Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Yes. Next question.

 

The new teeth grind, hearing "well some say " and "I don't believe [climate change/lunar landing/JFK assassination/UFOs]" without some factual support.

Just throwing out a position without any factual support is not intelligence.

"Do you really think climate change is behind the hurricanes, [etc.]" Yes. Every scientific indicator points to it. What led to the creation of the Great Lakes? Climate change. Its happened before. Climate change isn't some new theory that was just raised in the past 10 years. Glaciers are melting. The Artic hit 100 degrees. Oceans are rising. Simply denying it doesn't mean there's any substance behind that denial.

 

And the reason why it matters is because we've stuck 39 million people in a place that has been an earthquake, mudslide, drought and fire hazard for thousands of years, and another 21 million -- mainly older and less healthy -- in a place that used to be a freshwater river swamp and gets hit regularly with major hurricanes, and has for thousands of years. That doesn't include the millions living near Rainier and Hood, or the New Madrid fault, or Tornado Alley. And when Yellowstone goes boom again, I hope to be long dead.

There were 157.8 million Americans in 1950. Now we're pushing 312.2, depending on today's COVID count (f'ing BOOMERS). Double the people are packing into parts of the country because they're nice 99.9 percent of the time. That's just that 0.1 percent that'll make the headlines, sooner or later.

It's not just that climate is changing. We're populating dangerous places and wondering what all the fuss is about when nature does what it does.

 

Blame George Carrier. How many people would live in Miami, Houston or Phoenix if the air conditioner hadn't been invented? Glad I'm a New Englander, where the weather frequently sucks, and sometimes can be downright awful (the 100-inches of snow Feb-March of 2015), but is less often life-threatening.

 

One important reason the CA wildfires are extra destructive, is that the state and federal governments for generations have a) increasingly bowed to development of fire-prone areas, and b) Paid people to rebuild in those areas, again and again and again.

 

I don’t know why climate change is so hard for these dopes to grasp. I was the finest C student you ever saw and I get it. I grew up in the northeast and our house was normally on the cooler side in winter because natural gas costs money. Yet, on Christmas Eve, the house would be so Goddamned warm that the windows fogged up in the kitchen and we had to vent one. Why? Because we had stuffed about 25 people in the living and dining rooms and had the oven and two roaster ovens going full blast with food.

That’s what we’re doing to the planet.

 

I defer to scientists like @JayFarrar’s brother who says it does play a role.

 

That is all true and something the state is going to have to wrestle with going forward but that doesn't explain how the state set a record for mot acres burned and have had three of the four largest and four of the 10 largest fires all recorded this year. And we're still about a month away from the end of fire season. Summers are hotter, dryer and longer than before (yeah, I know same number of days, just go with me here) and winters are inconsistent.

California is going to have to have a come to Jesus moment for developments in the hillsides and more vegetative dense areas and what that looks like. We can't count on an El Niño year every year to keep things from exploding (literally). But climate change is only going to make things worse and is going to make things worse for communities we thought were safe.

 

Why do you think the Paris Accords will stop wildfires?

 

The answer was kind of odd tho. If internal combustion engines are the problem, logic says globalism is part of the issue, especially as it relates to shipment of goods. I would think travel is an issue, too.

I believe in climate change and human causes to it. I don’t believe the problem can be solved without significantly addressing consumption and at least rethinking some of our global supply chains. To do either, though, is to tap into fundamentally conservative ideas that progressives do not tend to like. I think it’s one of the reasons we haven’t made much of a dent on the issue climate change. In essence, we want to tell industry “Here, fix this.”

 

Yes. Both of these are consumption issues. Further, I doubt the majority of folks living in those houses are conservatives. I’m guessing they like their cool houses in gorgeous areas.

Ditto with likely conservative families who like their giant, cheaper homes on the west side of OKC. You accept the risk, you accept the consequences of the F4s that rip through every 7-10 years. You don’t blame it on some vague climate change.

 

The implication there is that there’s too many people. Not sure how you solve that.