Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Either extreme weather event X is happening more frequently or it isn't. It's not a creed. It's not a religion. It either is happening or it isn't. It's not a matter of faith or a belief in fairy tales.

I see people who say dumb things or make generalizations or talk out of their ass about climate change, too. But that comes off as a pile of straw to me. You can say that about most things that are the result of a level of systematic observation, measurement, reasoning, experimentation, etc.

The kind of conversation you are talking about is just not an opinion. It's not a belief. And if we are going to generalize a type of person, I focus way more on the type of person who tries to turn it into an opinion -- and then pawn off their superstitious thinking and resistance to using resaon as "just asking questions."

IF there is evidence something is happening. ... AND it correlates directly with certain human behaviors and actions. ... AND you are the guy who immediately questions things without any evidentiary reason to be be questioning it. ... OK, I won't call you a denialist. But what exactly are you? I get that it doesn't prove cause and effect necessarily and people make jumps to speaking in absolutes. But it still doesn't change that you have piles of evidence sometimes supporting certain conclusions, and to challenge those conclusions, "I don't believe" is idiocy.

 

Which gets back to what I am saying. Take that observable, empirical thing. And let's say it correlates closely with human behaviors that through measurement and experimentation we have evidence to believe could have caused what we are observing. . ... you see where I am going, obviously. I focus way more on those people than the ones you are talking about, because as wrong as both are, I see much more relative harm done by the person I am talking about. ...

There is really good evidence that climate change is happening, of course. And there is at least anecdotal evidence that it is having effects on our environment that are happening much more immediately and in more drastic ways than we previously anticipated. Which should have all of us concerned (in my opinion) that we may be doing irreperable harm or harm that is not easily undone even if we were to make drastic changes.

The person talking about snowstorms in Dallas may be misguided, but they are not telling people that it isn't happening. So I really do see focusing on people like that as straw and then wonder about the motivations of someone acting like they are representative of something sturdier.

When I see @Alma do his "religion" shtick, it's with the broad brush -- nudge nudge wink wink -- that the idiot you are talking about is indicative of all people who are sounding an alarm about the effects we are seeing. As in, "Oh, they all overstate it. But it's no big deal. They are just religious zealots, bunch of exaggerators." Which I find not only dishonest, but also ridiculous, because the only motivation I can see to insist on calling it a religion. ... is to try to obfuscate the scientific evidence that makes it anything except religion. I have seen him do this with regard to other things, too. ... He creates narratives, and points to an outlier or outliers as being representative of something broader. He sometimes doesn't outright say the dismissive thing. But he'll keep hammering his narrtive to imply it.