Research paper referenced in the video that makes Dr. Hossenfelder very worried:
Global warming in the pipeline: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
Abstract
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.
My basic summary (I am NOT a climate scientist so someone tell me if I’m wrong and I HOPE this is wrong for my children), scientists had dismissed hotter climate models due to the fact that we didn’t have historical data to prove them. Now folks are applying hotter models to predicting weather and the hotter models appear to be more accurate. So it looks like we’re going to break 2C BEFORE 2050 and could hit highs of 8C-10C by the end of the century with our CURRENT levels of green house gases, not even including increasing those.
EDIT: Adding more sources:
Use of Short-Range Forecasts to Evaluate Fast Physics Processes Relevant for Climate Sensitivity: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019MS001986
Short-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5
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We, or I might have to accept that a species, no matter how intelligent on an individual basis, is doomed to go extinct when the collective intelligence is not able to mitigate long term consequences.
Our next filter to overcome as a civilisation
I’ve watched Sabine for awhile, she’s a really great science reporter who keeps things simple and pretty brief. Just a note though, I feel like she sometimes takes very skeptical and conservative views on some subjects where she doesn’t really have any expertise. It also makes me kind of uncomfortable how she seems to be obsessed with Elon Musk, she mentions him in basically every video.
Despite all that, she’s pretty great, check her out, just keep in mind she talks about a lot of things she isn’t an expert in.
I followed her for a few months but eventually stopped because I found her too inconsistent and sensationalized in many of the videos. Generally I’ve liked her physics coverage, but most other topics I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice listening to her. A lot of her material seems like Facebook meme quality content with a physics professor aesthetic
I had to unfollow her, her sensationalistic thumbnails and stupid video titles are way too much for me to handle.
I’m already out with FACE BIG RED CIRCLE ARROW OH NO TEXT
That is why I have never watched one of her videos. YouTube tends to have at least one from her on the home page, and I don’t want to even give her a chance because of how clickbaity it is (along with 90% of the videos they push). I’m not even going to watch this one. I just came to the comments to validate my opinion lol.
Agreed.
Even with the physics stuff if it’s something I am familiar with, she just shits all over it. She acts like the general public / media understanding of a topic is what the people doing the work actually think. No, we are REQUIRED to write a blurb for the media department. The media department runs with it and publishes press releases which are 50% BS to start with. Then the general media picks it up (if they pick it up, mostly nobody cares) and the BS factor gets pushed to 11.
Like it’s good to set the record straight and educate people what a topic is really about, but it can be done in a respectful and non-condescending / non-confrontational way. She just likes to shit on everything for no reason and usually doesn’t even go into the details, just surface level. It’s like an armchair quarterback but for science nerds.
Usually I don’t watch any of her non physics content, it’s way too cringe for me (especially the non funny jokes, like is the joke meant to be not funny and that’s the joke or?) and the whole Elon Musk thing feels like an obsession mixed with algorithm feeding mixed with hello fellow kids. The face filters she uses is also very weird and uncanny valley. When I do sometimes see something non-physics and it’s a topic I know, I get the same vibes, like very surface level, Facebook meme quality (great description @zynlyn ). And a lot of the times she gets stuff wrong and almost never goes back to correct any of it or take videos down where it’s proven to be total BS. Like the video she did on trans people which was panned by basically everybody and debunked by many people knowledgeable on the subject from different angles. That’s still up and it most definitely should not be, or have big disclaimer.
Can you give 1 video that debunks her trans one?
Edit: I was downvoted for this. I should mention that I am Not anti trans. There are no buts about it. My must shared video is probably the one by Robert Sapolsky, where he talks about trans people. I was just asking for curiosity.
Yeah, ever since she decided to weigh in on the transgender “debate” with a “science says you don’t exist” take I’ve moved on. That and the really odd “Yay Capitalism!” Video.
It’s always important to evaluate whether the speaker is an actual expert in the field they’re talking about or are they an expert in a different field and just think they can speak to subjects outside their field with the same authority.
And her autism video. I don’t understand why she feels the need to have a say in subjects she has no expertise in.
100%. If she just stuck to her realm of expertise. I’d probably still be watching her videos today. They were entertaining enough. Not Greg. But good enough. But those videos right there. Sapped any interest and Goodwill I had.
Downvoted out of principle for the ridiculous clickbait YouTube title/thumbnail. I can’t stand them, and I don’t care that it helps them get more engagement with the algorithm, the algorithm sucks.
I get it though. If it is your job and you are struggling than I get why you would do that. Maybe now it goes viral and maybe now it gets sustainable. It is a hard game and don’t hate the player.
Okay, so, as others have expressed in this thread, I don’t completely trust Sabine as a science communicator. Can someone who knows what they’re talking about about shed some light on this paper and/or Sabine’s video?
I can’t say much about this paper, but I like Sabine. She can be like judge Judy sometimes but I’d rather hear a hot take than a tepid one.
Friends of mine have complained how she’s strayed away from physics videos towards more general science. She can also be a little condescending towards string theorists’ research interests
Other people might get uncomfortable when it comes down to her videos on free will.
For this paper however, it seems Climate targets in recent years have been under estimating global warming and have to accelerate their models each year. She seems worried this opens up the possibility of 4-6C of warming.
I no longer trust Sabine when it comes to anything but physics.
She has proven time and again to oversimplify and assume her correctness in topics she has on expertise on.
Her video on nuclear reactors was awful. She just neglected facts, that didn’t fit her narrative.
Her videos that touch on some psychology/sociology topics are even worse. As a psychologist I disagree with everything she says whenever she is not talking about her very narrow niche of expertise.
She had a terrible video about trans healthcare as well.
About capitalism and economics too
Yeah. Just because she’s capable of interpreting large data models, that doesn’t make her an expert on every field that uses data. And her pretending she is makes her a worse scientist even in her own field of study.
Edit;
ALSO how is she a scientist AND ‘not worried’ about climate change until she saw these numbers? How hard is it to accept that there is a field of thousands of researchers who are all screaming about climate change?
Personal theory: she is a conservative scientists. They exist. She has a hard time reconciling her world view with her professional career. Thus the weird videos over sensitive topics that are apologetic about the conservative worldview. Hence why I don’t trust her whenever she is talking about anything but neutron interactions in nuclear physics.
I think that theory makes a lot of sense.
About philosophical topics such as free will too.
Even on physics you can’t trust her necessarily.
She’s prone to pushing fringe theoretical physics ideas without contextualizing the degree to which they are fringe.
Not a bad resource for physics explanations and discussion - just take with a grain of salt.
Agreed, used to really enjoy the videos, but saw the same thing. Rebecca Watson does some good videos taking Sabine to task on this.
World Economic Forum: Global freshwater demand will exceed supply 40% by 2030, experts warn
UN Food and Agriculture Organization: 90% Of The Earth’s Topsoil Is At Risk Of Depletion By 2050
Humanity isn’t going to make it out of the century.
Incidentally, that was one of Stephen Hawkins last predictions.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/6/20/15836426/stephen-hawking-colonize-other-planets
I REALLY hope that doesn’t happen. Our species is a fucking horror show of wars and bigotry. We should end when we kill our planet.
Prolonging this suffering isn’t going to make humans a nicer creature, the authoritarianism, greed and corruptability is hardwired in. Can you imagine the sheer scale of fucking misery if humans filled other resource rich planets up with people?I can imagine planets being dedicated to serve a single purpose like the districts of the hunger games.
It’s going to be slavery and strip mining on a scale that’s unimaginable.
And trillionaire capitalists won’t need to worry about ““human rights”” on their colonies, those are barely enforced on earth now as it is. Endless generations of slaves will never know any other life. That will be the human legacy if we colonise space.
WTF is praying going to do?!?
Coping mechanism
Ew.
About the same as the other solutions we’ve tried.
(we haven’t).
Yes.
It is insane that there are scientists out there that weren’t worried about climate change until now. And dissappointing that Sabine was apparently one of them.
Ironic conversation with someone close, we were strolling nearby a river. Comments about river being dirty, talks about people on this area lack of dicipline. After awhile buys a bottle of water then proceed to throw plastic beside the road, nearby the river. Me Surprised Pikachu face.
A dark sense of hope here: At least some of us are able to adapt quickly.
This lady is fantastically entertaining, thank you for the discovery!
Shame about the climate, hopefully whatever takes over after humans can live in harmony with its environment ✌️
She’s fine, as long as you don’t take what she says at face value. Or automatically accept it. She has felt compelled to make videos on topics she really had no standing or need to. Packed with misinformation and false premise. When it comes to physics related things. Like climate change, she’s probably fine. But if you want to see something so bad and wrong it’s beyond cringe. Go check out her videos on trans issues and capitalism at least. I used to enjoy watching her and her schtick. But since then I have not watched a single new video of hers. Because she’s not that Entertaining. And if she doesn’t bother to make sure the information she’s presenting is correct and just talks from her fee fees. What the point.
I’ll check those out!
When it comes to topics like particle physics and other physics related things. She’s pretty decent. It’s what she studied, it’s what she does. So she tries to be cautious and responsible when it comes to that. Unfortunately that doesn’t apply to other subjects. Which is why you have to be careful with anyone, not just her. But those videos definitely did sour me on her.
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Maybe authorities don’t care about climate change because they plan on making it a moot point by 2050.
Reagan planned on making Climate Change a moot point thanks to nuclear holocaust, but he couldn’t provoke the Soviets into a first strike and didn’t have the heart to pull a Stillson. (He should have known better. China relayed the Soviet plan for Мирное сосуществование and Carter was fully on board.
Anyway, the cold war ended and Germany reunified, and now we didn’t kill ourselves with nukes, and death by mostly famine is looking like a grim possibility. (I was rooting for AI takeover or science experiment mishap if we had to choose a near-future great filter) We knew shit was bad in the 1990s and aughts, and the science sector had strong data analysis in the seventies (when there was a strong conservation movement). But capitalism prevailed and Reagan got elected which was the beginning of the dusk of America.
🤷♂️
Agreed, there are much better sources for info on this incredibly important topic
Indeed. It was a flippant response from me, but I haven’t got much patience for these articles any more.
Damn, as if the outlook wasn’t already bad enough
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Just because someone is criticizing a woman doesn’t mean it’s because she’s a woman. I’m even more suspicious of Kurzgesagt, where the host is a man. And conversely I’m a fan of Angela Collier and Becky Smethurst because they clearly separate their personal opinions from their expert opinions. I also fucking hate Elmo.
100% this. I respect intelligence regardless of where it comes from. That and personality are two of the main things I would look for in a partner. Looks fade fast. Intelligence and personality can last a lifetime.
If she had stuck to making videos about physics most of us would probably be fine with her. Once she started to cover loaded topics like trans women in sports the reputation of her went down the drain. This tainted our trust towards all her other videos.
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”us” = we in the comments complaining
Anyone with their own thoughts and opinions worth listening to.
Lol, Sabine is an Elon Stan. Learn to read, the criticism towards her are valid and most comments are well thought out and carefully written nuance. The only oversimplistic and unhelpful cringe platitude in this thread is your comment.
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Dear lord, what a crybaby. Go get your diapers changed, you’re stinking the place.
