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The study questioned whether heat records are truly increasing and whether extreme weather is worsening. I thought we were past that. I thought that it was now

The study questioned whether heat records are truly increasing and whether extreme weather is worsening. I thought we were past that. I thought that it was now about questioning whether it was human caused, or the size of the impact. Apparently we really are going back, and revisiting basic arithmetic.

aeroman 1y ago
I would say we are largely past the second threshold too (that the warming is human caused). The last IPCC report had as the first statement in the summary for policymakers (from WG1 - the physical science group) A.1 It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. The previous report (from 2013) only said (and much further in) Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. The equivalent statement from AR4 (2007) was The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the TAR, leading to very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, ... You could argue there is more of a question about what to do about it (e.g. try and mitigate climate change or just pay for the damanges). There is pretty good evidence at this point that mitigating the change through reducing CO2 emissions is a lot cheaper and comes with a host of other benefits (energy security, improved public health), but I can see wherer there might be arguments to have about this.
- cloverich 1y ago
  OP is talking about people who reject climate change. If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    It depends on which subset we're talking about though. Some are quite well educated and (IME) lately have taken the position that sure, it's happening and sure, it's human caused but that mitigation is far too expensive and economically disruptive to justify. Thus that we should simply let things run their course and deal with any fallout as necessary.
    - ASalazarMX 1y ago
      .. "as long as that fallout doesn't affect us." might be the unspoken corollary. If they think mitigation is bad for the economy, why would the uncontrolled fallout be any better?
      - yongjik 1y ago
        They are starting from the conclusion of "I'm not going to lift a finger to do anything related to the climate, and the society shouldn't, either," and then they're working backwards to find arguments that justify their position. See how easily these people switch from "Nothing is happening" to "Oops it's too late to do anything."
      - fc417fc802 1y ago
        Your vehicle is traveling straight and there's debris in the road in front of you. If you swerve left there's an oncoming vehicle. If you swerve right there's a ditch and a power poll. You're going to hit something no matter what you do. Which is the least bad option? It's entirely possible some of them are merely paying lip service and don't really believe that it will ever affect them personally. But taking them at their word they accept that they will be impacted one way or another. I don't happen to agree with them but I still think it's worthwhile to understand other's reasoning. The dismissiveness that's all too common drives dogmatic behavior and polarization.
  - Qwertious 1y ago
    > If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain. This is relatively recent progress. Go back a decade and people were straight-up denying that the climate was warming.
- belorn 1y ago
  Looking at Europe for the last decade (and a bit more), the questions has only been about what strategy should be used, whom deserve to pay for it and whom should be exempted. The left and right has enough combat ground to fight over those issues that any question around the existence of global change, or if it is human caused, is just unnecessary.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
We never moved past that. They always used whatever worked on their audience with no commitment to consistency. If you are sophisticated then they have quite elaborate, yet factually incorrect, justifications about not hurting the global poor etc. that they'll use. But if they can get some traction with blaming the Jews for orchestrating an elaborate conspiracy or a Chinese hoax or just blatant denial of reality and recorded fact they'll keep doing that too. Whatever works. They have the money and the political power to get away with it.
- Sabinus 1y ago
  And every day we delay the serious and difficult action that climate change demands, business can go on as normal and the industry foundational to our modern experience, the fossil fuel industry, can continue to dominate the world economy and earn untold billions.
throw0101d 1y ago
> I thought we were past that. I thought that it was now about questioning whether it was human caused, or the size of the impact. I thought we were past the question of whether the Earth was round or flat. Yet here we are.
vkou 1y ago
> I thought we were past that. Honest people are past that.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
gchamonlive 1y ago
> I thought we were past that We are. Before we had disagreements in the scientific community by respectable agents. Now these are not a return to old debates, it's just that the current administration is abusing its authority to control information. It's just a manifestation of the post truth. This administration is abusing its authority to subvert instruments intended for specific uses in order to apply them to the trumpist agenda. The censorship of universities, sacking of govt agents that disagree with the administration, deportation of students, civilians being sent to El Salvador, the wrongful application of the Magnitsky law... You don't need to take these threats at face value in order to stand agains them.
akaosns 1y ago
I believe in global warming, but the quasi religious responses here are hard to read. Conserving the environment and taking steps to reduce our impact on the planet is a good thing. To that end, I’m ok with believing in global warming. I believe some of the narrative is used for selfish ends (green energy companies are looking to make a profit, too) and abused, but on the whole it’s a noble cause. The replies here that are more or less “wow, can you believe these people don’t trust the word of the priests?” are extremely tiring. “Science” in this division is little different from belief. None of us (experts included) have the data nor intellect to holistically evaluate a system as complex as our planet. Our current understanding is likely wrong in some way. There are plenty of good reasons to preserve the planet. We don’t have to resort to heretic burning and tribal shaming. It’s short sighted and intellectually lazy.
- jfengel 1y ago
  If you don't want to trust the priests, fine. Go do the work yourself. Or take no position at all. Actively rejecting the work of scientists based solely on ideology, that is religion, in the worst sense of the word. They're not heretics. They're just liars.
  - akaosns 1y ago
    You could replace the word “scientist” with “priest” in your post and it would be no different. Rejecting or accepting based on ideology is wrong. And given we lack the technical ability to fully understand global warming, there is no objective truth here.
    - jfengel 1y ago
      We don't fully understand cosmology therefore the universe does not exist?
      - whamlastxmas 1y ago
        i mean, does it? we can't answer some really important questions about the nature of the universe, and we literally can't even start to model very important areas of physics that we know must have existed. it's hard to think we can honestly answer what exists versus what doesn't when we can't even comprehend or guess at the enormity of what's being asked.
qcnguy 1y ago
No we never moved past that because the weather isn't getting more extreme. What happened is the left repeat this claim over and over, so people came to believe it. But where's the evidence? Are storms getting worse? No. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurricanes https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurric... Is drought getting worse? No. https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&selectedDateUSDM=20250805&selectedDateSpi=20250701 https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&sel... For people who don't Fucking Love Science!™ and think climatologists are corrupted by profit, what's the killer argument that weather is getting more extreme.
- Nervhq 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    Yes it has religious qualities. The decline of Christianity opened a gap in the market. Climatism preaches a definition of good person that's tangible and easy to understand. You're a good person if you fear the wrath of Gaia, believe in an Armageddon in which humanity is punished for its sins, if you recycle your trash, if you buy indulgences when flying on vacation and if you never doubt the clergy even when they contradict themselves. You're a bad person if you doubt the integrity of the Chu-sorry the Institutions, if you don't believe in Armageddon, if you don't fear Gaia, if you think recycling is overhyped and above all if you don't Fucking Love Science!™ This belief system is highly attractive to the nerdy types who hang out here, because it explicitly privileges the nerdy and proclaims them the new priesthood, whilst draping itself in clothes designed to look like science and maths whilst refusing to hold itself to rigorous standards. So we get BEHOLD ALL YE UNBELIEVERS type rhetoric, and then people with graphs that say "nothing to see here" get booed but not responded to.
- ben_w 1y ago
  > Are storms getting worse? No. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurricanes#sources-and-processing https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurric... The graph you link to does not support your claim. Trend line has a slope of 0.2845587086 / year increase. Noisy graph, correlation coefficient is 0.3003115118, but still, it does not support your claim. > Is drought getting worse? No. https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&selectedDateUSDM=20250805&selectedDateSpi=20250701 https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&sel... Correct. This shows decreased droughts and increased flooding. Do you expect increased droughts from increased global temperatures? If so, why? Most of the world's surface is water, more heat means more water in the air.
EasyMark 1y ago
The new regime wants to deny and erase history. We know better. Their core 25% or so of the population will always believe that Science is bad and "unGodly", there is nothing we can do about that. Luckily the internet is forever and we can undo it relatively quickly after the Orange Man is gone from influencing anyone other than his 20% or so. They will always worship him and follow the antiscience, antilogic, ego and emotionally driven philosophy he holds.
tastyface 1y ago
Facts will be adjusted for power and profit until met with the brute force of reality. But that may take a long, long time.
JimmaDaRustla 1y ago
Behold the power of fascism!

aeroman 1y ago

I would say we are largely past the second threshold too (that the warming is human caused). The last IPCC report had as the first statement in the summary for policymakers (from WG1 - the physical science group) A.1 It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. The previous report (from 2013) only said (and much further in) Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. The equivalent statement from AR4 (2007) was The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the TAR, leading to very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, ... You could argue there is more of a question about what to do about it (e.g. try and mitigate climate change or just pay for the damanges). There is pretty good evidence at this point that mitigating the change through reducing CO2 emissions is a lot cheaper and comes with a host of other benefits (energy security, improved public health), but I can see wherer there might be arguments to have about this.

cloverich 1y ago
OP is talking about people who reject climate change. If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  It depends on which subset we're talking about though. Some are quite well educated and (IME) lately have taken the position that sure, it's happening and sure, it's human caused but that mitigation is far too expensive and economically disruptive to justify. Thus that we should simply let things run their course and deal with any fallout as necessary.
  - ASalazarMX 1y ago
    .. "as long as that fallout doesn't affect us." might be the unspoken corollary. If they think mitigation is bad for the economy, why would the uncontrolled fallout be any better?
    - yongjik 1y ago
      They are starting from the conclusion of "I'm not going to lift a finger to do anything related to the climate, and the society shouldn't, either," and then they're working backwards to find arguments that justify their position. See how easily these people switch from "Nothing is happening" to "Oops it's too late to do anything."
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      Your vehicle is traveling straight and there's debris in the road in front of you. If you swerve left there's an oncoming vehicle. If you swerve right there's a ditch and a power poll. You're going to hit something no matter what you do. Which is the least bad option? It's entirely possible some of them are merely paying lip service and don't really believe that it will ever affect them personally. But taking them at their word they accept that they will be impacted one way or another. I don't happen to agree with them but I still think it's worthwhile to understand other's reasoning. The dismissiveness that's all too common drives dogmatic behavior and polarization.
- Qwertious 1y ago
  > If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain. This is relatively recent progress. Go back a decade and people were straight-up denying that the climate was warming.
belorn 1y ago
Looking at Europe for the last decade (and a bit more), the questions has only been about what strategy should be used, whom deserve to pay for it and whom should be exempted. The left and right has enough combat ground to fight over those issues that any question around the existence of global change, or if it is human caused, is just unnecessary.

ZeroGravitas 1y ago

We never moved past that. They always used whatever worked on their audience with no commitment to consistency. If you are sophisticated then they have quite elaborate, yet factually incorrect, justifications about not hurting the global poor etc. that they'll use. But if they can get some traction with blaming the Jews for orchestrating an elaborate conspiracy or a Chinese hoax or just blatant denial of reality and recorded fact they'll keep doing that too. Whatever works. They have the money and the political power to get away with it.

Sabinus 1y ago
And every day we delay the serious and difficult action that climate change demands, business can go on as normal and the industry foundational to our modern experience, the fossil fuel industry, can continue to dominate the world economy and earn untold billions.

throw0101d 1y ago

> I thought we were past that. I thought that it was now about questioning whether it was human caused, or the size of the impact. I thought we were past the question of whether the Earth was round or flat. Yet here we are.

vkou 1y ago

> I thought we were past that. Honest people are past that.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

gchamonlive 1y ago

> I thought we were past that We are. Before we had disagreements in the scientific community by respectable agents. Now these are not a return to old debates, it's just that the current administration is abusing its authority to control information. It's just a manifestation of the post truth. This administration is abusing its authority to subvert instruments intended for specific uses in order to apply them to the trumpist agenda. The censorship of universities, sacking of govt agents that disagree with the administration, deportation of students, civilians being sent to El Salvador, the wrongful application of the Magnitsky law... You don't need to take these threats at face value in order to stand agains them.

akaosns 1y ago

I believe in global warming, but the quasi religious responses here are hard to read. Conserving the environment and taking steps to reduce our impact on the planet is a good thing. To that end, I’m ok with believing in global warming. I believe some of the narrative is used for selfish ends (green energy companies are looking to make a profit, too) and abused, but on the whole it’s a noble cause. The replies here that are more or less “wow, can you believe these people don’t trust the word of the priests?” are extremely tiring. “Science” in this division is little different from belief. None of us (experts included) have the data nor intellect to holistically evaluate a system as complex as our planet. Our current understanding is likely wrong in some way. There are plenty of good reasons to preserve the planet. We don’t have to resort to heretic burning and tribal shaming. It’s short sighted and intellectually lazy.

jfengel 1y ago
If you don't want to trust the priests, fine. Go do the work yourself. Or take no position at all. Actively rejecting the work of scientists based solely on ideology, that is religion, in the worst sense of the word. They're not heretics. They're just liars.
- akaosns 1y ago
  You could replace the word “scientist” with “priest” in your post and it would be no different. Rejecting or accepting based on ideology is wrong. And given we lack the technical ability to fully understand global warming, there is no objective truth here.
  - jfengel 1y ago
    We don't fully understand cosmology therefore the universe does not exist?
    - whamlastxmas 1y ago
      i mean, does it? we can't answer some really important questions about the nature of the universe, and we literally can't even start to model very important areas of physics that we know must have existed. it's hard to think we can honestly answer what exists versus what doesn't when we can't even comprehend or guess at the enormity of what's being asked.

qcnguy 1y ago

No we never moved past that because the weather isn't getting more extreme. What happened is the left repeat this claim over and over, so people came to believe it. But where's the evidence? Are storms getting worse? No. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurricanes https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurric... Is drought getting worse? No. https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&selectedDateUSDM=20250805&selectedDateSpi=20250701 https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&sel... For people who don't Fucking Love Science!™ and think climatologists are corrupted by profit, what's the killer argument that weather is getting more extreme.

Nervhq 1y ago
[flagged]
- qcnguy 1y ago
  Yes it has religious qualities. The decline of Christianity opened a gap in the market. Climatism preaches a definition of good person that's tangible and easy to understand. You're a good person if you fear the wrath of Gaia, believe in an Armageddon in which humanity is punished for its sins, if you recycle your trash, if you buy indulgences when flying on vacation and if you never doubt the clergy even when they contradict themselves. You're a bad person if you doubt the integrity of the Chu-sorry the Institutions, if you don't believe in Armageddon, if you don't fear Gaia, if you think recycling is overhyped and above all if you don't Fucking Love Science!™ This belief system is highly attractive to the nerdy types who hang out here, because it explicitly privileges the nerdy and proclaims them the new priesthood, whilst draping itself in clothes designed to look like science and maths whilst refusing to hold itself to rigorous standards. So we get BEHOLD ALL YE UNBELIEVERS type rhetoric, and then people with graphs that say "nothing to see here" get booed but not responded to.
ben_w 1y ago
> Are storms getting worse? No. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurricanes#sources-and-processing https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ace-north-atlantic-hurric... The graph you link to does not support your claim. Trend line has a slope of 0.2845587086 / year increase. Noisy graph, correlation coefficient is 0.3003115118, but still, it does not support your claim. > Is drought getting worse? No. https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&selectedDateUSDM=20250805&selectedDateSpi=20250701 https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=1&sel... Correct. This shows decreased droughts and increased flooding. Do you expect increased droughts from increased global temperatures? If so, why? Most of the world's surface is water, more heat means more water in the air.

EasyMark 1y ago

The new regime wants to deny and erase history. We know better. Their core 25% or so of the population will always believe that Science is bad and "unGodly", there is nothing we can do about that. Luckily the internet is forever and we can undo it relatively quickly after the Orange Man is gone from influencing anyone other than his 20% or so. They will always worship him and follow the antiscience, antilogic, ego and emotionally driven philosophy he holds.

tastyface 1y ago

Facts will be adjusted for power and profit until met with the brute force of reality. But that may take a long, long time.

JimmaDaRustla 1y ago

Behold the power of fascism!