What are your current beliefs on climate change? I think it most likely that the experts have it roughly correct: the climate is warming, there’s a lot of noise on short timescales, a big influence on overall temperature is how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, a big influence on that is emissions from human activity like burning coal, etc. I would not be greatly surprised to find that the current consensus is a factor of 2 out either way in magnitude (nor, I think, would the experts) but I would be surprised by a factor of 10.
What were your beliefs on climate change when you first came across the subject? I don’t remember. and how did your views evolve (if at all) on further reading? I haven’t made much attempt at understanding the science for myself. Most of the “further reading” I have done is looking at popular-audience stuff written by both affirmers and deniers. My bullshit meter pings a lot more loudly on the deniers’ material. Since I don’t remember how my opinions started out, it’s hard to be sure how they’ve changed, but I think my confidence that the expert consensus is at least somewhere in the vicinity of the truth has increased.
What are some surprising things you learned when reading up about climate change? I’ve seen it claimed that there’s a startlingly large overlap between people and institutions that are arguing against anthropogenic climate change now, and people and institutions that were arguing against the link between tobacco-smoking and cancer a couple of decades ago. I haven’t checked this, but it would be rather interesting if true.
If you read my recent posts linked above … Sorry, I didn’t. (Not because of any particular fault in them.)
What are your current beliefs on climate change? I think it most likely that the experts have it roughly correct: the climate is warming, there’s a lot of noise on short timescales, a big influence on overall temperature is how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, a big influence on that is emissions from human activity like burning coal, etc. I would not be greatly surprised to find that the current consensus is a factor of 2 out either way in magnitude (nor, I think, would the experts) but I would be surprised by a factor of 10.
What were your beliefs on climate change when you first came across the subject? I don’t remember. and how did your views evolve (if at all) on further reading? I haven’t made much attempt at understanding the science for myself. Most of the “further reading” I have done is looking at popular-audience stuff written by both affirmers and deniers. My bullshit meter pings a lot more loudly on the deniers’ material. Since I don’t remember how my opinions started out, it’s hard to be sure how they’ve changed, but I think my confidence that the expert consensus is at least somewhere in the vicinity of the truth has increased.
What are some surprising things you learned when reading up about climate change? I’ve seen it claimed that there’s a startlingly large overlap between people and institutions that are arguing against anthropogenic climate change now, and people and institutions that were arguing against the link between tobacco-smoking and cancer a couple of decades ago. I haven’t checked this, but it would be rather interesting if true.
If you read my recent posts linked above … Sorry, I didn’t. (Not because of any particular fault in them.)