Data scientist Hannah Ritchie is publishing a book skeptical of the catastrophic view of climate change, which, she says, is a departure from her previous attitude of urgent panic about the matter. An excerpt was published in The Guardian, and Josh shared the link.
“I thought most of us were going to die from the climate crisis. I was wrong.”
exclaims the headline. She still believes the globe is warming, that the warming is mainly human-induced, the warming will be bad, and that renewables are the righteous and saintly course to averting disaster, mainly because the warming won’t be at the high end of predictions.
What I found most alarming is how effective the climate fear-mongering propaganda campaign has been on the young. It really does amount to religious dogma being instilled in children in schools from an early age. That they’ve taken religion and religious tradition (mainly Christian, in Western societies) out of schools seems reasonable and sensible to me on many levels. Replacing it with a different, secular quasi-religion to be believed as fervently as its predecessor faith I find profoundly offensive.
Plus, what am I supposed to imagine a “data scientist” is? Someone who dons a white lab coat and puts numbers into test tubes, in centrifuges, and under microscopes? Who’s actually in charge of coming up with such say-nothing, vapid job designations that journalists can’t seem to stop overusing? Hmm? Who?
I believe Bob Dylan sang it when he mumbled "ya gotta serve somebody".
I believe people have a need to believe something....
A Data Scientist is a therapist, with but one patient, on Starship Enterprise.