5 ms·

This is just silly. Coming up next, names for cold snaps, tide surges, landslides and solar flares. Followed by name diversity arguments for them all. I'm no

This is just silly. Coming up next, names for cold snaps, tide surges, landslides and solar flares. Followed by name diversity arguments for them all. I'm not dismissing the severity of these events, but this just reeks of headline clickbait marketing material.

deleted 4y ago
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hgazx 4y ago
>Coming up next, names for cold snaps, tide surges, landslides and solar flares. I assume that heat waves are now named by the mass media to give undeserved importance to the topic of global warming.
LadyCailin 4y ago
So I assume then that you prefer to refer to it as the severe weather system that hit 29.8915381, -90.052772 in 2005?
- CDRdude 4y ago
  I’m being a bit snarky instead of being helpful, but your post brings this XKCD to mind: https://xkcd.com/2170/ https://xkcd.com/2170/
  - r2_pilot 4y ago
    To ruin a great xkcd, the coordinates referenced by parent are in the neighborhood of "You're pointing to Waldo on the page".
jollybean 4y ago
No, it's a good idea both pragmatically and from a communications perspective. Remember Hurricane Katrina? Names help. Specifically now that we have a material climate change problem, it helps to give a name to the problem. Snarkily, I vote for the first one to be 'Chevy Suburban'.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > Remember Hurricane Katrina? Names help. we remember it because of the destruction, not because of the name. you could’ve called it august 05 hurricane and it would be the same thing. e.g. 9-11
  - powerhour 4y ago
    The fact that we popularly call it "9-11" and not "9-11-2001" supports the idea that nicknames help, or are at least natural.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    No, sorry, this is wrong. 9-11 works because the tragedy was 'massive' (the biggest attack since pearl harbour and most civilian deaths ever). Any name applied to 9-11 would have 'stuck'. Moreover, 9-11 caught on at least in part because 911 is 'emergency' number in North America. Hurricane Katrina comes nowhere near that threshold. Now - it may have been giving a populist name, such as 'The Orleans Breach' or something instead of an official name. But the names really do help us remember and contextualize.
otikik 4y ago
We already use names for tropical storms and hurricanes. It’s easier to talk about “Zoe” than to talk about “the third heatwave” or “the 23rd of October heatwave”. I am fine with it.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
The government and government-adjacent institutions classify and quantify these things are competing with each other for relevance, reach, budget, etc. so there's a huge incentive to scream "tonight at 11: DOOOOOOM". The media (weather included) is competing for eyeball*hours so of course they do stuff like this too. A lot of people are gonna look real stupid in 10-20yr when it becomes clear in hindsight that the solution to societal alarm fatigue was not to just increase the volume. (And I'm gonna head off the inevitable snarky comments by reminding everyone that alarm fatigue caused by alarms rightfully going off is still alarm fatigue.) People have no problem remembering the Hurricane of '38. This naming stuff is all theater. Playing PR games so you can have .05% more "resonates with the public" or whatever dumb KPI you're chasing this quarter isn't gonna slow or mitigate global warming. But it will help you be seen "doing something" which appears to matter a lot to a lot of people.
- deleted 4y ago
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Zenst 4y ago
Agreed, it just normalises them by giving them cute names.
drcode 4y ago
I'll take the named heatwaves if they would just stop doing APOCALYPSE TORNADO EMERGENCY BREAKING NEWS every time there's a mild thunderstorm here in Chicago

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hgazx 4y ago

>Coming up next, names for cold snaps, tide surges, landslides and solar flares. I assume that heat waves are now named by the mass media to give undeserved importance to the topic of global warming.

LadyCailin 4y ago

So I assume then that you prefer to refer to it as the severe weather system that hit 29.8915381, -90.052772 in 2005?

CDRdude 4y ago
I’m being a bit snarky instead of being helpful, but your post brings this XKCD to mind: https://xkcd.com/2170/ https://xkcd.com/2170/
- r2_pilot 4y ago
  To ruin a great xkcd, the coordinates referenced by parent are in the neighborhood of "You're pointing to Waldo on the page".

jollybean 4y ago

No, it's a good idea both pragmatically and from a communications perspective. Remember Hurricane Katrina? Names help. Specifically now that we have a material climate change problem, it helps to give a name to the problem. Snarkily, I vote for the first one to be 'Chevy Suburban'.

kmlx 4y ago
> Remember Hurricane Katrina? Names help. we remember it because of the destruction, not because of the name. you could’ve called it august 05 hurricane and it would be the same thing. e.g. 9-11
- powerhour 4y ago
  The fact that we popularly call it "9-11" and not "9-11-2001" supports the idea that nicknames help, or are at least natural.
- jollybean 4y ago
  No, sorry, this is wrong. 9-11 works because the tragedy was 'massive' (the biggest attack since pearl harbour and most civilian deaths ever). Any name applied to 9-11 would have 'stuck'. Moreover, 9-11 caught on at least in part because 911 is 'emergency' number in North America. Hurricane Katrina comes nowhere near that threshold. Now - it may have been giving a populist name, such as 'The Orleans Breach' or something instead of an official name. But the names really do help us remember and contextualize.

otikik 4y ago

We already use names for tropical storms and hurricanes. It’s easier to talk about “Zoe” than to talk about “the third heatwave” or “the 23rd of October heatwave”. I am fine with it.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

The government and government-adjacent institutions classify and quantify these things are competing with each other for relevance, reach, budget, etc. so there's a huge incentive to scream "tonight at 11: DOOOOOOM". The media (weather included) is competing for eyeball*hours so of course they do stuff like this too. A lot of people are gonna look real stupid in 10-20yr when it becomes clear in hindsight that the solution to societal alarm fatigue was not to just increase the volume. (And I'm gonna head off the inevitable snarky comments by reminding everyone that alarm fatigue caused by alarms rightfully going off is still alarm fatigue.) People have no problem remembering the Hurricane of '38. This naming stuff is all theater. Playing PR games so you can have .05% more "resonates with the public" or whatever dumb KPI you're chasing this quarter isn't gonna slow or mitigate global warming. But it will help you be seen "doing something" which appears to matter a lot to a lot of people.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Zenst 4y ago

Agreed, it just normalises them by giving them cute names.

drcode 4y ago

I'll take the named heatwaves if they would just stop doing APOCALYPSE TORNADO EMERGENCY BREAKING NEWS every time there's a mild thunderstorm here in Chicago