Monthly Archives: February 2018

Climate Hawks

Posted on February 22, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

After a brief Twitter discussion with Ted Nordhaus (who authored the article I wrote about here) I came across another of his recent articles. It’s about Climate Hawks’s revealed preferences. The basic suggestion is that Climate Hawks don’t really behave … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, ethics, Global warming, Policy | Tagged , , , , | 315 Comments

The two-degree delusion?

Posted on February 16, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

Ted Nordhaus, of Breakthrough Institute fame, has a recent article in Foreign Affairs called [t]he two-degree delusion. Basically, it argues that we cannot possibly achieve this target without harming the poor, and that continuing to try and do so also … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, GRRRROWTH, Policy | Tagged , , , , | 73 Comments

Political Scientists

Posted on February 14, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

Gavin Schmidt had a bit of a rant on Twitter about some political scientists find[ing] ways to blame climate scientists for the lack of progress in CO2 emission reductions. We should dedicate February as #findaclimatescapegoat month as yet again some … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Gavin Schmidt, Policy, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 50 Comments

A challenge for my readers

Posted on February 11, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

John Cook and colleagues have new paper out about [d]econstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. The basic idea is to inoculat[e] against misinformation by explaining the fallacious reasoning within misleading denialist claims. and to [o]ffer a strategy based on … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Pseudoscience, Satire, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , | 401 Comments

Overhype much?

Posted on February 6, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

There has been quite a lot of news coverage suggesting that astronomer have, for the first time, discovered planets in another galaxy. It’s from a paper by Xinyu Dai and Eduardo Guerras called Probing Planets in Extragalactic Galaxies Using Quasar … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, Science, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments

ECS from a modified energy balance approach

Posted on February 4, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

Andrew Dessler’s paper (technically Dessler and Forster), which he mentioned in this comment, has now appeared as a pre-print. Essentially, they use an energy balance approach to estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), but – as I mentioned in this post … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 144 Comments

SciComm for the IPCC

Posted on February 3, 2018 by ...and Then There's Physics

There is a newly released Communications Handbook for IPCC scientists. It’s already been covered in a Guardian article and in a Realclimate post. There are six basic principles Be a confident communicator Talk about the real world, not abstract ideas … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Policy, Research, Scientists | Tagged , , , , | 128 Comments