Climate Change: A Growing Skepticism
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I am completely not shocked that this is being seen, and more importantly being reported on. I would be amazed if it's not picked up and carried by News Ltd which has a significant AGW amplification posture, despite its denials.
If you want a clear signal of change, look to the Insurance industry and defence. Both have a requirement to consider 20-50 year window investment consequences. Both are pretty confident that AGW has costs they want to start to understand. They started this posture several decades ago. I don't see the insurance or re-insurance industry as a bunch of Kumbayah singers, nor defence-materials industry and strategic investment. If they see a problem, then its pretty damn real.
I think the insurance industry is going to declare parts of Louisiana and Florida an insurance free zone. If you want to live there, be super rich and self-insure, or be very poor and wear the loss. The middle ground is told to go elsewhere.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-busin...
They need to be as close to the equator (so in North America, as far south) as possible to get the most centrifugal boost from the Earth (use the least fuel) possible.
Perhaps NASA isn't taking it seriously enough wrt facility placement, but they're hardly alone in that. And lots of people are making huge investments, eg, the city of Venice is building sea walls that they haven't previously needed, despite always having been on the coast.
Global Warming was confusing because, while global average temperatures are rising, the effect locally can be unintuitive, eg, destabilizing the polar vortex had resulted in harsher winters in the northern US.
Science communication is hard and it turns out people are pretty bad at it. I'd agree that doesn't help matters. But climate change is indeed real and a huge problem.
Couldn't the launch facilities be constructed near the coast, but at higher altitude, say on top of cliffs of 50m or so?
The ideal launch site:
1) As close to the equator as possible.
2) Has open water to the *east* of the launch site. (Wasteland is also acceptable, that's what Russia does. They also care less if they drop it on somebody's head. China doesn't seem to care--we've seen them drop a rocket on a village.)
3) Has a huge amount of open space around it in case the rocket goes boom on the pad.
California fails the east requirement, it's used for polar launches (where you want water to either the north or south) but you can't insert into a normal equatorial orbit from there.
Hawaii fails the space requirement. Not to mention all the logistics hassles it would cause. Thus Florida it is and assume the infrastructure will in time be lost.
Some places will cool, but not cool as much as cold places will warm and other warm places will warm
When you are talking about disasters on the scale of earthquakes or hurricanes, then the private sector isn't able to handle it and hands it off to FEMA. This has nothing to do with climate change, but with scale. Private insurance is designed to deal with lots of small random events, but it can't handle the consequences of a major earthquake in California any more than it can handle the consequences of a major hurricane in Florida. In that case, the state has to step in.
FYI, hurricanes are not more severe or frequent now than the historical norm. They do cause more property damage because of population growth and GDP growth, but once you normalize for GDP, they are not causing more damage, either. There is, unfortunately, a ton of misinformation about this point, which is odd since the raw data is so easily available to review[1]. The deception is usually that people observe wind speeds and frequencies are not increasing but the value of damage does increase over time, and they conclude that something is getting more destructive, ignoring the fact that these areas are being built up across time. You have the exact same situation as with earthquakes in California, which I hope we do not blame on climate change -- they also cause more damage over time because there is a lot more value to destroy in 2020 than in 1920. And you have the same issue with forest fires, mud slides, etc -- housing destroyed is much more abundant and valuable now so insurance claims go up over time.
[1] See https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd/status/15765969644472033... for a long thread with lists of multiple sources.
They view a lot of messaging from the government and regulatory bodies as alarmist. Which honestly is fair given the fact that most of them have much bigger day to day problems with healthcare, economics, and housing playing out in the short term. It's all relative right?
What people are denying, and yours truly among them, is follow a bunch of corrupted politicians and "activists" who pushing their destructive (yet lucrative for them) policies under umbrella of "climate change".
It's your fault, and we can fix that if you agree to give me money!
Australia is often hit with floods and fire events almost every year so they have a "everything just as it should be" feel, even if they are getting worse.
I think Australia will often be skeptical but we do have a baby state mentality so gradual changes just need to be implemented and made for us.
Just this year there's some takes of banging single use plastic for instance. (Not saying it's an effective rule or that it works, just that we've implemented it and seem to be following it)
I much prefer the baby state mentality to the other extreme, where government is paralyzed because of rabid opposition to the very idea that government should regulate.
It is obvious that the existing Oil&Gas industry, Petro-states, Coal industries (and to an extent many in the Auto industry) will absolutely put up a fight for as long as they can and by whatever means they can _including_ shaping public opinion.
We need to have honest discussion at government level on a plan to allow these companies an off ramp out of Fossil fuels. Be it with Hydrogen markets, geo-thermal drilling, Algae cultivation, sequestration, whatever, but something that allows these companies to accelerate a financial exit instead of holding on for as long as they can until regulations eventually sunset them.
Even with something that could kill you within 2 weeks, there were a lot of denialism. Something that could kill you in 50 years? A lot of people are probably thinking "If it's making my life harder now (higher prices for more climate-friendly options) for something 'they say' will kill us in the future, I'd rather focus on making my life more bearable now rather than save the future."
Or healthy skepticism, which seems to have been borne out. The numbers were not nearly as dire as we were told they would be, and the government intervention seems to have caused more trouble than it solved.
> Something that could kill you in 50 years?
For those of us who have been hearing this sort of dire warning our whole life, it does get a bit tiring.
New York was supposed to have been under water by now, humans we're supposed to have died by the billions from overpopulation, etc...
After ~50 years of being told that the world is going to end Real Soon Now, Donate Here! A bit of disgruntled cynicism is hardly unwarranted.
I feel like this is such an obvious thing to say. And if you’re seeing “donate here!”, then you’re not listening to someone who is into the science of it. (You may be listening to a well meaning and trustworthy charity, though; but it could also be grifters)
I’m pretty positive you’re retconning your past life. Because I remember the shit I was told 20 years ago and it’s on track: Summers of 40 degrees in France. Cold snaps in winter more frequent. Heat waves that are deadlier and more frequent. Swim gear in October. Stuff that wouldn’t have made sense back then.
So, either you’re lying to yourself about your past life, or, you listened to the wrong people; in both paths you became a denier (sorry, skeptic). I listened to the right people, I ended up trusting the system. Sounds to me like, while this is overall a systemic problem, you carry some amount of personal, introspective responsibility.
I remember hurricanes, droughts, etc...
From what I've read, our overall incidents of severe weather haven't significantly increased. I've seen some studies that claim a decrease.
Fwiw, the average temperature in France hasn't changed much (if any) since 1959 [1]. The past few years have been a bit warmer, but there were some colder ones before that. Temps are pretty much flat for as long as the four operating weather stations have been measuring.
> So, either you’re lying to yourself about your past life, or, you listened to the wrong people; in both paths you became a denier
It's so strange to me the sort of personal attacks I get on HN. Just for offering a counterpoint perspective. Does it make you feel validated or something? I hope it does, and that by being your target I could make you feel better.
> The average annual temperature was about 12.1 °C in the years after 1956 and about 14.2 °C in the last years before 2021. So in less than 66 years it has increased by about 2.1 °C. This trend only applies to the selected 4 weather stations in France. A considerably more comprehensive evaluation of the global warming has been provided separately <https://www.worlddata.info/global-warming.php>
If you're seeing this as "flat", then you need to learn how to read it. Just because the graph doesn't look impressive doesn't mean the data isn't significant.
Averages in temperature are also often difficult to understand in the context of climate change, because when the averages are more extreme on both ends, then this can shift the annual average. (If I have ten days of 0 degrees, the average temperature is 0 degrees. If I have five days at -10 and five days at +10, the average is unchanged.)
To put it simply, colder days more cold, hotter days more hot, average doesn't change a lot.
> It's so strange to me the sort of personal attacks I get on HN.
A lot of people arguing your point are either trolls or willfully blind, or worse. You are not in good company; this is coming from somebody who tends to assume good faith, as much as is reasonably possible.
And being willfully blind is very easy when the data is complex and it takes explicit effort to understand it.
Maybe this graph is easier for you to grok: https://xkcd.com/1732/
Also, keep in mind that some of the hottest and worse years we've had in recent history in the US were early to mid 1900s (not sure about France). Starting the graph at 1959 is also a misleading slice.
But I assume good intent, and assume that these are things you know or could discover for yourself.
I've burnt enough karma on this (which is weird that I care about), and honestly have just become a bit exhausted by the partisan comments and downvoting on here.
I just keep getting called mean things, and it's hand waved away by comments like yours, like, because I tend to look at things from a lot of angles and don't accept any particular "winner" or "accepted truth", I'm in "bad company", whatever that means, so it's ok to call me things and be mean.
It's ok, it's not just you. It's really common on HN recently.
It's time I took a break anyway, so thanks for giving me the little push I needed.
https://web.archive.org/web/20091230061832/http://www.indepe...
Headline: "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past"
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually "feel" virtual cold.
It's now 20 years later and it was snowing in the UK just last weekend, yet the credentials of these "actual experts" are impeccable. Climatology is in an especially vulnerable spot right now due to its heavy reliance on academic modelling, which post-COVID a lot of people associate with unreliable predictions + official denial of prediction failure. To tackle growing skepticism climatologists could try several strategies, one of which is to go through the list of prior failed predictions that skeptics like to raise and explain for each one what methodology changes were made in response.
"It snowed yesterday in London!" is as good a rebuttal as that waterbrained senator who came to congress bringing a snowball arguing climate change isn't real.
To your quote:
> within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event"
This is absolutely true where I live, which is slightly south of the UK. I'll also note your quote has no cited date beyond "a few years".
So, not a great example.
An asteroid could wipe us out as well.
Or Nuclear Armageddon.
Climate change boondoggle spending is one of the biggest drivers of inflation right now under the Biden administration. Epidemic of retail theft that goes largely unpunished in many US cities is another.
The link is just picking out certain numbers they think are noteworthy. They link to the actual poll results, which are considerably more detailed.
It's not the headline I would have chosen, which would be more to the tune of "People more concerned about energy costs than the climate". But that's pointing at a cause rather than just noting the fact, which is that climate change denial is growing despite weather that might have been expected to change minds.
(They chose "skepticism", which I don't consider an appropriate word, but it is the commonly-accepted term.)
At some recent point 77% of Americans believed angels are real. That doesn't sway me as it's not evidence (of that, it is of the gullibility of the population).
https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/7_things_americans_think_ar...
Edit: bumped up the percentage but it's moot
The fact that many people don't accept it is a different problem, and that's what TFA is about. The article you cite is similar data: lots of people are dumb.
In the case of climate change, more people accept the right answer even though many don't follow the correct reasoning. The number who do accept reality isn't sufficient to achieve serious progress against climate change. Knowing how many don't, and how that number changes, is useful if we're ever going to fix it.
So the popular polls have no effect on the question of whether climate change is real, caused by humans, and serious. Both the theory and the evidence are overwhelming. But knowing that is only the beginning, not the end, of the difficulties.
“We will all be dead by the time it becomes serious enough to worry about it”
People don’t want to say that to pollsters and so they say they are skeptical about the warming and CO2 emissions being the culprit in the first place
I work hard, I want to be comfortable, I remove flow restrictions from shower heads because it feels good.
I’m happy to pay for it. I won’t deny myself modern convenience for virtue signaling.
You don't, others do.
Besides, deep down you know that you are a parasite. You can do better, come on.
I would never express this to a pollster though as I don't want to be lumped in with crazy climate deniers and this isn't exactly a nuanced topic.