Coronavirus and Credibility

But one must think that this can't go on indefinitely or for very long time frames. It buys time to reduce the number of "active" cases, but only to ensure that once lockdown is lifted one is able to do tracing and isolation for new cases.

Realistically, we'll have to live with this virus (and the associated risk) for quite a while. The time frames for a "cure" if it is found vary from months for drugs (if those in current trials prove to be useful) to years for a vaccine (which like the drugs may not be effective).

You can keep people holed up for a few months at best. You won't be able to do so for one or more years, unless you want to face severe consequences (and I'm not talking about the economy, I'm talking of long-term psychological effects).

No, they're lower than the low end of the predicted range. Plus, the low end of the predicted range was based on assumed CO2 emissions that were significantly lower than what has actually occurred since then. So we have more CO2 than predicted and less warming than predicted even from the lower than actual CO2.

> even the low estimates still predict a 3C temperature rise by the end of the century

That's not 3C rise from where we are now. It's not even 3C rise from where we were in 1990. It's 3C rise from the "pre-industrial" temperature, i.e., the mid to late 1700s, i.e., in the middle of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures have already risen (largely due simply to coming out of the Little Ice Age) by about 1.6C since then, so that low estimate is about 1.4C rise from now to 2100. And, as noted, actual temperature rise is running below the low end estimate. We're looking at roughly a degree C rise in a century. The idea that humans cannot adapt to that so we have to spend trillions of dollars to stop emitting CO2 right now is laughable.

> Just because some of the 6 or 7C predictions (high end of range) don't appear to be coming true we should just ignore the rest of the models?

We should not be using the models to drive public policy decisions with multi-trillion dollar costs. They're simply not good enough for that.

Again, my root question is "why have there been so many prominent predictions of climate disaster that have failed to materialize?"

The sources for these predictions have largely been the media, but the sources are generally respected institutions or individuals, and the articles have claimed the backing of scientific authority. To what extent have these failed predictions stemmed from the media, and to what extent have they stemmed from the scientific authorities themselves?

A good part of the blame certainly rests with media. The media is motivated by what is advertiser friendly, and fear sells. However, I do not think the scientific establishment is without fault here.

No doubt part of the problem is the sheer complexity of the system they are studying, and perhaps premature confidence in the methodology of using computer models in the study of complex systems. But it also seems that a bias towards certain policy measures has led some scientists to overstate the confidence, severity, or urgency of predictions.

I do not mean to imply some sort of conspiracy theory here. I simply think that, psychologically, scientists tend to be a of a sort more attuned to "far problems". This tendency allows scientists to sometimes correctly anticipate threats, such as those from a global pandemic, but can also lead to a false equivalence between future uncertain costs and present certain ones.

I am not ignoring experts, nor am I claiming that they are completely wrong about global warming. I would more consider myself in the company of folks such as economist David Friedman or climatologist Judith Curry (neither of whom are in the employ of Big Oil) who both express doubts about the degree of consensus[0] and the severity and certainty of the warming and the value of drastic action in the present[1].

[0]https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falseh... [1]https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/curry-testimony-...

At worst, without all the anxiety you’re opposing, too many people catch it at the same time and the death rate rises to match the hospitalisation rate. When that happens you’re not talking 75 million dead, you’re talking 375 million to 2.25 billion dead depending on which of the enormous range of hospitalisation estimates I look at.

It doesn't matter.

"The world is going to end if we don't take action within 12 years" is also false, and not at all what the IPCC report says. When O'Rourke said something similar, the AP fact checked the claim:[2]

> THE FACTS: There is no scientific consensus, much less unanimity, that the planet only has 12 years to fix the problem.

> “This has been a persistent source of confusion,” agreed Kristie L. Ebi, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The report never said we only have 12 years left.”

And no, I'm not going to cut the AP and PBS out of my life just because some alarmists are delusional.

1: https://apnews.com/1c663bcb294c1752573f45fc5bf5e0f9/

2: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-orourke-...