Now don't get me wrong, I would rather our energy come from clean sources, but as a principal of healthy lungs not changing climate. There's much much much stronger evidence that the actual sun is affecting our climate more than anything right now.
When things don't fit the narrative, all funding and direction is cut off.
I find data compelling as well. That's not my argument at all.
I am just saying that there is no room for dissent both in academia, but as you said it is even more insane in the policy sphere.
I find any area in science that's strongly guarded in combination with media, corporations, governments and group think extremely problematic, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.
There comes a point where the evidence and consensus are so strong that dissenting opinions are no longer worth considering. If someone in acadamia tries to say the Earth is flat, would you expect them to be taken seriously, or laughed out of their profession?
I think and hope we all agree here now about flat earth not being true. But most science debate is politicized. At every turn we optimize what we already believe is true. Thus what studies get funded? The ones where the main researcher already said coal/gas/etc. is causing climate change. The ones that don't? Sunspot activity researchers.
The WAY this post will be replied to and downvoted IS the thing we're talking about. If you don't want to repeat history as has been for a 10000 years of human history, start listening to dissenting opinion more. At least more.
Climate science isn't settled, although the data is compelling, more needs to be done and level set, separate wheat from the chaff. Investigate incentives, censorship and funding. Evidence is nowhere as strong as defining the radius of the earth or questioning the law of Gravity.
There is a giant machinery of Big Tech + ESG + Environmentalists + MSM that's spinning up the public opinions on climate change to the point where it is everywhere from products we buy to Apple keynotes, from Tinder profiles to corporate PR releases. It has become a religion of sorts. That alone makes me question every aspect of the policies, but also the underlying science.
While I agree in the general sense that climate science is worthy of scrutiny (as any other science is), anthropogenic contributions to climate change have been proven to 5σ certainly via satellite data for some time now. It's not as certain as the radius of the earth at a given point in time, but it is as certain as the existence of the Higgs boson. At this point, any contrary assessment would requires an extraordinarily robust rebuttal.
If you're going on the "science is corrupted because they have an agenda" route, then perhaps include the fact that the fossil fuel industry is highly incentivized to subvert science to protect their profits.
Yeah people said that point had been reached for COVID too - within weeks. It hadn't and tons of stuff with "strong consensus" turned out to be wrong or worse, deliberate lies.
Climatology is nowhere near as certain as the shape of the earth. It's filled with modelling projections, and dubious or outright manipulated evidence. Just look at the way they edit historical temperature data. It's so heavily edited that large swathes of scientific papers from the 40s 50s and 60s are now in open contradiction with current temperature graphs of the 20th century. Then it happened again in the first decade of the century - there was famously a "pause" in global warming that later they decided had never happened at all. Once again, at a stroke huge piles of research were invalidated.
To compare a field that routinely invalidates decades of its own research by rewriting historical temperature measurements, to the shape of the earth, is not intellectually honest. The gap between these things is vast.
The evidence is all based on models, controlled by the very people who have incentive for those models to support their claims (scientists receiving grants, corporate kickbacks, etc and NGOs/politicians doing the same).
For decades, the very people who support these models have been telling people we're just a few short years away from the demise of the species...only for nothing to happen (and for the very things they claim to be getting worse, actually getting better). Again, and again, and again. First it was global warming, then it was "climate change" (hint: the climate always changes—the real subtext here is Malthusian discontent for humanity, not a desire to protect nature).
Those very same people, too, go out of their way to dismiss technology like nuclear energy and carbon capture which can solve the problem they claim to wish to solve (reducing and/or eliminating emissions). Why? Because if they solve the problem, they can't milk subsidies from the government and will actually have to find real work to do. Not just parading around (in f*cking private jets pouring out emissions) and self-flagellating at conferences and "summits."
The whole thing is a gigantic self-defeating farce, that, when looked at through the lens of objectivity makes about as much sense as Scientology (the comparison to a religion, here, being purposeful). The parallels to the COVID groupthink are apt, correct, and the exact same candy bar in a different wrapper.
The evidence includes the actual record of rising temperatures, rising CO2 levels, and laboratory experiments that confirm that the greenhouse effect exists. None of those are just models.
I'm extremely surprised that even a single scientific paper predicted the demise of the species due to climate change within a few years. Could you point me to such a thing?
> The evidence includes the actual record of rising temperatures, rising CO2 levels, and laboratory experiments that confirm that the greenhouse effect exists. None of those are just models.
No, but the things actually being cited—namely, the IPCC annual reports—as the pretext for a lot of the foolish policy we're seeing, are based on models.
> I'm extremely surprised that even a single scientific paper predicted the demise of the species due to climate change within a few years. Could you point me to such a thing?
No, that rhetoric often comes from misinterpretations/misrepresentations of scientific papers and statistics (by politicians, the media, and leaders of NGOs) which is then used to justify the aforementioned foolish policy.
Which is frustrating as the papers often denote a problem existing, but not as one without remedy. And this is the crux of the problem: the argument is framed as being whether or not climate change exists (anyone who doesn't swallow the narrative whole is automatically a "climate denier") and not "given that it exists—and we know the cause—why are we ignoring viable solutions to those causes in favor of less-viable half-solutions that exacerbate the problem?"
Some time back there was definitely a loud "denier" voice, but I think this is gone from all but the fringe.
The disagreement today isn't about the science, but about policy - what should be done about it, what's the cost/benefit analysis, and so forth. There's a sizable faction that wants to avoid this conversation by yelling about "Science(tm)!", which cuts off the actual policy discussion before it can get started.
I think the disagreement is about the extent to which these events will be damaging first and foremost, and policy discussions stem from that. I know plenty of people who concur "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas" and all that comes with that, but don't believe that humans are going to destroy the planet within 8 years or whatever the doomsday date is nowadays. That's the big driver for climate change denial, not science skepticism, but over the top fearmongering rhetoric by the public figures championing climate change. The people actually trying to solve this problem are doing a disservice with their dramaticism. They discredit themselves with it, and unfortunately their cause will suffer because of it.
With enough funding, you can find evidence for anything. With climate change's funding of $632B anually, I could provide you with a mountain of evidence that Cheez Wiz effectively fights lung cancer.
Show me the research grants available for disproving man-made climate change. If researchers want to make a paycheck, they find evidence for what they are paid to find or next year they find a new job.
There is a real crisis. But it starts with the crisis of science and the rise of scientism.
Considering that the energy companies have been funding counter-research against climate change for most of my life, I think you're looking in the wrong direction.
This is a fear-based issue that has only proven to be a infinite source of money for those involved. The only incentive is to spread more fear to keep increasing their payday. One needs only to look at the "solutions" provided to combat it.
A carbon tax? Do what you like, push any additional costs onto the customer. As long as we get our money, climate change is solved!
Strawman. What if a scientist finds real evidence that goes against the zeitgeist. They'd have a hard time doing anything on today's climate tolatitarianism, no journal would publish them, they'd be outsed by the academic group think.
Your argument is dismissive and similar to flat earthers and hoaxers. I am not referring to climate deniers. I just want people to feel that there is room for questioning climate science with science.
The litmus test is this: It would be remarkably easy to publish fake climate science if a scientist want to, say due to ideological reasons, since we've completely silenced the criticism machinery in this area.
> What if a scientist finds real evidence that goes against the zeitgeist
They'd be a fucking hero. I know a few atmospheric science faculty. They are hyper distraught at the data. They'd love nothing more than to find out that actually we are going to be fine. Being able to keep burning coal for centuries would be a huge boon for reducing poverty worldwide. It'd be amazing. This hypothetical researcher would have among the most positive influences on human prosperity of any human to ever live.
Journals select for novel results that upend prior work. Strong analysis that demonstrated that the existing research is wrong would be front page cover of Science or Nature shit.
By declaring that there is a cabal that will silence quality research it allows people to dismiss the entire professional community without actually doing any work whatsoever.
> The litmus test is this: It would be remarkably easy to publish fake climate science if a scientist want to, say due to ideological reasons, since we've completely silenced the criticism machinery in this area.
What do you mean by fake? Could you throw together a bunch of fake numbers that match existing expectations and get that published? Sure, so long as it didn't get rejected for lack of novelty. But this is true for everything. I could read that falling objects accelerate at 9.8m/s2 in a book and decide to make up some observations that match this and submit that to a journal. This doesn't demonstrate that gravity is hokey. It just demonstrates that paper reviewers aren't especially well equipped to identify fraudulent observations.
Also, the number of grad students working their ass off trying to get their research published and getting their work rejected demonstrates pretty clearly that it is not "remarkably easy" to publish whatever you want as long as it aligns with the existing best thinking.
Have you heard about Ignaz Semmelweis? He went against the medical establishment to demonstrate that surgeons hand-washing between operation is a disease prevention system.
tl;dr he died alone and poor in an insane asylum for being a science "heretic". Same freaking story as all the doctors who were silenced during this "pandemic". [1]
>Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating. His findings earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory, giving Semmelweis' observations a theoretical explanation, and Joseph Lister, acting on Pasteur's research, practised and operated using hygienic methods, with great success.
Yes. Everybody has heard of this story. It comes from a time when the way that scientific research was identified, shared, and evaluated was entirely different both at a structural and individual level. It is also famous as shit in part because the story is so dramatic and unusual. I do not believe that it is in any way indicative that revolutionary research which demonstrated that CO2 emissions can be massively increased without generating meaningful planet-scale warming would be made inaccessible.
ExxonMobil would be shouting it from the tops of the hills at every second of every day. The GOP would hold nonstop hearings for these researchers to present their work over and over and over. And I'm telling you that existing atmospheric science faculty would weep with joy over this news.
>Also, the number of grad students working their ass off trying to get their research published and getting their work rejected demonstrates pretty clearly that it is not "remarkably easy" to publish whatever you want as long as it aligns with the existing best thinking.
While it isn't "remarkably easy" to publish what you want, even when it aligns with the establishment position, it is always infinitely harder to get what you want published when it conflicts with the establishment position (when it comes to "mainstream" publications).
It would have been career suicide to go against the narrative with covid. Witness what happens to any paper published that suggests things in covid-land might not be as bad as claimed. They first get discredited as "not peer reviewed" and their authors get thrown to the wolves. Same with anything that shows masks don't really work very well. Or lockdowns don't work well. "Not peer reviewed" and "authors are bozos".
These same people have absolutely no problem accepting papers that are based on crazy computer models using garbage data or "studies" that don't mimic anything real with very small sample sizes.
Anything that goes with the narrative that covid is the worst thing ever and that masks are awesome was cheered on. It didn't matter how flimsy the research was. As long as it supported the cause it was golden.
This is science, though, isn't it? There's a mountain of evidence for X, and someone finds a little evidence for Y. No one accepts it, naturally, since there's relatively little evidence for it. But over decades, perhaps the evidence grows and Y reaches acceptance parity, and then maybe goes on to exceed X and be the dominant theory. E.g. plate tectonics and continental drift.
There's a very large difference in that COVID science was weeks to months old and extremely urgent, which caused a lot of wacky behaviors due to organizations panicking.
Climate science has been churning for decades. Would disagreeing conclusions be laughed off at first? Sure, probably. When most disagreement has been junk science by quacks, it's natural to reflexively make that assumption of new disagreement. But there's ample time and space for new studies to be analyzed, expanded on, replicated.
But as COVID science got clearer, the spreaders of fake news (“vaccines prevent virus” “masks work” “kids are endangered”) didn’t bear any responsibility nor suffer any consequences.
Same as with climate science. When predictions turn wrong (glaciers still existing in 2020, Great Barrier Reef recovering) everyone just moves on to new fear-mongering.
What kind of consequences do you want those people to suffer?
Surely you aren't going to argue the the vaccines did more harm than good?
Or that wearing a mask caused someone personal harm?
Or that trying to keep kids safe was a bad idea? My wife personally took care of many sick covid kids. They had all kinds of weird ailments no one was used to pre-pandemic.
Not sure why you are citing glaciers still existing as something to stand on, they are clearly and measurably disappearing.
At the very least they should lose their jobs/positions, never again be in position of power or consequential decision making, and the institutions that promoted them, should internally review their policies so the lies don’t happen again.
I was shocked, as was my Doctor wife, that the government appeared to deliberately withhold firstline treatment options, and non-vaccine therapeutics
Her response, "What is the standard of care for Covid patients first presenting?"
There were none for years, the Govt conspired with BigTech to characterize doctors like Zelenko (RIP) and McCullough as loony quacks when they came up with their own protocols for treatment.
Yet, later on the govt did come out with protocols that strangely, mimicked Zelenko & McCullough's material.
> Yet, later on the govt did come out with protocols that strangely, mimicked Zelenko & McCullough's material.
No no no this is disinformation! A protocol which includes *checks notes* Pfizermectin is totally different than a protocol which includes ivermectin. You can't compare the two!
There haven't been any high-quality studies (consistent with evidence-based medicine criteria) which show ivermectin to be clinically effective as an early COVID-19 treatment. If you know of such a study then could you please provide a citation?
If by "Pfizermectin" you are referring to Paxlovid, that is not accurate. There are significant biochemical and pharmacokinetic differences between the molecules.
on Ivermectin the evidence is over the place. Many of the foreign studies definitely show benefit. Many of the other studies don't. It is a real trainwreck. Consequently, I think it is safe to say that this is up in the air.
However, the McCullough protocol [1], and the closely related Zelenko protocols were not only about Ivermectin, HCQ, or Zinc, but instead cocktails of drugs with proven efficacy, and an overall approach to treatment prior to hospitalization.
Referencing the late 2020 publication:
Sanitization
Masks
hand washing / hand sanitizer
Fresh air / Air circulation
Negative pressure air isolation
Supplements:
Zinc with hydroxychloroquine
Vitamin D & Vitamin C
Antivirals / Antibiotics
Quercetin
Favipiravir
Azithromycin
Doxycycline
Mono-Clonal antibodies
bamlanivimab (MAB)
casirivimab and imdevimab (MABs)
If the evidence for ivermectin is really "all over the place" then could you please provide a citation? I'm only asking for a single high-quality RCT. Any one will do. The single link you provided is not that.
> Effectiveness of lockdowns and mask mandates is still hotly contested, for instance
The fact their effectiveness is still being questioned suggests that we never should have done them in the first place. You don't get to make broad, highly disruptive mandates with almost zero evidence they would even work.
For the mandates to actually be worth it, you should be able to show the data to any reasonable person and they'd immediately see an order of magnitude difference between test & control. The fact you can barely tell florida apart from california is pretty damning. If you need fancy math to see a difference, it wasn't worth it.
> The fact their effectiveness is still being questioned suggests that we never should have done them in the first place.
Not necessarily. Precautionary principle and all when we didn't know much. Mask mandates aren't that disruptive. Lockdowns obviously more disruptive, and definitely justified at the very beginning when we didn't know anything.
The era of the precautionary principle ended the day all the field hospitals closed virtually unused. That should have been the complete end of all mandates. Covid clearly wasn’t as bad as what all these “experts” computer models suggested so there was no reason to continue acting out of such great caution.
Instead governors doubled down. That was the end of “science and data” and the beginning of 2.5 years of stupidity.
In principle, HCQ can be effective against some coronaviruses and not others. Ditto for masks. So I'm not convinced we knew anything specific about COVID-19 just due to prior research, but the precautionary principle suggests being overly conservative in most assumptions.
Fauci actually did mislead the public about masks, but he actually believed they were effective, so he lied to the public claiming their ineffectiveness at first due to fears of shortages.
I was always onboard with the climate change agenda until 2020. Now I understand that this is "political science" (the application of "science" as interpreted by people in power) as opposed to pure "science". See the current Dutch farmer protests and those in Sri Lanka, and soon to come in Canada.