Climate Policy

[Jester]

You clearly haven't read much of his writings.

On climate change? I've read nothing but interviews, book reviews, statements, and so on. Does he have a scientific publication record on this topic that I'm missing? (Not that I'd be qualified to judge it.)

When Dyson says that he doesn't know much about something, it usually means that there's a dozen or so individuals in the world who know more. If he claims to be short, it is only because he uses a very long yardstick.

Pete, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Freeman Dyson's mighty mind. But this borders on worship. This isn't his field. He does not do research in climate science. At best, he is a very talented outsider taking a look around another field and giving his thoughts. And there are legions of scientists lined up against him, including some of the few minds as powerful as his own.

And for one who doesn't know much, his objections are pretty specific and to the point.

Not really, at least from what I've heard. He tends to take a very scattergun, press-conference approach to the topic. I suppose it fits with his eccentric futurist approach, but this is a man who has seriously and consistently proposed that genetically engineered "carbon eating" trees are the solution to this problem. Or that there is no problem. Or that there is a problem, but we can't predict it. Or that it's just a beef with the modellers taking themselves too seriously. Or that there is a problem, but it'd be too expensive to fix, compared to solving world hunger or some other worthy cause.

At least from where I sit, he seems to change the tune quite often, and makes no practical or actionable suggestions, instead throwing out sound bytes and neato ideas about the totally speculative, untested field of environmental bioengineering. He seems to say almost nothing about the underlying science except that he thinks the models' accuracy is exaggerated (he specifically has a beef with the role of vegetation) which may be true politically, but hardly represents the opinions of those actually doing the modelling, who are generally quite aware of just how much work remains to be done.

-Jester