Comment by moritzwarhier
9 hours ago
Ah, would the world not be full of so many simple-minded people, we'd all be free!
[edited out things that were badly worded]
Wildfires being incited by arsonists don't contradict climate effects, neither would an increase in arson.
But it's important to point out arson instead of ignoring it, even more so when the situation is dangerous. Agreed.
It's just also important to do research on the environment that sustains our lives, no matter how many know-it-alls tell you that the sweet fountain of fossil fuels will enlighten us forever, no matter how wasteful and corrupt we are in distributing its yield.
What is with this snark? Why do we assume that everyone who says anything even slightly challenging to the narrative directly blaming climate change, is aligned with pro-fossil fuel interests?
Instead, why not, for example, show the model of what would have happened to the fire if the current weather in the region had been a couple of degrees cooler? (I mean, it's not as if we can even do a ceteris paribus comparison to the stats on wildfires from pre-industrial times; there is way too much ceteris to paribize.)
I am not capable to assess the direct effect of CC on the probability of this disaster.
I question what is the value or helpfulness of continuing to doubt scientifically proven facts. The summer heatwaves and other natural disasters have increased enough in my lifetime to witness it, but even if that wasn't the case,
I consider dismissing widely accepted scientific results using words like "simple-minded" as pretty much the definition of snark.
As a reflection on my original comment (I depend on fossil fuels myself, like we all do):
Of course, shortening the reasoning enough, attributing any weather event to climate change, or even the climate alone, is impossible. I don't like beligerent simplifications myself. But that's why the quoted sentence in the original comment is about frequency, not just this particular wildfire season. At least that's what I thought.
The mechanisms of the short-term disruption of the Earth's climate due to greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction are more and more well-understood, as far as I know, though.
All reports that I read have phrasing that states the problems of climate attribution carefully, often including a paragraph about the importance of wildfires for the natural cycle.
In my opinion, claiming that not dedicating the problems of climate attribution at least 3 paragraphs in every report on a natural disaster that mentions climate change, is short-sighted (to use a different word).
In statistics, you can always play devil's advocate.
If Europe would be covered in ice in 50 years, there would probably still be someone claiming "see, there's no such thing as global warming!"
I explicitly mentioned arson as relevant to balance my point, but my patience ran out at some point. It is important.
And climate change is at least as important.
I don't read attempts at attributing natural disasters to climate change as "direct" or "simple-minded". I think the science has surpassed this point about 50 yrs ago.
Have a nice day. I tried to edit out snark and hate it every time I get into such a discussion at all. But I also am at least irritated by climate-denialism (or feel a tendency towards it).
It's a terrible word, there should be a better one, but I don't think "climate science skeptics" cuts it...
I get into such discussions too often because I see us depending on fossil fuels, for the foreseeable future. As well as on water, housing, food, etc.
Related: Dust Bowl, a good, recent enough example of man-made large changes causing (albeit local) climate change. If I'm not mistaken. Fascinating topic.
> I question what is the value or helpfulness of continuing to doubt scientifically proven facts.
And I question why you believe that anyone here did doubt them.
> I consider dismissing widely accepted scientific results using words like "simple-minded" as pretty much the definition of snark.... In what world is calling climate attribution "simple-minded" not snark?
That is not what happened. The term "simple-minded" was not used to describe "scientific results" of any kind, nor the underlying scientific theory, nor any scientist involved. It was used to describe someone who carelessly started the fire.
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