Comments on: Understanding Scientific Terms About Climate Change

By: fling

fling — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:45:53 +0000

We need to adapt. Take a look at this article The Great Transition: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21656220/The-Great-Transition-Navigating-Social-Economic-Ecological-Change-in-Turbulent-Times

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:40:00 +0000

Than’s funny. Adding arbitrary non-meaningful zeros changes the level of confidence. That would be something to be concerned about!

By: travc

travc — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Could someone please contact them to fix this obvious error:

…”very high confidence” (9 out of 10 chances of being correct) about a certain fact and “very likely” (90 chances out of 100)…

I don’t know the climatology parlance, but the former should certainly not equal the latter. Maybe they meant 99/100?

Anyway, I can’t find an email link and sadly I’m not a member (I will fix that before too long).

By: itzac

itzac — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:09:24 +0000

What are you doing Greg? Don’t you know that nuance has no place in any kind of policy discussion?

I think csrster is trying to imply that the existence of uncertainty means the conclusions are wholly unreliable. In other words he’s completely missing the point.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:44:43 +0000

csrster: what do you mean?

By: csrster

csrster — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:24:03 +0000

The uncertainties in climate science are not quantum in nature.

By: Ron Krumpos

Ron Krumpos — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:06:28 +0000

“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.” –Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927

A simple statement made by one of the pioneers of quantum physics caused an uproar in its day which carries on to today. Simply stated: Nothing in certain.

There are many naysayers about climate change. By the time they are “certain” it will be too late to do anything about it. Much of science is theoretical, premises based on the best knowledge available today. Ignore their predictions about climate change to the peril of all on Earth.