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How would you respond to someone who is arguing against global warming, giving “last winter was not as cold as this winter" example?

Aralt 7 Feb 14
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34 comments

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15

Maybe explain there is a difference between climate and weather.

[nasa.gov]

I’m saving this article. Thanks for posting!

9

Where are you talking about? At your house? I just had a sandwich therefore no one is hungry

I like it!

7

Global warming is occurring, even if they don't want to believe it. It's measured by the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) around the globe. Global warming is the reason for the loss in glaciers, loss in ice sheets, rise in sea level, and for the increasingly extreme weather events. Global warming is occurring, because of, and directly proportional to, the increase in green house gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, etc.).

The science behind this is not complicated, nor is it secret.

Marz Level 7 Feb 14, 2018

The actual cause is what's at question. As atheists it should be pretty plain that this planet wasn't made for us and our presence is just a cosmic accident. This planet has killed off every life form to ever inhabit it for billions of years. This rock doesn't give a crap that we're here, and will kill us all in due time no matter what we do. We're actually coming out of an ice age.

The cause isn't in question by any scientist. The cause is CO2 rise in the atmosphere, and it's due to human activity.

6

Tell them to actually go learn to science and data behind climate change, or point them to a potholer54 video or something.

I'm not gonna sit there and lecture them on something they can research in no time at all. Climate change deniers have no reason to exist beyond being willfully ignorant of the facts.

5

Cite the global temperature increase.There is also the fact that local climates are changing. Here in Georgia if you average the rainfall increase since 1958 it comes to about a .70" per year increase. Also, our drought and rainy seasons are becoming more accentuated. Remember: Global Warming and Climate Change!

What’s wrong with more rainfall? Weather is always changing. They can’t even predict the weather 5 days out all the time. I don’t have much confidence in anyone’s ability to predict what the climate will be like 50 years from now.

@Trajan61 Flooding. When a development is built they use the annual rainfall model to estimate the average and extreme amounts of runoff. The result is that many of the projects in Georgia are surpassing their 100 year worst case scenario ... frequently! It is also a problem for farming because too much rain is as bad as not enough. Also, here in Georgia we have two wet seasons and two dry seasons. The wet seasons are getting much wetter, and the dry seasons are getting drier. The dry season hit right about at the time of germinating crops for spring and fall. This means more failures.

I’m a rancher myself but I don’t think anyone has figured out what impact humans have on climate. If we’re so concerned about climate change why not address the number one problem, to many people.

@Trajan61, Well population us a major constituent of the problem, but so is our consumption which is outstripping population.The reason is that as the third and second world countries take our jobs, they are very rapidly increasing their consumption which is multiplied by their larger populations.

5

That the word "global" in "global warming" means THE GLOBE.

5

You can always point to the fact that sea levels are rising. The Arctic, and Antarctic are melting. Weather is different from climate. Those are just for starters.

4

Explain very politely that "global warming" or more correctly "climate change" means more energy trapped in the system rather than radiating back out into space and consequently more extreme weather events. I then suggest that they look at the effects of the Gulf Stream on local climate in the North Atlantic areas and point out that one of the effects of climate change is a weakening of the Gulf Stream meaning Europe and the NE seaboard of the US get to freeze their tits off. Then I direct them to an article such as this.
[e360.yale.edu]

Kimba Level 7 Feb 15, 2018
4

It is the same concerning the argument of macro and micro evolution. Time is the issue. On a year to year basis one speaks of weather. Over a period of over hundreds of years one speaks of climate change. The strongest argument the do have that is valid, is that we can only give weather forecast that are good for about two weeks at best, so how can we determine climate change?
The answer is that we can do scientific analysis of ice cores, tree rings etcetera to determine trends in climate for hundreds and thousands of years. It will be correctly asserted that these past trends do not necessarily determine the future.
Just like we evolve with every generation, the changes are unnoticeable and insignificant. We can go back a year and say no evidence of evolution as humans. If we go back 100,000 years there will be noticeable differences. This being said we can not analyze data from today and say even remotely what humans will be like in another 100,000 years. What we can say is there will be human change.

4

Answer with "It is not Global warming, it is Global climate change". The name "Global warming" is misleading, even I regularly make jokes on it of the kind "Where is the Global warming when we need it?" - when it is very cold. Yet I am definitely not a climate change denier - as I understand that global climate changes result in more extreme weather, and definitely sometimes in more extreme cold.

4

Global warming is not a reference to the current local weather. It refers to a. Long term trend in which the average annual temperature of the planet is increasing with time. Its effect on the weather depends on where you are. For New England, where I live, spring weather patterns occur about 2 weeks earlier than they did about fifty years ago. Fall is warmer and killing frost comes later. Winters are drier and spring is wetter. The jetstream is weaker and fluctuates more frequently than it used to@ This brings more artic chills from the northwest and warm masses of air when storms travel up the coast.

3

Perhaps with the same humor as pro climate-changers who can't explain why the outer Burroughs of New York City are not underwater from all of that melted ice caused by man made global warming. Their explanation is that the water isn't rising...but rather pushing down on the ocean floor.

3

I would tell them that each year since 2014 has been the hottest year on record, the next year hotter than the last. Weather is not the same as climate. I would also point out the sea levels rising and the polar ice caps that are shrinking.

3

As Bill Maher once said on this very subject: The sun goes down at night. I guess it doesn't exist!

3

<sarcasm>What is Global Warming???</sarcasm>

Climate change deniers are on the same 'level of stupid' as flat earthers, I am not entirely sure if it is worth my time!

I can discuss politics and economics all day long because there is a lot of subjectivity involved with both, but global warming is just science, and if you deny the science behind climate change you are either full of shit, or a moron!

3

Global warming is a bad name for it because in some places it will get hot while others will get cold and that's what people don't understand because of it being called warming.

2

I know this won't change anyone's mind, but our winter is the warmest I have ever experienced. The weather tends to reverse East Coast to West Coast.

2

It’s been too warm all winter. Hardly any snow and rain. It’s worrisome. The plants and animals are all off schedule. Flowers are blooming, the birds are back.

2

There are a range of opinions on the subject:

  1. Global Warming is a hoax thought up by the Leftist Totalitarians who want to control everything.
  2. Global Warming is going on, but to quote Marco Rubio "The United States is not a planet", so there is very little we can do about it.
  3. Global Warming is going on, and the primary causes are deforestation, overpopulation, and fossil fuel consumption. If and when all the fossil fuels are gone, the earth will be 2 to 4 C warmer than it is today, but the warmer earth problem will be nothing compared to the problem that we don't have any more fossil fuels. Try flying across the Pacific in a solar-powered airplane. No solution yet proposed by the lefties will solve the problem, and the costs associated with each proposed solution are enormous. The best solutions right now can be achieved on a personal level: Limit yourself to 2 children. Drive a fuel-efficient car. Don't go cruising. Don't fly across the Atlantic or Pacific all the time. Don't spend your weekends driving up and down the nearest lake in a speedboat with a 300 hp motor. Don't buy a 6000 sq. ft. house and cool it to 70 deg in the summer and heat it to 70 deg in the winter. Don't patronize vehicle racing events. Plant trees, etc.
  4. Global Warming is a serious problem, and governments need to force their citizens into using public transportation, penalize them from using fossil fuels, subsidize alternative energies, build bullet trains etc.
  5. "Climate change" is the #1 problem facing humanity. If we don't take drastic action today: The sea levels will rise by 10m this century. All the polar bears will die. We will have horrific hurricanes, forest fires, and floods. All the earth's major coastal cities will be underwater. Once the arctic tundra thaws, billions/trillions of tons of methane will enter the atmosphere, causing the Earth to become like the the next Venus. We spent 50% of our GDP defeating Facism in WWII, so we should spend 50% of our GDP defeating "climate change"

I'm at about 3.1 on the global warming seriousness scale. I think the people at #1 and #5 are almost equally irrational. Many people close to 3 might be convinced that some government action might make sense, but they are turned off by the hysteria of people at #5. Many people who are close to 4 could likely be convinced that most government proposed solutions have much higher costs than the benefits that they offer, but they are focused on calling the people with global warming hoax theories at 1 crazy.

BD66 Level 8 Feb 15, 2018
2

A single event does not prove or disprove GW. Likewise any single weather event cannot be reliably attributed to GW. But if we plot the frequency of extreme weather events then the frequency of these is increasing rapidly - in line with CO2 level rises. So it's down to probabilities and statistics not single events.
Another indicator is frequency of hurricanes, see chart. Again we can't say any one hurricane is the result of GW but the statistics speak volumes. Hope the chart is self explanatory🙂

and just to emphasize the point, this increase in hurricane activity as a result was predicted, warmer oceans, more movement between hot and cold surfaces ie land/water

2

I'm not sure they grasp it and logic doesn't seem to help people like that. I mean look at religion.

2

Weather will have more extremes as the globe warms, and while a specific location may be colder, global warming refers to the average global temperature.

2

Say now the term is Climate Change rather than global warming, though the average temperatures globally are on the rise, we get, all together , more extreme weather. More Snow, storm, ice cold, burning hot, drought, flood ... it is freaking obvious here in New Zealand, and in Australia. But I bet nothing was unusual over the last year in the bubble of the hardcore : "What climate change?" ( sitting up to their necks in flood water, or conversely in cities just about out of any water)

2

Ice core borings… don’t lie..

Varn Level 8 Feb 15, 2018
2

"And I suppose you think the sun revolves around the Earth...? Well, why not?* That's what you get when you attempt to reason things out purely on the basis of what you can see, without digging any deeper. Leave the science to the scientists, brainiac."

  • might not be effective in all cases
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