How Weather Influences Global Warming Opinions 517
An anonymous reader writes in with this story about how people's belief in climate change shifts with the temperature. "Last week's polar vortex weather event wasn't only hard on fingers, toes and heating bills. It also overpowered the ability of most people to make sound judgments about climate change, in the same way that heat waves do, according to a new study published in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. Researchers have known for some time that the acceptance of climate change depends on the day most people are asked. During unusually hot weather, people tend to accept global warming, and they swing against it during cold events."
Egocentrism (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all the same
"There's no global warming because I'm cold."
"There's no poverty because I'm rich."
"There's no racism because I'm white."
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Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Interesting)
"I don't live in a totalitarian police state because I've never been detained without charge or sentenced without trial or deprived of property without warrant."
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm not sexist because I'm female."
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
It would probably help if every time there's a hurricane like Sandy, Katrina, et. al. there wasn't some global warming advocate on TV arguing that this was evidence of global warming. You can't taut every weather event that supports warming as evidence and then turn around and dismiss every weather event that doesn't jibe with the narrative.
Nor do I find the argument that EVERY weather event (extreme, mild, or otherwise) somehow supports warming. You can't just set up a hypothesis and then say that there is no evidence that can ever possibly contradict it. That's religion, not science.
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If you're referring to the polar vortex, it actually does "jibe with the narrative" or doesn't contradict it.
And for quite a long time, every time there's been a cold snap, there's someone on Fox News making snide remarks about "we could use some global warming right now".
Re:Egocentrism (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're referring to the polar vortex, it actually does "jibe with the narrative"
See the second paragraph. If you're going to claim that *every* extreme weather events supports your warming narrative, you're already on shaky ground. If you combine that with the fact that you refuse to accept mild weather as contradictory evidence, now you're moving into a faith-based, rather than scientific, realm. You've set up a scenario where there is no possible evidence that can ever contradict your hypothesis.
If you're going to cite weather as evidence of global warming, then you have to be willing to accept contradictory weather evidence as well (or at least accept that such evidence COULD exist). Personally, I agree with the GP that citing individual weather events for evidence of global warming is VERY ill-advised and scientifically suspect. But if you *must*, then you can't have it both ways.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate scientists do NOT make those claims and have been explicitly stating that no single weather event can conclusively be linked to AGW.
Also, the "G" in AGW stands for GLOBAL, which seems to be a difficult concept for some North Americans to grasp.
While the polar vortex was wreaking havoc in America, much of Scandinavia was having an unusually warm winter, with flowering plants & bears coming out of hibernation.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/10/polar-vortex-us-mild-weather-scandinavia [theguardian.com]
So whose narrative does that jibe with?
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Well, you need to haul back your slobbering, drooling politicians and CNN. I have a file of fraudulent rhetoric that is shameful and manipulative.
The capstone was a CNN article that screamed in the headline, " Global warming will be like the tsunami!", this being right after the Indian ocean one, with all the horriffic videon. About 2/3 the way down, they pointed out they meant up to a 30-foot sea rise ovet 100-300 years, not a sudden catastrophe.
By the way, we can **less** imagine the science in 100 year
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Is it OK to object to the discussion because of the way 90% of people discuss it?
Re:Egocentrism (Score:4, Informative)
There are plenty of mouth-breathers on both sides and Fox is probably worse than CNN.
If you're interested in the SCIENCE, follow the SCIENTISTS or the people who actually spend time with them or do more than a superficial analysis.
RealClimate.org may be too difficult for most laymen; SkepticalScience.com is easier to digest. Greenman3610's videos on YouTube are both entertaining & informative but Potholer54's work is probably a better example of science journalism as he's been doing it for 30 years.
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Any individual weather event by itself says nothing about global warming. It comes under the category of "shit happens". Only by the accumulation of data over time can climate change and global warming be discerned. Falsification in this case takes the same accumulation of data over time.
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It would probably help if every time there's a hurricane like Sandy, Katrina, et. al. there wasn't some global warming advocate on TV arguing that this was evidence of global warming. You can't taut every weather event that supports warming as evidence and then turn around and dismiss every weather event that doesn't jibe with the narrative.
If you are suggesting that the unusual extremes we're seeing in winter weather patterns are not an indicator of global warming, you have more to learn.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you seem to think that these weather extremes are evidence for global warming, is mild weather contradictory evidence (if we have a mild winter or summer, for example)? And if not, then can *any* weather evidence *possibly* ever exist to contradict your argument? If the answer is "No," then that's not science. It's religion.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:4, Insightful)
Or it's that you're not understanding the science. Certainly there is no claim whatsoever that global warming causes all weather to become extreme. The claim is rather that the number of extreme events is increased by global warming, and furthermore that some events are so extreme that it is highly unlikely that they would have happened without global warming. Sandy was one of those events. Sandy could have happened without global warming, it's just unlikely (most likely the warmer ocean allowed the hurricane to both travel further north and remain stronger as it traveled).
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"mild" and "severe" are simply not the proper metrics here. What you should be looking for is the deviation from the norm (as established by past observations). AGW predicts that such deviations will be both bigger and more common. So if you see mild winters where they were heretofore unusual, and severe winters where they were also unusual, then that is both evidence in favor of the theory. Evidence to the contrary would be lack of such deviations, or a downward trend in their quantity or capacity.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
"There's no God because I haven't seen him"
"There are no unicorns because I haven't ridden one."
"The Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist because no one has ever videotaped it."
It's NOT "all the same." Sometimes the skeptics are right.
There's no energy crisis (Score:2)
"There is no energy crisis because I can generate my own"
Right-wing, radical freedom and independence, states rights, end-of-the-world survavalists should be embracing generation of their own energy, if they are serious about independence from corporations, monopolies, etc. It's nearly impossible to create your own gas, but electricity is comparatively easy to generate.
The military is quite right-wing, but they are just practical when it comes to generating power.
https://www.google.com.br/search?q=solar+wi [google.com.br]
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It's nearly impossible to create your own gas
According to the last episode of Mythbusters, not so much.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
"There's global warming because it's hot."
"I'm poor because someone else is richer than me."
"I can't be racist because I'm black."
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And while people do say all those things, none of them are the official position of a major political party in the U.S.
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And while people do say all those things, none of them are the official position of a major political party in the U.S.
"I was told by voting section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on [behalf] of white victims."
--J. Christian Adams, US Department of Justice under Eric Holder (link [latimes.com])
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Recurring record high temperatures are real, substantive evidence, you half-wit.
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No it doesn't.
It claims that the fact that record high temperature events are increasing and record low temperature events are decreasing is evidence that rapid climate change is occurring.
You can dispute that all you like, but that you feel the need to lie about the claim is evidence you don't have a good argument against it.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
2) If you're really sitting around worried about Islamic terrorists hitting your town, you need to get a hobby.
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Yeah, that furry fat alien was the scourge of the Tanners.
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The only one of those that are proper eco-terrorists are the ALF. The others are just protest groups who occasionally commit petty crimes (they don't use violence). There are other real eco-terrorist groups out there like TAS.
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Ah you must be American for you've never heard of guys like Stalin or Mao.
But... they weren't terrorists, they were the "heroes of their people" (grin).
You see, they acted within the bound of the law (pretty much as NSA does lately).
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Well, not quite. Stalin was indeed a terrorist pre-1917 and has even served prison time when he was caught.
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...and any legal system that allows one to murder people is not really a legal system.
Well, we do have the death penalty.
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I might be mistaken, but I think what Noxal was getting at was that those with a non-religious agenda orchestrating Terror (whether it's Stalin, Mao, Robbespierre, whatever) are doing so *not* because non-belief is the one and only true path to enlightenment as the dogmatic religious believe, but because they believe (and virally spread this belief) in higher authorities than the State or the Party or the Glorious Leader. Their religious indoctrination was at odds with the dictator and their doctrine.
In oth
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Stalin's secret police broke up hiking clubs and imprisoned the leadership of the country's largest amateur rocket club. It had nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with a group not sponsored by Stalin's political apparatus having meetings.
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Well, no, even though I think the charge of "atheist terrorism" is incredibly moronic, Stalin did have a quite official anti-religion position, stemming, quite directly, from Marx and his "opiate of the masses" assertion.
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The same can be said about the leaders of most terrorist groups though. When you get down to it, when something goes that far off course from the established norms for a religion, it is about someone wanting power and willing to use whatever means necessary to get that power. That makes the connection to Mao and Stalin perfectly credible as they used an absence of god just as others use a god for controlling people. You can use just about any differentiators for this, though some do lend themselves to it
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ah you must be American for you've never heard of guys like Stalin or Mao.
... or Nelson Mandela.
Go ahead, mod me down all you want. Inconvenient truth, indeed.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:4, Insightful)
Have there been anti-religious movements? sure; definitely. But pinning anti-religion actions on all of atheism is no different than pinning the acts of Islam on all of theism. You don't see many atheists blaming, say, Catholicism for the actions of the Taliban (outside of the "fedora" make-fun-of-atheists-by-exaggerating-it crowd, that is)... Also, please stop throwing the word "terrorist" around. The people you mention definitely do not qualify as "terrorists." You disagreeing with their actions doesn't meet the definition.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say Stalin and Mao were dictators who sometimes used terrorism as a tool. Call it state terrorism.
Obviously the GP is a bit foolish to suggest there are no atheist terrorists. Politics is just as capable of producing terrorists as religion is. But by the same token, there's no more truth to the old chestnut that says atheists are "morally rudderless" and thus more liable to commit atrocities.
Both Stalin and Mao may have been atheists, but they both drew on a vast tradition of superstition among their respective populations. Hitler's armies famously used the slogan "Gott mit uns" ("God with us") on their uniforms, and had a cozy relationship with the Vatican.
OTOH, perhaps the GP was referring to "atheist terrorists" who use terrorist tactics to advance the "cause" of atheism. In that case, I would have to agree with him, at least provisionally. If you can show me evidence of "militant atheists" blowing up buses and planes in the name of atheism, I'll take a look.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
Stalin and Mao did try very hard to eliminate religion in their states.
Yes, but not "for the cause of atheism"... they did so because they couldn't tolerate any "authority" that might oppose their power, whether institutional or individual. In the meantime, they were quite happy to co-opt the superstitious tendencies of their populations to encourage a "cult of personality" -- especially in Mao's case.
Seems like we mostly agree that tyranny is different from terrorism, though they may often use similar methods. I'm sure there are plenty of atheists (or at least "doubters") among the terrorists, and doubtless many religious believers among the tyrants. But the the guys who actually strap on the explosive vests...? I doubt there are many atheists among that lot.
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Just two off the top of my head:
Tamil Tigers [wikipedia.org] (yes, atheist suicide bombers, no less!)
INLA [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure there are plenty of other (pretty much by definition atheist) Marxist-Leninist terrorist groups.
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Er, what? The Tamil people, quoting Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for convenience,
Tamils were noted for their martial, religious and mercantile activities beyond their native borders.
and again, further in the article...
Although most Tamils are Hindus, most practice what is considered to be folk Hinduism, venerating a plethora of village deities. A sizable number are Christians and Muslims.
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The given link doesn't show that Earth First are a) Atheists or b) Terrorists. So in answer to your question, I guess "You" would be the correct response.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
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I hate to point it out, because the initial commentor was being a heavy handed idiot, but I think the initial comment meant people don't go around killing others because they're Atheists or in the name of Atheism.
Actually, they kind of do. The Chinese, even today, certainly jail and persecute people that practice an outlawed religion, and the official state religion is atheism. Surely you've heard of China's "Cultural Revolution", when churches were destroyed and thousands of religious citizens were killed? They've relaxed their stance on the practice of religion in recent years, but they absolutely practiced destruction of all "non-atheist" structures and people in the past.
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Religion versus theism (Score:3)
A religion is any belief based on faith.
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs related to sacred things which may or may not include a belief in a god. Faith is a typical (almost ubiquitous in fact) but not required component of a religion. Something can be sacred without requiring faith though in practice this is unusual.
Atheism is a belief that no god exists, something that cannot be proven empirically, and thus Atheism is a religion.
The fact one believes in something that cannot be proven empirically does not make that something a religion. A religion isn't defined merely by the belief (or lack thereof) in a deity. A religion can (and some do)
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Basically, I'm choosing to not be something based on nothing because nothing isn't a good enough reason for me to chose to be something. All that matters is that I'm happy with who I am and wh
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nope. Harassment and malicious litigation aren't terrorism. Nobody's afraid that these people in Wisconsin are going to kill them.
-jcr
Playing devil's advocate again, since people I'd agree with are making so many dumb assertions in this thread, but "harassment and malicious litigation" get called terrorism every time the RIAA or patent trolls are involved.
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Maybe if you read a little further you'll find there are some other parts of the Constitution.
The 14th amendment for example contradicts your "The religion clause of the 1st Amendment specifically applies to the federal government, not the States" claim. At least according to the Supreme court whose 6-1 decision and reasoning is at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/370/421 [cornell.edu]
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I have no proof, as I said before: I don't need any.
And that is the very definition of faith. How is faith there is no god different from faith there is a god? Both are positions held simply by faith...
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Sure there's Islamic terrorism! Fox News told me so! And when they tell me about global warming, poverty, and racism I'll believe it then too, but not until then!
Re:Egocentrism (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all the same
"There's no global warming because I'm cold." "There's no poverty because I'm rich." "There's no racism because I'm white."
Add to that "there's no Islamic terrorism because they haven't hit my town ... yet!
Actually, they have hit my town. And I still don't think Islamic terrorism is that big a deal in the grand scheme. Scary, yes, but way down on the list of dangers.
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Sorry, but none of that had anything to do with "the sun running in cycles", since solar output stayed pretty much the same throughout the entire period. Or did all the solar research labs of the 1970s conspire to hide the evidence? Go look at the data.
Re:Egocentrism (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the old "whites can't suffer racism" canard.
Where, exactly, did GP said that?
Of course there's racism targeted against whites. However, if you are a white in a society dominated by whites, your chances of running into it are much lower than they are for one of the minorities. And there are, indeed, people who claim that there's no racism because they have personally not experienced any.
Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The very same logic is used to fashion correlation from coincidence the World over.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory Armstrong & Miller [youtube.com] link.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
isn't it just that people react emotionally to such things? the real discussion is far above the understanding of 99.99(don't know how many more nines until i only keep the real experts)% of the people, so when asked an opinion, they react more emotionally than logically. So on depending on the current weather it's logical those emotions are different.
I also hate discussions about topics like this, because it's just emotional shouting at eachother with facts only used to confirm what you feel is right. Even when people on this site would love to claim how intellectual they are, both sides are more about emotions and personal viewpoints than real science, we might now some good facts, read some interesting articles, but do we really know anything about climate science, all the subtle things, ... everything that can't be easily found in popular science magazines or the few popular arguments from both sides that people keep repeating to prove their own feelings are the best.
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It's been so hot in Australia that they've had to add new colors to the weather charts. 50+ degrees (122 F), it's so hot that people can't use their iToys outside because they overheat and shut down.
Science doesn't work on consensus (Score:5, Informative)
If it was accurate then there would have been a consensus predicting these events.
I find in continually frustrating that proponents (and opponents) of addressing the risks of climate change bring up scientific consensus as an argument. I think Einstein said it best [wikipedia.org] when reportedly responding to the book "Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein)", by saying (roughly) "if I were wrong, one would be enough". If a model is correct and has predictive value then it is useful regardless of what the consensus might say. If it has no predictive value then it is wrong regardless of any consensus.
It is also possible that the phenomena is real and we simply have not developed a descriptive model yet. Relativity was real even before Einstein developed his model. So you have to ask yourself, how should we behave if there is a reasonable chance that this phenomena is real? Our ability or lack thereof to model the climate change is a separate issue from our ability to measure it. We KNOW that temperatures are rising globally because we are able to measure that even if we don't know for absolute certain why they are rising. So if they are rising what are the potential consequences and what should we do based on those potential consequences?
However, the fact that there is no consensus means that there isn't accuracy in the field of Climate Change
As meaningless as consensus might be, there does appear to be one regarding the existence of climate change. The only real debate at this point is regarding severity.
I am willing to accept carbon based climate change and accept the changes required for preventing future damage, but only if it is scientifically proven.
Well the data we have certainly seems to indicate that climate change is real so I'm not entirely sure what level of proof you are looking for. It's not the sort of phenomena you want to wait until after it occurs to say "yep, we proved it - look at all this damage". However, let's presume for the sake of argument that the data is inconclusive at present. Then the question becomes one of risk. Let's say there is 50% chance that climate change is real and that if it is real the consequences of it are that the planet no longer becomes compatible with human life. Is that a risk you are willing to take or do you think we should act on the risk knowing we might be wrong but playing it safe? Basically you are doing an expected value [wikipedia.org] analysis.
Better to be cautious (Score:3)
First, it's not phenomena, it's natural.
Do you have any idea what the word phenomena means? It's pretty clear from your argument that you need to look it up so I'll save you some time. It means "any observable occurence".
Second, how we should deal with it depends on whether you can prove that humans are the cause or not.
Wrong. How we should deal with it depends on the probability that humans are the cause. I won't disagree with you that the exact extent of our impact is still significantly unclear. However that is a separate issue from establishing whether or not we are having some amount of effect. There appears to be significant and cred
Global vs. local effects (Score:5, Interesting)
Global warming is exactly that- a global trend, not a local one. Locally, the effects have been most pronounced near the north pole [wikimedia.org], which is not exactly a place where many people live.
Global climate change seems to have resulted recently in a "warming" trend, but as we know from Al Gore's movie, if the North Atlantic current gets shut off we are in for a polar vortex on a much longer time scale.
I am not sure who coined the phrase "global warming"; is it a PR failure by the scientists involved or a reporting failure by the news media? To quote a well known meme: "why not both?"
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I am not sure who coined the phrase "global warming"; is it a PR failure by the scientists involved or a reporting failure by the news media? To quote a well known meme: "why not both?"
Global warming - I don't know if this is a good phrase of not. I've heard that if the Gulf Stream to Europe gets redirected because of the global warming, Europe will have a cold future. My experience for the past five years here in Europe is that winters have much more snow, and we have more storms than normal. We keep breaking weather records, warmest October, warmest 5 januari, coldest May - whatever. Although you don't know if this a temporary change for like five to fifty or five hundred years, it seem
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That's local and not Global, just like the (short) cold spell in the US
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"Global warming" was a technically correct term. So is "climate change," even if it's not as specific, and it's actually an older term than "global warming" but wasn't known outside of scientific circles. The public saw "global warming" first and then when they saw "climate change" they thought it was a cop out, since everywhere wasn't getting hotter and they don't understand how averages work.
A term that would be both technically correct and colloquially descriptive might be something like "climate energy
Money does not smell (Score:2, Insightful)
Global warming propagandists would take any support — whether it comes from a heatwave-induced swing or real understanding of their theories.
Meanwhile, the inconvenient truth that those theories aren't really explaining the available facts [economist.com], is explained only by lack of funding and failure to communicate [motherjones.com]...
Re:Smog's wish (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. And that "only" puts the existing theories — than man's CO2 emissions are responsible for the warming — on their heads.
So, maybe, there is no need to tax/ban certain fuels and activities, after all? And thus no need for further expansion of governments (to enforce the bans) and merging of sovereign governments into an unelected "world-government" body?
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Dude - it's solved! Don't you know? All that's left to research is the psychology. Just read the article, it's right there at the end:
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As may be... Such capitalists, however, are responsible for every modern convenience (flush toilet, rail- and air-travel, telephone, computers, personal automobile, toilet paper) — if not its outright invention, then certainly its wide adoption. Che guevarras of the world, on the other hand, are responsible for nothing but millions of dead and economic misery for survivors, as well as deprivation of human rights fo
local weather (Score:5, Informative)
Australia is doing some of its hottest with a rounded 50C for the first time last week
Monday -> 27C and the rest of the week's forecast is
Tuesday -> 43C
Wednesday -> 39C
Thursday -> 41C
Friday -> 40C
its all about extra energy making things more variable, but no single weather event can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change
They don't understand the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
During unusually hot weather, people tend to accept global warming, and they swing against it during cold events."
Of course they do because many people (most maybe) do not understand the difference between climate and weather. They have either a poor understanding or perhaps no concept at all that short term temperature fluctuations are merely data points in a longer term trend. It is just like how people overreact to a few worse than usual days in the stock market even though the long term trend for the overall market for the last 100 years has been upwards.
Weather = what is happening today
Climate = average weather over time
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They have either a poor understanding or perhaps no concept at all that short term temperature fluctuations are merely data points in a longer term trend
Couldn't agree with you more..... http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2013/12/explaining-the-flaw-in-kevin-drums-and-apparently-science-magazines-climate-chart.html [coyoteblog.com]
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May I remind you that said idiots, by virtue of genetically being H. sapiens and breathing, have the same voting power as you and I?
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They do, indeed. Which is why Mars needs terraforming fast. I don't care if the intelligent move there or the dimwits, but the sooner there's a LOT of cold, hard void between the two camps, the better.
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Bottom fucking line is: morons should not be asked for judgment because they do not even know when they are way out of line.
Problem is those morons, by virtue of genetically being H. sapiens and breathing, have the same voting power as you and I.
Re:They don't understand the difference (Score:5, Informative)
NASA says CO2 has been below this level for 650,000 years. Good enough for you?
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence [nasa.gov]
This is the one that scares me the most.
"The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969."
That's a lot of freaking water heated.
How weather influences global warming (Score:3)
For a large area of the US, it was colder than normal in December
People turned up the heat (burning more natural gas and using more electricity
people drove their SUV's to work (instead of using a more efficient car, or walking
Peter Hadfield (aka: potholer54) (Score:5, Informative)
This guy has the most informative debunking of BS on both sides of of the issue. His series of YouTube videos [youtube.com] should be required viewing for policy makers and "armchair experts" alike.
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I'm enjoying this. Thank you.
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I forgot to mention, Mr. Hadfield is a science journalist with dry, British wit and deadpan delivery, making it entertaining as well as informative.
Actually, his series on Creationism vs. Evolution [youtube.com] is also quite amusing. ;-)
Yes, facts are manipulated. (Score:2)
Yes, facts and opinion can be manipulated. Nothing new. For example, auto, coal, and oil companies can create disinformation campaigns about traffic, pollution, accidents, and global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil#Funding_of_global_warming_disinformation_and_denial [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers#Fossil_fuel_and_chemical_industry_lobbying [wikipedia.org]
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I noticed you quoted Wikipedia for all of your references. You provide some quotes from an organisation that has been found to manipulate and edit information in an attempt to make it accepted. Below are some examples of how easy it is to manipulate Wikipedia for your own gain
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/06/hoax-article-detailing-fake-war-stayed-up-on-wikipedia-for-five-years/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023647/fake-wikipedia-entry-on-bicholim-conflict-finally-deleted-after-five-years.html
http://www.t
A bit hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this ironic since the political AWG alarmism lobby deserves a lot of the blame for this. Remember the use of Hurricane Katrina splashed on Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie cover. And pretty much whenever there's a natural disaster you have AGW alarmists (not just trolling internet comments, but also occupying high places in government) stirring the pot some more.
Researchers have known for some time that the acceptance of climate change depends on the day most people are asked.
I don't doubt that this is true. I also don't doubt that the enthusiasm of researchers to jump on bandwagons follows the "weather patterns" of public funding availability. That's how Richard Lindzen of MIT describes it, and it seems to fit.
Re:A bit hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this ironic since the political AWG alarmism lobby deserves a lot of the blame for this
and the AWG denial lobby deserves a lot of the blame for the AWG alarmism body.
Unfortunately, when you have a well-funded denial campaign telling people what they want to hear (no problem here, ignore the commie academics, relax and enjoy your SUV) a lobby that doesn't resort to alarmism is a lobby that doesn't get listened to.
A bone fide climatologist would have made a more accurate documentary than Al Gore - which would then have been seen by an audience of, oh dozens of people who watch PBS at midnight.
Or, just wait 50-100 years until there's enough data to decide for sure whether Katrina or the polar vortex were just statistical blips or part of the AGW-predicted increase in extreme weather - if the latter then good luck building a time-machine to go back and fix the problem (hint: don't use the traditional DeLorian because if we go on using oil as if there is an infinite supply then, AGW or not, you won't be able to afford enough gas to get it up to 88 mph, and Mr Fusion is about as technically plausible as the flux capacitor) .
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
whether Katrina or the polar vortex were just statistical blips or part of the AGW-predicted increase in extreme weather
What AGW-predicted increase in extreme weather? You mean the prediction that warming of the oceans would lead to more hurricanes? The claim that was later largely dismissed because it doesn't fit the evidence? In fact, if there is a general pattern of AGW predictions, it's that they turn out to be wrong. This should surprise exactly nobody, because you can't extrapolate an empirically derived model of a complex, chaotic system.
Weather is Not Climate? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet we are to believe things like Katrina and Sandy are evidence FOR Global Warming? Aren't those things just as much "weather" as the national cold streak (which, btw, I've heard Global Warming advocates cite as evidence FOR Global Warming)?
It seems that every "weather" event is trotted out as evidence FOR Global Warming by someone. According to the advocates, there appears to be no piece of evidence that can possibly be used against Global Warming, but it can all be used as evidence it is happening. Actions like this make the whole AGW movement seem more like a religion than science.
Re: (Score:3)
I've *NEVER* heard a scientist claim that Katrina or Sandy were "caused" by climate change. What they say is that such events are more common in a warmer globe. The same applies to the "polar vortex" event last week; its a kind of event predicted to be more common by climate models.
You do know that the cold streak was actually composed of anomalously warm air? The key is that "anomalously warm" for the arctic winter can still be very, very cold by continental US standards. As the arctic air masses moved
Wish people would learn (Score:2)
Sound Judgments (Score:2, Funny)
It also overpowered the ability of most people to make sound judgments about climate change
Pretty sure Al Gore did that many years ago.
Ah! Global Warming.... (Score:3)
- Proponents argue that we should do a bunch of ecologically sound things because "for the good of the planet"
- Opponents argue that will cost large amounts of money
In the end, rampant greed puts us all in a world of hurt.
This is NOT a fight over science,
this is NOT a fight over modelling planetary weather/ecosystems/etc,
this IS a fight over "but I should be able to rake in literally trillions of dollars now, and FUCK THE CONSEQUENCES".
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that is global warming. The global surface temperature [nasa.gov] (among other indicators) is rising. That brings more energy to the climate system, but that don't means that the effects of that power will mean in the short term only heat episodes, i.e. stronger winds that goes thru the pole will bring cold wind to warmer areas. We are not good visualizing big trends that happens over a year or five in our normal life, we see the day to day episodes, we think that weather==climate, and to make things wo