts for certain acolytes doubling down: the more AGW is being challenged as a major issue, the harder they're digging in their heels; but what choice do they have? There's too much at stake to admit to even the smallest possibility of error. I think it's FUBAR, completely FUBAR.
Last edited: