Climate Contrarian Predictions - How have they done?

[Paratus]

Unsurprisingly not well:

Climate contrarians predicted the world would cool—it didn’t

The anticlimate-science blogosphere’s trophy cabinet is bare.

arstechnica.com

The flip side to this is also true. Those who have opposed climate science’s conclusions—they’re a broad menagerie, including scientists in different fields, politics-obsessed bloggers, and think-tank employees—have alsobeen squawking long enough for predictions to be tested. Despite their alternate-reality insistence that climate science never predicted anything, these contrarians don't spend much time showing off their own predictions’ track record.

The reason for that is that the track record is very, very bad. Like the cringeworthy poetry you wrote in high school, they probably hope that everyone will just forget about it.

(See link above for about a dozen “studies”)


It’s true that climate trend predictions should generally be judged over longer timescales to minimize the influence of short-term variability. You won’t catch actual climate scientists making definitive statements about what will happen in the next couple years because they understand that variability dominates in brief periods. The predictions evaluated here, however, represented confident claims of an imminent and persistent reversal of the warming trend—which has not manifested in the slightest.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it is representative of the constant drumbeat of the contrarian blogosphere and partisan media. After all, there’s no more eye-catching way to reject human-caused warming than to assert that “Well actually... it’s cooling!” Any such claim, no matter how preposterous or thinly supported, would get promoted without inspection across these sites.

On the other hand, the products of climate science—including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports—have performed admirably over this time period. Climate-model projections (which are contingent on scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions) match wellwith reality. Physics, it turns out, is a good thing to include in your model.

 

[sandorski]

Most CC Denial these days seems to simply be mocking the idea that a Post-Petroleum World is even possible.

 

[fskimospy]

Most CC Denial these days seems to simply be mocking the idea that a Post-Petroleum World is even possible.

It was interesting/depressing how quickly the climate change deniers shifted from 'climate change isn't real' to 'climate change is real, but we're so far gone now it's impossible to prevent' with no acknowledgement of their very loud role in making sure we didn't address climate change earlier.

 

[soundforbjt]

No, it’ll cost too much and we can’t have the job creators spending their hard-earned money and the government can’t afford it. Also can’t raise taxes to fix it... What about the poor oil workers? They’ll be just like the coal miners, etc. And less we forget, it won’t do anything if China, etc. do it too.

 

[Paratus]

It was interesting/depressing how quickly the climate change deniers shifted from 'climate change isn't real' to 'climate change is real, but we're so far gone now it's impossible to prevent' with no acknowledgement of their very loud role in making sure we didn't address climate change earlier.

I believe you had the list of excuses the deniers use to justify doing nothing.

The final excuse if I recall was “f you commie”.

 

[fskimospy]

I believe you had the list of excuses the deniers use to justify doing nothing.

The final excuse if I recall was “f you commie”.

Haha that sounds about right. I guess since COVID this all makes more sense - they would rather face catastrophe than admit the liberals were right.

 

[woolfe9998]

This is why I say that the ordinary person need only track the scientific consensus, meaning where the vast majority of experts in the relevant fields agree. One need not try to become an expert in a highly technical field to form an opinion on this. Accepting the opinion of an overwhelming majority of experts is a good bet on the odds. As the OP's articles lays out, if you bet on the small number of dissenters, you rolled a snake eyes. Unfortunately, the intransigence of this group has effectively rolled snake eyes for all us.

It's almost pointless to argue with these people anymore. How do you convince a group who believes that air gapped election computers can be hacked by China to believe what the science says about climate change?

 

[Jaskalas]

Once upon a time I did my best. But their arguments were lacking. And yours...

*ahem

One might say reality is a !@#$.

 

[Paratus]

Once upon a time I did my best. But their arguments were lacking. And yours...

*ahem

One might say reality is a !@#$.

Just saw wildfires raging in CA & Greece which hit 117F on the national news. I think we will be wishing you were originally correct.

 

[nakedfrog]

Between these heat waves and the plague, you'd almost think we'd upset the planet or something!

 

[UNCjigga]

That dumb movie “The Day After Tomorrow” got more right about climate change than the denialists ever did. And it was 99% garbage.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Most CC Denial these days seems to simply be mocking the idea that a Post-Petroleum World is even possible.

Well, just think about how much you use in a single day. Now multiply it by 12 because you're too dumb to know what all products are made from O&G.

It's simply not going anywhere anytime. Your best bet is carbon capture technology.


Challenge yourself to go without O&G for one day. You won't even last 2 minutes because all your clothes are made of it.

 

[dank69]

It was interesting/depressing how quickly the climate change deniers shifted from 'climate change isn't real' to 'climate change is real, but we're so far gone now it's impossible to prevent' with no acknowledgement of their very loud role in making sure we didn't address climate change earlier.

"Nobody could have known" and "the mean liberals made us do it."

 

[Paratus]

Well, just think about how much you use in a single day. Now multiply it by 12 because you're too dumb to know what all products are made from O&G.

It's simply not going anywhere anytime. Your best bet is carbon capture technology.


Challenge yourself to go without O&G for one day. You won't even last 2 minutes because all your clothes are made of it.

Carbon capture for oil based chemical reactions - sure. As you said oil has many uses in day to day products. Those products won’t decompose into greenhouse gases unless they are burned but some GHGs may be made during the chemical reactions to produce them and those should be captured.

Energy for electrical production, heating and transportation don’t need to be fossil fuels.

 

[brycejones]

It snowed in the Arctic last year. Fuck you libtards.

 

[Greenman]

Energy for electrical production, heating and transportation don’t need to be fossil fuels.

They don't need to be, but the change to anything else seems to be hamstrung. Solar is pretty good, but we don't have viable storage that can be produced on a massive scale. Nuclear is out because of a movie, Russia, and Three Mile Island. I always thought fusion was going to be the winning ticket, but that seems to be moving forward at the speed of smell. geothermal looks promising if we could drill deep enough.

 

[Moonbeam]

The shift to renewable energy has an enemy, the fossil energy industry and the Republican party they finance to win elections and prevent progress toward energy independence. As long as some have the money and others the power, the welfare of humanity is of no importance. The price for that should be nationalization of the fossil fuel industry and removal of Republicans from power but the problem is that millions and millions of Americans have grown up so shallow and feeling so worthless they can easily be trained never to have any real common sense. In stead of learning to analyze what is in their best interests to improve their future, they are encouraged to get even for all petty grievence and insult to their hopelessly underdeveloped egos.

So here we are, a nation with a bulbous red nose, baggy pants, and hugly oversized feet.

 

[hal2kilo]

Nothing to worry about, move along. From Forbes even.

Major Atlantic Current May Be On The Verge Of Collapse, Scientists Warn (forbes.com)

 

[K1052]

Relatedly: how fucked we are and how much worse it can get absent dramatic action

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clim...-report-global-warming-greenhouse-gas-effect/

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1424642945572016136

 

[K1052]

They don't need to be, but the change to anything else seems to be hamstrung. Solar is pretty good, but we don't have viable storage that can be produced on a massive scale. Nuclear is out because of a movie, Russia, and Three Mile Island. I always thought fusion was going to be the winning ticket, but that seems to be moving forward at the speed of smell. geothermal looks promising if we could drill deep enough.

We have a lot of resources that are almost entirely untapped like offshore wind. Nuclear is just too expensive for new builds until they figure out how to get construction costs down, every country has this problem. Vogtle's new units are not running 400% over budget because of The China Syndrome. Keep the current plants safely online for the next couple decades is about all we can ask unless one of the new advanced nuclear reactor concepts turns out to meet our needs cost effectively.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

We have a lot of resources that are almost entirely untapped like offshore wind. Nuclear is just too expensive for new builds until they figure out how to get construction costs down, every country has this problem. Vogtle's new units are not running 400% over budget because of The China Syndrome. Keep the current plants safely online for the next couple decades is about all we can ask unless one of the new advanced nuclear reactor concepts turns out to meet our needs cost effectively.

I disagree, they cost what they cost, and that's the cost of not choking to death. It *should* be subsidized by the govt to shore up the cost differential between nuclear and coal/solar/whatever the flavor of the month is.

An exception would be, if we can get enough (clean) solar/wind online with energy storage to basically eliminate the need for 'baseline power'.

Unfortunately all this shit takes decades to do, and we don't have decades to do it with.

 

[UNCjigga]

Nothing to worry about, move along. From Forbes even.

Major Atlantic Current May Be On The Verge Of Collapse, Scientists Warn (forbes.com)

Like I said…

 

[K1052]

I disagree, they cost what they cost, and that's the cost of not choking to death. It *should* be subsidized by the govt to shore up the cost differential between nuclear and coal/solar/whatever the flavor of the month is.

An exception would be, if we can get enough (clean) solar/wind online with energy storage to basically eliminate the need for 'baseline power'.

Unfortunately all this shit takes decades to do, and we don't have decades to do it with.

New nuclear with existing platforms is so stunningly expensive that building massive renewable overcapacity into the grid instead to make up for variability is actually cheaper. Vogtle's two new units will cost 30B when all is said and done for 2.2GW gigawatts. Dogger Bank will cost 11B for 3.6GW of offshore wind.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

New nuclear with existing platforms is so stunningly expensive that building massive renewable overcapacity into the grid instead to make up for variability is actually cheaper. Vogtle's two new units will cost 30B when all is said and done for 2.2GW gigawatts. Dogger Bank will cost 11B for 3.6GW of offshore wind.

I kind of figured that was the case at this point, and as long as the renewable can maintain the baseline we're looking for, then full steam ahead I say. I'll caveat that with saying 'as long as the cost of mining/building that renewable doesn't overrun the cost of nuclear'. We first worlders tend to externalize a lot of costs to others.

 

[Stokely]

The really unfortunate part is that, IF things get really bad, by the time it's REALLY OBVIOUS to even the most staunch denialist that it's so, most of them will be dead. We may only be looking at the tip of a very big (melting) iceberg at this point. Those not dead will have had plenty to time to work on blaming it somehow on "the media" and illegals. In true Karl Rove fashion, they'll proudly proclaim that THEY were the ones fighting climate change all along and the Democrats were the ones causing it.