Climate Change Predictions

[Bret Ripley]

I only made it about a third of the way through the video, by which point it was obvious the presenter is only interested in pulling my leg. Remarkably, he doesn't seem to have engaged with any actual predictions: rather, he cites old articles that quote someone-or-other as saying a certain thing may possibly happen, and then calls it a prediction. This guy isn't serious, is he?

Whether this guy is serious or not is to miss the point entirely, in my opinion.

Fair enough, but you snipped the part of my message that doesn't seem to be beside the point:

"Experts in every field make predictions, and inevitably some of them don't pan out. So what?

"If most or all predictions made by experts in a given field prove to be wrong, that could point to problems with methodology or the data (for example), but when singling out any given data point (in this instance, incorrect predictions) it is vital to consider to what degree the data point is representative of the set as a whole, or to what degree it is an outlier. Does the video make a case that incorrect predictions are somehow relevant to the issue as a whole?"

Whether or not these predictions are representative or outliers -- whether they even matter -- should be relevant, shouldn't it? Unless I'm completely missing the point of this exercise ...

The point is whether any of the climate experts, who made these catastrophic predictions, were serious. For example, the 2018 Forbes article (that I already posted in this thread in its entirety) where James Anderson, a Harvard University professor of atmospheric chemistry said the following:

"The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero," Anderson said, with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years."

And? In the context of the overall evidence regarding climate change, why do a few incorrect predictions matter?

Does it get better (or at least relevant), or is the whole video made up of this sort of fluff? Cuz I kind of want my 7 minutes back.

I guess that depends of what you consider relevant and/or what you consider fluff. Either way, I can't get your 7 minutes back - If I could, I would. for what it's worth, I wish I could the time I have spent in this thread back too.

That is entirely understandable.

[canpakes]

To offer some degree of balance, headlines and activist statements are often alarmist.

To go along with that, much of what is labeled as ‘science news’ produced for general public consumption is often simplified to the point of uselessness, and/or lacks critical context.

Ceeboo wants us to question something, but he can’t bring himself to define exactly what it is. He wants to suggest that a topic of scientific inquiry and agreement should be doubted in some way (again, not explained what or how) because a limited number of people have made some specific predictions that didn’t pan out in some way that he cannot describe. No consideration to the wider scientific community’s quiet and diligent work is given by Ceeboo.

The evidence provided to support his undefined case is a partisan and politicized video filled with inaccurate or misleading statements. This is presented while simultaneously complaining that the subject has been politicized by those that disagree with that video.

When pressed further to explain why folks should buy into doubting climate science’s current conclusions, an article from a financial magazine that omitted important context, and the tweet of a teenager - and how they both got something wrong - are presented.

To Ceeboo: This may not be the audience that you’re looking for. There may be too many people in this bunch of forum participants who are willing to read scientific information directly from the sources that created or compiled it.

Not everyone wants to have their occasional dose of science layered over with alarmist rhetoric or bizarro conspiracy theories claiming that scientists have reached these conclusions because they all have a vested interest in turning the world into a dystopian, oil-free hellhole, where - instead of being applauded for rolling coal on electric cars and their drivers - we’ll all be forced to be mindless libtard automatons living in darkened huts and surviving on a diet of bug gruel and baby foreskins*.

*credit to Roseanne Barr

[Moksha]

Not everyone wants to have their occasional dose of science layered over with alarmist rhetoric or bizarro conspiracy theories claiming that scientists have reached these conclusions because they all have a vested interest in turning the world into a dystopian, oil-free hellhole, where - instead of being applauded for rolling coal on electric cars and their drivers - we’ll all be forced to be mindless libtard automatons living in darkened huts and surviving on a diet of bug gruel and baby foreskins.

Not Ceeboo,

he will evolve to meet the challenge!

[Gadianton]

Wondering - You have read the OP, yes? How about the thread, have you read that too?

Yes and Yes. (you're getting owned in the thread)

How much do you need to know about this subject to read an article and have the ability to recognize that the predictions were wrong?

A decent amount.

How much would you need to know about Helioseismology to be a bit skeptical about an article written in 2015 that said the Sun would no longer exist by the year 2022?

Not much.

[ceeboo]

Whether this guy is serious or not is to miss the point entirely, in my opinion.

Fair enough, but you snipped the part of my message that doesn't seem to be beside the point:

My snip was not intended to erase context (my apologies) - I have a habit that when I reply, I usually skip the above paragraphs in order to be clear about what I am replying to (perhaps a bad habit, but that's just what usually I do).

Whether or not these predictions are representative or outliers -- whether they even matter -- should be relevant, shouldn't it? Unless I'm completely missing the point of this exercise ...

Good point - Yes, if these articles are outliers (30 or so in the linked video - perhaps selected by design?) that is entirely relevant in my view.

[ceeboo]

Wondering - You have read the OP, yes? How about the thread, have you read that too?

Yes and Yes. (you're getting owned in the thread)

Perhaps, but I never worry too much about such things.

Getting owned, while usually not very pleasant, isn't always the end of the story. Sometimes, it's the very thing that brings personal growth and humility.

[Bret Ripley]

Fair enough, but you snipped the part of my message that doesn't seem to be beside the point:

My snip was not intended to erase context (my apologies) - I have a habit that when I reply, I usually skip the above paragraphs in order to be clear about what I am replying to (perhaps a bad habit, but that's just what usually I do).

No worries, old friend. Let he who is without sin eat the first scone, and all that.

[Gadianton]

Unhinged, low-life right-wingers who have limited value as human beings, such as the guy in the OP linked video, have similar problems that flat earthers have, in that to prove a scientific prediction wrong, they must rely on science, their enemy, to do so. So, in one of the first examples, this foolish person cites parts of a newspaper article from 1958 that refers to "some scientists" who apparently said that arctic ice may open up over the north pole in their children's lifetimes. Yeah: "may," and it's still on track to happening. My dad was a young man at the time, and I've got a few years left, I will probably live through the 2040s and we shall see. He goes on to mention that the article said the arctic ice was 7 feet thick in 1958, and then he cites a current scientific authority, a website called Polar Portal, that he claims says the polar ice is still on average 7 feet thick.

If you stop the video, you can see the screen he's looking at, and you can go to the website and look at the very screen itself. It's highly unlikely that the Danish Arctic research institute is going to be on the same page as a jackass know-nothing from Epoch Times. We don't actually know what that NYT article said, I'm not going to subscribe just to get that article, but stop the video at 2:34 and look at the screen he's looking at. See the note on the right that discusses thickness, extent, and volume. Volume is the bottom line, and there is a graphic you can see that he's looking at that shows ice volume in Jan - Feb 2024 is 15 to 19 k km cubed. Whereas, in 2004-2013, it's 19 to 23k km cubed. And if you go to the website itself and change the date to 2011, it shows Jan - Feb 2007 is 21 - 25k km cubed. What a pathetic liar -- he's lying to you while the truth is right there on the screen!

If you go to the "about us" on the website your idiot from the Epoch Times cited as an authority, they say:

Arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet are monitored closely primarily due to the fact that the global rise in air temperature has had significant impacts in the Arctic. The temperature in the Arctic has increased twice as much as the global average. The effects of this can be identified in all parts of what is called the Arctic cryosphere (cold sphere): The ice sheet, the land-based glaciers and ice caps, the permafrost and the Arctic sea ice.
.....
In recent decades the ice sheet has begun to shrink, meaning that the ice sheet loses more mass in the form of melt water or icebergs than it receives from precipitation. This process of mass loss started around 1990 and has accelerated since the year 2000. The mass loss in recent years is approximately four times greater than it was before 2000. This has already had consequences in the Arctic and beyond.

He can cite sources like this and lie about them all he wants because he knows his audience will never be skeptical enough to check for themselves.

[ceeboo]

Unhinged, low-life right-wingers who have limited value as human beings such as the guy in the OP linked video

How do you weigh the value of human beings and how do you make a determination if a specific individual is a low-life with limited value?

Take me for example: Am I a low-life human being with limited value?

[Chap]

Unhinged, low-life right-wingers who have limited value as human beings such as the guy in the OP linked video

How do you weigh the value of human beings and how do you make a determination if a specific individual is a low-life with limited value?

Take me for example: Am I a low-life human being with limited value?

Nope. You are a highly appreciated and world famous duck.