- Thanks for the questions, it is sad for me to learn that I was so unclear that you missed what I tried to say on so many points, but here are my answers to your not so easy to understand questions.
My general message to Hans Rosling is as follows:
- You tell us that the living conditions for the poor people in the world are improving and you know that this is directly related to the increasing use of fossil fuels.
- You have uncritically accepted the IPCC founding dogma that CO2 emissions from burning of fossil fuels is causing dangerous global warming and thus have to be drastically reduced. This dogma is not fact-based since there is no scientific evidence that this effect is real.
- What you should do is to use your own Gapminder principle of fighting devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview, and you should then start by reading the reports from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
- You will then find that there is no scientific fact-based reason to limit CO2 emissions, a message which you will greet with great joy and satisfaction since it allows poor people to improve their living conditions.
My Question 1: You say that you are not at all involved in climate science, yet you assure the world that IPCC science is truely, truely good. Is this a fact-based message or does it rather reflect ignorance?
Roslings Answer 1: As you rightly write I commented on the summary for policy makers. I was explicit about not being a climate scientist, but my judgement is that this summary for policy maker is as good a summary of research as policy makers, public and researchers in other fields can ever hope to get.
My Comment 1: You make a judgement about climate science based on ignorance in climate science admitted by yourself. Doing so you violate your own Gapminder principle to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview.
My Question 2: You claim to know that humans are changing the climate, but not how much, how fast, in which way, or where this or that will happen. What do you mean by this statement? Does it have a content? Is that not an example of the devastating ignorance you are fighting?
Rosling's Answer 2: No it is not me claiming, it is IPCC claiming that humans are changing the climate, I accept their consensus on this point, but pointed out that their projections have a very wide range of uncertainty. I think I was very clear about the distinction between accepting the consensus that humans are changing the climate and my observations that the uncertainties in the projections are so wide that they range from almost negligible changes to potentially catastrophic.
My Comment 2: You accept the consensus of IPCC which you interpret to range from almost neglible change to catastrophic. According to NIPPC it is negligible. Why not accept NIPCC instead of IPCC?
My Question 3: You know that massive use of fossil fuel is required to improve the living conditions for billions of poor people, yet you support the idea that the use of fossil fuels must be reduced, drastically reduced. How are you going to resolve this contradiction?
Rosling's Answer 3: No I do not know how to solve this contradiction, but it do exist! My suggestion in the end is that the richest, that have by far the highest emission must lower their emission first before they demand restrictions by those with much lower emission.
My Comment 3: You admit to pose a contradiction, which you cannot solve as long as you uncritically accept IPCC. If you critically accept NIPCC after looking at the facts, the contradiction will disappear. Why are you stuck with a contradiction?
My Question 4: You compare with smoking and cancer and HIV. What is the connection to climate science?
Rosling's Answer 4: The connection is that the a scientific consensus regarding a causal link between smoking and cancer as well as between sexual transmission of HIV and Aids was of greatest importance for human behavior, as well as for health, economic and trade policy. The ways those consensus were reached and communicated were far more haphazardly done then IPCC, but then again I said that IPCC is in a more difficult position as they are making predictions rather than concluding about causal links in the present time.
My comment 4: You don't answer my question about the connection between human emissions of CO2 and smoking/cancer and HIV. I take it that you mean that there is no connection.
My Question 5: You say we have to get things done. What do we have to do?
Rosling's Answer 5: If we should avoid a possible catastrophic climate change we, that is we humans, have to reduce or at least stop to increase the CO2 emission.
My comment 5: Again, if you look at the facts, then you will understand that it is better for humanity to use its limited resources in a fact-based meaningful way to improve living conditions for the poor, instead of wasting these resources on meaningless non-fact-based restriction of CO2 emissions.
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