4 ms·

"Climate Change" implies that some sort of "constant climate" is even attainable, irrespective of desirable.

mithr 8mo ago
It doesn't; that's kind of a first-glance reading of the phrase without really thinking about it. Something can said to change from a certain standard even if it wasn't perfectly constant to begin with. For example, if I always kept my house at 65-75 degrees for the past year, and now it's 85 degrees inside, I could certainly say that the temperature in my house recently changed and gotten warmer. That might lead me to check whether my AC's working, rather than say "well I guess the temperature has never really been constant, and 85 is within the range of possible non-constant temperatures, so everything's perfectly normal and nothing has changed."
- alt227 8mo ago
  Your analogy doesnt work, becaue the earth has been warmer than it is now several times in the past. so the increased temperature is within the range of normal temperatures. The problem is not that the earth is warming, it is that it is warming at an artificially increased rate.
  - mithr 8mo ago
    It's not meant as a perfect analogy for global warming, but rather an illustration of how a constant state isn't necessary for something to be said to be "changing", which was OP's claim.
    - alt227 8mo ago
      The goalposts are that way --->
      - mithr 7mo ago
        My apologies, internet stranger, for thinking I had different goals than the ones you so cleverly picked up on in my one paragraph comment. Clearly you were more correct about my goals than I was.
  - larkost 8mo ago
    The rate of warming is a problem (i.e.: it determines what generations of humans are going to see this), but the major problem is the warming itself, or rather the change. We (humanity) have gotten comfortable with the way things are, and a change in that is going to mean that things are going to change for us, and we don't like change. Most of our biggest cities are all close to the coast and will be subject to massive flooding in the next 100 years (if not sooner). Much of those same large population centers are also fairly close to being too hot for general survival (without aggressive AC). Our agriculture is all setup for the temperatures we have now, and the rain patterns we are used to. So we are going to have to change both where we live, and how we grow our food (location and probably strains as well). Global warming is (almost) definitely not going to destroy all life on earth, but many of the forecasts are in extinction-level for most of the large animals. So life in general will continue, and probably humanity (since we are so good at making environment for ourselves), but the (eventual) changes are going to make the world very different, in ways that we are not going to like.
    - smitty1e 8mo ago
      > and we don't like change Oh, hogwash. It's not the change as such; rather, lack of control of the change, that causes the blowback. Thus, the overarching question is: "Who drives the bus?"
    - alt227 8mo ago
      The warming is definitely not the problem (for the earth itself), only for the human race of which I care very little for. Many different groups of large animals have lived and died off over the ages. It will happen again many times after humans are gone. I personally welcome nuclear war and anything else which will help wipe out the human race. In a few million years the earth will move on to its next rulers and we will be a distant memory.
      - johsole 8mo ago
        > I personally welcome nuclear war and anything else which will help wipe out the human race If you hate humanity, you hate yourself, and that is a miserable way to live. Reprogram your brain, by repetition, it works, and you can find joy.
wat10000 8mo ago
Only with an excessively literal interpretation. If I pick up your house and drop it two streets over, that could be accurately described as a "location change" of your house. This is still true despite the fact that your house naturally moves some centimeters per year due to tectonic plates shifting around. Similarly, when global average temperatures saw long term trends of a fraction of a degree of change per millennium, then suddenly started changing at multiple degrees per century, it's pretty reasonable to call that "climate change" despite the fact that it was not completely constant before.
ChrisClark 8mo ago
And you're just like the deniers who pick apart irrelevant things, and then smugly smile.
triceratops 8mo ago
It implies change over a couple human lifetimes. Change faster than has ever occurred before, and due to human activity.
- alt227 8mo ago
  It doesnt really imply that though does it. It just means the climate is changing. IMO this is why there was a big pushback against it for a long time, the term used to describe it does not infer anything wrong.
  - triceratops 8mo ago
    > IMO this is why there was a big pushback No the pushback is because of money. The words don't matter when so much money is at stake.
    - alt227 8mo ago
      Im refering to pushback of regular people who deny climate change like they do any other conspiracy theory.
      - triceratops 8mo ago
        Why did regular people start thinking of climate change as a "conspiracy theory" in the first place? Money.
        alt227 8mo ago
        Lol, people who believe in conspiracy theories make them up about everything. Aliens visiting and walking amongst us, building the pyramids etc? I guess the reason is just money /s
        triceratops 8mo ago
        Do half the voters believe in aliens building pyramids? And in any case, I assume that conspiracy theory was lucrative for whoever wrote the book or made the film about it.

mithr 8mo ago

It doesn't; that's kind of a first-glance reading of the phrase without really thinking about it. Something can said to change from a certain standard even if it wasn't perfectly constant to begin with. For example, if I always kept my house at 65-75 degrees for the past year, and now it's 85 degrees inside, I could certainly say that the temperature in my house recently changed and gotten warmer. That might lead me to check whether my AC's working, rather than say "well I guess the temperature has never really been constant, and 85 is within the range of possible non-constant temperatures, so everything's perfectly normal and nothing has changed."

alt227 8mo ago
Your analogy doesnt work, becaue the earth has been warmer than it is now several times in the past. so the increased temperature is within the range of normal temperatures. The problem is not that the earth is warming, it is that it is warming at an artificially increased rate.
- mithr 8mo ago
  It's not meant as a perfect analogy for global warming, but rather an illustration of how a constant state isn't necessary for something to be said to be "changing", which was OP's claim.
  - alt227 8mo ago
    The goalposts are that way --->
    - mithr 7mo ago
      My apologies, internet stranger, for thinking I had different goals than the ones you so cleverly picked up on in my one paragraph comment. Clearly you were more correct about my goals than I was.
- larkost 8mo ago
  The rate of warming is a problem (i.e.: it determines what generations of humans are going to see this), but the major problem is the warming itself, or rather the change. We (humanity) have gotten comfortable with the way things are, and a change in that is going to mean that things are going to change for us, and we don't like change. Most of our biggest cities are all close to the coast and will be subject to massive flooding in the next 100 years (if not sooner). Much of those same large population centers are also fairly close to being too hot for general survival (without aggressive AC). Our agriculture is all setup for the temperatures we have now, and the rain patterns we are used to. So we are going to have to change both where we live, and how we grow our food (location and probably strains as well). Global warming is (almost) definitely not going to destroy all life on earth, but many of the forecasts are in extinction-level for most of the large animals. So life in general will continue, and probably humanity (since we are so good at making environment for ourselves), but the (eventual) changes are going to make the world very different, in ways that we are not going to like.
  - smitty1e 8mo ago
    > and we don't like change Oh, hogwash. It's not the change as such; rather, lack of control of the change, that causes the blowback. Thus, the overarching question is: "Who drives the bus?"
  - alt227 8mo ago
    The warming is definitely not the problem (for the earth itself), only for the human race of which I care very little for. Many different groups of large animals have lived and died off over the ages. It will happen again many times after humans are gone. I personally welcome nuclear war and anything else which will help wipe out the human race. In a few million years the earth will move on to its next rulers and we will be a distant memory.
    - johsole 8mo ago
      > I personally welcome nuclear war and anything else which will help wipe out the human race If you hate humanity, you hate yourself, and that is a miserable way to live. Reprogram your brain, by repetition, it works, and you can find joy.

wat10000 8mo ago

Only with an excessively literal interpretation. If I pick up your house and drop it two streets over, that could be accurately described as a "location change" of your house. This is still true despite the fact that your house naturally moves some centimeters per year due to tectonic plates shifting around. Similarly, when global average temperatures saw long term trends of a fraction of a degree of change per millennium, then suddenly started changing at multiple degrees per century, it's pretty reasonable to call that "climate change" despite the fact that it was not completely constant before.

ChrisClark 8mo ago

And you're just like the deniers who pick apart irrelevant things, and then smugly smile.

triceratops 8mo ago

It implies change over a couple human lifetimes. Change faster than has ever occurred before, and due to human activity.

alt227 8mo ago
It doesnt really imply that though does it. It just means the climate is changing. IMO this is why there was a big pushback against it for a long time, the term used to describe it does not infer anything wrong.
- triceratops 8mo ago
  > IMO this is why there was a big pushback No the pushback is because of money. The words don't matter when so much money is at stake.
  - alt227 8mo ago
    Im refering to pushback of regular people who deny climate change like they do any other conspiracy theory.
    - triceratops 8mo ago
      Why did regular people start thinking of climate change as a "conspiracy theory" in the first place? Money.
      - alt227 8mo ago
        Lol, people who believe in conspiracy theories make them up about everything. Aliens visiting and walking amongst us, building the pyramids etc? I guess the reason is just money /s
        triceratops 8mo ago
        Do half the voters believe in aliens building pyramids? And in any case, I assume that conspiracy theory was lucrative for whoever wrote the book or made the film about it.