Morendil comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: FAWS 15 March 2010 01:54:07PM 2 points [-]

The closest thing I could find on that page and the the most promising looking links was the water vapor argument (which is more of an argument that AGW should be smaller than expected rather than non-existent) and he apparently doesn't subscribe to that anymore. Other than that he seems content to cast doubts and make accusations against the other side. If he has a new X, is there any good summary anywhere?

Just out of interest, what would have been the correct answer to the test (rot13 if you don't want to spoil it)?

Comment author: Morendil 15 March 2010 02:08:24PM 4 points [-]

The position of "sane" climate skeptics appears to be that rising CO2 levels' effects on temperature will be dampened by other regulatory causal effects; the evidence for the existence of such regulatory feedback is the overall stability of climate over long periods of time.

My main concern with that position is that it is whistling in the dark.

Comment author: Hook 15 March 2010 02:24:05PM 0 points [-]

That's just about what I was thinking. Anything that pointed out that the "all other things being equal" clause doesn't describe reality would be sufficient.

Comment author: FAWS 15 March 2010 02:18:04PM 0 points [-]

That's what I meant with argument about climate models, different models suggest different mixes of positive and negative feedback.

Actually I'd be much more worried about CO2 emissions if I was convinced there was a strong dampening effect of unknown origin. That suggests the system might potentially be stressed to the breaking point, and afterwards a runaway process might result in vesusification. Even a very small risk of that would dominate all other climate related risks.