Sure, David Barber was off by a bit in that particular sentence, but arctic sea ice minima are now half of their historical values, and dropping. It is true, that in complex dynamic systems, predictions have to have wide error bars, but he was way less wrong than the charlatans who claim this isn't a problem or isn't a trend.
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I have every confidence that David Barber is an honest scientist doing his best to apply rigorous science to an inherently complicated system.
The objection here is that we live in a media environment which continually emphasizes one end of that error bar. So long as we live in that sort of environment claims of catastrophic consequences are going to be taken with a degree of skepticism.
Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies? The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature. You can't explain those away by waving your hands and saying "the media."
> Why would your beliefs about the "media environment" influence your view of the reports from scientific bodies?
If the media present bold predictions intended to reflect the views of scientific bodies, and those predictions fail to come to pass, then we have reason to doubt at least one node in the flow of information. It could be that the media incorrectly portrayed scientific results, or it could be that the scientific model upon which the prediction was based was flawed.
For instance, when the NYT says in 1978:
> An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
Clearly the statement has been proven false. But why was this false statement made? Is the problem with the NYT, or the international team of specialists?
That's the problem with the media environment, because it's not always clear (certainly not to the lay person) when the media is representing their sources faithfully.
> The claims of catastrophic consequences are coming straight from the literature.
There are a few things one needs to sort out:
1. What are the actual expected range of consequences stated in the literature?
2. What is the confidence with which the literature expects these consequences?
3. What are the necessary interventions to prevent these consequences (if they can be prevented)?
4. How do the costs of the interventions compare with the consequences?
It's actually quite hard for a lay-person to sort out. The IPCC reports are a good place to start, but still very dense for most people. Also, every seemingly erudite critic of those reports is viciously attacked as a bad faith actor.