Figuring out entirely by yourself the costs and benefits of climate change is impossible. All of us, including the professionals in the field, are dependent on second hand information. An economist or agronomist trying to estimate the costs of climate change depends on someone else’s estimate of how much change there will be and with what its effects. A climate scientist deciding whether human production of CO2 is the cause of climate change is dependent on, among others, paleoclimate researchers who produce proxy evidence that the current rate of global warming is unprecedented in the periods for which they have good proxies.
I think the strongest argument in favour of accepting the popular view, and a argument that I'm surprised no one explicitly made is that, "Sure what your saying about the costs and benefits of climate change seems to be true, and the examples you give of bias/incompetence/dishonesty seem to be true, and when I think about the problem for my self I broadly agree with you that the popular view seems to neglect important stuff and looks pretty bad, but nevertheless for the same sort of reasons I dismiss conspiracy theorists and such I dismiss you. That is even though what you're saying seems to make sense, conspiracy theorists and such can also offer what on the face of it seem to be lots of very good reasons to discount the popular view and or to regard the expert opinion as biased/dishonest etc. but I'm in no position to "properly evaluate" such claims, and what they are saying is so at odds with my world view I regard them as crazy people."
That is, implicit in your argument is the belief that many thousands of researchers from many different fields spending many years of their life are not only all massively wrong, but wrong in ways that even a intelligent lay person can observe, and that you as a non expert doing this for a hobby can out smart all of them. (I should also add even if you try to say they aren't massively wrong in the case of say Nordhaus, a lay person can simply say you are misrepresenting Nordhaus or that Nordhaus is some crazy right wing economist as evidenced by his Nobel or something. Also in the popular view climate change really is "we are all going to die", with people who think that humans can limit CO2 emissions in time or adapt etc. being regarded as naïve optimists in many more "red pilled" or "black pilled" communities that are often seen as the more intelligent communities. So you really do have to bite the bullet and argue in such a way that presupposes that all of the experts or supposed experts are massively wrong, at least when trying to talk to a lay person.)
Maybe if your talking to someone who enjoys Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Inadequate Equilibria then saying that you can out perform all the experts and supposed experts and institutions etc. doesn't sound too crazy but of course most people aren't like that.
The strategy you seem to employ is offering examples of clear bias/dishonesty, but as suggested earlier a ordinary person is probably going to move the goal post and/or say that the person your accusing of bias/dishonesty is a outlier and not representative of the larger community even if they won a Nobel or something.
Maybe you can convince some people in rationalist or rationalist adjacent spheres that you are correct, but convincing the general public (whilst limiting your self to intellectually honest strategies of course) seems hopeless.
Even if we cannot be sure about the net effect of climate change this does not imply that society should not try mitigate it right away. The expected net change might be about zero (expected benefits equal expected cost) but the variance matters too, and in some cases, might be more important due to risk aversion.
According to this view it is rational for the IPCC to be biased and try to “scare” people and nations into doing something. I am simply restating the precautionary principle, I guess. I also realize that people can use this logic to freak about many other complicated and difficult to predict things (i.e., population explosion, AI, and so on).
This is very interesting. One very nitpicky thing: climate change will be good for some, bad for others. I think the distributional aspect of this is more important than the net impact.
I think the strongest argument in favour of accepting the popular view, and a argument that I'm surprised no one explicitly made is that, "Sure what your saying about the costs and benefits of climate change seems to be true, and the examples you give of bias/incompetence/dishonesty seem to be true, and when I think about the problem for my self I broadly agree with you that the popular view seems to neglect important stuff and looks pretty bad, but nevertheless for the same sort of reasons I dismiss conspiracy theorists and such I dismiss you. That is even though what you're saying seems to make sense, conspiracy theorists and such can also offer what on the face of it seem to be lots of very good reasons to discount the popular view and or to regard the expert opinion as biased/dishonest etc. but I'm in no position to "properly evaluate" such claims, and what they are saying is so at odds with my world view I regard them as crazy people."
That is, implicit in your argument is the belief that many thousands of researchers from many different fields spending many years of their life are not only all massively wrong, but wrong in ways that even a intelligent lay person can observe, and that you as a non expert doing this for a hobby can out smart all of them. (I should also add even if you try to say they aren't massively wrong in the case of say Nordhaus, a lay person can simply say you are misrepresenting Nordhaus or that Nordhaus is some crazy right wing economist as evidenced by his Nobel or something. Also in the popular view climate change really is "we are all going to die", with people who think that humans can limit CO2 emissions in time or adapt etc. being regarded as naïve optimists in many more "red pilled" or "black pilled" communities that are often seen as the more intelligent communities. So you really do have to bite the bullet and argue in such a way that presupposes that all of the experts or supposed experts are massively wrong, at least when trying to talk to a lay person.)
Maybe if your talking to someone who enjoys Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Inadequate Equilibria then saying that you can out perform all the experts and supposed experts and institutions etc. doesn't sound too crazy but of course most people aren't like that.
The strategy you seem to employ is offering examples of clear bias/dishonesty, but as suggested earlier a ordinary person is probably going to move the goal post and/or say that the person your accusing of bias/dishonesty is a outlier and not representative of the larger community even if they won a Nobel or something.
Maybe you can convince some people in rationalist or rationalist adjacent spheres that you are correct, but convincing the general public (whilst limiting your self to intellectually honest strategies of course) seems hopeless.
Even if we cannot be sure about the net effect of climate change this does not imply that society should not try mitigate it right away. The expected net change might be about zero (expected benefits equal expected cost) but the variance matters too, and in some cases, might be more important due to risk aversion.
According to this view it is rational for the IPCC to be biased and try to “scare” people and nations into doing something. I am simply restating the precautionary principle, I guess. I also realize that people can use this logic to freak about many other complicated and difficult to predict things (i.e., population explosion, AI, and so on).
This is very interesting. One very nitpicky thing: climate change will be good for some, bad for others. I think the distributional aspect of this is more important than the net impact.