by smiley » Wed 30 May 2007, 19:16:14
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') mean what has happened?
People always moan about the weather. If it's colder than usual that's because of climate change, and if it's warmer it's due to climate change, and if it's perfectly normal no one thinks of it, they don't say: "hey, you know, the weather is normal so climate change isn't that bad!".
And still, weather doesn't have much to do with climate in the short term. Climate is about averages over longer time spans. In the last 100 years average temperatures rose about 1 degree Celsius if I recall correctly, and things are still fine. If they rise another degree it won't be a disaster. But if they rise 3, 4, or 5 degrees it might be rather awful. But this is not going to happen because the ultra-cornucopian IPCC is very, very wrong about fossil fuels.
With due respect I think you're wrong here.
The climate debate is not about climate but about weather. Obviously weather and climate are connected via statistics and disconnected via locationality, which makes this debate rather complex.
The statistics on weather are such that one cannot blame one extreme weather event (like eg Katrina) on the climate. However the amount of extreme weather events that have occurred over the past decade have become a compelling statistic in it self that weather is changing. Compelling enough for a skeptic like me to be convinced that things are changing.
The effects of that are profound. For instance in Europe we notice that the Jet Stream is shifting. This gives us now consistent dry springs and wet summers instead of the other way around. You don't really notice this when looking at the average yearly temperature or yearly rainfall. But ask any farmer here and he will tell you how his crops have turned up the past few years (which is pretty bad).
In order to asses the effects of climate change you have to make the step from global averages over long periods to local effects in limited time periods. That means the weather. Due to our limitations in knowledge and the fundamentals of statistical events, this translation does per definition involve a lot of guesswork and uncertainty. That is what makes this debate so difficult.
But to postulate that we will not have a problem at 1 degree and might have a problem at 2 degrees worldwide, without taking account the local extremes that might occur within this population is just wrong.