Hot Today. Global Warming.
Jul. 23rd, 2024 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt was a hot day today. The weather app said the high temperature was 95° F. That's hot for around here. A typical daily high in mid-late July around here is 81° F. Global warming is making hot days like this more common and more widespread.
Note I'm not saying the fact it was hot today proves global warming or man-made climate change. Just like the fact it there was a blizzard in Minneapolis last January doesn't disprove climate change—much though climate deniers love to scoff, "Look at this snow! So much for gLoBaL wArMiNg!1!" Climate is not about whether one day is hot or cold, or whether it snowed in January in places where it normally snows. Climate refers to long term averages. Patterns.
Thirty years ago my scientifically educated friends and I were dismissive of the science of climate change. ...Well, actually, we were dismissive of the people arguing climate change— because the people making most of the noise about climate change 30 years ago were not scientifically educated, and they were repeating a lot of junk science. My friends and I didn't know what were the right answers but we could definitely spot flawed methods. And we reveled in how much we could point out the flaws in the climate advocates' arguments. The problem with that was, sometimes a person's right about the conclusions even when they're arguing the wrong reasons.
What was a wrong reason? The wrong reason was trying to prove climate change by defending a scientifically provable model for how it happens. When Isaac Newton formulated the theory of gravity, anyone could drop an object and measure gravitational acceleration, g = 9.8 m/s2, modulo things like wind resistance. This was never going to work with climate science. There's no way to conduct a scientific experiment on climate. There's no, "Let's pollute the Earth's atmosphere for decades while simultaneously not polluting the atmosphere of a control Earth."
A control Earth?!?! You can see how preposterous that is. But that's the trap actual climate deniers started setting more than 30 years ago. Early climate advocates fell right into it, thinking they could argue experimental proof. And a lot of us otherwise neutral scientifically minded people fell into the same trap by laughing at them for coming up short on proof, as if running an experiment with a control Earth were some kind of achievable scientific gold standard. It turned out we weren't the geniuses we thought we were. We were just really smart assholes.
So, if experiments can't prove man-made climate change, what does? The answer goes straight back to what climate is: Averages. Trends. The fact is the world has been getting warmer at an accelerated pace over the past 100+ years. Yes, the world has gone through cycles of warming and cooling over millions of years, but the rate of change right now is 10x ~ 100x of any change seen before.
We're seeing the manifestations of a warming climate all around us. The heat wave of a few weeks ago wasn't just "a" heat wave, it set all-time records in many places. And beyond just having a really hot day or week or two weeks, the past few years have been record hot years. Globally.
It's past time for anyone who's still a climate holdout, who's thinking, "Oh, I'm scientifically smart, and the people arguing climate change haven't proven it yet," to wake up. You're not a genius. You're not even that smart. The smart ones are the people peddling the lies you're still falling for while smugly patting yourself on the back.
Note I'm not saying the fact it was hot today proves global warming or man-made climate change. Just like the fact it there was a blizzard in Minneapolis last January doesn't disprove climate change—much though climate deniers love to scoff, "Look at this snow! So much for gLoBaL wArMiNg!1!" Climate is not about whether one day is hot or cold, or whether it snowed in January in places where it normally snows. Climate refers to long term averages. Patterns.
Thirty years ago my scientifically educated friends and I were dismissive of the science of climate change. ...Well, actually, we were dismissive of the people arguing climate change— because the people making most of the noise about climate change 30 years ago were not scientifically educated, and they were repeating a lot of junk science. My friends and I didn't know what were the right answers but we could definitely spot flawed methods. And we reveled in how much we could point out the flaws in the climate advocates' arguments. The problem with that was, sometimes a person's right about the conclusions even when they're arguing the wrong reasons.
What was a wrong reason? The wrong reason was trying to prove climate change by defending a scientifically provable model for how it happens. When Isaac Newton formulated the theory of gravity, anyone could drop an object and measure gravitational acceleration, g = 9.8 m/s2, modulo things like wind resistance. This was never going to work with climate science. There's no way to conduct a scientific experiment on climate. There's no, "Let's pollute the Earth's atmosphere for decades while simultaneously not polluting the atmosphere of a control Earth."
A control Earth?!?! You can see how preposterous that is. But that's the trap actual climate deniers started setting more than 30 years ago. Early climate advocates fell right into it, thinking they could argue experimental proof. And a lot of us otherwise neutral scientifically minded people fell into the same trap by laughing at them for coming up short on proof, as if running an experiment with a control Earth were some kind of achievable scientific gold standard. It turned out we weren't the geniuses we thought we were. We were just really smart assholes.
So, if experiments can't prove man-made climate change, what does? The answer goes straight back to what climate is: Averages. Trends. The fact is the world has been getting warmer at an accelerated pace over the past 100+ years. Yes, the world has gone through cycles of warming and cooling over millions of years, but the rate of change right now is 10x ~ 100x of any change seen before.
We're seeing the manifestations of a warming climate all around us. The heat wave of a few weeks ago wasn't just "a" heat wave, it set all-time records in many places. And beyond just having a really hot day or week or two weeks, the past few years have been record hot years. Globally.
It's past time for anyone who's still a climate holdout, who's thinking, "Oh, I'm scientifically smart, and the people arguing climate change haven't proven it yet," to wake up. You're not a genius. You're not even that smart. The smart ones are the people peddling the lies you're still falling for while smugly patting yourself on the back.
