It's absurd for someone in a snowy area to claim that they are sick of shoveling global warming. Why? It's because there's a difference between weather and climate. Weather is short-term, and climate is long-term. A warming climate increases the overall likelihood of warm weather, but weather at a specific location at a specific time does not prove the long-term global trend.
Oddly enough, it's not just the deniers that make this mistake. Climate change also can't be proven on the grounds that it's warm at a specific location at a specific time. I have encountered far too many people using warm weather as proof of climate change.
How about wildfires? It's the same core concept. If climate change is a factor in the recent problems with wildfires, it's best to look at long-term trends. You can't look at a fire and say, "This was caused by climate change." Even a full year is insufficient. Of course, this is assuming that climate change is indeed a factor.
I can make some sense out of how climate change could factor in these wildfires. In recent years, it seems like we have had bigger problems with wildfires than in the past. Perhaps warmer weather is better suited for wildfires than without climate change. Of course, I have to admit that my observations deal more with smoke than fire, and "seems like" during my lifetime is no replacement for data over longer periods of time.
It is well established that correlation does not prove cause. At this point, I have not seen any legitimate evidence that climate change is fueling these fires. I have seen attempts to connect the two, but all of them seem to be looking for how they are connected rather than if they are connected. Even in a warming climate, there are other changes going on in this world. Climate change could be a factor, but I need more evidence before I accept this as fact.
While I'm writing, I want to add a thought. Even if climate change is a factor, I don't think that this tells us enough about the long-term consequences. Forests take a long time to grow as fuel sources. Even grasslands can take time to become dangerous. Climate can also hinder the ability for certain species to grow. It's possible that we are simultaneously increasing the risk of fuel igniting while also reducing the amount of fuel capable of ignition. I'm not saying this is the case, but there are still so many things that I don't know.
I'm going to give you two sentences to help you understand my issues with recent news.
- 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.
- 97% of scientists agree that current wildfires are caused by anthropogenic global warming.
Every rational person knows that these sentences are very different. Unfortunately, many media sources seem to confuse them. It is irresponsible for media sources to cite global warming as the cause of fires at any specific given time. Recently, I read an article from the Associated Press that mentioned "the scientific consensus that climate change is playing a central role" in these fires. This is a confusion between two issues and an obvious misportrayal of the consensus.
I couldn't resist Tweeting a reply to this error (after being posted by KOMO). I was cautious not to make myself look like a climate change denier. Despite my efforts, someone actually responded with the 97% argument. I rewrote my statement to show how absurd it was to bring up the claim there was a consensus for these fires. "I can assure you that 97% of the scientific community does not believe that what's happening right now establishes long-term trends." Do you know the response that I received? "I can assure you they do." In other words, 97% of the scientific community believes that what was happening right then establishes long-term trends. I found this so comically bad that I couldn't help retweeting it, although you had to go backwards a bit to see how bad that Tweet was.
It's not just the media and Twitter. Jay Inslee has referred to the fires as "climate fires." Joe Biden has referred to Trump as a "climate arsonist." What does this mean? The self-proclaimed party of science can't pick up on concepts that should be considered fundamental to science. They are exploiting these fires for political purposes. In other words, they are politicizing these fires.
Biden's comment was worse than Inslee's. He actually blamed Trump for his role in climate change. How long has climate change been going on? Apparently, the decades before Trump are irrelevant. You can easily argue that Trump isn't the best person to address climate change, but to actually blame him is ridiculous.
Another person who has been attacking Trump for his role in climate change has been Randi Weingarten. If you read my blog, you should already be familiar with that name. I recently created a post about how this former civics teacher had a bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment. In recent Tweets, she has repeatedly blamed Trump for climate change.
Again, I'm not saying that climate change isn't a factor in these wildfires. The issue that I have is that we are singling out climate change as the cause. In some cases, we are even blaming Trump for something that has been ongoing for more than a century. This is pathetic.
No comments:
Post a Comment