Are you critical about how to conduct effective medical trials in your everyday life? Are you critical about the best catalogue hierarchy for books in a public library? Are you critical of the driving techniques of truckers under snow conditions?

You can critique anything in life and there's a hell of a lot of things that are important for which we recognize that we have little knowledge in the domain and that our criticism is mere curiousity but has no relevance whatsoever.

For some reason only a narrow band of Americans think that their knowledge or their credentials on the subject allows them to challenge the topic critically or consider that the the scientific consensus on the matter is wrong.

It's a bullshit argument from bullshit skeptics. Critical thinking comes from having a minimum baseline knowledge of the subject. I have yet to meet a skeptic who does.

The actual, real skeptics are the peers of climate scientists who have domain knowledge and can ask about the modeling techniques in papers, what equations were utilized, what assumptions are taken and so on. Without that it's the same level of intellectual drudgery as anti-vaxxers.

After trying to grok the mammoth amounts of data, I realized that it would take me forever just to come up to speed. I decided to focus on the arguments. What I found was that the climate scientists could answer every objection, and I could trace back to the data itself and validate what they were saying. The "skeptics" would either: repeat their claim without acknowledging the rebuttal, or would switch to arguing something else completely, or would not reply at all only to go somewhere else and repeat their rebutted claim(s) without modification. Being something of a skeptic myself (in an evidence-based way), I recognize this pattern of behavior. It's not skepticism; it's denial. It's a marketing campaign.

When you have a true skeptic of climate change look into it, you end up with the Koch-funded Richard Muller deciding that, yeah, it's real science done well and that climate change is real.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann#CRU_email_cont...

Now to what you are saying. First of all, being critical of what the media writes about some scientific subject, is not the same as being critical of the scientist that did the research. Many times research is wrongly quoted or taken out of context.

Secondly, sometimes some research seems to contradict with other. For instance, as I mentioned already in another reply (and got already downvoted to -4 by now), while research clearly shows that the Arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is growing. I find those seemingly contradicting facts interesting, they show that we apparently do not understand everything about the subjec t yet.

Science makes progress from new facts and experiments that can't be explained by the current theory. If people would refuse to see those facts, progress would never be made.

When you see an apparent contradiction like this, why do you stop there? Do you really think climatologists haven't considered this? Here's one theory: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716...

> As such, the behavior of Antarctic sea ice is not a paradox as some have suggested, but instead is consistent with the geophysical characteristics in the southern polar region that starkly contrast to those in the Arctic.

Of course we don't understand everything, we don't understand everything about any subject. When you see contradictory headlines, dig deeper. Don't stop and think "I knew it, these people don't know what they're doing".

No, it shows that you haven't been reading the minimum baseline material.

Antartic ice surface is spreading but the volume is decreasing dramatically. The surface spread is due to lower atmospheric temperatures given the transfer of energy from the atmosphere to the ice, leading to the melt in ice shelves that used to be stable.

There is no point of contention there and if you had actually done the research this should have come up easily.

Short summary: the study partly conflicts other results, and the mass loss seen in that study may be more due to the limitations of their measurement technique (radar altimetry) versus other techniques (gravity).

There's more at the link referenced above. (See also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...)

Claimer: while not involved in ice mass quantification, I talk regularly with people who do it full time, publish regularly, are leads on space instruments to measure it, etc.

And, like other commenters nearby, I want to caution you on your approach to "skepticism" and "keeping an open mind".

You seem to be selecting one press release from the hundreds released every year, and using its partial conflict with other information to call the whole hypothesis (significant ice melting caused by global warming) into question. That's not a valid mode of inquiry - especially when you don't have the training and time to keep up with current work.

It's like walking into an IC fab and asking why they are not using EUV lithography (it was in this article in Wired!) when you didn't even take a semiconductor physics class in college.

The right place to start, if you really want to get informed, is the IPCC AR5 report (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/). Reading press releases only makes sense if you can put it into context.

The theory was first proposed in 1820, demonstrated in a lab in 1864, proposed with climate predictions 1894, and studied ever more intensely ever since.

It's about as old as the germ theory of disease.

So the same standard applies: if you attack the germ theory of disease or the global warming theory, you need to show some demand evidence, or else, put up with lots of negative sentiment vented by people who are justly angered that you asked for their attention and didn't show them enough respect to warrant their attention.

And by the looks of the responses your post received, your reaction is justified.

While its roots may be in science, the Climate Change movement has become a church unto itself. And one that does not treat potential Martin Luthers kindly.

Constructing climate change deniers as the new civil rights activists. What a fucked up logic.

Were to so eager to flame me that you couldn't be bothered to read my post properly?

I had wondered if my post would have spawned a lengthy discussion in which I would have to properly assemble a series of arguments with supporting links as rebuttals. But to have my point so clearly illustrated right out of the gate...oh, what a gift!

Yes, as well as reflexively downvote. Please enjoy the irony of what you wrote and the subsequent reaction.

(FWIW, I upvoted your comment)

Would love to see more pragmatism and less dogma. I think that would help.

Then it doesn't matter what I write, or say, you can divine my true beliefs?

Sounds a little bit like...the clergy! :)

Also clergy don't think they can magically divine people's true beliefs unless you are talking about D&D, so you really need to work on your metaphors.

There are also those that seek to punctuate the discussion and create strawmen, like yourself - that's the dogma side :)

So I don't know what your comment actually tries to communicate, apart of this strawmen thing, which itself is a strawmen.

>The scientific and technological approach to these problem is pragmatic

Which is it?