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> It is a disservice to mention global warming every time there is a major weather event. It is a disservice to muddy the waters that way every time any weathe

> It is a disservice to mention global warming every time there is a major weather event. It is a disservice to muddy the waters that way every time any weather event is discussed. Yes, there might have been worse floodings about 5000 years ago. Yes, one single event cannot be attributed to climate change and freak monsoons happen from time to time. But we are very confident about the magnitude and frequency of these events being a direct consequence of global warming. Climate change and these events overall are direct consequences of global warming. There is no “yeah but”. We also know for a fact that global warning is directly responsible for the increase in melt water from receding glaciers, which was a contributor to the floods in Pakistan. It’s completely wrong to say that this would have happened without global warming. It’s like the discussions about the heat wave in Europe. You’d think people would get the message when 8 of the warmest years on record happened in the last 10 years.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
> We also know for a fact that global warning is directly responsible for the increase in melt water from receding glaciers... OK. > ... which was a contributor to the floods in Pakistan. Can you explain how that contributes to the flooding? I don't see the mechanism.
- dahinds 4y ago
  water flows downhill?
- kergonath 4y ago
  Pakistan has lots of rivers coming down from the Himalayas. These rivers start at the bottom of glaciers as they melt (yes, this has happened since forever: glaciers melt all the time, but they also grow from snowfall, when there is such a thing). An increase in melt water causes these rivers to overflow, which combines with the effect of the monsoon.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    D'oh. I'm an idiot. I was thinking of glaciers melting in Greenland (also in the headlines today). I forgot about the Himalayas.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Sorry I thought that was obvious from the context. Yeah, it’s hard to follow sometimes, it’s bad news all around.
troon-lover 4y ago
oceanplexian 4y ago
> It is a disservice to muddy the waters that way every time any weather event is discussed. Yes, but Climate Change absolutists do this /every single time/ there is a drought, or a hurricane, or a bad string of storms, a warm winter, or whatever. If you expect the other side to take the science seriously, you also can't turn a blind eye when politicians and media of a certain persuasion do the exact same thing in reverse.
- bearjaws 4y ago
  We are well past the point of trying to get 'the other side' to believe it. There is no way to do that. They will never believe it. Their motivation for not believing in it is not based on facts, it is purely political / indoctrinated. They will continually pick one thing or another to not believe it, and then when the evidence of change is insurmountable, they will claim humans aren't causing it. I've seen it time and time again here in Florida, it always goes back to 'well humans can't cause this'.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > Yes, but Climate Change absolutists do this /every single time/ there is a drought, or a hurricane, or a bad string of storms, a warm winter, or whatever. What is a “climate change absolutist”? I am sure you are aware that global warming does not happen just because some people believe in it, right? And that nobody is advocating for it. Again, there are reasons why this specific event has contributing causes that would not exist in the absence of global warming. > you also can't turn a blind eye when politicians and media of a certain persuasion do the exact same thing in reverse. This is a straw man. The media are perfectly able to say exactly what other people have written here (global warming => increase in magnitude and frequency of extreme events), and politicians as well. And they do, more or less. Stop trying to find flaws in specific examples to confirm your political position. You are doing in reverse what others do when they cite Breitbart or OANN as a proof that conservatives are savages that cannot be reasoned with.
- aeroman 4y ago
  I am not entirely sure what a cliamte change absolutist is, but have you thought of the possibility they might be right? Obviously we have had extreme weather before, but many of the extremes we are seeing now are far, far outside normal (in some cases more than 100 times as common). You might feel that every time an event comes up in the media, it is claimed it is because of climate change. Perhaps most of these extreme events are (or are at last much more common)? We already know that climate change has an outsided impact on extreme events, particularly heatwaves, making them hotter, longer and more frequent. Many of these physics principles apply worldwide, so we end up seeing the fingerprint of cliamte change in extreme heatwaves across the world.
anigbrowl 4y ago
The problem is that it's cheap (in terms of time and cognitive effort) to raise objections, and expensive to address them (with explanation and demonstration of observational and modeling method). Dishonest actors exploit this asymmetry to raise large numbers of shallow objections, in the hope that the audience will be excited by the drama of conflict and bored by the effort of overcoming the objections. Clever or charismatic actors can often win such conflicts at a rhetorical level, and are then naively imitated by people who are not acting in bad faith but want to copy a successful-appearing social strategy for their own benefit. I got an early life lesson in this via a school debate. Assigned to refute the proposition that 'Brand X is the best cat food', I compared the ingredients from many different brands and noted that Brand X had a much higher percentage of 'Ash' - burnt matter following cooking. On the day of the debate I triumphantly presented my findings, and asked the audience why they would want to feed ash to their cats. My opponent then got up and said 'But maybe cats enjoy burning HASH' and got a huge laugh. Was it responsive or substantive? No, but I had said the word 'ash' too many times and his making a joke about that relieved the mild tension I had created with my overly-earnest argument. His team won the debate.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

> We also know for a fact that global warning is directly responsible for the increase in melt water from receding glaciers... OK. > ... which was a contributor to the floods in Pakistan. Can you explain how that contributes to the flooding? I don't see the mechanism.

dahinds 4y ago
water flows downhill?
kergonath 4y ago
Pakistan has lots of rivers coming down from the Himalayas. These rivers start at the bottom of glaciers as they melt (yes, this has happened since forever: glaciers melt all the time, but they also grow from snowfall, when there is such a thing). An increase in melt water causes these rivers to overflow, which combines with the effect of the monsoon.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  D'oh. I'm an idiot. I was thinking of glaciers melting in Greenland (also in the headlines today). I forgot about the Himalayas.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Sorry I thought that was obvious from the context. Yeah, it’s hard to follow sometimes, it’s bad news all around.

troon-lover 4y ago

oceanplexian 4y ago

> It is a disservice to muddy the waters that way every time any weather event is discussed. Yes, but Climate Change absolutists do this /every single time/ there is a drought, or a hurricane, or a bad string of storms, a warm winter, or whatever. If you expect the other side to take the science seriously, you also can't turn a blind eye when politicians and media of a certain persuasion do the exact same thing in reverse.

bearjaws 4y ago
We are well past the point of trying to get 'the other side' to believe it. There is no way to do that. They will never believe it. Their motivation for not believing in it is not based on facts, it is purely political / indoctrinated. They will continually pick one thing or another to not believe it, and then when the evidence of change is insurmountable, they will claim humans aren't causing it. I've seen it time and time again here in Florida, it always goes back to 'well humans can't cause this'.
kergonath 4y ago
> Yes, but Climate Change absolutists do this /every single time/ there is a drought, or a hurricane, or a bad string of storms, a warm winter, or whatever. What is a “climate change absolutist”? I am sure you are aware that global warming does not happen just because some people believe in it, right? And that nobody is advocating for it. Again, there are reasons why this specific event has contributing causes that would not exist in the absence of global warming. > you also can't turn a blind eye when politicians and media of a certain persuasion do the exact same thing in reverse. This is a straw man. The media are perfectly able to say exactly what other people have written here (global warming => increase in magnitude and frequency of extreme events), and politicians as well. And they do, more or less. Stop trying to find flaws in specific examples to confirm your political position. You are doing in reverse what others do when they cite Breitbart or OANN as a proof that conservatives are savages that cannot be reasoned with.
aeroman 4y ago
I am not entirely sure what a cliamte change absolutist is, but have you thought of the possibility they might be right? Obviously we have had extreme weather before, but many of the extremes we are seeing now are far, far outside normal (in some cases more than 100 times as common). You might feel that every time an event comes up in the media, it is claimed it is because of climate change. Perhaps most of these extreme events are (or are at last much more common)? We already know that climate change has an outsided impact on extreme events, particularly heatwaves, making them hotter, longer and more frequent. Many of these physics principles apply worldwide, so we end up seeing the fingerprint of cliamte change in extreme heatwaves across the world.

anigbrowl 4y ago

The problem is that it's cheap (in terms of time and cognitive effort) to raise objections, and expensive to address them (with explanation and demonstration of observational and modeling method). Dishonest actors exploit this asymmetry to raise large numbers of shallow objections, in the hope that the audience will be excited by the drama of conflict and bored by the effort of overcoming the objections. Clever or charismatic actors can often win such conflicts at a rhetorical level, and are then naively imitated by people who are not acting in bad faith but want to copy a successful-appearing social strategy for their own benefit. I got an early life lesson in this via a school debate. Assigned to refute the proposition that 'Brand X is the best cat food', I compared the ingredients from many different brands and noted that Brand X had a much higher percentage of 'Ash' - burnt matter following cooking. On the day of the debate I triumphantly presented my findings, and asked the audience why they would want to feed ash to their cats. My opponent then got up and said 'But maybe cats enjoy burning HASH' and got a huge laugh. Was it responsive or substantive? No, but I had said the word 'ash' too many times and his making a joke about that relieved the mild tension I had created with my overly-earnest argument. His team won the debate.