4 ms·

Let's take a moment and recognize the fear-mongering going on a few days ago where there were articles saying "this time is different because of climate change,

by umvi 6y ago

Let's take a moment and recognize the fear-mongering going on a few days ago where there were articles saying "this time is different because of climate change, this time climate change super fires have caused a national treasure to be destroyed"

crawsome 6y ago
Are you saying there's not enough evidence to associate the wack storm that prefaced this with climate change? The Bay area NEVER gets rain for like almost, 8 months of the year. This was a freak event.
- umvi 6y ago
  I'm just saying there was a lot of mourning and saying "the redwoods are gone". When people responded "you don't get to be a 1000+ year old tree without being able to survive fires" the response was "yeah but that was before climate change. These trees are likely gone forever now because climate change combined with fire suppression is causing super fires that burn much hotter"
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I grew up in a place where people would talk about "that one storm in '62" (year made up) or even further back, either from direct experience or retelling an older generation's story. Given the bay area's high flux of people in and out, how many people have lived there long enough for generational knowledge of the weather 50 or 100 years ago to exist?
- 01100011 6y ago
  It is not uncommon for tropical moisture to reach the coast of CA in late summer/early fall. It has happened a few times since I've lived here. The lightning is more uncommon but also not unheard of.
woofie11 6y ago
I'm not quite sure that was fearmongering, so much as people operating from limited information. It's reasonable that people will make mistakes.
- umvi 6y ago
  Well it seems like the prevailing emotion in times of limited information is fear. You see dire forecasts that embody people's worst fears prefixed with probability qualifiers. The same has happened many times in the past (and is still happening now) with Covid, climate change, upcoming election, etc. It is reasonable people will make mistakes, lots of them, so let's stop prefixing predictions with probability qualifiers "it's very likely X will happen" as if our limited information is enough to quantify a probability % of liklihood. I've seen dozens of "very likely" predictions on HN fall flat once more information came out within the past few years alone.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    Fear is a good reaction to limited information! If COVID19 has a 15% chance of leading to a million people on long-term disability, that justifies a lot of precautions. You can phrase that as a mathematical equation, where you sum up the outcomes, average, and get an expected value, or as an emotion. In this case, the outcome is the same. Ditto for climate change. I agree the worst-case is unlikely, and people get ahead by presenting the worst-case, but "unlikely" means 10%, not 0%. In the grand scheme of things, switching to sustainable technologies isn't too expensive. And things with 15% odds will fall flat 5 times out of 6. I think the bigger problem we have is an inability to move. We should have dealt with COVID19 when it first appeared. We should be doing a lot more to deal with climate change. And so on. Problem-solving is the best way to mitigate fear.
all_usernames 6y ago
Even the redwood park society released a statement saying the park was "gone." They were referring to the buildings. Ironic?

by umvi 6y ago

crawsome 6y ago

Are you saying there's not enough evidence to associate the wack storm that prefaced this with climate change? The Bay area NEVER gets rain for like almost, 8 months of the year. This was a freak event.

umvi 6y ago
I'm just saying there was a lot of mourning and saying "the redwoods are gone". When people responded "you don't get to be a 1000+ year old tree without being able to survive fires" the response was "yeah but that was before climate change. These trees are likely gone forever now because climate change combined with fire suppression is causing super fires that burn much hotter"
nitrogen 6y ago
I grew up in a place where people would talk about "that one storm in '62" (year made up) or even further back, either from direct experience or retelling an older generation's story. Given the bay area's high flux of people in and out, how many people have lived there long enough for generational knowledge of the weather 50 or 100 years ago to exist?
01100011 6y ago
It is not uncommon for tropical moisture to reach the coast of CA in late summer/early fall. It has happened a few times since I've lived here. The lightning is more uncommon but also not unheard of.

woofie11 6y ago

I'm not quite sure that was fearmongering, so much as people operating from limited information. It's reasonable that people will make mistakes.

umvi 6y ago
Well it seems like the prevailing emotion in times of limited information is fear. You see dire forecasts that embody people's worst fears prefixed with probability qualifiers. The same has happened many times in the past (and is still happening now) with Covid, climate change, upcoming election, etc. It is reasonable people will make mistakes, lots of them, so let's stop prefixing predictions with probability qualifiers "it's very likely X will happen" as if our limited information is enough to quantify a probability % of liklihood. I've seen dozens of "very likely" predictions on HN fall flat once more information came out within the past few years alone.
- woofie11 6y ago
  Fear is a good reaction to limited information! If COVID19 has a 15% chance of leading to a million people on long-term disability, that justifies a lot of precautions. You can phrase that as a mathematical equation, where you sum up the outcomes, average, and get an expected value, or as an emotion. In this case, the outcome is the same. Ditto for climate change. I agree the worst-case is unlikely, and people get ahead by presenting the worst-case, but "unlikely" means 10%, not 0%. In the grand scheme of things, switching to sustainable technologies isn't too expensive. And things with 15% odds will fall flat 5 times out of 6. I think the bigger problem we have is an inability to move. We should have dealt with COVID19 when it first appeared. We should be doing a lot more to deal with climate change. And so on. Problem-solving is the best way to mitigate fear.

all_usernames 6y ago

Even the redwood park society released a statement saying the park was "gone." They were referring to the buildings. Ironic?