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It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

noaa.gov

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Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#131
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very much a skeptic until I started seeing more and more real world (as opposed to just models) evidence. I am pretty convinced now. My skepticism was rooted in the fact that politicians, pundits, and the media were trying to scare me about it. Any time politicians or the media try to scare me about anything my default response is to assume it's a get out the vote drive or a power grab and to become extremely s…

So why listen to the politicians in the first place, instead of to the scientists who have been as united about this as they have ever been about any major subject? There is some fringe but the consensus is extremely clear.

The problem isn't listening to politicians, the problem is listening to talk show hosts with vested interests in the fossil fuel industry.

The problem is you can tune into those hosts with a simple AM radio. Getting access to the scientific literature is somewhat more difficult, especially if you are a tech illiterate.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know what percentage of people overlap between anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and climate deniers. Are they largely the same group or do we actually have disparate groups that think science is somehow just another religion?

Yes, I think you are right that there is significant overlap between 'extreme right' 'anti vaxx' 'climate denial' and quite possibly 'white power' and the modern version of Christianity as well, it would be nice to see some hard proof or a refutation of this.

I went to an evangelical high school ca. 2000 and most students thought it was fine to destroy the planet since the rapture was coming anyway.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#133
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the plethora of scientists claiming that it was an issue not factor in at all?

The scientists seemed to have a single political leaning, which made me more skeptical. I saw it as religious apologetics for green ideology. The presence of any strong uniform ideology makes me extremely skeptical just like political interest does. I'd summarize as: I assume that strong ideological beliefs or political motives make people irrational, dishonest, and untrustworthy.

Both scientists and politicians are uniformly in support of round earth theory. Does that make you skeptical that the earth is round?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#134

The NOAA currently hosts over over 37 petabytes of 'comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical data' and was established in October 1970. It sometimes seems the more data we have the more gloom and doom we get. I'm not one to use emotional quasi religious terms like 'denier' but that does give pause for thought. The NOAA started out Surveying the US coastline in 1807 as the 'U.S. Coast and Geodetic…

Why does it give you pause for thought? Isn’t the mostly likely conclusion is that the reason more data is leading to more gloom and doom is because we are in a gloom and doom situation?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#135
post #67
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "it's not man made" and "just a natural cycle" is easily disproven by showing historical temperatures change where it does, by pure accident, a hockey stick trick just last century. Or it would if the audience wasn't resistant to proofs altogether...

XKCD's "Earth Temperature Timeline" is an excellent visualization of this: https://xkcd.com/1732/

It has a lowpass filter until modern times. It doesn't say much. How would the peak 5000BC look with high resolution?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#136
post #40
post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

The important policy question is what are big and small governments around the world gonna do about it? No, straws and plastic bags won’t abate it. Electric cars are nice but won’t do much to lessen emissions. They need to address industry, shipping and population growth. The last one might be a third rail for some countries. But look, China did it. The west did it (via progress on education, etc).

> No, straws and plastic bags won’t abate it.

Straws and plastic bags are about pollution more than global warming, I think.

> They need to address industry, shipping and population growth. The last one might be a third rail for some countries. But look, China did it. The west did it (via progress on education, etc).

I'm not a malthusian, but there's still good news for those types. Birth rates have greatly declined globally, and continue to go down. This is largely due to greater access to education and contraception, which I think we can almost all agree are good things.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN

> Electric cars are nice but won’t do much to lessen emissions.

Transportation is 29% of emissions in the US, and over their lifespan, electric cars have much reduced emissions. They will get better as we transition away from fossil fuels, unlike gasoline cars. Fun fact: in the US, 40% of our power already comes from nuclear and renewables.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#137
post #121
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the most important problem to solve. Everything else won't matter if we don't solve this.

Why won’t anything else matter?

Society will collapse when we become unable to ensure food security, and massive climate refugee migrations overwhelm our infrastructure.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#138
post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

Remember that global warming is not real. If it is real, then we don't know what is causing it. If we do know what is causing, it is not humans. If we do know it is humans causing it, then there is nothing we can do about it. If there is something we can do about it, it's not worth it, think of the jobs.

"Humans didn't cause it so it's not our problem" has gotta be the weirdest take. No... it's definitely a problem either way.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#139
post #103
post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

I wouldn't call myself a denier. But a hot July doesn't sound that scary. Next thing that will happen is February will be the coldest month ever recorded, and then people will really lose their shit.

Why is it not scary? The hot July killed 1000 people in the Pacific Northwest alone in just 1 week. An entire Canadian town burned the the ground, basically nothing left. Residents had 15 minutes warning and not everyone made it out. Where are you located that this hot July wasn't scary?

This hot July had my fingers on emergency services as temperatures rose, AC couldn't keep up, loved ones with asthma and already trouble breathing sometimes, etc. This hot August has unhealthy fire smoke and it's difficult for me to breath outside if on a long walk.

Physical realities of this hot July for just me, in my one physical location, were INTENSE. And that's not even considering the idea that most future Julys will be hotter than this one.

And that every month being so hot is a leading indicator of more chaotic weather in all the bad ways - storms, heatwaves, etc.

I honestly don't know how you could live through this July and not be scared of it. Maybe you got lucky with your location? This July was 100% miserable to live through and totally scary.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#140
post #78
post #50

The current administration has approved more than 2,000 new fracking permits. I'm so glad the US has rejoined the Paris Agreement. "Meet the new boss Same as the old boss"

I am very left, and despise Biden's refusal to address climate change where it counts, like fraking. But honestly, the new boss is not the same as the old boss, even with climate change. The new boss does in fact acknowledge it exists, rather than insisting that all climate change is a hoax and it is invented by China to hurt the US. Biden is not making the progress I'd like to see, but he is in no way as bad as the…

I can't say I care very deeply about whether or not he's sympathetic and useless, or antagonistic and useless. The end result is the same.

Maybe the EU will one day get it's agenda together, and apply crippling tariffs to all goods and services imported from countries that don't have carbon taxes.

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