Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

I fully agree with that, but I think it's a manifestation of a far wider trend that might be far more worrying.

In this age of information overload, where the struggle for people's attention has become nothing short of warfare, I see both advocacy groups and commercial entities ever so further seek to dramatise their message, just to "maximize their reach" and not get drowned out in the sea of other sensationalized/polarized information. While this motivation or a even sense of need is understandable, with everyone "competing" only for their own interests in relationship to everything else, it essentially is a race to the bottom.

The (psychological) effects of it do (already) go a bit further than people just shrugging. On the population as a whole, it (significantly) increases stress levels, general distrust (certainly warranted), and maybe even cause a constant sense of danger or a believe that this world has gone mad. The effects of which should not be underestimated. All of which can cause both individuals and groups of people to make really poor decisions.

People have a bad relationship with the uncertainty of forecasts, I think it's the most inescapable example of how the media's incompetence and desire for attention should be considered malice.

The boy crying wolf effect is a result of a media that can't even inform viewers how to weigh a weather forecast. The NWS has been issuing forecasts for over 100 years, and their predictive accuracy moves at a glacial timescale compared to anything else in the news. If they can't competently communicate THAT, what the hell can they effectively inform us about?

There is a practical use for the names. It isn't all marketing. Internally, a hurricane starts as a little swirl on the other side of the ocean and is watched/tracked as an interesting object. Designators are used to track these structures. They are given formal names at a particular point once they hit certain milestones. This naming triggers certain processes (more attention, greater tracking fidelity, inclusion in daily briefs etc). These are no different than military operations, which have to be of a particular size before they are formally 'named'. The fact that the media promulgates these internal designators to the public is but an extension of a useful internal process.

Which predictions are you referring to?

By all means, provide us with reputable sources that claim "the Earth should currently be uninhabitable". We'll wait.

> and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot".

I still think "I'll believe it when I see it". Scientists are very good at making apocalyptic predictions based on theoretical worst case scenarios, but reality just never seems to match said predictions. In reality, stuff happens more slowly on much longer timescales.

Just look at covid - back in March, the predictions were pretty dire - it was predicted millions were going to die in the US alone... 6 months later it turned out it wasn't nearly as deadly as we thought and a lot of measures we took (like SIP, shutting down economy, etc.) probably caused more harm than good.

Resource wars and food riots are already happening in many parts of the world and no one wants to do anything about it :(

>Your children will and their children will be fine

What about the children who died in the fires now in USA, in Australia, Floods in India and elsewhere all of which have been worse than ever in this century and the reason being attributed to climate change?

It it strange phrasing to be sure. I interpreted it as sooner from birth (at younger ages).

What are you basing this on?

If the heat doesn’t kill people, famine, floods, fires and wars likely will.

It might not be the apocalypse, but further rises in temperature could easily topple civilisation as we know it?

Unfortunately, so far I have seen the opposite - people lapping it up and the "consensus" on the Internet (Reddit in particular) being that we're all doomed, with the more extreme outliers thinking about suicide because they genuinely expect the world to _inevitably_ become a literal Mad Max desert dystopia within the next few decades.

We've swung way too far from "completely ignoring the problem" to "absolute frenzy". Reminds me of Y2K.

Also, of course, if you don't agree with the hivemind (that everything is going to be much worse than actual science predicts), then you're a terrible person and need to be at least downvoted to hell, but ideally shunned and have your life ruined.

I'm taking no particular position, because I don't go out of my way to read on the subject, but I did notice an article recently which said that we seem to be firmly on the worst of the likely IPCC scenarios from a few years ago, not in the middle.

>People will be able to smell the bullshit. The idea that climate change will be apocalyptic (for first world nations) in your grandchildren's time frame is just as loony-toons as denying it exists at all.

Who said apocalyptic? I said, sooner; even a millisecond reduction in lifespan is sooner.

> The scientific consensus is nowhere near that bad.

Behavioural changes due to climate change leading to increase in skin cancer already has scientific consensus even in our lifetime.

>(for first world nations)

Oh, right /s.

We want effective solutions.

Panic, sleep deprivation, making people feel sick and stressed is not the way to get those.

That sounds like standard doomsday cult rethoric. Very dangerous and it will end with dictatorship if we listen to that.

It's too late to use the brakes. The only possible solution is to reclaim the carbon from the atmosphere. Or war to thin out the population.

We will obviously settle on war.

You know what happens after a decade of people using rhetoric like there's a war on? You get an actual war.

I’d be down for preventing the accompanying world war, but I’m neutral about displacing billions. Maybe I’m just a naturally-nomadic person, but I don’t see anything too wrong with governments making ultra-long-term plans to negotiate a rewrite of all global geographical borders by “sliding” the definitions of all existing countries further away from the equator and toward the poles, abandoning existing cities “inland” while rebuilding “outland”, and helping all those affected to either resettle, or ensuring they acquire citizenship of the country they now geographically reside in. (Though, with the requirement that those that would end up in the unlivable “no man’s land” zone at the equator, must be resettled.) And also, to make coordinated multilateral investments in increasing the arability of the currently-below-permafrost soil in northern Canada/Russia, Greenland, Antarctica, etc. for the whole world to take advantage of in the future.

(This would best be done not suddenly over years, but gradually over a century; with each country “losing” land on a schedule, as if a peninsula being eroded away into the sea; while gaining land at the same pace on the other end. Maybe each country could run a big painted cable across the country representing the border in places where it’s otherwise illegible, and then keep moving it along north/southward with each passing year. That would give people time to become wary of the encroaching border and move away, probably taking advantage of some government tax credit for doing so.)

As long as all this is done through negotiated treaties, rather than through war, this sort of mass resettlement seems somewhat like a good idea—even if we don’t experience world-shattering climate change. It’d be a recognition of the fact that some places in the world are (naturally) livable for human beings, while others aren’t. And that people have natural rights, no matter their country of citizenship, to reside in a livable climate. Which means that the people who were already living in not-naturally-livable areas even before recent anthropogenic climate change, would be acknowledged as having the right to resettle somewhere more livable, with governments working to change borders or citizenships to allow them that.

How exactly does climate change lead to a world war?

I can understand that there will be many climate refugees, but refugees don’t form armies that can stand up to a standing Western army. I’ve always understood the biggest threat to be mass displacement and starvation, leading to closed off borders, and poverty and death in severely impacted countries like Bangladesh.

But world war? Not so sure. The world powers will easily adapt to climate change.

The US is immense and for every county with more forest fires, a faraway county will have better crop yields. For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige.

Quit being a fear mongering alarmist. While it is measurable and real, there is zero evidence to show that climate change will necessarily kill millions. Humans have adapted and overcome, we will again.

The farce of climate alarmism is starting to show its cracks. For example, well known, long-time environmentalist Michael Shellenberger wrote an entire book on how unhelpful alarmism and panic is to really find solutions to climate change.

And then with all the panicked, stressed out, sleepless annoyed people, you believe we are in a better position to focus our energies towards change?

I doubt it. Fear does only very seldom lead to more rationale behavior. I would rather suspect the confusion and riots and breaking up of society would just start sooner this way.

I'm honestly not sure if you are being serious. Children around the world are suffering eco-anxiety over climate change, and it is not clear that their (or anyone else's) anxiety will result in better outcomes.

I am terrified of a hurricane knocking out power throughout Florida followed by even a mild heatwave. Nursing homes could barely handle keeping their staff from going to the bars and getting Covid- are we to believe they are prepared to deal with hundreds of cheaply built old-person dorms turned into sous vides?

But does it matter to the public whether they roads are closed due to Irene or Jacques?

Admittedly, the names are catchier but I'm not certain they're necessary to convey information. It's not as if they have to keep track of a dozen hurricanes at a time.

Premature attribution of cause to a fire also seems potentially harmful to arson investigations.

Pre-1800, about 1.8 million ha burned each year in CA:

https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi...

> Approximately 1.8 million ha burned annually in California prehistorically (pre 1800). Our estimate of prehistoric annual area burned in California is 88% of the total annual wildfire area in the entire US during a decade (1994–2004) characterized as ‘‘extreme’’ regarding wildfires. The idea that US wildfire area of approximately two million ha annually is extreme is certainly a 20th or 21st century perspective. Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period.

See also: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

> Many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem [...] however, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends.

> Yet west coast politicians want to stop calling them "wild fires" in favor of a new term "climate fires".

According to who? You?

great, that's not confusing at all. hmm, i'm seeing a warning. i should know what to do. wait, what year is it? damn, if only i could remember even/odd male/female cycles. oh well, best if i just ignore it and carry on with my day. at least it's not a tuesday. i never got the hang of tuesday.