This is irrelevant to the question we were actually addressing, namely how scary the predictions are. You made, in case you’ve forgotten, the following claim:
I would like to draw your attention to the Stern Review which came out with quite non-scary estimates for the consequences of the global warming even after its shenanigans with the discount rates.
but since then you have modified that by saying
that the SR’s NPV estimates of future harm are wrong because they should have discounted the future more steeply
that a lot of their predictions should be ignored because they are “handwaving”
that some of the more alarming other ones should be ignored because you don’t believe them
that the appropriate measure of scariness is your willingness to pay to make the scary thing go away.
At which point, it seems to me, you have completely abandoned the original statement that the Stern Review made non-scary predictions, and what we’re left with is that if we take only those parts of the Stern Review that you agree with and discount the future much more steeply than they do then you don’t find that considering what’s left makes you want to pay a lot of money to address the issue.
Or, to put it slightly differently, what we’re left with is: “Lumifer doesn’t think we should take drastic action to address possible negative future consequences of climate change”.
Well, fair enough. You’re a smart chap and no doubt your opinions are worth listening to. But this no longer has anything to do with the original issue, namely the extent to which climate scientists agree or disagree about climate change.
This is irrelevant to the question we were actually addressing, namely how scary the predictions are.
Let me, then, make the usual disclaimers which I thought were implicitly understood. I speak for myself, do not speak for anyone else, and when I discuss e.g. “how scary the predictions are”, I am talking about my perceptions, not about the reaction of an average (wo)man on the street.
Here I distinguish between what I think the Review actually says and what how it is presented. In my opinion, what the Stern Review says is not scary. It is presented as scary, of course, because that was the whole point of writing the Review. In fact, the shenanigans (e.g. discussed in the Wikipedia article) deemed necessary to produce the required degree of scariness reinforce my perception that the Review has major difficulties in creating a sufficiently fearful picture and contribute to my belief that what it actually found is non-scary.
This is irrelevant to the question we were actually addressing, namely how scary the predictions are. You made, in case you’ve forgotten, the following claim:
but since then you have modified that by saying
that the SR’s NPV estimates of future harm are wrong because they should have discounted the future more steeply
that a lot of their predictions should be ignored because they are “handwaving”
that some of the more alarming other ones should be ignored because you don’t believe them
that the appropriate measure of scariness is your willingness to pay to make the scary thing go away.
At which point, it seems to me, you have completely abandoned the original statement that the Stern Review made non-scary predictions, and what we’re left with is that if we take only those parts of the Stern Review that you agree with and discount the future much more steeply than they do then you don’t find that considering what’s left makes you want to pay a lot of money to address the issue.
Or, to put it slightly differently, what we’re left with is: “Lumifer doesn’t think we should take drastic action to address possible negative future consequences of climate change”.
Well, fair enough. You’re a smart chap and no doubt your opinions are worth listening to. But this no longer has anything to do with the original issue, namely the extent to which climate scientists agree or disagree about climate change.
Let me, then, make the usual disclaimers which I thought were implicitly understood. I speak for myself, do not speak for anyone else, and when I discuss e.g. “how scary the predictions are”, I am talking about my perceptions, not about the reaction of an average (wo)man on the street.
Here I distinguish between what I think the Review actually says and what how it is presented. In my opinion, what the Stern Review says is not scary. It is presented as scary, of course, because that was the whole point of writing the Review. In fact, the shenanigans (e.g. discussed in the Wikipedia article) deemed necessary to produce the required degree of scariness reinforce my perception that the Review has major difficulties in creating a sufficiently fearful picture and contribute to my belief that what it actually found is non-scary.