Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Yes. The idea that you can say that climate change does/doesn't exist because it was the warmest November on record in my town is ridiculous. Weather patterns change constantly (see YF's El Nino post above for just one example). The threat is over the long haul, when sea levels continue to slowly rise and coastal cities like Miami and Boston, among many others, are under water.

Climate Change Impacts & Threats | The Nature Conservancy

 

Serious question ... How much poorer are you willing to be to ensure that Miami and Boston remain as they are forever?

 

Honestly, it doesn't concern me all that greatly. I think it's something we should work on and discuss trying to find some solutions to, but I don't see it as a critical issue. I was just stating the concerns. I just hate the arguments from both sides that because it's hot or snowing today, that climate change is/isn't an issue. I think it is an issue, but I don't have kids and likely never will, so it's not a priority for me.

 

Let's broaden the example. I read an article by Dr. John Nielson-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist, that West Texas has been getting hotter. He said that this means that small agricultural reservoirs lose more water to evaporation. So the farmers pull more water out of the Ogallala aquafilter to replace this water. The Ogallala aquafilter, which is basically the sixth underground great lake and keeps farming going in the Great Plains is already being depleted at higher than replacement rates. At some point Great Plains farmers go belly up if these trends continue.

So if global warming continues the effects will not just be in Miami and Boston. They will be world wide. So the costs of slowing this down through such measures as burning natural gas instead of coal, which would be of minimal in North America, might far exceed the costs of letting this go unchecked.

 

Totally agree. I'm all aboard on climate change.

I'm just being a prick and reacting to the idea of a "normal" winter. It's more of kind of a fun big picture question, the idea that there is no normal when it comes to weather. There's never a year we'll get an average amount of snow, and even if we come close to an average, let's say 215 inches, it'll be because it snowed 100 inches in December, 15 in January and 100 in February and 0 the rest of the season, not because it snowed in any sort of "normal" pattern.

Normal's in your mind, mmmaaaaaaannnnnn.

 

If the temperature on Earth rose exactly one degree from the previous year each day for a year, it'd be a catastrophe in climatology terms. And no one on Earth except climatologists would notice it. That's the dilemma of this issue.

 

How much poorer are you willing to be to ensure that the Great Plains are farmed exactly as they are right now?

How far are you willing to go to prevent vastly poorer nations from using that coal once we decide to stop using it?

And finally, to rephrase my original question ... How much is it worth to you to ensure that Miami, a city that didn't really exist 100 years ago, remains as it is for the foreseeable future?

 

There's enormous worldwide economic opportunity in climate change.

 

It snowed in Cleveland this morning and winter doesn't start til Monday. Thanks, Paris talks!

 

Lightning and thunder on Dec 23rd

 

Gonna be 85 degrees on Christmas Day! Screw you, El Nino (the nino)!!!!