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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: 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.