In my job before I retired, I was an executive who ran teams of Six Sigma and Data Science professionals. I myself was a data science professional. So I get how science, hypothesis testing, statistics, neural nets, machine learning, AI, and all of that work. I admit to not being the foremost expert on Climate Science, although I have done quite a bit of reading on it. Climate just isn't my field. Business processes, finance, revenues, costs, and productivity is more my field. I don't doubt you have the ability to parse through all the data and figure it all out to your satisfaction. So do many other very credible scientists in the climate science field. The rest of us get bombarded from both sides and it is exceedingly difficult to separate the propaganda from the facts.
I use lots of litmus tests. One litmus test is the scientific consensus, like with statins, cholesterol, and heart disease. I believe there is a global scientific consensus, which simply means the majority of scientists believe in AGW. However, since you don't believe in the consensus or in AGW, how about another litmus test. Ask the question, "Qui bono?" Who benefits? For years, the cigarette companies said there was not link to cancer. For years, the oil and gas companies denied there was significant pollution and greenhouse gases caused by humanities use of fossil fuels. Why? Because they make money off of it and they don't want any do-gooders getting in the way of their profits. Why would scientists make up stuff about AGW? How do they benefit? I don't see a compelling case to saying scientists would risk their reputation by fudging numbers to push a story that they don't personally benefit from. Some might, if they were bribed or if they are crazy ideological, but the vast majority would not risk their reputations and careers over fraud, even in a good cause. It doesn't make sense. But propaganda from the oil & gas companies? Not only does it make complete sense in that they have a profit motive, but we have plenty of evidence that they fund scientists to come up with a favorable opinion to their industry. These are just some of the things I think about when coming to my conclusions. |
