I'm not sure this meets the required standard of accuracy for the BBC guidelines: "for legal reasons, we’re not able to tell you what that line is." Doesn't that tend to give an impression that the law definitely forbids it, when in fact it is very far from clear that there was any defamation?

Many thanks to @sioldridge.bsky.social , @nickoldridge.bsky.social , all the speakers and everyone else who helped bring about the National Emergency Briefing.

I suggest the word "killstock" instead of "livestock" where the intention is killing.

A sensible response to the climate/habitat destruction/environment crises by governments would seem to me to include a big effort on creative ways to help people realise that their lives can be more fulfilling without overconsumption.

How many universities are teaching correctly on the basis of - what the UN resolutions actually say, rather than wrongly on the basis of - what civil servants and politicians have claimed about global goals? web.archive.org/web/20221026...

Let's take a little time to consider what Trump and his allies may be doing behind the scenes, in the form for instance of instructions to agencies on surveillance.

As with climate disturbance, uncertainty provides a good argument to take more action, not less.

If the BBC chose to mislead the public that they were hearing the whole lecture: That is very poor, and a bad sign of an aspect of the culture at least among some at the BBC. If it did not occur to those in charge that they would mislead the public: Ditto.

In 2014-15 the BBC received detailed complaints that it falsely claimed the UN Millennium Declaration target on children's survival, among other targets, had an easier 1990 baseline. It continued. No-one resigned. web.archive.org/web/20240226... web.archive.org/web/20240303...

Precise or definite-sounding climate predictions intended to alert people, obscuring the uncertainty, may paradoxically reassure people into doing less because they do not understand the real inadequacy of science to predict complex systems.

Humans are poking Nature's chaos.

For the BBC to say "this is an edited version of the lecture" would be one thing. To present the censored version as if it is the whole lecture is not only censorship, but adds another layer of deception in public statements about the broadcast.

We can view this edit by BBC management - and misleading presentation of the censored version as the full lecture - in the context of the BBC treating the edit of the Trump speech as a highly serious matter. bsky.app/profile/did:...

The BBC spliced two recordings from a speech together, making it sound like the part in the middle didn't exist? Does that sound familiar?

If we also consider the unpredictability of effects on temperatures of sudden changes in ocean currents, huge wildfires driven by higher temperatures, and melting permafrost, what level of trust is reasonable in claims to predict global temperatures for 10, 25 or 75 years' time?

In a field where evidence suggests that a high proportion of papers have serious flaws, a database of "potentially important" papers which appear *not* to have serious flaws might be useful, as well as identifying those that do.

We can ask when citation is justified, and also what is justifiable to say about the earlier work when citing it. Should researchers note a general apparent level of reliability/unreliability within the field, or which papers they have checked for comments on post-publication peer review sites?

"Adding up some domestic emissions that your largely service economy causes and going on about "net zero" without telling people each time what you are talking about is a bit like paying your poorer neighbour to burn your rubbish and implying you haven't caused any smoke." Is that fair?

I'm wondering if academic papers might usefully include a "Due Diligence Declaration" to the effect that authors have taken reasonable, perhaps for some purposes specified, steps to try to ensure both their own work and the work they cite are adequate.

If we also consider the unpredictability of effects on temperatures of sudden changes in ocean currents, huge wildfires driven by higher temperatures, and melting permafrost, what level of trust is reasonable in claims to predict global temperatures for 10, 25 or 75 years' time?

"Climate "predictions" are unreliable, as they are based on assumptions about largely unpredictable weather - in temperatures with largely unpredictable effects: in particular, the natures, extents, timings, locations, altitudes, reflectance and heat-trapping effects of cloud cover." Is that fair?

School exam papers, academics, Oxford Reference books and others mislead the public on UN goals web.archive.org/web/20221026...

How many universities are teaching correctly on the basis of - what the UN resolutions actually say, rather than wrongly on the basis of - what civil servants and politicians have claimed about global goals? web.archive.org/web/20221026...

I'm envisaging a diagram of the argument, with % confidence labelled by the authors for every step.

Perhaps what is commonly the earliest stage of research could also benefit from the kinds of thing we are talking about here - the stage of making choices to rely on existing work when deciding what to research. If people have better heuristics to avoid dodgy literature, that might help.

Some related thoughts: bsky.app/profile/matt... bsky.app/profile/matt... bsky.app/profile/matt...

How far are rules for this teachable/transferable? Is it often largely a matter of judgement which combines, for example, knowing about flaws within subfields, in particular journals or types of journal, from particular institutions, and/or particular methods? What is the role of intuition here?

Suppose everything in the Stockholm Declaration is done well and relatively quickly. Could we end up with a harmful and regret-inducing amount of good work on bad foundations? (Good research - apart perhaps from the lack of enough suspicion of earler work - built on seriously flawed work.)

I failed to work out that the easier 1990 baselines in the misleadingly-named "Millennium Development Goal" targets publicised in 2001 were not in the historic document of 2000 which national leaders called their "pledge". I realised this in 2013, from the work of @tpogge.bsky.social.

The "paper of record": In 2000 the New York Times printed the Millennium Declaration - agreed in New York - in full. Like others, it later kept falsely claiming world leaders had agreed an easier baseline of "1990". It did so even after being told of the falsehood. web.archive.org/web/20231003...

Some ideas for people to consider: Be like water. Treat those who were conned, or who it seems may have been conned, with respect. Don't get negative, get curious. Avoid insults.

And governments encouraging cultural shifts towards attitudes and actions which increase fulfilment with less material/services consumption - including appreciation of nature, and creativity?

This summary of the EAT-Lancet report reads as if humans are the only sentient beings. What is the scientific basis for such a moral framework? www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Or at least, please put "AI" in quotation marks.

Perhaps there are concepts which can usefully replace the idea of "climate" anyway, for some purposes. To a large extent people are concerned about more-chaotic weather. People may see the word "weather" and think of the situation and risks as less stable and predictable than "climate".

Perhaps it's eaier to understand climate risks through the idea of "weather disruption".

Let's think of other ways to conceptualise this. "Unlimited irresponsibility" "Unlimited damage potential" "Unlimited recklessness" "Limited liability" concerns the welfare of the offender, rather than others.

If you refer to "artificial intelligence" or "AI", please explain in what way or ways you mean it is intelligent.

I'm saying that suspicion of existing work is precisely what a scientific approach should include, especially in more plagued fields. And to say that "scientists should be suspicious of existing work but the public shouldn't" would seem to me to be neither fair nor sensible.

And then there are all the other animals, including insects and fish. How many people are aware of insect declines?

Yes, it's important for people to understand climate effects of outsourcing to other countries (including both emissions and lost forests). Also material footprint (end of article) www.escoe.ac.uk/the-uks-hidd... and pollution/habitat destruction effects of outsourced manufacturing/farming.

Politician: Voters won't let me do what I think is right/science says on animal welfare/climate/environment/refugees. Journalist can ask: Are you not experienced in persuasion? Are you not paid to be a leader? Are you giving voters the relevant facts?

It supplies the "artificial". You need to apply the intelligence.

Also, the New York Times correction notice misleads (at the end of the article). They say a section heading was wrong. That wrongly implies the text didn't have the same error, despite the fact that they altered both.

"Which climate scientists think that what you are 1) doing, and 2) telling the public, and 3) suggesting the public do, are adequate?" is perhaps a useful type of question to governments.

Some problems in the New York Times' recent climate assessment article: bsky.app/profile/matt...

Is there perhaps a significant difference between 1) which news sources people trust (which might be unknowing) and 2) which sources they say they trust, in surveys (which might be influenced by, say, wanting a source to look bad or to maintain a self-image of loyalty to a political outlook)?

Spread the word about our new website getplanty.org! 🌮 People think about crave-able food in terms of how it feels (creamy, crunchy, warming) and rewarding situations (Friday night, BBQ). 💡 Using these words, we can encourage diners to choose delicious food that just happens to be plant-based.

Has anyone publicised incentive structures in ICE - such as quotas, targets and bonuses? Is there scope for these systems to be challenged in court?

Could science improve through scientists, and others, taking a more realistic and selective approach to citing research - more cautious and taking into account factors inckuding a field's lack of known reliability? Can guidelines on this help? bsky.app/profile/matt...