Freeman Dyson on the Global Warming Hysteria April, 2015
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters point to it as a prominent physicist's skeptical counter-view, usually when someone asks for dissenting opinions.
What it is
A 2015 interview in which physicist Freeman Dyson, then 91, argues that global warming concerns are exaggerated, that CO2 is beneficial and that climate models oversimplify complex systems. It is posted on a channel that opposes climate consensus.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Radim · 2018-04 · on “'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will mention”
A fascinating talk, and a counter viewpoint from a top physicist: "Freeman Dyson on the Global Warming Hysteria" [this video]
Recommends briantakita · 2020-02 · on “Freeman Dyson Has Died”
Freeman Dyson did speak out against climate alarmism. He provides some insightful counterpoints to the prevailing APW narrative, particularly about taking models on faith & the provisional nature of science. Given he was directly involved with some of the initial climate models, it's an interesting take on how models of complex nonlinear systems often oversimplify reality with assumptions. It seems like good general wisdom re: models in any domain exhibiting similar complexity & nonlinearity. [this video]
Recommends chrisco255 · 2020-04 · on “Remembering Freeman Dyson”
He was an expert as much as anyone. From his wiki: "Around 1979 Dyson worked with the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies. This group, under Alvin Weinberg's direction, pioneered multidisciplinary climate studies, including a strong biology group. Also during the 1970s, Dyson worked on climate studies conducted by the JASON defense advisory group.[26]" He held the view that CO2 was mostly beneficial to the biosphere and that anthropogenic warming was much milder than has been estimated. You can watch his interview on the subject of you're curious. He explains his position quite coherently: [this video]
Cites whydoyoucare · 2019-10 · on “The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013)”
To me science is never settled, and anyone who claims climate crisis is pretty much definite has an incentive that has other hidden angles than we are led to believe. This is not a denial position, but is largely characterised so. Nothing in science is black-and-white, there are infinite shades of gray in between. Having said that, Freeman Dyson also seems to share this opinion, and I think it carries some weight: [this video] . Another article also says the same: [LINK] The later link also highlights an important aspect from IPCC's report: "In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term predict
Cites briantakita · 2020-02 · on “Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009)”
Here's an interview of Freeman Dyson in 2015 re: APW & faith in models of complex nonlinear systems. Also goes into solar activity (electric, magnetic, & ion ejections) as a driver of climate change. Note that CMIP6 includes particle forcing to its model. CMIP5 & earlier versions did not include particle forcing. [this video]
Cites chrisco255 · 2020-04 · on “Noam Chomsky: A Green New Deal Can Create Jobs and Livelihoods”
Number one they're not all in agreement. Number two, outright, science does not work on consensus. The only reason climate relies on consensus is because they cannot validate their models. They are stuck on the hypothesis step of the scientific method. It doesn't matter how many people you get to agree with your hypothesis. Without empirical experimentation, it proves nothing. You cannot beat chaos theory. The current crop of climate scientists are not being honest about the extremely exponentially high levels of uncertainty in their forecasts. You would do well to read from first principles on chaos theory and ask yourself whether I'm the crazy one for claiming that the future of our climat