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Comment by vixen99 | Hacker News Reader

The word 'denial' does not permit of much nuance, does it? Smacks of faith and a religion, really. I wonder if & why you disagree with Judith Curry.

"The definition of ‘dangerous’ climate change is ambiguous, and hypothesized catastrophic tipping points are regarded as very or extremely unlikely in the 21st century. Efforts to link dangerous impacts of extreme weather events to human-caused warming are misleading and unsupported by evidence. Climate change is a ‘wicked problem’ and ill-suited to a ‘command and control’ solution. It has been estimated that the U.S. national commitments to the UN to reduce emissions by 28% will prevent three hundredths of a degree centigrade in warming by 2100..."

Evidence to the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology

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Judith Curry who wrote less than a year ago[0]:

Moreover, the estimates in these empirical studies are being borne out by the much-discussed “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming—the period since 1998 during which global average surface temperatures have not significantly increased.

Even though the actual data shows warming of ~0.18 deg C: http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

0. http://www.wsj.com/articles/judith-curry-the-global-warming-...

Judith Curry had something to say about the NASA data as well. I find her analysis quite level-headed.

http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/16/warmest-year-pause-and-all...

I think I agree with at least some parts of that description. (I have no idea who Judith Curry is). However, it is important to note that the phrase 'wicked' problem refers policy problems rather than science problems. And it is useful to disambiguate between climate science and climate (change) policy. Sure, climate science is hard, but not much more so than say, geology or microbiology.

Climate change policy is on the other hand wickedly difficult (despite climate change itself being well-established), because there are so many practical uncertainties and so many different stakeholders, in which you could reasonably include unborn people and/or nonhuman ecosystems, which have a hard time lobbying for themselves. However, much like poverty (which is a hard policy problem, for much the same reasons), just acting like it doesn't exist, or denying the scientific evidence, is sure not to help.

Climate change "denial" is a bit like arguing vehemently that bacteria doesn't exist and you don't need to bother about hygiene. Actually I don't really care if people believe, I just want them to wash their hands after using the toilet. People need to be persuaded that it is the right thing to do from a moral, and a practical point of view.

The environment is complicated and we need to be mature in how we interact with it. That means cutting CO2 but it also means a lot of other things that are very important. The endless debate on the science wastes time that could be better spent.

What does that quote have to do with antarctic ice levels or the science in question? You seem to be the one picking a fight here with rhetoric instead of engaging on substance...

There seems to be a whole lot of other countries disagreeing with JC[1]. May be they realised doing nothing is not an option. Personally I disagree, because excluding economic net effects borders ignorance. The US are neither an isolated actor nor a minor player on this planet.

[1]http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/03/paris-2015-tracking-...

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