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Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

thewalrus.ca

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Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#151

Post by hospitalJail »

CalRobert wrote: post #108
hospitalJail wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got one better. Use actual math to decide how bad it is. COVID 1% death rates among the elderly, sick, and obese? Not a crisis, that is essentially a bad flu year prior to 2020. (And 2018 and 2019 had a relatively low excess winter mortality, keeping the people on the brink of death, alive). There is a particular issue the news loves to report on in America, its basically a rounding error, but when children are inv…

Covid was a sad reminder that we can rally the troops and make huge society-wide changes to protect old people, but won't lift a finger to protect kids from climate breakdown.

I'm not even sure it was to protect old people. It felt more like a political game.

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#152

Post by lamontcg »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #87

While I agree with the title, I think the author misses the real reason not to refer to the "New Normal". David Wallace-Wells sums it up pretty well: > It is tempting to look at these strings of disasters and think, Climate change is here ... this is how California governor Jerry Brown first described the state of things in the midst of the state's wildfire disaster: "a new normal" > The truth is actually much scarie…

I thought it was obvious that "The New Normal" was sarcastic/ironic and the steady drumbeats of "New Normals" implied everything was getting worse via a ratchet effect.

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#153

Post by woooooo »

Sakos wrote: post #64
woooooo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: Nobody likes hysterics or alarmism Step 2: Hey no need to point fingers here or say "I told you so", we're all dealing with this.

> Step 2: Hey no need to point fingers here or say "I told you so", we're all dealing with this. Are we? It looks like the vast majority of people are looking away and blaming climate change scientists and activists for not doing enough or doing it wrong or whatever else instead. Some of us are dealing with it, the rest don't realize we're all in the same sinking boat.

Step 2 is the "find out" phase, the pattern is consistent for every fuckup I've been a part of. Noone wants to hear how obvious it was.

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#154

Post by [deleted] »

throwanem wrote: post #77
derefr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would "convincing people to take the bus instead of a car" require coordinated action? Just stop letting them buy gas. (Where by "them" I mean individual passenger-vehicle drivers. Continue to allow commercial vehicles to buy gas, but require that they show their commercial-vehicle license at the register.) A country could do it; or it could be done city by city with municipal bylaws to act only upon the worst po…

Congratulations! You've just made it impossible for the people who operate every essential service on which you depend to get to work.

[deleted]

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#155

Post by 542354234235 »

pif wrote: post #78
Levitz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subtext under the headline seems direct enough: >When it comes to the climate crisis, new normals convey a single, grim message: instead of acting, get used to it The idea is to stop calling things "The new normal" since that implies acceptance. Fight instead. Don't go along with the idea that the world has to be like this.

Concerning climate change, the world is going to be like this. All models are clear that global warming cannot be reversed. No "turning green" will lower average temperatures enough in our lifetime. Thus, acceptance is capital, because only acceptance of reality can lead to sensible solutions. As a side note, screaming "It's too late: hurry up!" is really an idiot way to advocate your cause, whatever your cause may b…

>As a side note, screaming "It's too late: hurry up!" is really an idiot way to advocate your cause, whatever your cause may be.

“It is too late to save your foot. It has been damaged beyond saving by your inaction. But with aggressive action on your part, you could save some of your legs and delay the loss of your other foot. It's too late: hurry up!”

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#156

Post by abenga »

swader999 wrote: post #63
Timon3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hard limits on how much heat a human can take. We cannot adapt beyond, except for literally never going outside again.

Which is the norm and always has been in places like Arizona in the summer. I didn't go out for more than an hour at a time in Tucson in the summer when I lived there. Anything longer and you seriously thought about and prepared for it. This has always been the way humans lived in these areas.

So we should be fine with an increasing proportion of the populated environment that never experienced these conditions beginning to?

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#157

Post by runarberg »

SoftTalker wrote: post #145
runarberg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a time when this was phrased as an “inconvenient truth” or that “we can all do our part to make the world a better place” . Honestly I prefer the alarmist hyperbole. The truth is that a lot of us are going to die, more of us will have our lives uprooted. Keeping calm and pretending otherwise seems like a greater bullshit and I at least am not gonna take it. The world is worse, it is gonna be worse. Some ri…

When I was growing up in the 1980s everyone was convinced we would have a huge nuclear World War III and it would be the end of civilization, and that at best living under that threat was "the new normal." The same alarmist hyperbole was used. TV movies were made. Now it's hardly something anyone thinks about. And people were warning about the alarmist talk about COVID-19. They were just shouted down, for the most pa…

Surely you must see the difference between the hypothetical destruction of an all out nuclear war and the very real existing conditions of the climate emergency.

But regardless, I love this analogy. Because the alarmist hyperbole actually worked. In the 1980s we had over 70,000 nuclear bombs. People called for disarmaments and we got several bilateral agreements on top of the existing non-proliferation treaty. Today we have just over 13,000 bombs. Not a total success, but a success nonetheless. (An aside. 92 countries have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, meaning alarmist rhetoric has convinced as many governments to totally eliminate this existential threat).

Comparing this to climate actions is apt because this is what people are asking for and what climate scientists are recommending. International agreements comming to eliminate this threat. In 1997 (before Inconvenient Truth) such an agreement was signed with support from the Clinton administration, the congress, and the general public. However it failed to ratify because the senite had "concerns". Perhaps the rhetoric at the time wasn't alarmist enough. And some senators were allowed to serve the oil lobby and delay action for another 3 decades. As a result now we are all going to die!

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#158

Post by cmrdporcupine »

swader999 wrote: post #102
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just a couple weeks of warm weather" is precisely the problem though; it's hot dry weather at a time of year when this historically does not happen. The problem is that the statistical variance of events is going crazy. It's not that there's some sudden break and the temperatures are unilaterally higher, it's that the plot drawing the standard deviation in temperatures (and precipitation) now looks much crazier than…

It's hard to find decent data on Alberta but here's Canada: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb Hard to find a trend in that and if you go back eighty more years we are about two thirds less area burned than in the 20's to the 40's. Mapping of area burned has become better every decade too.

I'm not sure how meaningful stats are from the 20s to 40s given the forested vs populated area of the country was so massively different. There was simply more forest to burn.

FWIW my great-grandparents cleared their farm in Alberta (Innisfail area) from bush/forest in the 20s. Huge areas that are just wide open heavily settled farm fields now were aspen parkland and forest.

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#159

Post by mistermann »

version_five wrote: post #22
boredumb wrote: post #3

I think all the alarmist language is doing a massive disservice to environmental concerns for the reason the author is portraying but also a much different reason where a lot of people tend to greet hysterics with absolute doubt and discern. When environmentalists decided instead of having a real public conversation and resorting to what a lot of people perceive as the people screaming on the corner about the end tim…

A big problem is there's no vocal positive or optimistic environmental movement. What gets attention are doomsday prophesies and people using the environment to push their political beliefs. It's almost impossible to get everyone on board with negativity. You just get a base of true believers while alienating everyone else, as you say. We need to push positive solutions (nuclear power and carbon capture) that aren't…

> We need to push positive solutions (nuclear power and carbon capture) that aren't thinly veiled religion and politics.

What if what we really need to do is wonder what we should do?

Re: Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

#160

Post by 542354234235 »

letsawaytoday wrote: post #115
awestroke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communicating the impending doom of man-made climate change had been done in all possible shapes and forms since the 1970s. The approach does not matter, because the truth is too uncomfortable no matter how it's worded. If non-alarmist language is used, then nobody cares. If alarmist langauage is used, people like you compare scientists to flat earthers. Don't criticise the messengers if you don't like the message.

You're whitewashing the past eco movements. They've been alarmist since the beginning with claims that everyone would be starving by the late 70s or that the air would be unbreathable due to smog or that the global temperature would drop drastically and on and on. It was the same alarmist bullshit that got us into this mess by advocating against nuclear power.

Warning of the problem, recognizing the problem, putting real measures in place to correct the problem is exactly what LA did to reduce smog [1]. In 1952, London had a smog event so bad that it literally killed 12,000 people [2]. That is pretty alarming, and the UK enacted clean air laws. Meanwhile, in 2013 over a third of all deaths in and around Bejing were linked to pollution (unbreathable air due to smog). Alarmists warned of the destruction of the ozone layer, but where are they now? Nowhere, because significant action was taken, and the damage was reversed. Panic over acid rain? Cap and trade restrictions on SO2 and NOx in the US and EU reduced acid rain causing emissions faster and cheaper than predicted [3]. In every single case, big business fought and complained and were forced to comply.

Being alarmist about real issues is like being a fire alarm for a real fire.

[1] https://www.aqmd.gov/home/research/publications/50-years-of-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

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