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Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

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Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#61

Post by kevinpet »

Climate change denier and climate change skeptic focus on whether climate change is happening, from the progressive technocrat view that from these facts there must naturally follow certain policies.

If anyone actually wants to persuade the other side, they need to focus on showing that the policies are likely to accomplish their goals and the least intrusive means of accomplishing those goals.

But the "we must do something" crowd can't even seem to accept nuclear energy, which people can interpret as a sign that preventing climate change is just an excuse for policy goals already desired for other reasons.

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#62

Post by kbutler »

tzs wrote: post #21

It looks like from around 1700-1900 the earliest peak bloom day got later, while the latest peak bloom day stayed about the same. After that, the latest peak bloom day started getting earlier and the earliest peak bloom day also started getting earlier. So right now peak blooms can occur about as earlier as their historically could, but seem much more unlikely to occur as late as they historically did. In other words…

Cars, asphalt, heating/cooling, industry, and population density increase?

"According to the EPA, many U.S. cities have air temperatures up to 10°F (5.6°C) warmer than the surrounding natural land cover." https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/...

This "urban heat island" warming has progressed at the same time as CO2-driven global warming, and its measured magnitude (5.6°C) is larger than the estimated effect of CO2 so far (up to 1.5°C).

I'm startled to read an article that claims to be "putting myself in the shoes of a climate change sceptic" without even mentioning this basic confounding factor of any urban data set.

Even CNN and MSN (those bastions of climate change skepticism) call out the urban heat island effect when talking about early blooming cherry blossoms:

"There are two sources of increased heat, which is the main factor making the flowers bloom earlier: urbanization and climate change. With increased urbanization, cities tend to get warmer than the surrounding rural area, in what is called the heat island effect. But a bigger reason is climate change, which has caused rising temperatures across the region and the world." https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/japan-just-reco... (note that this link is msn, but the authors are cited as CNN)

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#63

Post by jjj123 »

whatshisface wrote: post #12
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a climate change denier. A lot of us keep our opinions to ourselves, mostly because we know we don’t know enough about it. Articles like these help change my mind. Well, partly. The question I keep coming to is “how do you know any of this matters, for a definition of ‘matter’ that includes widespread upheaval of human societies?” But at this point I go meh, not worth the risk. Point is, condescending remarks onl…

What I think is really weird is the high level of correlation between the presence of the beliefs that it's not happening and that it doesn't matter if it is. Those are two separate questions that are almost completely distinct in terms of what facts lead to them, and they overlap only at the point where they both recommend no action against climate change. Yet, it is very common for people who believe the first to e…

From what I’ve seen you’re right, but I think it’s a case of incentives distorting people’s beliefs.

I would assume there’s also a correlation between the “don’t do anything about climate change” folks and limited government/capitalist beliefs. All of those beliefs seem distinct but they all have aligned incentives to keep the economic status quo.

I’m not trying to be condescending towards that side either, I know it’s true for myself too. I generally support change that shifts power away from the powerful, so I was always going to support something like the green new deal over a privatized solution.

Edited for clarity

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#64

Post by kevinpet »

ipsum2 wrote: post #52
diffset wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want evidence of widespread upheaval, just look at California's weather data over the past few decades. It's consistently gotten hotter and dryer, causing more and more fires that are killing hundreds of people per year and destroying entire towns. It's not about believing in climate change, it's about *understanding* it. It's very real. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Wildfires-...

Blaming climate change for California wildfires is a neat way to deflect the real cause: forest mismanagement. See https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/decades-mismanagement-l... From 2018: > During its review, the Commission found that California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire. https://lhc.ca.gov/report/fire-mou…

Yep, and when I read those kinds of claims I think "this is what advocates for specific interventions around climate change believe is causation, therefore, they don't know what they're talking about"

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#65

Post by mikl »

While this is certainly evidence of something changing, simple urbanization is one thing you’d have to correct for when evaluating this data.

The urban heat island phenomenon is well documented, and since all Japanese cities have parks with cherry trees in them, UHI alone could cause a significant shift in how early said trees bloom.

You’d have to do a careful study to disentangle the UHI effect from the climate effect in this case.

So if anything, this article is a great demonstration why real science is hard, but sensationalism is easy.

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#66

Post by bitexploder »

manquer wrote: post #53
umvi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a classic red vs. blue attack/defense problem that affects lots of fields. To make a perfectly secure piece of software it must be flawless. An attacker on the other hand only needs to find a single exploit, a single oversight, to break it. Defending something is orders of magnitude more difficult than attacking something for that reason.

The counterpoint is, good defense (and software) comes from good principles and hard work. Good attack (or hack) on the other hand also requires brilliance and luck to find the exploit. Over time defense will keep improving , attack on the other hand will become more difficult when common issues are no longer a problem ( say memory safety or SQL injection) when best practices become the norm.

On HN this week something like half of the articles (e: from a Google search) about PHP had SQLi in them.

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#67

Post by monktastic1 »

warent wrote: post #24
monktastic1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand. Why deny something that you claim not to know enough about?

Isn't that the default stance in philosophy? Assume something is false until evidence proven true. You cannot begin with the assumption that something is true, otherwise we're back to the mystical dark ages of magic monsters and alchemy

Assuming that something is false isn't the same as denying it.

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#68

Post by monktastic1 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17
monktastic1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand. Why deny something that you claim not to know enough about?

Heh. Well, since you asked... There's a distressing pattern: the idea that "man made climate change exists, therefore disaster." The "disaster" part is the part I've never truly been able to convince myself of. I don't deny it -- you're right, it's more along the lines of agnosticism. But I think it's really easy to convince yourself of doom. However, striving to be something resembling a scientist, I recognize that…

I'm still having a hard time with this. You say you don't know, and from that you conclude that nobody else does either?

> I just wish people would admit "We don't really know"

Surely somebody has spent time "researching the data, looking at the implications, and listening to the arguments"? Why are you so sure they should "admit" that they don't really know? Especially when so many have come out and said that they do?

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#69

Post by ashayh »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #3
Comevius wrote: post #2

"It's not projected data, it's actual data. It's not measured, it's observed." It's certainly elegant proof. If those climate change deniers could read they would be very upset.

I’m a climate change denier. A lot of us keep our opinions to ourselves, mostly because we know we don’t know enough about it. Articles like these help change my mind. Well, partly. The question I keep coming to is “how do you know any of this matters, for a definition of ‘matter’ that includes widespread upheaval of human societies?” But at this point I go meh, not worth the risk. Point is, condescending remarks onl…

What if there is no climate emergency .. and we reduced fossil fuel pollution & improved air quality for all, stopped destroying forests, rivers, lakes and oceans, stopped the massive decline in fish & animal species, reduced drought by restoring the water tables, reduced drinking water pollution etc etc .. all for nothing?

https://medium.com/thoughts-economics-politics-sustainabilit...

Re: Japan's cherry blossom: as indisputable as climate change evidence gets

#70

Post by fleddr »

montalbano wrote: post #10
xrd wrote: post #4

It's a great article. The real problem with evidence like this is that the "believer" must strive for 100% accuracy; that is really hard. The "skeptic" only needs to have one single piece of data turn out to be inaccurate, and then can doubt the entire thing; that is really easy. And, we can hold both things in our heads. I just went to the Newport Aquarium in Oregon. There is a terrific exhibit which shows a paleobo…

I think there's more to it than that. It reminds me of JBS Haldane's four stages of acceptance: 1. This is worthless nonsense 2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view. 3. This is true, but quite unimportant. 4. I always said so. I think many former 'skeptics' are now at stage 3.

I don't often debate the topic with skeptics, but one tactic one can use is to position the problem in the larger framework that is the absolute environmental disaster of human civilization.

Meaning, you can hardly deny mass deforestation. Wiping out the vast majority of wildlife and most of its habitat. The emptying of the oceans, desertification, pollution, plastics, over-population, over-consumption, the list goes on.

With this I mean to say that our entire way of life is unsustainable regardless of climate change. We have to radically change our ways in any case.

Most people intuitively agree that we are holistically unsustainable. Few would argue against it. This doesn't necessarily make people an advocate for change, but it's a start.

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