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How Climate Change Deniers Rise To the Top in Google Searches (nytimes.com)
If you searched for the words "climate change" into Google, until earlier this week, you could have gotten an unexpected result: ads that call global warming a hoax. "Scientists blast climate alarm," said one that appeared at the top of the search results page during a recent search, pointing to a website, DefyCCC, that asserted: "Nothing has been studied better and found more harmless than anthropogenic CO2 release." Another ad proclaimed: "The Global Warming Hoax -- Why the Science Isn't Settled," linking to a video containing unsupported assertions, including that there is no correlation between rising levels of greenhouse gases and higher global temperatures. These references were first reported by The New York Times (the link may be paywalled). From a report: America's technology giants have come under fire for their role in the spread of fake news during the 2016 presidential campaign, prompting promises from Google and others to crack down on sites that spread disinformation. Less scrutinized has been the way tech companies continue to provide a mass platform for the most extreme sites among those that use false or misleading science to reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. Google's search page has become an especially contentious battleground between those who seek to educate the public on the established climate science and those who reject it. Not everyone who uses Google will see climate denial ads in their search results. Google's algorithms use search history and other data to tailor ads to the individual, something that is helping to create a highly partisan internet. A recent search for "climate change" or "global warming" from a Google account linked to a New York Times climate reporter did not return any denial ads. The top results were ads from environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. But when the same reporter searched for those terms using private browsing mode, which helps mask identity information from Google's algorithms, the ad for DefyCCC popped up.
[...] The climate denialist ads are an example of how contrarian groups can use the internet's largest automated advertising systems to their advantage, gaming the system to find a mass platform for false or misleading claims.
[...] The climate denialist ads are an example of how contrarian groups can use the internet's largest automated advertising systems to their advantage, gaming the system to find a mass platform for false or misleading claims.
Obligatory XKCD, although it only goes back 22k years:
https://xkcd.com/1732/
Perhaps the GP can post some data from earlier where there is a sudden spike like we saw in the last century.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have 800,000 years of direct, measurable evidence that the earth's climate cycles between warming and cooling, and that we are, in fact, in the fifth such cycle.
Ah, a new theory. Here's a basic sniff test: In all the cycles over the past 800 000 years, what caused the climate to change?
And what is causing it to change this time?
You, on the other hand, have what-if models that account only for unending warming, something which hasn't happened in 800,000 years.
The only models I've seen suggesting an unending warming cycle are those used by denialists. Which is to say, if you can't adequately explain the current warming, then you cannot rule out a never ending warming cycle. So: what is causing the current warming event?
When the observations are still within the 95% confidence range I'd say it's difficult to call them wrong.