Climate Science Addiction (Part N of M)

June 26, 2019

I’m a recovering Climate Science and Climate Policy junkie.

I’ve spent hours obsessively reading the science. Not the popular press—which always is trying to sell a story—but scientific papers and blogs written by scientists who are trying to educate rather than to advocate.

I’ve written some other posts on the topic. I’m not going to link to them. I’d only be feeding the addiction.

When Beyond Labels posted this week’s topic, my inner addict took over. I started reading to find out what’s happened since my last bender. Then I decided to try and control myself. And confine myself to summarizing a few key points.

Then I failed.

Monday came and went.

I tried again and failed again.

Now a much fatter version of this post has been sitting in my drafts, blocking the way to better things. Or at least other things.

Do I post it, incomplete and imperfect? Do I delete it? Do I invest more time in perfecting it?

The answer is: incomplete and imperfect.

Really incomplete and really imperfect.

The more incomplete and imperfect, the better.

Where to learn climate science

If you want to learn the science, the best single resource that I’ve found is “Science of Doom” (SoD)

From the About Page.

Opinions are often interesting and sometimes entertaining. But what do we learn from opinions? It’s more useful to understand the science behind the subject. What is this particular theory built on? How long has theory been “established”? What lines of evidence support this theory? What evidence would falsify this theory? What do opposing theories say?

SoD comes highly recommended by lots of people. If you’re a fan of the “we believe climate change is a pressing problem” blog “Skeptical Science” here’s their recommendation.

If you’re more inclined to believe that “the advocates have a point, but they are taking some things too far,” I recommend Climate Etc. by Climate Scientist Judith Curry, who initially pointed me to SoD

About the author (or SoD)

Who writes SoD?

The author does not identify himself on the site. There are references to his name (like the one in Skeptical Science), but I’ve seen no details about his credentials.

So what?

Why trust him?

My answer: read what he writes. His writing must speak for itself because there’s no appeal to his authority.

He documents his path through the literature in detail, and you can follow him—and agree or not—every step of the way.

The comments and discussion in the blog are well moderated, and most comment threads are by knowledgeable people—or at least people who want to become knowledgeable.

Opinions

At the end of 2018, after 9 years of explaining the science, he started writing a series called “Observations and perspectives.” They are worth reading to get a starting point, and perhaps detox from the advocacy press. They are well informed and balanced. If you don’t want to read the whole series (9.5 so far), read these two: contrarian myths and consensus myths.

And done

There’s a lot more in the draft. But short an imperfect gets this done.

And I’m not going to waste time finding an engaging picture.

Fuck it! Press Publish.

​