Re: [Phys-L] "Climate science is not settled"

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

It seems to me that the nominal topic of this thread
is not the right way to frame things.  It seems several 
leaps outside the proper frame.

1) For starters "settled" is in the mind of the beholder.

For example, within the Bush administration, it was
a "settled" fact that Saddam had bought yellowcake
from Niger, and had bought aluminum tubes that were
suitable for making centrifuges and nothing else.
None of that was true, but it was /settled/ in the
sense that no further discussion was permitted.

On the other side of the same coin, nothing is
ever settled if you don't want it to be.  You can 
always call for another round of debate, whether 
it's needed or not.

2) Science is never "settled" because good research
opens up several new questions every time it answers
an old question.  For climate science in particular,
as soon as the global trends were figured out they
started looking at regional trends, which is more
useful, but requires a lot more data and a lot more 
work.

3) It would be somewhat closer to the mark to ask
whether we know enough to be making public policy
decisions on the basis of the current climate 
science.

The answer is yes.  We are are well past that point,
and have been for many years.

If you wait some more, the degree of certainty
will go up.  You will become more and more certain
that the cost of solving the problem increased
substantially while you were dithering.

4) Even item (3) is not the right way to frame the
discussion.  The brutal fact is that deciding to
do nothing counts as a decision.

I'll say it again:  Deciding to do nothing counts
as a decision!

So it is not an option, and has never been an option,
to make no decision.  There are risks and costs 
associated with taking strong action ... and also
risks and costs associated with taking little or
no action.

5) To summarize the previous points:  There is a
well-established pattern where people say "the
science isn't settled so I am free to do whatever
selfish thing pops into my head".  This is just
a transparent pretext for being selfish.

6) For many thousands of years, people have been
craving certainty.

Those who demand certainty are the prey, and those 
who promise it to them are the predators.

It's quite impressive how many people will tell you
God's own truth, with no uncertainty whatsoever.
According to them, the matter is "settled".

I'd be more impressed if they didn't have quite so
many mutually-contradictory versions of "the" truth.

7) In contrast, science doesn't provide complete 
certainty.  According to Popper, it doesn't -- and 
shouldn't -- even try.  We can say that such-and-such 
theory is consistent with the known data, but that 
doesn't bestow cosmic "truth" on the theory, and 
the very next data point that comes along might 
falsify it.  The probability of that is usually 
verrrry small, but it's never zero.

Science does not provide complete certainty.  Instead
it provides really good ways of dealing with the
uncertainty that is all around us, so that we can
make intelligent decisions based on less-than-perfect
data.

Note that certain people were perfectly willing to
start a war based on less-than-perfect information.
That was OK with them, because they thought the war 
would be good for the US oil industry.

The same people were unwilling to take action on
climate change based on more-than-good-enough
information.  That was OK with them, because they 
thought inaction would be good for the US oil industry.

This is a travesty of logic, a travesty of science,
and a travesty of public policy.  It works to the
extreme detriment of 99.99% of the people.  It's 
not even a viable long-term strategy for anybody.
It's just short-sighted selfishness on a grand scale.
Highly organized selfishness.