The Blindness of Scientific Prognosticators

[ronwagn + 6,290]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/how-to-predict-the-future/588040/

The Peculiar Blindness of Experts

Credentialed authorities are comically bad at predicting the future. But reliable forecasting is possible.

DAVID EPSTEIN

JUNE 2019 ISSUE

[David Jones + 84]

Maybe this is some backhanded attempt at challenging the general scientific consensus of specialists in anthropogenic global warming? If it is, you should be aware that this is not the same type of problem as any we have faced before and there is already plenty of evidence to suggest predictions of even 3c within a century will materialize. Assuming more feet dragging and further increases in global emissions, we can expect >4c. That sort of change is basically a different planetary climate phase. There's plenty of historical evidence to show that a lot of species simply don't make it through such phase changes and if they don't make it while these changes happen over millennia, there's little rational expectation to expect them to make it when the change happens over the course of a single century. A lot of work has gone into analysing AGW, this isn't just a single person with a book somewhere, it's a collection of observational evidence, historical evidence, powerful modelling and so on. There are literally hundreds, likely thousands of research papers on the issue.

More importantly, the temperature anomaly of about 1c above the average for the past 2000 years which is more or less where we are today can be counted from about 1980, not 1850.This suggests a rate of increase of about 0.026c per year or just above 3c by 2100. Even during the early periods of proper warming, where we weren't emitting nearly as much globally as we are today (before the 1980s), the multidecadal cycle low in the middle of the 20th century did not result in a complete retracement back to levels below the average like they were present back in 1850. It was merely more a more or less flat correction. It's unlikely we can expect the next downward phase of the multidecadal cycle to provide a substantial reduction in warming assuming this is what sceptics are hoping for. There simply doesn't seem to be any observational evidence to suggest that this will be the case and the opposite is likely to be true based on what happened during the middle of last century.

There is also no precedent for completely reorganizing a global technological society over the course of a few decades which is basically the time we have left to do exactly this due to excessive feet dragging. There's little chance that "human ingenuity" will pull us out of this one if we wait even longer, especially considering how long it takes to train potential geniuses (Einstein didn't write his General Relativity theory in his diapers). It could have been a case of 70 years to transition, now it's a case of 30-40 years maximum. In less than the time it takes to finish an education, it'll be a case of 20 years. Think we can transition to alternatives and build sufficient carbon capture equipment on a global scale in order to zero out our emissions and sequester tens of gigatons of CO2 within 20 years time or less (especially since it requires 500kg of CO2 to sequester 1000kg in some cases and the energy it would require to do this would be astronomical by itself)? I'd say only majorly delusional people would expect this to be possible on such a scale and with so little time even for a completely benign and cooperative global society which we certainly are not, especially when more severe damages arrive to pressure us further.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

11 hours ago, David Jones said:

Maybe this is some backhanded attempt at challenging the general scientific consensus of specialists in anthropogenic global warming? If it is, you should be aware that this is not the same type of problem as any we have faced before and there is already plenty of evidence to suggest predictions of even 3c within a century will materialize. Assuming more feet dragging and further increases in global emissions, we can expect >4c. That sort of change is basically a different planetary climate phase. There's plenty of historical evidence to show that a lot of species simply don't make it through such phase changes and if they don't make it while these changes happen over millennia, there's little rational expectation to expect them to make it when the change happens over the course of a single century. A lot of work has gone into analysing AGW, this isn't just a single person with a book somewhere, it's a collection of observational evidence, historical evidence, powerful modelling and so on. There are literally hundreds, likely thousands of research papers on the issue.

More importantly, the temperature anomaly of about 1c above the average for the past 2000 years which is more or less where we are today can be counted from about 1980, not 1850.This suggests a rate of increase of about 0.026c per year or just above 3c by 2100. Even during the early periods of proper warming, where we weren't emitting nearly as much globally as we are today (before the 1980s), the multidecadal cycle low in the middle of the 20th century did not result in a complete retracement back to levels below the average like they were present back in 1850. It was merely more a more or less flat correction. It's unlikely we can expect the next downward phase of the multidecadal cycle to provide a substantial reduction in warming assuming this is what sceptics are hoping for. There simply doesn't seem to be any observational evidence to suggest that this will be the case and the opposite is likely to be true based on what happened during the middle of last century.

There is also no precedent for completely reorganizing a global technological society over the course of a few decades which is basically the time we have left to do exactly this due to excessive feet dragging. There's little chance that "human ingenuity" will pull us out of this one if we wait even longer, especially considering how long it takes to train potential geniuses (Einstein didn't write his General Relativity theory in his diapers). It could have been a case of 70 years to transition, now it's a case of 30-40 years maximum. In less than the time it takes to finish an education, it'll be a case of 20 years. Think we can transition to alternatives and build sufficient carbon capture equipment on a global scale in order to zero out our emissions and sequester tens of gigatons of CO2 within 20 years time or less (especially since it requires 500kg of CO2 to sequester 1000kg in some cases and the energy it would require to do this would be astronomical by itself)? I'd say only majorly delusional people would expect this to be possible on such a scale and with so little time even for a completely benign and cooperative global society which we certainly are not, especially when more severe damages arrive to pressure us further.

David, maybe try to occupy less space per post. Your posting format suggests "targeted communication" with very little actual discussion related elements. That is a common format of engagement among propagandists.