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Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's

Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's important to think about climate change and how it may impact weather patterns. But no serious climate scientist would ever credit singular weather events to global climate trends, which take decades to evolve. It's lazy to use a hurricane to bolster climate change arguments for the same reason it's lazy to use a blizzard to bolster climate change skeptics.

DennisP 9y ago
This is like saying it's lazy to use lung cancer cases to bolster arguments against smoking, since there's no way to prove that a particular case of cancer was caused by smoking.
- bmmayer1 9y ago
  As long as you are comfortable with cigarette companies pointing to cancer-free smokers and saying "See! Smoking doesn't cause cancer!"
  - DennisP 9y ago
    Which they did for a while, but we didn't respond by abandoning the entire line of argument, which would have been silly.
rocqua 9y ago
Obviously, climate change is nowhere near 'the cause' of this storm. However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change. Choosing this moment to drive home the need to reverse climate change makes sense. Which I think is the intention here. This is more about arguing 'climate change is bad' as opposed to 'climate change is real. And really, we don't need to be discussing the latter, it has been well established.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change." The idea that there are more (and/or more severe) hurricanes making landfall in the United States in recent years is not supported by the evidence. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html
JohnTHaller 9y ago
Also worth noting that from the word "leftist" we know the political agenda of the parent commenter and should take what is written with an equally large grain of salt.

DennisP 9y ago

This is like saying it's lazy to use lung cancer cases to bolster arguments against smoking, since there's no way to prove that a particular case of cancer was caused by smoking.

bmmayer1 9y ago
As long as you are comfortable with cigarette companies pointing to cancer-free smokers and saying "See! Smoking doesn't cause cancer!"
- DennisP 9y ago
  Which they did for a while, but we didn't respond by abandoning the entire line of argument, which would have been silly.

rocqua 9y ago

Obviously, climate change is nowhere near 'the cause' of this storm. However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change. Choosing this moment to drive home the need to reverse climate change makes sense. Which I think is the intention here. This is more about arguing 'climate change is bad' as opposed to 'climate change is real. And really, we don't need to be discussing the latter, it has been well established.

Turing_Machine 9y ago
"However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change." The idea that there are more (and/or more severe) hurricanes making landfall in the United States in recent years is not supported by the evidence. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html

JohnTHaller 9y ago

Also worth noting that from the word "leftist" we know the political agenda of the parent commenter and should take what is written with an equally large grain of salt.