Podcast. Episode 6. Climate Intelligence & climate science

Climate science is seemingly at the centre of the argument for radical, planet-saving policies. But how deep are governments' and activists commitments to the scientific debate in reality?

Climate science has many problems. But rather than confronting these issues in open and transparent debate, advocates of climate policies seek to shut down and slander their critics. In this episode, we hear from Marcel Crok, founder of Clintel — Climate Intelligence — a global movement of scientists and others who “aim to be the voice of reason in the often overheated climate debate”. And for many years, Marcel has been urging the Dutch government and others to understand the importance of debate to seemingly science-based policy.

Check out Clintel’s World Climate Declaration — now signed by nearly 2,000 scientists and experts.

Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. In particular, scientists should emphasize that their modeling output is not the result of magic: computer models are human-made. What comes out is fully dependent on what theoreticians and programmers have put in: hypotheses, assumptions, relationships, parameterizations, stability constraints, etc. Unfortunately, in mainstream climate science most of this input is undeclared.

To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models. In the future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.

Also Check out Clintel’s book, The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC.

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