I wouldn't call myself a denier. But a hot July doesn't sound that scary. Next thing that will happen is February will be the coldest month ever recorded, and then people will really lose their shit.
End of June (June! Not even July/August!) we had a heat wave. What would you expect to find in such an event? Maybe 34? That sounds pretty hot. 35? 36?! How hot can it get in a place that has never seen higher than 33C in 100 years?
Well, it hit 42 god damn degrees. If you told me I would ever see that, if I lived to be a thousand, I would not have believed it. Over 40C in a place where 30C is a hot day, where a year going by with zero days above 29C is the norm.
Yesterday hit 38. That would have been shocking last year. Today I was glad it was under 40.
But yeah nothing scary about a hot July. Right. No denial at all.
Argumenting global climate change from your local experience does not work.
It only works when:
* you can measure things globally (you measure the effect)
* you understand relation between the greenhouse gasses and the measured global climate change (causation)
Fortunately, we have both. We both measure temperature pretty much everywhere and we understand the underlying mechanism of the change even if we can't exactly predict how the chaotic system will be have in the future.
Where I live, we've had the mildest July in many years. It only hit 90+ for a day or two. That's unusual. We've had more rain and cooler temps than I can remember in a decade.
Figures 1-4: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
https://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-rec...
https://www.axios.com/climate-change-warm-cold-temperature-r...
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ap-hot-falling-cold.html
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm
This hot July had my fingers on emergency services as temperatures rose, AC couldn't keep up, loved ones with asthma and already trouble breathing sometimes, etc. This hot August has unhealthy fire smoke and it's difficult for me to breath outside if on a long walk.
Physical realities of this hot July for just me, in my one physical location, were INTENSE. And that's not even considering the idea that most future Julys will be hotter than this one.
And that every month being so hot is a leading indicator of more chaotic weather in all the bad ways - storms, heatwaves, etc.
I honestly don't know how you could live through this July and not be scared of it. Maybe you got lucky with your location? This July was 100% miserable to live through and totally scary.
Sorry that you had family members that were affected by this.
But, no it doesn't seem scary. The fires are caused by poor forest management (talked about in another thread this week). But, I am in South Carolina, and this week it is in the 90's like just about every week in August ever down here. And actually, this summer, we have gotten a ton of rain, more so than I can remember. But, it's been hot like it always is in the summer in the south, I can't say I ever walked out my door this month and been scared about it.
Cold kills more people than heat. Milder winters will save more lives than will be lost in hotter summers.
Ecological collapse brought on by adding stress to a system already stressed the hell out by decades of rapid change, however, would probably kill a lot more lives than any saved.
It seems like there are now several imminent threats to continued human thriving on earth, global warming among them. But humanity cannot collectively solve its problems (anymore?), and I have not heard anyone smart propose a practical way to think about solving the problem of humanity being unable to collectively solve its own problems.
The more panic that gets spread, whether moral or existential, the more people seem to just throw their hands up. I find this understandable, although depressing, because even small contingencies of voters within a place can't agree on the basic terms of reality anymore. It isn't obvious to me how Russia, China, EU, India and US will come together soon to alter course. But a lot of municipalities will pass legislation that amounts to virtue signaling.
What's scary when everything you've read from the media your whole life promises mass death and suffering to come? Everything and nothing. By some forecasts dating back 50 years, it was supposed to be over by now. The Malthusians thought the planet would run out of food a hundred years ago.
I think this current era has a higher likelihood of being a true threat to humanity, but how much study should I undertake to be sure? How much work should I do to look behind the headlines, that at least 30% of everyone knows are full of lies and sensationalism. What is the impact of my individual contribution or vehement agreement that things are dire?
How can we replace the insistence that everyone be afraid with the insistence that we do something constructive about it?