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Nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer
- throwawaysea 5y agoOnce again, the June Pacific Northwest heatwave was not caused by climate change. At best global warming contributed a few degrees Fahrenheit to the temperatures. This heat wave was due to a complex set of factors which are possible with a low probability both with and without climate change. Without global warming it would still have been a record breaking event, the kind that can take place once in a century. Unfortunately news media all ran alarmist headlines on this event that lacked evidence, ignoring what actual climate scientists like Professor Cliff Mass of the University of Washington said: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-report-leads-to-false.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-repor... It is unfortunate that academics and journalists are abandoning balanced discourse in favor of advocacy. As for wildfires - we need a significant investment in the management of our lands as well as updated regulation that makes it easier for landowners to thin their forests. Today’s forests are very different from forests a hundred years ago. This talk from a US Forest Service expert describes how today’s forests are problematic and and how the problem is actually a social problem - one of awareness and motivation to act by implementing mechanical thinning, clean up, and prescribed burns: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_hessburg_why_wildfires_have_gotten_worse_and_what_we_can_do_about_it/up-next https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_hessburg_why_wildfires_have_g...
- bananabiscuit 5y agoCliff Mass’s post is a good read. I can barely justify faulting climate change deniers anymore exactly due to the kind of very low quality reporting of the science behind it that he points out.