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I was careful not to claim that he said billions WOULD die - rather "that billions of people MIGHT BE EXPECTED TO DIE." He's the one throwing out the words "bil

I was careful not to claim that he said billions WOULD die - rather "that billions of people MIGHT BE EXPECTED TO DIE." He's the one throwing out the words "billions" and "lethal" here as a scare tactic; I'm not exactly putting any words into his mouth. I even nicely provided a link so you could see exactly what he said for yourself. And I didn't make a connection between pollution and cold, either; rather I said that their priorities here might need to shift - less concern about pollution, more concern about people staying out of the cold. And "staying out of the cold" implies maybe burning more fossil fuels, which would generate more CO2, which everyone knows isn't itself pollution anyway. As far as "problem" vs. "solution", my main goal is trying to get people to NOT buy into all of the doomsday environmental scenarios that are constantly being thrown about now. History has shown that such prognostications are almost always nonsense. (Plain old common sense should tell you that, too, but it seems a lot of people lack common sense these days.) I mean, we don't want people going off on a tangent and doing what this guy did (see below)! Amirite? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/15/he-fought-for-same-sex-marriage-for-years-and-set-himself-on-fire-to-protest-global-pollution https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/1...

Certhas 9y ago
You're not a crusader for common sense, you're an apologist for smug inaction in the face of a well documented grave crisis. And your argument seems to be no better than: "well they shout to much". But sure, the real problem is a governor getting the wording of deadly heatwave slightly wrong. Were you even aware of the solid research he is alluding to, or are you above googling some facts for a few seconds because the statement rubbed you the wrong way? Is the fact that it's likely that thousands will die in heat waves somehow less concerning to you than the governors choice of words? And no, history has not shown "such prognostications are almost always nonsense". There is simply no historical precedent here. We don't have a precedent of solid scientific consensus, backed by massive amounts of data, vast careful impact studies, etc ever even being performed in any field. But typically science done much less carefully has turned out to be overwhelmingly right.
- southern_cross 9y ago
  I'm going to cut you some slack here and assume that your reading comprehension skills are pretty low right now, as is your ability to think clearly. I'll just go ahead and blame that on allergy meds, since it's that time of year. The list given earlier (which has now disappeared from this thread, apparently) showed at least a dozen or so dire Earth Day predictions which obviously didn't come true. There's no particular reason to believe that at least the more dire of climate change predictions will come true, either, especially given that many predictions haven't come anywhere close to being true even though we were told to expect serious consequences by now. By that I mean things like "major ice loss at the poles", "polar bear population collapse", "the end of snow", "the new normal" (in various contexts), "major agricultural decline", and so on. Though it's certainly easy enough for some folks to play the "Well, maybe it didn't happen as early as originally predicted, but it will definitely happen by the year 2050 or 2100" game, isn't it? BTW, I don't necessarily consider it a coincidence that item number 6 from that list mentioned 4 billion people, and Gov. Brown also mentioned 4 billion people in total. That's a big, scary number, but it apparently was taken at least somewhat seriously in the past, so why not just recycle it for the future? And yes, I'm quite aware of various forecasts concerning heat and such. However, historically cold has generally been far more deadly than heat; see the following, for example. https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weath... Now see the following, which near the end makes the following bold claim: "One thing that’s clear: climate change will make things worse" https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/17/16851398/cold-snap-heat-wave-deaths-human-health https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/17/1685139... Well, gee, folks, if cold-related deaths are historically up to 20 times higher than heat-related deaths, then common sense suggests that the above claim is just pretty much total bullshit on the face of it, since we're being told to expect cold waves to decrease while heat waves increase. As to your "We don't have a precedent ..." statement, common sense should tell you that we probably still don't have any such situation! I've actually looked at some of that data directly myself and found it wanting. I'm somewhat hesitant to use the word "fraudulent" here (but I think that applies to at least some of it), so I will just use the words "sloppy" and “highly suspect” instead. A funny thing about your “vast” statement: The latest numbers that I recall seeing (I’m not sure where) claimed that there are currently something like 70,000 climate scientists out there who have by now published hundreds of thousands of climate-related papers, or some such. Which is funny because just a few years ago the numbers that I recall seeing weren’t anywhere close to this; we’re talking at least an order of magnitude difference here, IIRC. So, taking these claims at face value, then you probably would have to have had a truly remarkable increase recently in the number of climate scientists (maybe they just breed like rabbits?), with an equally remarkable burst of publishing productivity on their part (maybe they’re just working really, really hard trying to save the planet?). All of this, of course, in the face of painful restrictions on research funding and competition for journal space in general. I’m just not buying said claims personally, so methinks that maybe you’re being a bit too gullible here.

Certhas 9y ago

You're not a crusader for common sense, you're an apologist for smug inaction in the face of a well documented grave crisis. And your argument seems to be no better than: "well they shout to much". But sure, the real problem is a governor getting the wording of deadly heatwave slightly wrong. Were you even aware of the solid research he is alluding to, or are you above googling some facts for a few seconds because the statement rubbed you the wrong way? Is the fact that it's likely that thousands will die in heat waves somehow less concerning to you than the governors choice of words? And no, history has not shown "such prognostications are almost always nonsense". There is simply no historical precedent here. We don't have a precedent of solid scientific consensus, backed by massive amounts of data, vast careful impact studies, etc ever even being performed in any field. But typically science done much less carefully has turned out to be overwhelmingly right.

southern_cross 9y ago
I'm going to cut you some slack here and assume that your reading comprehension skills are pretty low right now, as is your ability to think clearly. I'll just go ahead and blame that on allergy meds, since it's that time of year. The list given earlier (which has now disappeared from this thread, apparently) showed at least a dozen or so dire Earth Day predictions which obviously didn't come true. There's no particular reason to believe that at least the more dire of climate change predictions will come true, either, especially given that many predictions haven't come anywhere close to being true even though we were told to expect serious consequences by now. By that I mean things like "major ice loss at the poles", "polar bear population collapse", "the end of snow", "the new normal" (in various contexts), "major agricultural decline", and so on. Though it's certainly easy enough for some folks to play the "Well, maybe it didn't happen as early as originally predicted, but it will definitely happen by the year 2050 or 2100" game, isn't it? BTW, I don't necessarily consider it a coincidence that item number 6 from that list mentioned 4 billion people, and Gov. Brown also mentioned 4 billion people in total. That's a big, scary number, but it apparently was taken at least somewhat seriously in the past, so why not just recycle it for the future? And yes, I'm quite aware of various forecasts concerning heat and such. However, historically cold has generally been far more deadly than heat; see the following, for example. https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weath... Now see the following, which near the end makes the following bold claim: "One thing that’s clear: climate change will make things worse" https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/17/16851398/cold-snap-heat-wave-deaths-human-health https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/17/1685139... Well, gee, folks, if cold-related deaths are historically up to 20 times higher than heat-related deaths, then common sense suggests that the above claim is just pretty much total bullshit on the face of it, since we're being told to expect cold waves to decrease while heat waves increase. As to your "We don't have a precedent ..." statement, common sense should tell you that we probably still don't have any such situation! I've actually looked at some of that data directly myself and found it wanting. I'm somewhat hesitant to use the word "fraudulent" here (but I think that applies to at least some of it), so I will just use the words "sloppy" and “highly suspect” instead. A funny thing about your “vast” statement: The latest numbers that I recall seeing (I’m not sure where) claimed that there are currently something like 70,000 climate scientists out there who have by now published hundreds of thousands of climate-related papers, or some such. Which is funny because just a few years ago the numbers that I recall seeing weren’t anywhere close to this; we’re talking at least an order of magnitude difference here, IIRC. So, taking these claims at face value, then you probably would have to have had a truly remarkable increase recently in the number of climate scientists (maybe they just breed like rabbits?), with an equally remarkable burst of publishing productivity on their part (maybe they’re just working really, really hard trying to save the planet?). All of this, of course, in the face of painful restrictions on research funding and competition for journal space in general. I’m just not buying said claims personally, so methinks that maybe you’re being a bit too gullible here.