...Trust no-one. "Do your own research"
Very wise words! Fortunately, I did and encourage everyone to do their own research as it's a pretty important topic.
I used to think that climate change was noise and BS until I set out to
research and possibly disprove it. Looking into all the flaws I knew of I found they were all bogus or were accounted for in the model. Looking into the proofs, I found they were more complex than I had thought. Looking into the models I found they have been spectacularly accurate over the last ~30 years. For example, here's the 2005 forecast/hindcast with me putting red dots for the actual measured values for the future forecast (the outer lines are the range of accuracy for the model):
The models are only as good as what the scientists know about. Sadly, there are a boatload of unknown things that aren't in the model that people have heard of as Tipping points, e.g., if/when the AMOC stops, melting of ice with trapped methane.
But that's just me. I agree people should look into on their own, although from my experience I can tell you it isn't easy. Scientists don't argue much about if it's happening, but happily argue about nitty gritty. The PR firms have innuendo and misleading information everywhere that's easy to fall prey to. Basically, I advise just picking one thing at a time and digging into it. For example, one of the ones I always hear is
it went from global warming to
climate change because they couldn't sell global warming. But that's just a misleading untruth. This NASA
article talks about it, they're not the same thing. Global warming was where the question started in the 90s to see if the greenhouse effect was really affecting the Earth. Once that was unequivocally proven to be true (see graph below), governments from around the world, via the UN, established the IPCC to see how global warming would change the climate. It only got twisted into a joke by the PR mills and fossil fuel companies, like the tobacco companies, started spreading doubt that it wasn't settled science (settled in the sense we know for a fact that the temperature is rising and it's from more than things like volcanos, not settled in that it's more like the theory of relativity in that it fits most of what we know, but doesn't explain everything). Five different institutions below calculating the global temperature, and not one of them agree! Obviously not settled.
Does that mean information from the scientist is pure? I don't think so. I believe there is government coercion in the IPCC reports. Mainly because a panel of political bodies gets to review and adjust the 'language'. But, to me, it seems like the coercion is to downplay the threat. That is they get to change the language, not the numbers.
Given how out of context the news is just to be sensational (e.g.,
Florida will be underwater, it's true if we do nothing... it will happen in a hundred+ years, but right now it's just a few millimeters a year and only very low areas are affected) I can see why they want to make it less alarming. But, I dislike that it's been politized and the government is doing so little because it's like accruing debt. The more we accrue the more expensive it will be to undo it.
Can we see a graph of the world market for climate scientists vs. year?
Sure! This is just the U.S., probably not representative. Although these numbers are "employed" and most companies don't care about doing climate change research (they're probably more for environmental impact assessments and such). Most climate-related papers published are from college professors using
slaves unpaid students for the research.
I think what you probably want to really know is how much money is being pumped into promoting climate change versus how much is pumped into anti-climate change rhetoric.
Universities get grants to study things, but mainly that's to keep the universities' doors open. The IPCC is funded by regular contributions from its parent organizations WMO and UNEP, and voluntary contributions from its member governments and the UNFCCC. Obviously, that's a pittance. But, the IPCC doesn't do or fund research, they just take what's published and have experts assemble into their reports and more experts review it... there's so little money those only come out every few years.
On the other hand, the anti-climate change is well funded, no surprise considering it is a multi-
trillion dollar industry to protect. Fossil fuels are also always big contributors to politicians; whereas there are few contributors of much smaller amounts from climate scientists. I can find things online about the billions fossil fuels have spent on confusing the public, but they're all climate sites so need to be taken with a grain of salt.
But, right now I think there's very little money on the side that climate change is real, versus a lot of money in saying it's a hoax. That doesn't mean people aren't positioning themselves to make money off it. Fossil fuel companies have been developing carbon capture technology for decades. In fact, even fossil fuel companies now say climate change is real and we need to do something about it:
"We know enough based on the research and science that the risk (of climate change) is real and appropriate steps should be taken to address that risk," Ken Cohen, Exxon's government affairs chief, said in an interview.
ref
