A Few Things Ill Considered

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

Objection:

More and more the models share all the same assumptions, so of course they all agree! And every year fewer scientists dare to speak out against the findings of the IPCC, this is a clear indication of the pressure there is to conform.

Answer:

The improving agreement of model results and the increasingly similar physical representations of the climate system from model to model may well look like just sharing code, or tweaking til things look like everyone else. But it is also perfectly consistent with better and better understanding of the underlying problem, an understanding that is shared via scientific journals and research. This understanding is coming very fast as we gather more and more historical and current data, all of which provides more testing material for model refinement.

Looking at the increasing agreement among the climate models and the climate scientists and seeing collusion instead of consensus is quite a dramatic take on what is really just the normal course of scientific investigation. I suppose that fewer and fewer scientists disagreeing with the status quo is indeed consistent with some kind of widespread and insidious suppression of ideas, but you know, it is also consistent with having the right answer.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

"Consensus or Collusion?" was first published here, where you can still find the original comment thread. This updated version is also posted on the Grist website, where additional comments can be found, though the author, Coby Beck, does not monitor or respond there.