Link of the day: Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change
Scientific publications may systematically underestimate the effects and the speed of climate change (and there appears to be evidence they have done so in the past). One basic argument is this: Public dissent and fighting is detrimental to the cause behind most climate research. In order to avoid this, scientists are incentivized to publish conforming to a consensus view, i.e. to publish only claims that almost all scientists can support. Estimates on the high end of the spectrum are therefore likely to be under-reported as they fall out of that consensus view. This in turn means that the entirety of the research published is biased downwards.