Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the absurdity of fear surrounding minor temperature increases and the drastic measures considered in response.
Richard Lindzen's quote critiques the panic exhibited by societies in the early 21st century regarding climate change, suggesting that future generations will view such reactions as exaggerated and irrational. He points to the reliance on uncertain computer models and implausible reasoning that led to calls for drastic reductions in industrial activity, reflecting on how overreactions to minor changes can lead to extreme solutions.
In practice
In a documentary discussing climate policy, this quote can be used to illustrate the extremes of public reaction.
Tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output.... In weather, for example, this translates into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butter- fly Effect—the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York.
Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas.
Most people are excited about themselves. Personal genome will deliver for inexpensively something about science to which you can relate. Just like computers are becoming something to which you can relate. It should be even easier to relate to your own biology, and I hope that will be one of the ways we get broader literacy in science.
And I don't care what else anyone has ever told you, the Sun is white, not yellow. Human color perception is a complicated business, but if the Sun were yellow, like a yellow lightbulb, then white stuff such as snow would reflect this light and appear yellow-a snow condition confirmed to happen only near fire hydrants.
By definition, big data cannot yield complicated descriptions of causality. Especially in healthcare. Almost all of our diseases occur in the intersections of systems in the body.
There is no science in this world like physics. Nothing comes close to the precision with which physics enables you to understand the world around you. It's the laws of physics that allow us to say exactly what time the sun is going to rise. What time the eclipse is going to begin. What time the eclipse is going to end.
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