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Scientists Know More Than They Say
(www.usatoday.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Doomers
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I'd frame it along the lines of: Scientists only talk about what they can prove.
This standard is higher than the opposition, which will publish "shower thoughts" as "evidence".
If you talk to scientists (off the record) about what they think is likely the case, that's where you get more dire commentary. They've been trained to hold back, nothing nefarious... but also not helpful in the current media climate.
Thank you. Yours may be a less cynical view concerning publicly available scientific thought.
It occurs to me that more realistic study results can lead to fewer funding opportunities.
There's also the error bars.
Scientists will determine that the temperature will rise by between 1°C and 6°C. That's a big range. Climate change is complicated and it's impossible to account for all of the variables.
To the scientist (and their colleagues) they'll know that 3°C is most likely, and this type of paper reads like a dire warning... but when the news breaks, it goes. One of two ways:
"1-6°C is a huge range, scientists must not know what's going on. What does this even mean?"
"Scientists report that temperature will rise by at least 1°C, the UN Council on Blah Blah says that we should keep under 1.5°C..."
It's maddening, really. Most of the scientists I know are doomers.