I hit send too soon on that last piece. I meant to add this. While everyone is casting blame around, you know who else deserves some blame? The global warming brigade. For years they have touted models that showed every sort of fear scenario imaginable. Remember, we have less than twelve, ten, nine, eight… years before the world ends. New York should have been underwater years ago. The polar bears are all going to die. The Arctic will be ice free by 2015, 2016, 2017, etc.
Understandably, there is confusion about climate change models and why people are clanging the drums now and have been for such a long time. A better way to understand this would be through the personal finance model that is very relevant today.
Financial models suggest you save at least 10% of your income for a variety of reasons - emergencies, to save for houses, to payoff loans and retirement. In your 20s, time is on your side and you have the power of compounding interest. Let's say you don't take advantage of it and instead go to graduate school racking up considerable debt. The models start sounding the alarms but you don't heed them. It's not a big deal because you still have time. In your 30s, you still decide not to save 10%, and you buy a little more than you should. You don't have the required down payment for a house but you buy one anyway and end up with PMI. You lease a nice GMC Yukon to tow your new boat. You decide to have kids and your husband stays home so you can focus on your career. All expensive decisions but you make great money so it's ok. Financial models are starting to clang more loudly, and you have less time and fewer options to fix things. Now you're in your 40s, but the incoming money has never been better so you're not sweating your lack of savings. You get a HELOC so you can make home improvement changes, and since your local schools aren't very good, you opt for private schools. You make a lot, but you spend a bit more and rack up credit card debt. Then, a recession hits, and you lose a bunch of your income. You didn't take advantage of when time was on your side and now you have an insane amount of bills with 1/3 of your previous income, so you have to make some pretty drastic decisions on your finances to make it work - downsize your house, trade in your nice car for a clunker, send your kids to public school and make absolutely zero discretionary purchases. If you don't do these things because they require a lot of uncomfortable changes, then you have considerably less wiggle room. That's where we are with climate change - we've ignored the models, and now we're running out of time unless we make a lot of hard decisions right now. In this example, planet earth is in our late 40s and didn't make the easy changes we could have twenty years ago. As with personal finance, climate change is one where you need to think long-term and as we can see very clearly, some people aren't capable of reading the models and planning for the long-term.
"They have helped a lot of people dismiss modeling altogether." Yes. I agree. Though I would caution that what gets into a university (or IPCC) press release is not necessarily what's in the actual study/results. (I'll have to hunt up some proof on that, but I'm pretty sure.)
Because the studies can serve as PR, pulling in more students at higher tuition, etc etc. But that doesn't refute your point, that this press-driven science is not fact-based. Just trying not to disparage climate change research as a whole. It needed money to do the modeling and explorations and whatnot, it got the money, and the process is still grinding away I think. Real science is slow.
Of course in the pandemic era it should take a backseat to public health. Sorry to go on, it's just a relief to think about something that's not virus-related. The rest of the day will be devoted to cat videos.
Understandably, there is confusion about climate change models and why people are clanging the drums now and have been for such a long time. A better way to understand this would be through the personal finance model that is very relevant today.
Financial models suggest you save at least 10% of your income for a variety of reasons - emergencies, to save for houses, to payoff loans and retirement. In your 20s, time is on your side and you have the power of compounding interest. Let's say you don't take advantage of it and instead go to graduate school racking up considerable debt. The models start sounding the alarms but you don't heed them. It's not a big deal because you still have time. In your 30s, you still decide not to save 10%, and you buy a little more than you should. You don't have the required down payment for a house but you buy one anyway and end up with PMI. You lease a nice GMC Yukon to tow your new boat. You decide to have kids and your husband stays home so you can focus on your career. All expensive decisions but you make great money so it's ok. Financial models are starting to clang more loudly, and you have less time and fewer options to fix things. Now you're in your 40s, but the incoming money has never been better so you're not sweating your lack of savings. You get a HELOC so you can make home improvement changes, and since your local schools aren't very good, you opt for private schools. You make a lot, but you spend a bit more and rack up credit card debt. Then, a recession hits, and you lose a bunch of your income. You didn't take advantage of when time was on your side and now you have an insane amount of bills with 1/3 of your previous income, so you have to make some pretty drastic decisions on your finances to make it work - downsize your house, trade in your nice car for a clunker, send your kids to public school and make absolutely zero discretionary purchases. If you don't do these things because they require a lot of uncomfortable changes, then you have considerably less wiggle room. That's where we are with climate change - we've ignored the models, and now we're running out of time unless we make a lot of hard decisions right now. In this example, planet earth is in our late 40s and didn't make the easy changes we could have twenty years ago. As with personal finance, climate change is one where you need to think long-term and as we can see very clearly, some people aren't capable of reading the models and planning for the long-term.
You're right... You can cry wolf only so many time...
I love the part about thin the herd. The climate change folks got what they wanted.
"They have helped a lot of people dismiss modeling altogether." Yes. I agree. Though I would caution that what gets into a university (or IPCC) press release is not necessarily what's in the actual study/results. (I'll have to hunt up some proof on that, but I'm pretty sure.)
Because the studies can serve as PR, pulling in more students at higher tuition, etc etc. But that doesn't refute your point, that this press-driven science is not fact-based. Just trying not to disparage climate change research as a whole. It needed money to do the modeling and explorations and whatnot, it got the money, and the process is still grinding away I think. Real science is slow.
Of course in the pandemic era it should take a backseat to public health. Sorry to go on, it's just a relief to think about something that's not virus-related. The rest of the day will be devoted to cat videos.