[natalyarostova]

If someone came up with novel and valid research that disputes some specific claims of climate change I'd wager the research would have a difficult time being published and the author would be considered to be a denier.

[wedn3sday]

Absolutely not. This actually happens all the time, and it just get incorporated into the literature. Thats what science is. Climate research is actually very competitive between the modeling groups, everyone trying to show off that their model is better then the other guys. Everytime someone comes up with a new method that disproves a previous assumption, its just folded into the models to make them better. See this recent publication from one of my colleges: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/the-latest-generatio...

[belorn]

Let say someone made a meta study on what different studies suggest we should do to combat climate change, and we compare how many suggest we should invest in more renewable energy productions and how many suggest we should invest in more nuclear. With renewable being favored by the left, and nuclear by the right, is it that unlikely that we would see a pattern emerge from the data that has less to do with science and more about political affiliation?

I don't doubt you when you say that researchers are open when it comes to the models for which they are competing with. People who conduct research is usually doing it for a genuine interest to find out answers, and in the domain of those models I am not worried. The concern is when they intersect with politics, such as the above example.

[triceratops]

You are right. That's because muddying the waters, obfuscation, saying "the science isn't settled" has been used in bad faith in the past. It's tainted an entire branch of scientific thought.

There are certainly individual claims of climate change that are probably not entirely correct. That's how science works - hypotheses are made, experiments run, some are disproved and others continue to stand. Anyone who works to disprove those claims runs the risk of being tagged a denier due to the actions and motives of those who came before them. I don't have much sympathy.

EDIT: Apparently this isn't even true. Individual claims are rebutted all the time and the theory is adjusted according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22050728. I'll leave my original comment up for posterity.

[Fishysoup]

Read the reply just above yours. I'm not a climate scientist but I am a scientist, and contradicting, competitive studies are the norm. If they didn't exist no progress would ever be made. If you're gonna make up demons you should know how the thing you're trying to vilify operates at any level.

[magduf]

We have plenty of evidence already showing the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere going back many thousands of years (from core samples). There really isn't any room left for debate, because the facts are clear, the only question is "just how bad will it be with all this extra carbon in the atmosphere?".

[belorn]

Debates on climate change is not just about the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. One very active part of the on going debate is the role of methane, and if increase methane leaks from natural gas is acceptable trade for decreased CO2 emissions from coal. To name other common debates, we see people argue over the effectiveness of carbon emissions trading, nuclear vs renewable, cows vs cars, boats vs airplanes, and the effectiveness if planting trees. A common theme here is that what get disputed is usually the strategy to combat climate change rather than the fact of climate change.

[allovernow]

>We have plenty of evidence already showing the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere going back many thousands of years

Excellent example! I'm no climate scientist, but I am a former geoscientist, and as it happens, all of our estimates for historic atmospheric conditions are based on various proxies which in turn are rooted in assumptions. Let's take a look at ice cores, for example. The theory is that bubbles of gas are trapped during solidification and a very strong assumption is that gas ratios do not change through processes like diffusion while the ice changes state through gradual burial over thousands of years. Now I could not find any literature after a cursory search questioning or even exploring such assumptions. But it is a fact that at least one other indicator contradicts estimates from ice cores. Plant stomata overreport historic CO2 concentrations relative to ice cores.

Now, a hypothetical thought experiment: suppose a scientist is able to obtain funding for and completes research which suggests that ice cores actually underestimate peak CO2 concentrations, indicating that modern levels are actually not as unprecedented as commonly believed. Which scenario do you think is more plausible:

1. The paper is published and the field of climate scientists, quite entrenched in a particular dominant viewpoint, become much more sceptical.

2. The scientist is shunned, if they even find an outlet willing to publish, for being a denier, and their career is jeapordized.

Remember, scientists need to eat too.

I do not wish to turn this into a debate about climate science. But there are other perfectly valid indicators, hard to find in "prestigious" journals, which are in desperate need of scrutiny but are not explored because people who spend their best years pursuing a PhD are unlikely to risk destroying their careers and losing their jobs when they have safer questions to ask. That's a large component of this emergent pressure to research in a particular safe direction.

Honestly, given the massive uncertainty that we deal with in geoscience, with strong economic pressures to be precise (oil wells are expensive) it is extremely difficult for me to see the same wildly uncertain proxies, models, and technologies being used to justify unquestionability of facts in climate science, particularly considering the risks of overestimating warming are far lower than drilling a $200MM dry hole. Climate is a massive, complex, chaotic system which we have only recently begun studying, and requires enormous infrastructure for data collection, processing, and modeling, the latter of which cannot be empirically verified. To believe that the science is settled and beyond questioning is naive. CO2 levels are rising, but how far this deviates from the norm and how bad it may ultimately be for humans and animals is still an open question.

[catalogia]

> a very strong assumption is that gas ratios do not change through processes like diffusion

It seems to me this should be an easy matter to analyze in detail. Diffusion would blur two distinct bands into each other, right? A sharp change in gas composition would appear more gradual with time, as diffusion blurred the boundary. So, are there sharp changes in the old ice? Lack of sharp changes might not prove anything, but the presence of sharp changes in very old ice should be informative. I'm no statistician but it seems to me a statistician should be able to look at the data and give you an upper bound on diffusion.

[qqqwerty]

> Remember, scientists need to eat too.

The oil industry is literally the wealthiest industry in the history of the world. Oil companies and petrostates are perfectly capable of funding and feeding any and all contrarian scientists. I find it really hard to believe that the stigma of being labeled a 'denier' is what is holding back researchers. More likely is that plenty of research is being or has been done, but nothing truly compelling has yet to be found.

[CalChris]

That is a counterfactual because it hasn't happened. If it did happen, scientists would look at the evidence and adjust their theories because that is what scientists do.

[0xy]

This has happened repeatedly, though. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSIRO#Climate_change_censorshi...

[flukus]

> The debate was called for by opposition parties after evidence came to light that a paper critical of carbon emissions trading was being suppressed

This is disappointing but it's not climate change censorship, it's ETS (as a solution to carbon emissions) censorship.

Edit - And he was probably wrong anyway, look at the results of the ETS in action: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/climate-cuts-cov...

[0xy]

Given he was bullied and harassed, do you think someone could oppose climate change at CSIRO and not be bullied and harassed?

ETS and climate change are inextricably linked and related.

If the establishment cannot even handle dissent on solutions, how could they handle dissent on the actual problem?

[flukus]

It's a single incident, have you got any evidence of a trend?

Considering the next conservative government cut funding to the CSIRO, particularly in climate science areas is there any evidence that it's about the report itself or is it just about not pissing off the current government?

Considering how heavy handed the climate deniers have been (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article129837...) you're going to need more examples.

[0xy]

Just curious, would you trust a scientific organization that would compromise scientific ethics including censorship and bullying at the whim of the current government in order to preserve their funding?

I'm not sure if you're defending or supporting CSIRO here. Bending to the whims of the government is reprehensible for an "independent" organization.

Also, consider the words of the scientist who was censored: "Managers said it was a political hot potato — too political to publish". [1]

So CSIRO is acting politically, using bullying and harassment to force censorship.

I don't see why I should have to prove a trend, I've already shown the chilling effect they intended. [2] Speak against the political grain, and get severely punished personally and have your career ruined. This means politics is driving climate science through intimidation.

Honest question: do you think anyone would put their livelihood, career and reputation on the line to question the political status quo after someone was publicly executed for doing so?

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-05-02/csiro-missing... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

[bsder]

> If someone came up with novel and valid research that disputes some specific claims of climate change I'd wager the research would have a difficult time being published and the author would be considered to be a denier.

Not if backed up by data. I believe that we had this recently with the fact that one of the temperature measurements was off and stuck out. Eventually they traced it back to calibration on sensor platform.

There is a VAST difference between the science of climate change (does it exist and what caused it) and the politics of climate change (what should be done about it). The deniers always want to conflate the two because the science is basically unassailable.