Opposition from Scientific Communities and Political Pushback
Opposition from scientific communities to engineered solutions of both direct cooling and carbon dioxide removal has resulted in political pushback. This opposition is based on scientific findings and the scientific consensus of the IPCC that are understated because of eleven inherent biases in: climate science, consensus reviews of climate science findings, and our climate culture. Because the consensus findings of IPCC are fundamental to climate policy globally, and risks from tipping element responses are outsized and little included in IPCC summaries, our climate culture believes that the pathways of IPCC can appropriately mitigate for the effects of warming. To overcome these understated biases, and restore our climate instead of allow additional warming to 1.5 Degrees C above normal and beyond, their existence and influence on climate policy must be better understood in our climate culture.
The eleven understating biases of climate science, the climate science consensus organizations, and reporting on climate change are: scientific reticence, the moral hazard, consensus compromise, the scenario bias, the modeling bias, media reporting, the climate change countermovement, cultural feedback into climate science findings, non-stationary data, and slow science.
Scientific reticence is evident in findings, consensus reviews, and reporting. It results in understatement because scientists and their findings understate to avoid exaggeration that would creates a loss of credibility if their counsel was inaccurate. The moral hazard suggests that any solutions that do not directly address future emissions are unethical, creating scenarios that allow irreversible tipping completion. Consensus compromise is most evident in consensus reviews because all the parties must agree to common language creating compromise and understatement. The scenario bias is described in the Risks Section. The modeling bias understates largely because of poor response to feedback mechanisms that have caused modeling to understate almost all effects of warming by generations to a century or more. Media reporting understates because the media reports do not include scenarios that are not included in IPCC reports, a because climate science findings are reticent, and IPCC reports are understated because of consensus requirements. The climate change countermovement is the climate science denial network that propagates misinformation about climate change, understating as a matter of design.
Understating cultural feedback into climate science findings are created by understating informational bias in media as a feedback into climate science and consensus reviews. Non-stationarity is a failure of traditional frequentist statistics to robustly evaluate a dataset when the data are moving in an unknown way, with known and significant understating capacity. The understatement can be as large as 60 percent for rainfall intensity evaluations. Slow science reflects the time it takes to gather sparse data on Earth systems, then evaluate and publish, where this process can take up to a decade, by which time warming impacts have moved far ahead.
These understating biases are hard-wired into our climate culture and create pushback because of the credibility of the institutions an scientists delivering the understated information.
The principal task for any advanced climate mitigation campaign then, is to educate not only policy makers and citizens, but the climate science community as well. Because of these biases, IPCC has been urging their reviewers to incorporate more expert judgment into their reports in addition to direct reporting of findings.
References:
The 11 understating biases…
Melton, An Introduction to Advanced Climate Change, 2023, slides 28 through 34.
https://climatediscovery.org/Introduction_to_Advanced_Climate_Change_October_2023.ppt
Melton, Impacts Happening Ahead of Projections or Greater than Projections, 2023…
https://climatediscovery.org/Impacts_Happening_Ahead_of_Projection_051223.docx
Opposition from Scientific Communities and Political Pushback
Opposition from scientific communities to engineered solutions of both direct cooling and carbon dioxide removal has resulted in political pushback. This opposition is based on scientific findings and the scientific consensus of the IPCC that are understated because of eleven inherent biases in: climate science, consensus reviews of climate science findings, and our climate culture. Because the consensus findings of IPCC are fundamental to climate policy globally, and risks from tipping element responses are outsized and little included in IPCC summaries, our climate culture believes that the pathways of IPCC can appropriately mitigate for the effects of warming. To overcome these understated biases, and restore our climate instead of allow additional warming to 1.5 Degrees C above normal and beyond, their existence and influence on climate policy must be better understood in our climate culture.
The eleven understating biases of climate science, the climate science consensus organizations, and reporting on climate change are: scientific reticence, the moral hazard, consensus compromise, the scenario bias, the modeling bias, media reporting, the climate change countermovement, cultural feedback into climate science findings, non-stationary data, and slow science.
Scientific reticence is evident in findings, consensus reviews, and reporting. It results in understatement because scientists and their findings understate to avoid exaggeration that would creates a loss of credibility if their counsel was inaccurate. The moral hazard suggests that any solutions that do not directly address future emissions are unethical, creating scenarios that allow irreversible tipping completion. Consensus compromise is most evident in consensus reviews because all the parties must agree to common language creating compromise and understatement. The scenario bias is described in the Risks Section. The modeling bias understates largely because of poor response to feedback mechanisms that have caused modeling to understate almost all effects of warming by generations to a century or more. Media reporting understates because the media reports do not include scenarios that are not included in IPCC reports, a because climate science findings are reticent, and IPCC reports are understated because of consensus requirements. The climate change countermovement is the climate science denial network that propagates misinformation about climate change, understating as a matter of design.
Understating cultural feedback into climate science findings are created by understating informational bias in media as a feedback into climate science and consensus reviews. Non-stationarity is a failure of traditional frequentist statistics to robustly evaluate a dataset when the data are moving in an unknown way, with known and significant understating capacity. The understatement can be as large as 60 percent for rainfall intensity evaluations. Slow science reflects the time it takes to gather sparse data on Earth systems, then evaluate and publish, where this process can take up to a decade, by which time warming impacts have moved far ahead.
These understating biases are hard-wired into our climate culture and create pushback because of the credibility of the institutions an scientists delivering the understated information.
The principal task for any advanced climate mitigation campaign then, is to educate not only policy makers and citizens, but the climate science community as well. Because of these biases, IPCC has been urging their reviewers to incorporate more expert judgment into their reports in addition to direct reporting of findings.
References:
The 11 understating biases…
Melton, An Introduction to Advanced Climate Change, 2023, slides 28 through 34.
https://climatediscovery.org/Introduction_to_Advanced_Climate_Change_October_2023.ppt
Melton, Impacts Happening Ahead of Projections or Greater than Projections, 2023…
https://climatediscovery.org/Impacts_Happening_Ahead_of_Projection_051223.docx
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