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> both the research literature and government reports that summarize and assess the state of climate science say clearly that: heatwaves in the US are now no mo
by eloff 5y ago
> both the research literature and government reports that summarize and assess the state of climate science say clearly that: heatwaves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years.” A few paragraphs down you add three more: “Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century; Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago, and the net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century.
I'm not sure about these claims, especially the Greenland one.
The latter might be true depending on how you define minimal - but the worst effects of climate change will be felt several centuries into the future. It's really not a rapidly impending doom, and more of slow motion train wreck.
Ocean levels won't even peak 1000 years from now. Temperatures won't peak this century.
These also are quite one-sided as you can also cherry-pick problematic examples of climate change. Like arctic ice cover, melting permafrost, melting glaciers, etc.
- nixpulvis 5y agoThis is an silly argument. The temperatures could peak in 5,000 years and we could still all be living in crisis 50 years from now. I'm not saying that will happen, just that the concept of a peak isn't really all that important to the point you are making. The "rapidly impending doom" could come from social reactions to a point being passed which itself snowballs out of control.
- eloff 5y agoThat's true. I still think we won't see too much change by the end of the century. The next few centuries will be tumultuous though - and we would have already stopped emitting greenhouse gases for the most part - so those people will have plenty of reasons to curse us.