this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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I'm no scientist, but the cynic in me thinks that conventional models are made so moderate and safe as to support our current paradigm. Now that the climate has changed so far beyond our predictions, we're, oh, so surprised.
Nah. It's just extremely difficult to accurately model systems of such complexity and uncertainty. That's why weather reports can only do up to 2 weeks max. There definitely is fuckery from politicians and the status quo oligarchy in terms of what is passed and reported on, especially by orgs like the IPCC, but this type of acceleration falls within the wide variability of existing models; just not around the mean.
That's one of the main reasons why I think we're fucked. Scientists and their models don't know what they don't know, so some significant variables could be missed (e.g. feedback loops) — variables that ultimately make our modelling unrealistically, naively, optimistic.
We don't have perfect knowledge of the system we're modelling, of course the model falls short of reality.
I see it as the manifestation of Terence McKenna's idea of model theism. We create a model of the world and then worship it as a god.
Sounds like the climate change denial equivalent of the "atheism is a religion" nonsense that the stupidest Christian apologists keep spewing..