Slashdot Mirror
How Weather Influences Global Warming Opinions
An anonymous reader writes in with this story about how people's belief in climate change shifts with the temperature. "Last week's polar vortex weather event wasn't only hard on fingers, toes and heating bills. It also overpowered the ability of most people to make sound judgments about climate change, in the same way that heat waves do, according to a new study published in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. Researchers have known for some time that the acceptance of climate change depends on the day most people are asked. During unusually hot weather, people tend to accept global warming, and they swing against it during cold events."
It's all the same
"There's no global warming because I'm cold."
"There's no poverty because I'm rich."
"There's no racism because I'm white."
The very same logic is used to fashion correlation from coincidence the World over.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Global warming is exactly that- a global trend, not a local one. Locally, the effects have been most pronounced near the north pole, which is not exactly a place where many people live.
Global climate change seems to have resulted recently in a "warming" trend, but as we know from Al Gore's movie, if the North Atlantic current gets shut off we are in for a polar vortex on a much longer time scale.
I am not sure who coined the phrase "global warming"; is it a PR failure by the scientists involved or a reporting failure by the news media? To quote a well known meme: "why not both?"
Global warming propagandists would take any support — whether it comes from a heatwave-induced swing or real understanding of their theories.
Meanwhile, the inconvenient truth that those theories aren't really explaining the available facts , is explained only by lack of funding and failure to communicate...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
so just as N.America has its lowest temperatures for decades
Australia is doing some of its hottest with a rounded 50C for the first time last week
Monday -> 27C and the rest of the week's forecast is
Tuesday -> 43C
Wednesday -> 39C
Thursday -> 41C
Friday -> 40C
its all about extra energy making things more variable, but no single weather event can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change
During unusually hot weather, people tend to accept global warming, and they swing against it during cold events."
Of course they do because many people (most maybe) do not understand the difference between climate and weather. They have either a poor understanding or perhaps no concept at all that short term temperature fluctuations are merely data points in a longer term trend. It is just like how people overreact to a few worse than usual days in the stock market even though the long term trend for the overall market for the last 100 years has been upwards.
Weather = what is happening today
Climate = average weather over time
For a large area of the US, it was colder than normal in December
People turned up the heat (burning more natural gas and using more electricity
people drove their SUV's to work (instead of using a more efficient car, or walking
This guy has the most informative debunking of BS on both sides of of the issue. His series of YouTube videos should be required viewing for policy makers and "armchair experts" alike.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I find this ironic since the political AWG alarmism lobby deserves a lot of the blame for this. Remember the use of Hurricane Katrina splashed on Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie cover. And pretty much whenever there's a natural disaster you have AGW alarmists (not just trolling internet comments, but also occupying high places in government) stirring the pot some more.
Researchers have known for some time that the acceptance of climate change depends on the day most people are asked.
I don't doubt that this is true. I also don't doubt that the enthusiasm of researchers to jump on bandwagons follows the "weather patterns" of public funding availability. That's how Richard Lindzen of MIT describes it, and it seems to fit.
And yet we are to believe things like Katrina and Sandy are evidence FOR Global Warming? Aren't those things just as much "weather" as the national cold streak (which, btw, I've heard Global Warming advocates cite as evidence FOR Global Warming)?
It seems that every "weather" event is trotted out as evidence FOR Global Warming by someone. According to the advocates, there appears to be no piece of evidence that can possibly be used against Global Warming, but it can all be used as evidence it is happening. Actions like this make the whole AGW movement seem more like a religion than science.
I noticed you quoted Wikipedia for all of your references. You provide some quotes from an organisation that has been found to manipulate and edit information in an attempt to make it accepted. Below are some examples of how easy it is to manipulate Wikipedia for your own gain
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/06/hoax-article-detailing-fake-war-stayed-up-on-wikipedia-for-five-years/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023647/fake-wikipedia-entry-on-bicholim-conflict-finally-deleted-after-five-years.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-the-professor-who-fooled-wikipedia-got-caught-by-reddit/257134/
So-called green organisations are guilty of the same behaviour
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/06/15/how-greenpeace-manipulated-the-media-like-a-pro-analyzing-the-shell-oil-hoax/
http://beforeitsnews.com/new-world-order/2013/12/truly-shocking-manipulationgreenpeace-depressed-santa-global-warming-agenda-kids-christmas-will-have-to-be-cancelled-empty-stockings-video-video-752.html
http://www.conservapedia.com/Greenpeace
Yes. And that "only" puts the existing theories — than man's CO2 emissions are responsible for the warming — on their heads.
So, maybe, there is no need to tax/ban certain fuels and activities, after all? And thus no need for further expansion of governments (to enforce the bans) and merging of sovereign governments into an unelected "world-government" body?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Dude - it's solved! Don't you know? All that's left to research is the psychology. Just read the article, it's right there at the end:
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
If it was accurate then there would have been a consensus predicting these events.
I find in continually frustrating that proponents (and opponents) of addressing the risks of climate change bring up scientific consensus as an argument. I think Einstein said it best when reportedly responding to the book "Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein)", by saying (roughly) "if I were wrong, one would be enough". If a model is correct and has predictive value then it is useful regardless of what the consensus might say. If it has no predictive value then it is wrong regardless of any consensus.
It is also possible that the phenomena is real and we simply have not developed a descriptive model yet. Relativity was real even before Einstein developed his model. So you have to ask yourself, how should we behave if there is a reasonable chance that this phenomena is real? Our ability or lack thereof to model the climate change is a separate issue from our ability to measure it. We KNOW that temperatures are rising globally because we are able to measure that even if we don't know for absolute certain why they are rising. So if they are rising what are the potential consequences and what should we do based on those potential consequences?
However, the fact that there is no consensus means that there isn't accuracy in the field of Climate Change
As meaningless as consensus might be, there does appear to be one regarding the existence of climate change. The only real debate at this point is regarding severity.
I am willing to accept carbon based climate change and accept the changes required for preventing future damage, but only if it is scientifically proven.
Well the data we have certainly seems to indicate that climate change is real so I'm not entirely sure what level of proof you are looking for. It's not the sort of phenomena you want to wait until after it occurs to say "yep, we proved it - look at all this damage". However, let's presume for the sake of argument that the data is inconclusive at present. Then the question becomes one of risk. Let's say there is 50% chance that climate change is real and that if it is real the consequences of it are that the planet no longer becomes compatible with human life. Is that a risk you are willing to take or do you think we should act on the risk knowing we might be wrong but playing it safe? Basically you are doing an expected value analysis.
A religion is any belief based on faith.
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs related to sacred things which may or may not include a belief in a god. Faith is a typical (almost ubiquitous in fact) but not required component of a religion. Something can be sacred without requiring faith though in practice this is unusual.
Atheism is a belief that no god exists, something that cannot be proven empirically, and thus Atheism is a religion.
The fact one believes in something that cannot be proven empirically does not make that something a religion. A religion isn't defined merely by the belief (or lack thereof) in a deity. A religion can (and some do) incorporate atheism but holding views of atheism does not make a those views a religion. You can be religious without belief in a god and belief in a god does not make one automatically religious. While it is common for theists to be religious and atheists to be irreligious the reverse is also true in some cases. The concepts of (ir)religion and (a)theism are orthogonal to each other. Much like debates between science and faith, people keep getting the concepts confused and arguing about the wrong things.
It's not an "absence of belief", that would be agnosticism.
It is not an absence of belief but rather a withholding of judgement. You can believe in the non-existence of a god while not denying the possibility one exists which makes you both atheistic and agnostic at the same time. Conversely you can believe in the existence of a god while being unsure of the actual existence of one which makes you both theistic and agnostic at the same time. There are other forms of agnosticism as well. Your definition is overly simplistic.
Atheism clearly meets the "Seven Dimensions of Religion", defined by Ninian Smart (a framework accepted by anthropologists and historians):
Looking them over I see no fit whatsoever with that framework and atheism because religion and theism as I've said before are orthogonal concepts.
First, it's not phenomena, it's natural.
Do you have any idea what the word phenomena means? It's pretty clear from your argument that you need to look it up so I'll save you some time. It means "any observable occurence".
Second, how we should deal with it depends on whether you can prove that humans are the cause or not.
Wrong. How we should deal with it depends on the probability that humans are the cause. I won't disagree with you that the exact extent of our impact is still significantly unclear. However that is a separate issue from establishing whether or not we are having some amount of effect. There appears to be significant and credible evidence that human activities are having some amount of detrimental effect on the global climate. We also know for a fact what the sources of many of these activities is (cars, industry, fossil fuels, chemicals, etc). There are many actions we can take based on our current understanding of the global climate that are rational and appropriate. As we learn more we can refine our actions based on those findings. But saying we should do nothing until we know everything is just a stupid and dangerous argument.
Frankly the way we are behaving is somewhat like drinking a poison until it kills us before deciding whether or not it is toxic. It's not like we have another Earth we can go to once we've destroyed this one. I'd rather err on the side of too cautious than too reckless.
Or, not. I'm Atheist because there's no proof one way or the other. I choose not to take a stance other than the possibility that all could be wrong and choosing the right religion of the bunch is impossible. I have no more faith that I'm right in being Atheist than I have in the possibility that I'm wrong about it.
Basically, I'm choosing to not be something based on nothing because nothing isn't a good enough reason for me to chose to be something. All that matters is that I'm happy with who I am and what I do, I'll leave rituals, ceremonies and what happens after we die to people that care and have the time to waste on that sort of stuff.
The sad fact of the matter (irrespective of whether you're convinced for or against) is that the argument boils down to:
- Proponents argue that we should do a bunch of ecologically sound things because "for the good of the planet"
- Opponents argue that will cost large amounts of money
In the end, rampant greed puts us all in a world of hurt.
This is NOT a fight over science,
this is NOT a fight over modelling planetary weather/ecosystems/etc,
this IS a fight over "but I should be able to rake in literally trillions of dollars now, and FUCK THE CONSEQUENCES".
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
As may be... Such capitalists, however, are responsible for every modern convenience (flush toilet, rail- and air-travel, telephone, computers, personal automobile, toilet paper) — if not its outright invention, then certainly its wide adoption. Che guevarras of the world, on the other hand, are responsible for nothing but millions of dead and economic misery for survivors, as well as deprivation of human rights for same. So, yes, I'll take a capitalist (preferably laissez faire) over a communist every day.
But do you think, capitalists have some spare planet nearby, to which they plan to escape once Earth is no longer habitable? Or do you think, they are too stupid to care — for themselves and their offspring? Nope, they wouldn't be making millions of dollars — pushing themselves up into that hated "1%" — if they were... So, maybe, you ought to give them a benefit of the doubt, huh?
That oft-repeated canard is simply a lie. There is no "consensus"... If there was, there wouldn't be a need to keep repeating, that there is.
The simple fact is, all of the theories put forth by the scientists comprising that (rather incomplete) "consensus", predicted a much higher temperature rise, than is being observed for the last 15-20 years... We are putting just as much (if not more) CO2 into the atmosphere, but the temperatures aren't rising as predicted. Ergo, the effect of the CO2 emissions must've been overestimated, to say the least.
Quite clearly, you don't quite understand the climate theories either. But, possessing a Che Guevara T-shirt yourself, you find the theory quite convenient and choose to believe it (and defend it) the way Pascal chose to believe in God: even if there is no Global Warming to speak of, destroying Capitalism is a worthy goal in itself.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
For you young folks and millennials... Back in the 70's the polar vortex was absolutely, positively, scientifically PROVEN to be the result of Global Cooling, and an ice age was coming, no doubt about it.
Last week in another thread I posted the exact words from Time Magazine in 1974 and 2014 regarding the polar vortex, allegedly from scientists. They completely contradicted each other, of course. I was, of course, engaged by passionate flame throwers who accused me of all kinds of crimes. Please, save your fingers, I was alive then, lived through it, and remember it well.
The point is that the whole "The Earth's Climate is Changing we must take action now" is older than you think... As is the bitter ideological debate between the sacred never to be questioned narratives of the left and the right. Do some research outside of your comfort zone, talk to a few older folks, keep an open mind, that's all I ask. I am, for the record, strongly in favor of clean air, clean water, and good environmental stewardship.
Murphy was an optimist