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RE: Changing the narrative – how to talk about climate change

in #science5 years ago

The problem I see with arguing solely "black swan" based is that it allow people to say that such an event can't be 100% prevented anyway. Imagine the supervolcano below the phlegrean fields erupting or the likes.
I would rather use it as an additional argument, to say "even if the statistic chance of 0.1% that the models are wrong comes true, there is still the chance of a provoked black swan event"). That doesn't devaluate evidence-based predictions.

One thing else: "take the sceptics seriously"
If "taking serious" means staying polite and not to argue ad hominem, I am with you - even though climate sceptics use those tactics a lot. But in a discussion, I still have to tell them that they are wrong. Anything else would be an appeasement tactics that would be a breach of my oath as a PhD.

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I would rather use it as an additional argument, to say "even if the statistic chance of 0.1% that the models are wrong comes true, there is still the chance of a provoked black swan event")

That's exactly the point I was trying to make, it seems I have failed^^

If "taking serious" means staying polite and not to argue ad hominem, I am with you - even though climate sceptics use those tactics a lot. But in a discussion, I still have to tell them that they are wrong. Anything else would be an appeasement tactics that would be a breach of my oath as a PhD.

Totally agree. I was mainly refering to the tone of the debate, not about the factual arguments.

then we're at the same page ;-)