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Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

theintercept.com

41–50 of 105 posts

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorance? Well, please point out where I made an error - I'd be happy to correct it.

> All that happened is we were told we need immigration instead. You say this everywhere, we discussed this already. You have an unfounded, ignorant view of immigration. You are so locked into your position that it doesn't matter what you are shown, you will ignore it and instead fall back to your ignorant position. And please, tell me why a tech news aggregator is the place for ignorant anti-immigration rhetoric?

So the error is... where? If you think I am beyond saving, at least point it out for the sake of any not-yet-lost souls reading.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#42
post #30

Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's important to think about climate change and how it may impact weather patterns. But no serious climate scientist would ever credit singular weather events to global climate trends, which take decades to evolve. It's lazy to use a hurricane to bolster climate ch…

This is like saying it's lazy to use lung cancer cases to bolster arguments against smoking, since there's no way to prove that a particular case of cancer was caused by smoking.

As long as you are comfortable with cigarette companies pointing to cancer-free smokers and saying "See! Smoking doesn't cause cancer!"

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#43
post #37
post #24

Disappointing article. It starts with "don't wait until the event and hype are past, but talk about climate change now. The fact that there are record-breaking events so often isn't normal." Then it continues to elaborate on politics, politics and politics. So, how abnormal is it? How often should we expect record-breaking events? If I remember correctly, the world was warming up already as part of its natural cycle.…

> the world was warming up already as part of its natural cycle Do you think climate change is man made? I agree strongly with the rest of your post, the article was way to political and could've supported the claim 'warmer earth -> more storms'. But those positions are easily supported, which makes the lack of such support even more egregious.

> Do you think climate change is man made?

Largely. I don't know enough about it to cite any accurate figures, but from what I remember it was warming up perhaps half a degree per century and now, over the last half a century, it increased two degrees. Something in that order. So the climate would have been slowly changing and an ice age would follow the heat period eventually, but extrapolating we'd have an ice age (or something else that's disruptive for mankind) in two centuries or so instead of in a few hundred thousand years.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#44
post #31

Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's important to think about climate change and how it may impact weather patterns. But no serious climate scientist would ever credit singular weather events to global climate trends, which take decades to evolve. It's lazy to use a hurricane to bolster climate ch…

Obviously, climate change is nowhere near 'the cause' of this storm. However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change. Choosing this moment to drive home the need to reverse climate change makes sense. Which I think is the intention here. This is more about arguing 'climate change is bad' as opposed to 'climate change is real. And really, we don't need to be discussi…

"However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change."

The idea that there are more (and/or more severe) hurricanes making landfall in the United States in recent years is not supported by the evidence.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#45
post #39
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the US has had 10 years free of serious storms. Doesn't quite fit the narrative.

Please define "serious", as the US has definitely had multiple storms in the past 10 years.

See the link I posted above. Before this storm, the last hurricane of Category 3 or greater to strike the United States was Wilma, in 2005. The last Category 5 storm to strike the United States was Andrew, in 1992.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#46

Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's important to think about climate change and how it may impact weather patterns. But no serious climate scientist would ever credit singular weather events to global climate trends, which take decades to evolve. It's lazy to use a hurricane to bolster climate ch…

Also worth noting that from the word "leftist" we know the political agenda of the parent commenter and should take what is written with an equally large grain of salt.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#47
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how difficult it is to get a non-political unbiased view of man-made climate change, isn't it?

If in fact climate change is man made. There is strong evidence that this is a natural cycle. Are humans contributing greenhouse gasses? Yes, but what effect are they having? We don't really know, contrary to those who say they do. We have an idea, but climate prediction is still difficult and imperfect. So NO! The science isn't final.

You are using a straw man: science is never final. We however do really know what effect CO2 has, you even use the term "greenhouse gases", that's the effect right there in the name. You state "strong evidence", please post links to this I have a few debunking minutes left for today. Thank you

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#48
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define "serious", as the US has definitely had multiple storms in the past 10 years.

See the link I posted above. Before this storm, the last hurricane of Category 3 or greater to strike the United States was Wilma, in 2005. The last Category 5 storm to strike the United States was Andrew, in 1992.

I'm sure the various people losing a collective $75 billion in effects of Hurricane Sandy will be pleased to know that it wasn't a "major storm."

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.

Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future. I haven't seen any articles which reference research on this, as it's hard to filter out the ones with bias (in either direction).

"Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future."

They run on heat differential, like any heat engine. A uniform global temperature increase would likely have minimal effects.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#50
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.

Except that the US has had 10 years free of serious storms. Doesn't quite fit the narrative.

Was Hurricane Sandy not a "Serious Storm?" There have been many others - winter storms, devastating tornadoes, etc. Also, the world is a bigger place than the US. There have been truly catastrophic storms in other parts of the world.

So sure, if you define "serious storm" as "hurricane of cat 3 or higher" and "the world" is "US" then yes, you might have a point, I guess...

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