| Re: Bad science ....
Absolutely, and it's a total minefield even within published scientific work as to whether a study is actually done well and the conclusions can be justified or whether it's done badly and published anyway. It takes a good level of knowledge and expertise to be able to determine that as well. Add to that the fact that journalists often like to sell the 'underdog' story and you get a lot of poor science getting a lot more attention than it deserves with absolutely no way for the public to tell the difference most of the time.
I haven't looked at the UN data, but is it possible that they're showing the output from a computer model? If so, then since the little ice age was a bit of an anomaly (as far as I'm aware) it probably wouldn't appear in simulations (see again my comments on probability). If not, then I couldn't tell you why they were removed. The other problem is that people often look to short term trends, rather than the long-term problem (and this is true of many many things, not just climate change) as evidence that everything is ok. Remember last summer everyone was saying that global warming can't be true because it was cold and wet? They're not saying that this year I've noticed! Give it time, and I'm pretty sure we'll start seeing more changes on our doorsteps. |