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> Today, scientists still generally agree that it's impossible to attribute any individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change Seems the actual science

> Today, scientists still generally agree that it's impossible to attribute any individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change Seems the actual science is the direct opposite of the headline once you read through the article.

cryptoz 9y ago
At some point in the past, scientists have "generally agreed" things that were later found out to be wrong. I don't see how the article contradicts the title at all. Certainly not 'direct opposite' as it even calls out specific scientists and specific papers that are in fact doing exactly what the headline says. It's not like the article headline says "All scientists now agree: Harvey caused by climate change" or something like that. The headline is very clear and very specific. It is fine.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  "Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change" There are two parts to that title: 1) "can now" implies that something significant in scientific understanding has changed 2) "blame individual natural disasters on climate change" is clear #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. Scientists can predict that the probability of extreme events in general is rising due to climate change but that is not proof that any specific event is attributable to climate change. That is not new. Nothing has changed in the consensus scientific position.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    > #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. Scientific consensus doesn't make something true. Climate change is true because we measure it, not because most scientists say it is. This is an active area of research, a brand-new area in fact, and making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect. We're still finding out the answers to those kinds of questions, and just now it's become potentially feasible to actually do it (blame climate change for a specific event). > #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. What? Of course things have changed. That's what this whole article is about. The methods are maturing and data access is growing - the nature of publishing a peer reviewed paper that blames all or part of an event on climate change is now an accepted practice and it wasn't before. This is change. I still see no issue at all with the headline. It is a perfect fit for the article and is not wrong in any way. Edit: I've been banned from HN for a while I guess, unable to comment any more. I'll respond quickly to the comment below: > > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true > This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. You cut up my paragraph and removed the context from my comment in order to make me look like a climate change denier. I'm not. Why did you do that? > > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect > Nobody made that claim. I never said they did.
    - saas_co_de 9y ago
      > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect Nobody made that claim. There is an actual scientifically supportable position in between the two extremes you are proposing which is that in general the risk of extreme weather events is increasing due to climate change but no individual extreme weather event can be specifically attributed to climate change.
    - shifter 9y ago
      War is peace
      - dang 9y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, especially in flamewars. We ban accounts that repeatedly violate the site guidelines, so please read them and abide by them when commenting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
MollyR 9y ago
Yes, it seemed they buried the lede, kind of disingenuous journalism.
- tw1010 9y ago
  "kind of"
- jrs95 9y ago
  It's a bit redundant to say "disingenuous journalism" though, you could just say "journalism".
  - vernie 9y ago
    Oh fuck, got 'em!
jasonlotito 9y ago
That quote doesn't contradict the headline. The quote says that it cannot "attribute individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change," [emphasis mine] but that doesn't mean climate change doesn't play a part in causing individual weather phenomenon. Basically, both the headline and quote can easily be true at the same time.
- al3xnull 9y ago
  Your statement is true that climate change could cause weather phenonmenon, but the headline reads "Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change". The line he quoted contradicts that headline.
dang 9y ago
Ok, we've changed the title to use more neutral language from the article text.
- jacobsheehy 9y ago
  dang, usually I would agree, but why capitulate like this? The title was absolutely correct. Climate change articles are always full of hate on HN, with people saying climate change is fake, etc. See the top comment in this thread: the theme is strong on HN, to hate climate scientists, to flag the articles as fake, and to get the real content removed from HN. In this one, there is a chorus to say the headline is false. But it is the chorus that is false, not the headline. You have censored the headline for no reason. Also, my main account, cryptoz, is now temporarily? banned from posting on HN due to me defending the correctness of this headline. I wish it had not been changed. I have lost this battle.
  - dang 9y ago
    It's just standard HN moderation to replace baity titles with neutral ones, preferably using representative language from the article. We do this all the time, particularly with pop sci articles, where the headlines almost always oversell. cryptoz is rate limited, but not for anything to do with this. We rate limit accounts when they either post too many low-quality-for-HN comments too quickly and/or have gotten into flamewars. We're happy to un-rate-limit accounts, and do so all the time, as long as we get a commitment from the user to abide by the intention of the site in the future. But it's best to email hn@ycombinator.com if you want us to do that. Same goes for any user of course.

cryptoz 9y ago

At some point in the past, scientists have "generally agreed" things that were later found out to be wrong. I don't see how the article contradicts the title at all. Certainly not 'direct opposite' as it even calls out specific scientists and specific papers that are in fact doing exactly what the headline says. It's not like the article headline says "All scientists now agree: Harvey caused by climate change" or something like that. The headline is very clear and very specific. It is fine.

saas_co_de 9y ago
"Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change" There are two parts to that title: 1) "can now" implies that something significant in scientific understanding has changed 2) "blame individual natural disasters on climate change" is clear #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. Scientists can predict that the probability of extreme events in general is rising due to climate change but that is not proof that any specific event is attributable to climate change. That is not new. Nothing has changed in the consensus scientific position.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. Scientific consensus doesn't make something true. Climate change is true because we measure it, not because most scientists say it is. This is an active area of research, a brand-new area in fact, and making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect. We're still finding out the answers to those kinds of questions, and just now it's become potentially feasible to actually do it (blame climate change for a specific event). > #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. What? Of course things have changed. That's what this whole article is about. The methods are maturing and data access is growing - the nature of publishing a peer reviewed paper that blames all or part of an event on climate change is now an accepted practice and it wasn't before. This is change. I still see no issue at all with the headline. It is a perfect fit for the article and is not wrong in any way. Edit: I've been banned from HN for a while I guess, unable to comment any more. I'll respond quickly to the comment below: > > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true > This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. You cut up my paragraph and removed the context from my comment in order to make me look like a climate change denier. I'm not. Why did you do that? > > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect > Nobody made that claim. I never said they did.
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect Nobody made that claim. There is an actual scientifically supportable position in between the two extremes you are proposing which is that in general the risk of extreme weather events is increasing due to climate change but no individual extreme weather event can be specifically attributed to climate change.
  - shifter 9y ago
    War is peace
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, especially in flamewars. We ban accounts that repeatedly violate the site guidelines, so please read them and abide by them when commenting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

MollyR 9y ago

Yes, it seemed they buried the lede, kind of disingenuous journalism.

tw1010 9y ago
"kind of"
jrs95 9y ago
It's a bit redundant to say "disingenuous journalism" though, you could just say "journalism".
- vernie 9y ago
  Oh fuck, got 'em!

jasonlotito 9y ago

That quote doesn't contradict the headline. The quote says that it cannot "attribute individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change," [emphasis mine] but that doesn't mean climate change doesn't play a part in causing individual weather phenomenon. Basically, both the headline and quote can easily be true at the same time.

al3xnull 9y ago
Your statement is true that climate change could cause weather phenonmenon, but the headline reads "Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change". The line he quoted contradicts that headline.

dang 9y ago

Ok, we've changed the title to use more neutral language from the article text.

jacobsheehy 9y ago
dang, usually I would agree, but why capitulate like this? The title was absolutely correct. Climate change articles are always full of hate on HN, with people saying climate change is fake, etc. See the top comment in this thread: the theme is strong on HN, to hate climate scientists, to flag the articles as fake, and to get the real content removed from HN. In this one, there is a chorus to say the headline is false. But it is the chorus that is false, not the headline. You have censored the headline for no reason. Also, my main account, cryptoz, is now temporarily? banned from posting on HN due to me defending the correctness of this headline. I wish it had not been changed. I have lost this battle.
- dang 9y ago
  It's just standard HN moderation to replace baity titles with neutral ones, preferably using representative language from the article. We do this all the time, particularly with pop sci articles, where the headlines almost always oversell. cryptoz is rate limited, but not for anything to do with this. We rate limit accounts when they either post too many low-quality-for-HN comments too quickly and/or have gotten into flamewars. We're happy to un-rate-limit accounts, and do so all the time, as long as we get a commitment from the user to abide by the intention of the site in the future. But it's best to email hn@ycombinator.com if you want us to do that. Same goes for any user of course.