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John

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“Any appeal to the alleged “97 percent consensus” among scientists is another red flag. The study that produced that number has been convincingly debunked.8 And in any event, nobody has ever specified exactly what those 97 percent of scientists are supposed to be agreed upon. That the climate is changing? Sure, count me in! That humans are influencing the climate? Absolutely, I’m there! That we’re already seeing disastrous weather impacts and face an even more catastrophic future? Not at all obvious”
― Steven E. Koonin, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

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“The bottom line is that the science says that most extreme weather events show no long-term trends that can be attributed to human influences on the climate.”
― Steven E. Koonin, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

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“It’s clear that media, politicians, and often the assessment reports themselves blatantly misrepresent what the science says about climate and catastrophes. Those failures indict the scientists who write and too-casually review the reports, the reporters who uncritically repeat them, the editors who allow that to happen, the activists and their organizations who fan the fires of alarm, and the experts whose public silence endorses the deception. The constant repetition of these and many other climate fallacies turns them into accepted “truths.”
― Steven E. Koonin, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

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“More bluntly, they’re saying that we’ve no idea what causes this failure of the models. They cannot tell us why the climate changed during those decades. And that’s deeply unsettling, because the observed early twentieth-century warming is comparable to the observed late twentieth-century warming, which the assessment reports attribute with “high confidence” to human influences.”
― Steven E. Koonin, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

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“The could question is very different from the question of “What should we do?” Any discussion of how the world should respond to a changing climate is best informed by scientific certainties and uncertainties. But it’s ultimately a discussion of values—one that weighs development, environment, and intergenerational and geographical equities in light of imperfect projections of future climates. And the could and should questions are different still from asking “What will we do?” Answering that involves assessing the realities of politics, economics, and technology development. Indeed, the simple truth is that there are many things the world could do and perhaps even should do—such as eliminating poverty—but which it will not do for various reasons. Importantly, making a judgment about will is not at all the same as stating an opinion about should.”
― Steven E. Koonin, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

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