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The way any weather event is associated by default with climate change has harmed the credibility of those reporting on it, and made it harder to have the urgen

The way any weather event is associated by default with climate change has harmed the credibility of those reporting on it, and made it harder to have the urgent conversations we need to have to solve climate change. I suspect journalists think they’re helping the planet by raising the subject at every opportunity, but when there is no clear link, they’re providing fuel for parties that want to discredit the data and ignore the issue.

mc32 4y ago
I suspect this is more due lack critical thinking and lumping everything in with climate change because that is what everyone else is doing. Hivemind may be overwrought, but while I do believe people are affecting climate, attributing thigs that would have happened regardless of climate change is not constructive. It only serves to incite the choir and turn off most everyone else as it appears to resemble chicken little.
hedora 4y ago
Climate change increases the frequency of previously rare events. By definition, any unprecedented weather event in the last few years is linked to it. Excluding those, what weather event reporting are you referring to? People saying it’s a nice seasonably warm day, or noting historically average precipitation last week, and blaming climate change?
- coryrc 4y ago
  > Climate change increases the frequency of previously rare events. People were saying this about hurricanes after Katrina. Then we went about a decade with far fewer hurricanes than normal, and, indeed, named hurricanes in 2010s were 2/3 the count in the 1990s. It's too nuanced of a point to be used with the public.
swatcoder 4y ago
Maybe journalists are reporting what’s on the mind of readers, like they always do? A distressing weather event is news and has always been. The connection of any such event to climate change is something that most people wonder about, and journalists can do little besides ask an expert for their take. And the expert inevitably says “well, we can’t credit any specific event to climate change but extreme and unfamiliar weather patterns are a symptom in any case” How would you rather it go? Should the journalist find an expert who wouldn’t say that? Where would they find one? Should the journalist stop reporting on the weather? Stop addressing what’s on reader’s minds when they do?
worker_person 4y ago
Warning. Opinion piece. Just give me my downvotes. Climate Change is a religion first. Science second. We are coming out of an ice age. People don't seem to understand that. The real concern is at what rate things are changing because of human. Not are things changing. Sea level rose 420 feet before people were doing much. People like Al Gore have gotten rich peddling garbage for decades. By now we should all be dead. The famous hockey stick graph that never happened. If someone is willing to talk nuclear power then are serious and worth listening to. Everyone else is either trying to get rich, or has no critical thinking skills.
- mturmon 4y ago
  OK, well, here’s a good summary of the science part: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ It really doesn’t seem religious to me. I know a few people who work in this area and they are just normal physical scientists. Most of them do have some disappointment as people resist seeing this problem. I’ve seen more lectures over the last few years where your basic crusty old atmospheric scientist is saying, “people, we have to pay attention to this one.”
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > It really doesn’t seem religious to me. Here's a personal opinion, hopefully clearly presented. Scientists performing science use the scientific method to give humans the best available objective knowledge about the natural world. This aspect of science is not religious in nature and I think ~99% of HN would agree with this up to here. What science cannot do is use data to make decisions. Science cannot perform risk-management and cost-benefit analysis. You can use scientific data to perform risk-management and make a decision, but there's no objective outcome to any decision. Science qua science cannot decide which course of action is the scientifically accurate one: that concept doesn't exist. This decision-making is the aspect of reality that has become religious in nature, and that has become wrongly conflated with science. To illustrate that science is not the same thing as decision making, I'd point out that we've had plenty of occasions in real life where the American FDA and the European Medicines Agency have had different opinions on drug approvals with the same exact data. Who is following the science and who isn't following the science when they disagree on a drug approval? You can't answer that, because they both are using science, just making different decisions. Science and decision making are two different things, yet in today's world, they are often treated the same by some of the loudest and dumbest people. People in today's world scream "Trust the science" as if that's the end to the argument if you disagree with their proposed solution to some problem like climate change or taking a medication. This belief in science is what takes the form of a religious belief. There is no science that can tell humans what the right course of action is to some problem. That's an entirely different thing, yet people shout down rational skeptics about something by saying things like "the science says we must do X" as if that concept is inarguable. Intelligent, well-meaning, and rational people can agree with objective facts about climate change and still reasonably think that the economic devastation and human misery caused by trying to cut emissions as quickly as possible is not the best course of action to take. > I know a few people who work in this area and they are just normal physical scientists. For the most part, most humans working in this field are normal scientists doing normal science things, as best as possible. However, it should be noted that scientists are also people, and the financial survival instinct for them exists. Scientists are smart enough to understand the political zeitgeist and what butters their bread. Just like journalists have an incentive towards news that get the most clicks, scientists also have an incentive to veer towards research and conclusions that gets them the funding they need to live and work.
thomastjeffery 4y ago
Ignorance will continue regardless of what fuels it.

mc32 4y ago

I suspect this is more due lack critical thinking and lumping everything in with climate change because that is what everyone else is doing. Hivemind may be overwrought, but while I do believe people are affecting climate, attributing thigs that would have happened regardless of climate change is not constructive. It only serves to incite the choir and turn off most everyone else as it appears to resemble chicken little.

hedora 4y ago

Climate change increases the frequency of previously rare events. By definition, any unprecedented weather event in the last few years is linked to it. Excluding those, what weather event reporting are you referring to? People saying it’s a nice seasonably warm day, or noting historically average precipitation last week, and blaming climate change?

coryrc 4y ago
> Climate change increases the frequency of previously rare events. People were saying this about hurricanes after Katrina. Then we went about a decade with far fewer hurricanes than normal, and, indeed, named hurricanes in 2010s were 2/3 the count in the 1990s. It's too nuanced of a point to be used with the public.

swatcoder 4y ago

Maybe journalists are reporting what’s on the mind of readers, like they always do? A distressing weather event is news and has always been. The connection of any such event to climate change is something that most people wonder about, and journalists can do little besides ask an expert for their take. And the expert inevitably says “well, we can’t credit any specific event to climate change but extreme and unfamiliar weather patterns are a symptom in any case” How would you rather it go? Should the journalist find an expert who wouldn’t say that? Where would they find one? Should the journalist stop reporting on the weather? Stop addressing what’s on reader’s minds when they do?

worker_person 4y ago

Warning. Opinion piece. Just give me my downvotes. Climate Change is a religion first. Science second. We are coming out of an ice age. People don't seem to understand that. The real concern is at what rate things are changing because of human. Not are things changing. Sea level rose 420 feet before people were doing much. People like Al Gore have gotten rich peddling garbage for decades. By now we should all be dead. The famous hockey stick graph that never happened. If someone is willing to talk nuclear power then are serious and worth listening to. Everyone else is either trying to get rich, or has no critical thinking skills.

mturmon 4y ago
OK, well, here’s a good summary of the science part: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ It really doesn’t seem religious to me. I know a few people who work in this area and they are just normal physical scientists. Most of them do have some disappointment as people resist seeing this problem. I’ve seen more lectures over the last few years where your basic crusty old atmospheric scientist is saying, “people, we have to pay attention to this one.”
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > It really doesn’t seem religious to me. Here's a personal opinion, hopefully clearly presented. Scientists performing science use the scientific method to give humans the best available objective knowledge about the natural world. This aspect of science is not religious in nature and I think ~99% of HN would agree with this up to here. What science cannot do is use data to make decisions. Science cannot perform risk-management and cost-benefit analysis. You can use scientific data to perform risk-management and make a decision, but there's no objective outcome to any decision. Science qua science cannot decide which course of action is the scientifically accurate one: that concept doesn't exist. This decision-making is the aspect of reality that has become religious in nature, and that has become wrongly conflated with science. To illustrate that science is not the same thing as decision making, I'd point out that we've had plenty of occasions in real life where the American FDA and the European Medicines Agency have had different opinions on drug approvals with the same exact data. Who is following the science and who isn't following the science when they disagree on a drug approval? You can't answer that, because they both are using science, just making different decisions. Science and decision making are two different things, yet in today's world, they are often treated the same by some of the loudest and dumbest people. People in today's world scream "Trust the science" as if that's the end to the argument if you disagree with their proposed solution to some problem like climate change or taking a medication. This belief in science is what takes the form of a religious belief. There is no science that can tell humans what the right course of action is to some problem. That's an entirely different thing, yet people shout down rational skeptics about something by saying things like "the science says we must do X" as if that concept is inarguable. Intelligent, well-meaning, and rational people can agree with objective facts about climate change and still reasonably think that the economic devastation and human misery caused by trying to cut emissions as quickly as possible is not the best course of action to take. > I know a few people who work in this area and they are just normal physical scientists. For the most part, most humans working in this field are normal scientists doing normal science things, as best as possible. However, it should be noted that scientists are also people, and the financial survival instinct for them exists. Scientists are smart enough to understand the political zeitgeist and what butters their bread. Just like journalists have an incentive towards news that get the most clicks, scientists also have an incentive to veer towards research and conclusions that gets them the funding they need to live and work.

thomastjeffery 4y ago

Ignorance will continue regardless of what fuels it.