Stoaty said:
I do not hold myself as qualified to evaluate the evidence either, it ultimately comes down to whether you trust the scientists who study climate change. The people who study the field have PhD level training and have spent years working on this. The idea that you, or one of the denier sources you frequent that doesn't have expertise can easily point out a major flaw is absolutely ridiculous. In the end, it comes down to whether you believe there is a worldwide conspiracy (sounds like that is your position) or whether the fact that scientists in a very large number of countries can sign off on an IPCC report is sufficient.
The authorities you trust so well have been wrong for DECADES. Even the IPCC has given up on predicting doom. It's simply not in the latest report.
Stoaty said:
PS Climate change denial is a uniquely American (political) phenomenon. It doesn't have much of a following in the rest of the world (Australia may be an exception).
I do not know anyone who claims that climate does not change. Do you? The point is that there is nothing unusual about the recent change in the climate and it has been much less severe than the most recent occurrence of warming that occurred in the 1930s. In that case, there were higher temperatures and actual SEVERE problems the world over. You can deny the history, but it is all well-recorded. If you are unable to see past the replacement of temperature data from thermometers with proxy data based on tree rings, that is your issue, not mine.
What is not happening is the world is not warming this century. And NONE of the predicted disasters are happening. In fact, many of the data show things moving in the OPPOSITE direction of the predictions. And the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere has had strong benefits for agriculture.
In case anyone missed it before, here is the current state-of-the-planet:
- CO2 concentration is rising at an ever-increasing rate
- Global temperature is NOT rising
- U.S. temperature is NOT rising
- Global diurnal temperature range moves in the same direction as global temperature, which implies that the GHE moves in the OPPOSITE direction as global temperature
- Global cyclone frequency, intensity and damage is NOT increasing
- U.S. is now in the largest drought of major hurricane strikes in recorded history
- Tornadoes have not increased in intensity or frequency in a long time
- The proportion of the world in droughts of all levels of severity are gradually dropping
- The world is getting greener
- Food production achieves all-time record highs nearly every year
- Two weeks ago Antarctica had the highest area of sea ice in the satellite instrument record
- Sea ice in the Arctic stopped its decline a few years ago
Again, I ask: what is scary about any of this?
OTOH, where you live in CA very dire circumstances may be on their way.
History tells us that centuries-long severe droughts have occurred in the not-so-distant past. If you are about to be revisited by one of these massive droughts, then things could get quite difficult there.
The weather map in the image below is the key take-away from that article:
BTW, that high-pressure system in the North Pacific is not only the main cause of the drought in CA, but it is also the cause of the current spike in global sea-surface temperatures.
While the rest of the world's oceans are flat or dropping in temperature, the North Pacific temperature is shooting up due to the unusually-cloud-free conditions that accompany that high-pressure system:
Reg, you really do have a soft spot for the under dog.
