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Comment by chippytea | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to rely heavily on single points of data. For example weather in the UK or wildfires in the sub-Arctic. This is no better than saying "If it is getting warmer why did it snow in Texas" and not a good way to construct an argument against climate change sceptics.

For example here in Eastern Europe I have been very happy with the weather. There were some heat waves like usual but also quite a lot of rain. Normally grass and plants are scorched to death but this year everything is green and growning.

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Eastern European here as well. This year is definitely not your average warmer-than-usually year. Both the winter was extremely cold here where I live (down to -30C) and also there was prolonged heatwave spanning from mid June to end of July with temperatures well in +30s and no rain for more than a month. It will have negative impact on agriculture for sure, especially crops. On the other hand, watching on the news the recent floods in Germany and Belgium I recall seeing similar events in those countries in the pre-global warming times (when most of us knew nothing about it). Then they told us that the reason for the floods is excessive drainage and elimination of swamps and wetlands. They are supposed to act as sponges taking and absorbing excess precipitation and then releasing it when the rains are over. That made a good point because where I live we have plenty of swamps around us and never see such floods apart from seasonal spring thaw induced ones (which are more or less predictable and controllable). So maybe we should not put all our bets into getting all carbon out of atmosphere (which is no simple task) but also see if local ecosystems can be fixed to achieve some quicker wins.

I agree. Single examples of extreme weather will happen. They will be unlikely under the null hypothesis and slightly more likely under a hypothesis of global warming, but single examples are not definitive proof of any kind.

In other words, there may well be lots of good evidence that death by lightning is decreasing (there is) but "look, this year only three people died compared to 11 last year!" is definitely not sufficient on its own.

Again, death by horse kick in the Prussian army is probably a relatively constant cause, but seeing that "3 people died that way last year and this year!" is not proof.

However, maybe they are the sort of narrative that helps less statistically sophisticated people understand. You and I can get our understanding from the relatively solid science and probabilistic reasoning. Many people can't, and the only way to teach them is by example, even if that method is technically flawed.

Everything will be green and growing, until you get mega-droughts. There may be land that may see a net benefit, but overall, there will be more instability and chaos globally. This will affect everybody at some point in time. Just because it doesn't affect you now, shouldn't be taken as a form of signal.

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