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Darryl Fears reports in the Washington Post that according to the government's newest national assessment of climate change, Americans are already feeling the effects of global warming. "For a long time we have perceived climate change as an issue that's distant, affecting just polar bears or something that matters to our kids," says Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and lead co-author of the changing climate chapter of the assessment. "This shows it's not just in the future; it matters today. Many people are feeling the effects." The assessment carves the nation into sections and examines the impacts: More sea-level rise, flooding, storm surge, precipitation and heat waves in the Northeast; frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean; more drought and wildfires in the Southwest. "Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Insurance rates are rising in some vulnerable locations, and insurance is no longer available in others. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the spring, last later into the fall, and burn more acreage. In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and autumn storms now cause more erosion, threatening many communities with relocation."
The report concludes that over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly and that increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change. "What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now. While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from burning coal, oil, and gas, with additional contributions from forest clearing and some agricultural practices."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 07 2014, @01:23PM
Except that this time, the sky is demonstrably falling. It's conceivable that it's a Boy who Cried Wolf situation, what with publicizing the hockey-stick graph, but that's not the same thing.
A better metaphor here would be an extremely large barge moving towards a bridge abutment. Momentum means that when it hits, it's going to do massive damage, but because it's moving at 3 km/h, not everyone realizes that we need to reverse the engines right now if we have any hope of preventing a problem.
And for those who are screaming for developing nations to do something, I'll just point out that one of the worst offenders per capita by far is the United States. The US has energy-inefficient housing, transportation, and industry. It also has a political system and a large portion of the population that refuses to see that as a problem.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday May 07 2014, @01:39PM
Ok, where's the demonstration? Sure, I grant that global warming could be a really serious problem. But I'd expect actual evidence of this problem to be out there, not merely the usual assortment of talk and confirmation bias gimmicks.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:01PM
Demanding "actual evidence" is a less effective rhetorical tactic when there is an 841-page report sitting in front of you that you haven't even looked at. Download the report. [globalchange.gov] It contains the evidence. Feel free to refute it point by point. Good luck.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday May 08 2014, @12:15AM
I'll looking for evidence not 841 pages of campaign materials. They're doing the usual confirmation bias game with extreme weather, for example. And I would expect, whether or not global warming is a present danger, for this administration to come up with scare materials. Evidence on the other hand distinguishes between hypotheses.
So what is the problem with coming up with evidence? Why is it always, "look at the 841-page report" rather than actually coming up with the evidence?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:16PM
No True Scotsman. You want evidence, go find it yourself. Surely, someone out there has done something you find acceptable to your view of the world (more confirmation bias!).
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday May 09 2014, @10:42PM
And if I want high quality groupthink, you are a licensed provider, right? There's way too many people who gave this about as much thought as they give breathing. I'm not looking for some empty bureaucratic ritual that satisfies them. I'm looking for firm evidence that satisfies me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:01PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:29PM
We're at a point where climate change has demonstrably happened in the recent past. While it's true climate models can't accurately predict the future, that's like saying you can't predict the results of Russian roulette. Maybe you can pull the trigger once, twice, even four times and be fine. Maybe not. That's what "unpredictable" means.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:51PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sir Garlon on Wednesday May 07 2014, @03:39PM
I fully agree with you that a lot of what we now call science is not science in the sense of making falsifiable theoretical predictions.
That is not to say that genetics (for example) is without value. On the contrary, applying systematic measurements and analysis in unpredictable fields like economics and medicine have paid vast dividends in both knowledge and technology.
It's tricky because unless and until you have a scientific law you can express in mathematical terms, it's all hand-waving and heuristics. Yet even those laws are usually approximations. For fun, one time, I tried writing out the equation for a simple pendulum while relaxing the small-angle approximation. Filled up three pages with trigonometric functions and went off to cry into my beer. There is complexity lurking just below the surface, everywhere. Even quantum physics is a statistical model. I mean, WTF, can there be absolute truth in a universe with laws like that?
I guess I'm both concurring with and refuting your point. Yes, unpredictable models are less desirable than precise ones and they can lead you straight off a cliff. Yet to rely only science where we can write down and solve the equations would leave us stuck at the end of the nineteenth century.
So there's a continuum, really, with classical physics at one end and cargo cult [lhup.edu] nonsense at the other. And you're right, climate science is somewhere in that uncomfortable space between.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 07 2014, @04:13PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:15PM
Some of the predicted effects that have actually happened:
1. California wildfires that are much larger and moving faster than in the past.
2. Severe drought in Texas [unl.edu], Oklahoma [unl.edu], and a bunch of other neighboring places, that has been going on for years and is causing serious problems for farmers and ranchers.
3. The Maldives is heading towards being completely underwater. Sea level is rising right now, as predicted.
The actual report, if you bothered to read it, rattles off a bunch more stats, maps showing existing and projected problems, appropriate charts and graphs, and so on. Now, I realize it's coming from climatologists including many employed or funded by the government, so many will think it's just a hoax that's part of the global warming conspiracy to take away people's Ford F150's, but this stuff is real whether we believe it or not.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday May 08 2014, @12:43AM
Our expectations are based on a few decades of experience. We should expect to see what you wrote every so often even in the absence of global warming.
Severe drought happens there anyway. We should expect to see this even in the absence of global warming.
Finally, something that might actually be tied to current global warming. Only problem is that Maldives sinking beneath the waves in the next few centuries isn't very "sky is falling" material. Even if we consider current city centers rather than a group of small, remote islands, the time scales in question give ample time to move that infrastructure in a low cost way.
I wasn't asking if there was any evidence of global warming, but rather if there was evidence for the claim that "Except that this time, the sky is demonstrably falling."
The fatal flaw in your assertion is the assumption that the "stuff" is real enough to be a serious, urgent danger. If it isn't, then you don't have an argument.
Note the two arguments I deployed. There are some real, easily measurable effects of global warming. These are easily dismissed as mild and slow, because they are. Then the rest can be dismissed as confirmation bias - they would have happened anyway. And I honestly think that they are cases of confirmation bias.
You need strong climate or weather frequency data over centuries or millennia. That doesn't exist right now. My view is that we are making a host of bad decisions based on very incomplete and inaccurate knowledge.
What is very real and measurable here are the huge sums which can be spent by the world's governments solely because the public believes climate change is an urgent danger. There is the money, power, and incentive to buy the science that keeps the game going. I believe that there is a very real danger that this is simultaneously a vast case of public hysteria and a huge hoax.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Saturday May 10 2014, @01:02PM
Ignorant troll continues to troll, please don't feed this lazy, ignorant nutjob any further.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday May 11 2014, @09:37PM
You know, you would have a lot more credibility, if you weren't the poster child for the very complaint you make. A bunch of your posts in this thread have been content-free whining about my "trolling".
While I contribute to the discussion at hand. For example, in my previous post, I state outright the arguments I use, and will continue to use successfully, for a large fraction of climate change claims. Is it too much to ask for arguments for significant climate change that can't easily be shot down by either being insignificant or an application of the confirmation bias fallacy? Of course not.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dotdotdot on Wednesday May 07 2014, @01:47PM
That page also has some pretty informative maps of the U.S. that show the carbon footprints from different sources.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by be4verch33se on Wednesday May 07 2014, @02:27PM
Absolute BS. I'm expected to believe that the residential sector of the United States is responsible for 20% of carbon emissions? That would mean the industrial sector of the US, all of China, India, Europe, Russia, Africa, and South America combined is emitting a mere 5x of what 5% of the world's population is responsible for? Completely ridiculous. And they wonder why people often question their credibility?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 07 2014, @03:22PM
I'm sure they're including the daily commute in the Hummer or Escelade, not just the house itself.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Hawkwind on Wednesday May 07 2014, @06:39PM
This use of 'households' also threw me for a loop.