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> There is NO EVIDENCE that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change. This isn't how climate science or causality works in relation to climate

> There is NO EVIDENCE that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change. This isn't how climate science or causality works in relation to climate change. The climate is a chaotic, complex sysem that does not have a single, identifiable nexus by which we can "prove" things happen. Climate scientists know this and, instead of trying to demonstrate irrefutable proof, point to a better need for monitoring and warning systems, of exactly the type mentioned in this article. It is unfortunate that the author felt the need to lean into this argument, as is it precisely this kind of perspective that leads people to become suspicious of monitoring and warning systems (by generally rejecting scientific argumentation) - the exact problem that the author claims led to avoidable deaths. The whole approach is quite confusing to me - why identify the issue and then act to reinforce the issue?

bluGill 1y ago
[flagged]
- willguest 1y ago
  You are right that the trend within the area does not point towards a greater risk of flooding. You are right to point out that we should only make claims based on data. You are, again, right to say that climate models do nothing to predict increased flooding in Texas. I was not saying that climate models would have predicted this. What I think you have missed is that the climate is a global system and that there is a substantial amount of data to indicate that a shifting climate leads to a greater frequency of events that fall outside of local trends. This doesn't prove that the flooding event was a result of that (though some people may likely argue that point). My point was that we need to pay close attention to monitoring and warning systems, that the article says exactly this, and that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    > that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal. I agree. Thus claiming a single isolated local event is the result of climate change without strong evidence (which in a chaotic system is usually impossible to collect) is counter productive because there is no data to back it up and in turn it make climate change look like fools who keep yelling about things that are false. Which is why anyone who cares about climate change should refute every attempt to blame local conditions on climate change. We can state there is a trend, but we can rarely state that any specific situation wouldn't have happened without climate change.
    - willguest 1y ago
      This would be a great starting point for a much wider conversation on the various factors that lead to climate events leading to loss of human life (urbanisation, lack of ecological resilience, dependency on fragile supply chains, political inaction and misdirection, etc etc). It seems to me that a HN comment thread isn't really built for that, but here's my concern - it seems that the quality of dialogue and debate (generally, but especially in the US) has degraded to the point where it's really just about "yes it is" or "no it isn't". This leads to more division, infighting and the removal of much-needed nuance at a time when a more sober digestion of the matter is quite urgently needed. Just to say, wouldn't it be nice if there was a forum where this actually happened. Perhaps if the air con was doused with oxytocin ahead of time or the participants had mandated micro-doses of something euphoric...
- judahmeek 1y ago
  Data: https://apnews.com/article/texas-flood-climate-change-drought-rainfall-23bfa1a45d9897676b0fe27c81c6fa2d https://apnews.com/article/texas-flood-climate-change-drough... "Going back through U.S. weather station records dating to 1955, Kunkel found that rain over the past 20 years has become more intense in the eastern two-thirds of the country, including the southern Great Plains, where Texas is located. Intensities have remained the same or declined in the West and southwest. At the 700 stations that began collecting data in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the highest proportion of two-day rainfall records have been set in just the past 10 years, Kunkel said, though that doesn’t fully reflect most Western stations, which were established later. Nielsen-Gammon said the overall intensity of extreme rainfall in Texas has increased by 15% over the past 40-50 years."
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Real data that seems to contradicts the post (the post is about flooding events not rain, which are corrolated). Now we have a point to work with in a debate instead of people who want to insist on something that fits their bias without fact checking.
dathinab 1y ago
but how could he not have leaned into it - if his analysis of data is correct this _one specific kind of wetter event in this one specific region_ seem to not have happened majorly more or less in recent years - but similar events did happen since the 1940 often enough to call it IMHO negligent to not have precautions in place - people are already abusing the even to push political propaganda, mostly about the weather service not doing a good job (probably with the intend to kill it doge style and replace it with a Musk company or similar), similar people on the other side are using it for political propaganda about climate change distancing yourself from either of it seems good - now making people believe climate change is bad (as it really is) sound good, but if you use faulty easy to disprove examples for it it can easily have the opposite effect, in addition politicians use climate change to opt out of responsibility as in "no one could have predicted it because that new caused by climate change", but it isn't new and predictable (and was predicted) so instead of derailing the discussion into one about climate change which most likely will end up fruit less it's better to focus about the facts at hand - it's a flash flood risk area - similar events have happened frequent enough through history for this to be known - it was warned, repeatedly and reasonable price, about the damage - either the warning didn't reach people or they ignored it and in the last point we have direct actionable things: Ignored it? Hold people responsible for negligence, idk. about US law but in the EU negligence (especially gross negligence leading to harm of people) is something you mostly can't opt out of no matter what you try. Not reached them? Then that is another action point where we can find ways to improve it.

bluGill 1y ago

[flagged]

willguest 1y ago
You are right that the trend within the area does not point towards a greater risk of flooding. You are right to point out that we should only make claims based on data. You are, again, right to say that climate models do nothing to predict increased flooding in Texas. I was not saying that climate models would have predicted this. What I think you have missed is that the climate is a global system and that there is a substantial amount of data to indicate that a shifting climate leads to a greater frequency of events that fall outside of local trends. This doesn't prove that the flooding event was a result of that (though some people may likely argue that point). My point was that we need to pay close attention to monitoring and warning systems, that the article says exactly this, and that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal.
- bluGill 1y ago
  > that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal. I agree. Thus claiming a single isolated local event is the result of climate change without strong evidence (which in a chaotic system is usually impossible to collect) is counter productive because there is no data to back it up and in turn it make climate change look like fools who keep yelling about things that are false. Which is why anyone who cares about climate change should refute every attempt to blame local conditions on climate change. We can state there is a trend, but we can rarely state that any specific situation wouldn't have happened without climate change.
  - willguest 1y ago
    This would be a great starting point for a much wider conversation on the various factors that lead to climate events leading to loss of human life (urbanisation, lack of ecological resilience, dependency on fragile supply chains, political inaction and misdirection, etc etc). It seems to me that a HN comment thread isn't really built for that, but here's my concern - it seems that the quality of dialogue and debate (generally, but especially in the US) has degraded to the point where it's really just about "yes it is" or "no it isn't". This leads to more division, infighting and the removal of much-needed nuance at a time when a more sober digestion of the matter is quite urgently needed. Just to say, wouldn't it be nice if there was a forum where this actually happened. Perhaps if the air con was doused with oxytocin ahead of time or the participants had mandated micro-doses of something euphoric...
judahmeek 1y ago
Data: https://apnews.com/article/texas-flood-climate-change-drought-rainfall-23bfa1a45d9897676b0fe27c81c6fa2d https://apnews.com/article/texas-flood-climate-change-drough... "Going back through U.S. weather station records dating to 1955, Kunkel found that rain over the past 20 years has become more intense in the eastern two-thirds of the country, including the southern Great Plains, where Texas is located. Intensities have remained the same or declined in the West and southwest. At the 700 stations that began collecting data in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the highest proportion of two-day rainfall records have been set in just the past 10 years, Kunkel said, though that doesn’t fully reflect most Western stations, which were established later. Nielsen-Gammon said the overall intensity of extreme rainfall in Texas has increased by 15% over the past 40-50 years."
- bluGill 1y ago
  Real data that seems to contradicts the post (the post is about flooding events not rain, which are corrolated). Now we have a point to work with in a debate instead of people who want to insist on something that fits their bias without fact checking.

dathinab 1y ago

but how could he not have leaned into it - if his analysis of data is correct this _one specific kind of wetter event in this one specific region_ seem to not have happened majorly more or less in recent years - but similar events did happen since the 1940 often enough to call it IMHO negligent to not have precautions in place - people are already abusing the even to push political propaganda, mostly about the weather service not doing a good job (probably with the intend to kill it doge style and replace it with a Musk company or similar), similar people on the other side are using it for political propaganda about climate change distancing yourself from either of it seems good - now making people believe climate change is bad (as it really is) sound good, but if you use faulty easy to disprove examples for it it can easily have the opposite effect, in addition politicians use climate change to opt out of responsibility as in "no one could have predicted it because that new caused by climate change", but it isn't new and predictable (and was predicted) so instead of derailing the discussion into one about climate change which most likely will end up fruit less it's better to focus about the facts at hand - it's a flash flood risk area - similar events have happened frequent enough through history for this to be known - it was warned, repeatedly and reasonable price, about the damage - either the warning didn't reach people or they ignored it and in the last point we have direct actionable things: Ignored it? Hold people responsible for negligence, idk. about US law but in the EU negligence (especially gross negligence leading to harm of people) is something you mostly can't opt out of no matter what you try. Not reached them? Then that is another action point where we can find ways to improve it.