I tweeted around just before I got on here two links to opposite stories about climate change and they're focusing on whether the ice, the amount of ice in the Arctic, is growing or shrinking.

Now let me ask you this. Given that we think, or at least half of the country believes that climate change might be the biggest problem in the history of humanity, could it be the biggest problem ever? That's how big it is for half of the country anyway.

And yet on this, what you would think would be a simple question, is the ice in the Arctic melting or staying the same or growing? And if you read an article, any article on this point, it's going to tell you with certainty what the answer to that question is. But the problem is the next article you read might tell you the opposite.

How is it possible that in 2019, when climate change is the most important question, many people would say in the history of civilization, that we don't know the answer to that? Can't we pick, can we agree that we'll never really agree on all of the different complexities of climate science? We'll probably never all agree on that stuff. But can't we pick just a few things that would be the result of a warming climate to decide whether it's warming or not?

Can we not just say look, let's forget everything else. Let's just bet it all on ice. Or maybe sea level. Suppose you say okay I don't understand enough about climate science as a citizen to have an independent opinion whether the skeptics are right or the promoters of climate change being a big problem. All right so let me just boil it down to one variable. Make your predictions. You guys say that there will be less ice and it will be quite noticeable and it's going to happen fast, meaning that next year will be less ice and we can definitely measure it. The other side says that's not happening. That there might be less ice in some places but there's more ice in other places. It's breaking even or maybe even increasing.

Isn't that the simplest thing for science to be able to do? We've got satellites up there. We can take pictures. How in the world can we not figure out if ice is increasing or decreasing net? We can tell what's changing in any one place but we don't seem to be good about knowing how the whole is going.

So I tweeted that out and I think I'm going to keep a sort of a running list of the points and the counterpoints.

Now here's the thing that worries me about the counterpoints. I had been seeing two really good skeptics. And when I say really good I mean persuasive. So for my money there were two people in the conversation about climate who were really persuasive on the skeptical side. And so every time I saw a good article that I'd read and I say wow that's a pretty good argument. I don't know if it's true because I can't independently judge climate science stuff. I could just read the article and say well it sounded like BS or it sorta sounded legitimate. That's the best I can do.

And there were two people who just had always the best solid legitimate arguments. And then I found out those two people are the same guy. So apparently one of them is the internet name he was using. Probably he was using that because it was dangerous to talk about this in the beginning. So it was Steve Goddard was the pen name for Tony Heller.

I had been thinking that I was seeing two people with independent opinions which were both powerful skeptics. Now I know it was the same guy. What does that do to my impression of his credibility? It decreases it.

Now again whenever I talk about credibility I'm never talking about what's true or false because sometimes you can't know what's true or what's false. But you can know if something looks believable to you. Does it feel to you credible? And I was quite disappointed to find out that the two most powerful voices in my opinion were actually just the same guy. Because that means that if that same guy is wrong you don't have that diversification of the opinion that you thought you had. It's just one guy who could be wrong.

So I would say that my opinion of the credibility of the skeptics has decreased this week as I'm learning more about the arguments. And so somebody says he was public as hell about it. That's true. So let me be clear here. My understanding is that there may have been a point when he wasn't but that's not important because lately he's published and he's very public about it. He's not trying to hide it. I don't think it's something that somebody else found out about it. I think he's the one who said it was him.

So I'm not criticizing him for having a pen name because that probably made sense given the topic. It probably was risky to talk about this stuff at some point. So that's not the problem. But the point is in my mind, just my understanding of it went from two good critics down to one.

Now somebody said that Judith Curry, there's another good one. And I think you're right. But in terms of charts and looking at the numbers Tony Heller was the strongest voice on that that I've seen in terms of credibility.

All right so if we can't figure out the simple question of whether there's more or less ice and we can't figure out the simple question of whether the oceans are rising or not, because apparently in some places they don't rise, in some places they do, which makes sense because the sea level rises not just because there's more water but because it's warmer and when it's warmer the volume expands so the sea rises. So you could actually have the sea level rise in one part of the world without it rising in the other part if the temperatures are different. And then there's the question of the land itself rises and falls and that changes its relationship to the water.

All right what do I think of the rebuttal charts to the temperature adjustments? So yes one of the major points from the Tony Heller side of skepticism was that all of the adjustments made to the temperature records were in the same direction. And then somebody sent me a link to what looked to be a credible source showing all of the adjustments over time and you can see that it was about an equal number of them were adjusted up versus down.

Now those are two completely opposite truths and it's not immediately obvious to me how they could both be true. And it's not obvious to me how it isn't obvious to the people who work in this field which one is completely wrong. And I still don't know that.

So you have two versions of the truth. There's the Steve Goddard/Tony Heller same person truth that says that all the adjustments were in the same direction. And in this case it doesn't mean the same direction is higher or lower. It means always in the direction that would cause the future graph to look steeper. So that could be raising temperatures in the past but it could be depending on where you are in the curve you can raise it or lower it to make the graph what you want.

And then the skeptics' argument is no, here's a graph of all the adjustments and it's obvious that about half of them are up, half of them are down. It's completely random. They can't both be true. And wouldn't that be the simplest thing to determine?

Can somebody send me a tweet with two links showing the argument that says all the adjustments are in one direction, one direction meaning causing the graph to look like it's going up, and the other saying no it's all random and here's the data and look at it yourself.

Ah we're in this weirdest world where the most basic objective easily checkable fact is in dispute. I believe we're using the same database right? Isn't everybody looking at exactly the same data? And one says it's cold outside and the other says it's hot outside. Terrible analogy but how is that not agreed on? It's weird.

All right here's another question I can't determine. Is nuclear power cost effective or not cost effective? Isn't that a pretty basic question? Now of course there's a big challenge with the rules and regulations. It would be hard and a lengthy process to get a nuclear power plant built. But when I talk to smart people there's a difference of opinion. And I'm talking about really smart people, people who are investing, putting their own money into it in big ways.

Some of them say nuclear is definitely the way to go, including fusion. So there are smart people who are close to it who say fusion actually has been elusive up until now but we've got to the point where we think we can solve the last remaining leg of problems. And other people say no, not even close. That's complete garbage. We'll never get there.

Then others say that there's more variations on traditional nuclear power from using depleted uranium to thorium, other words that I don't understand, but that those are closer to being economical. And then Bill Gates is pushing nuclear. So Bill Gates who obviously looks at the numbers, it's not like Bill Gates is making an investment without looking at the financial projections, he says nuclear's the answer.

Other people just as smart, just as well-informed, just as interested say the opposite. Say green technology is the only way to go on an economics basis. Why isn't that most basic question something we all agree on?

Now it would be one thing if we said you can't do nuclear power because of all the regulations. I think everybody would agree that the regulations are a burden. But if you could remove those regulations why can't we agree that nuclear is either economical or not economical? Wouldn't that be among the most basic questions? How do we not know that?

All right I think we've reached a world that is harder to understand than maybe it has ever been before. Partly because it's more complicated. Partly because people have naked interests that they hide. No that would be different. People have naked interests and they also have interests that they hide. And it's just impossible to know what's a good idea from a bad idea anymore. We can't tell the difference.

As Mark Twain said, we don't know the difference between good news and bad news. That's our world anyway.

That's all I have for now and I'm gonna keep digging into this climate change thing to find out what's what. And I'll build up a catalog of links. So if they're for every individual point about ice or no ice, sea level no sea level, coral bleaching no coral bleaching, I want to have the point and the counterpoint. And then if I can I want to get the counterpoint to the counterpoint because you need to get to that level I think.