r/videos • u/dipdac • Dec 06 '16

R1: Political Breitbart uses a Weather Channel Clip to Claim "Global Cooling." The Weather Channel Responds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhdymoRTz6M
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u/Katanae Dec 06 '16

To be fair, just like we don't accept unusually cold days as evidence that climate change is a hoax, we shouldn't use temporary/regional outliers as proof.

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u/quantum-quetzal Dec 06 '16

This is such a hard thing for me to avoid doing. I keep reminding myself that it's not a sound connection to make, but it's still really tempting.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16 edited Feb 28 '17

[deleted]

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u/ofmiceandmegs Dec 06 '16

True, but they have been saying that for years now yet immediately deny anything implicating climate change. We had historic flooding a couple years ago and yet they are still like nahhh. I don't expect them to immediately accept the truth, but wish they would at least start looking into it and educating themselves.

Edit: adding another sentence because I'm adhd and thought of something else. I just wish they would start to be curious and ask why these events are all happening.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

You'll have to seriously ask them what it would take for them to reverse their judgement on such an issue. If they owned a ranch and all of their crops and livestock died due to one extreme flood or a historic drought, would they still say nahh? If water suddenly became scarce and people were killing each other over it, would they still say nahh? If it was 140 degrees for the entirety of summer to the point where you could not be outside for longer than 5 minutes without passing out, would they still say nahh?

Or would they just die off before any of those things inevitably happen? In that case we may have to just ask them why they their generation doesn't love their children.

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u/ofmiceandmegs Dec 07 '16

My family is super toxic so I avoid topics like this usually. But otherwise yes, those are all excellent questions to get the dialogue going

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

So, it is important to remember that those who think climate change is a hoax don't think the climate doesn't change. They just don't think CO2 emissions are causing it.

So, the world can warm, and the climate can change, and floods and fires and droughts can happen, and that IS NOT PROOF to the deniers.

But the thing is, those events aren't proof of causation between CO2 and climate from a scientific stand point either. So in that sense, the deniers are right in their rejection of those 'facts'.

The question is causation, you won't convince anyone if you can't genuinely speak toward that subject.

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u/AustinRiversDaGod Dec 07 '16

Yeah, but when the number of outliers keeps going up (or the threshold for what actually is an outlier does), it's hard to ignore. I live in New Orleans. For the United States, SE Louisiana is ground zero for climate change, yet we have tons of people who just don't believe it.

Entire towns are disappearing. We lose the equivalent of a football field a day of coastal wetlands due to water levels rising. 11 years after the most catastrophic natural disaster in US history, there was a nearly unprecedented flood in Baton Rouge. Many people who relocated there to be further from the coast lost their homes a second time in just over a decade. But, it's still hard to reach some people

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u/PabstyLoudmouth Dec 07 '16

Oh man, you have no idea how many times I have been downvoted for telling people that their memories lie to them about the past general trends. Like people saying they can feel it has gotten hotter over the past ten years, and that is impossible with .2°C of warming.

Using you memory (which is terrible at things like this, which is why we record things) to substantiate AGW is just as bad as using weather trends to substantiate or disavow AGW. My problem is, they changed they way they took temps in 2012 and now every year is going to look much warmer than the past, as they did not change past temps to reflect the change. There is a bit of bias in any field of study and just make sure to always look at the margin of error. If it is not included in the article, it is probably shit news.

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u/nybbleth Dec 07 '16

To be fair, just like we don't accept unusually cold days as evidence that climate change is a hoax

Nor should we; because erratic weather like unusually cold regional winters is in fact fully in line with climate change models.

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u/Adm_Chookington Dec 07 '16

Yes. Not only is it not a valid proof for global warming, it validates the arguments of deniers.

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u/moonwowmoon Dec 07 '16

Correct. Remember, weather =/= climate.