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You don't really see scientists coming out and saying that particular storms or natural disasters are a direct consequence of climate change. There's really no
by Bluestrike2 10y ago
You don't really see scientists coming out and saying that particular storms or natural disasters are a direct consequence of climate change. There's really no way to definitively identify a causal relationship (or lack thereof) between particular events and climate change trends. What you can say is that, overall, consequences of climate change (rising sea levels, increased atmospheric water vapor, changes in relative temperature differences between land and sea, etc.) will likely lead to more intensive storms based on empirical observation and models. That gets dumbed down to "climate change caused storm X." Skeptics hear that, and say "that's a bit silly! Storms happen every year. How can you say this one wouldn't have happened otherwise?" And that's a damned difficult question to answer easily.
In the United States in particular, climate change skepticism isn't about evidence or science. It's tied up with political ideology, personal identity, social identification, and a host of other very non-scientific factors. For instance, that some of the proposed solutions for fighting climate change wound up aligning pretty close with other liberal policy ideas (carbon taxes and cap and trade, for instance, were easy to malign as "increasing taxes"), which helped prime the pump for denying climate change altogether by seeming suspicious to other groups. Getting around these issues, especially now that denial/skepticism has become deeply entrenched along party lines, is one hell of a difficult problem to figure out.
- norikki 10y agoThe problem with talking about the science of global warming is that there is no scientific proof for global warming. For general and special relativity you can explain time dilation, gravity waves, or gravitational lensing to a layman and so long as they trust the experiments carried out to verify those findings it conclusively proves the theory to them. There are no such proven predictions made by modern politically funded climate science. All they have are computer models which are constantly being disputed for being fudged to produce any result you want, and cannot even begin to predict past climate phenomena, let alone future ones. So to attack people you see as misinformed as 'not discussing the science' doesn't make a lot of sense. Global warming stops being a scientific issue when you start demanding forced government action. Especially action that would cripple the world economy and send humanity back to the stone age if it were taken enthusiastically.
- protomikron 10y agoProbably faked by the same people that faked the moon landing, I suppose?
- Oletros 10y ago> is that there is no scientific proof for global warming. > There are no such proven predictions made by modern politically funded climate science. > All they have are computer models which are constantly being disputed for being fudged to produce any result you want, > and cannot even begin to predict past climate phenomena > So to attack people you see as misinformed as 'not discussing the science' doesn't make a lot of sense. It is very clear that you are not discussing the science, you're only discussing your political view because all of your "scientist" claims are just wrong
- yongjik 10y agoSo, you're saying that a layman will trust scientists saying "When you run really fast, your watch runs slow," however, the same person will not trust scientists saying "When you have an extra blanket over you, you feel warmer." May I assume you are that layman? What a remarkable mind you possess.