LeliaThomas.Com

More Melodrama from the Climate Nerds

“We are living in a time of climatic hardship,” Bastardi said. “We’re in a cycle where weather extremes are more the norm and not the exception.” –From AP article “Strong hurricanes to hit U.S. Gulf in 07: AccuWeather”

I wonder: As opposed to the calm and soothing times of the Holocene period, where deserts existed in more of North America and where rains were more common in places like Australia, or the comfortable Little Ice Age with its heightened volcanic activity? Good times, those.

What peaceful norm are these people referring to?

Please, let’s not be melodramatic. There have been few times, if any, in humanity’s history where the climate has been totally human friendly. It’s just it’s getting more coverage now thanks to mass media and funding in certain areas of business and government. Hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, random cave-ins and more are all to be expected, as they’ve been happening since the dawn of time. Plate shifting is normal. Extreme weather, extreme events in our solar system and universe, are perhaps the norm, over time.

Let’s also not forget that speculations for a “busy 2006″ for storms and hurricanes was, well, completely inaccurate, about like a Y2K scare. Lots of storms may occur this year; few may occur. People don’t know for sure. They can look at data, take educated guesses that may turn out accurate, but at any given time, a change may occur to knock that all to hell. Considering they aren’t getting the weather forecasts right from day to day, I’m still not too convinced that they aren’t just flipping coins and taking wild guesses!

Comments ordered from oldest to newest.

Just Sayin'

I think the entire science of meteorology is based upon flipping coins and making guesses…

You can’t question it though… You should simply accept that mankind is a disease on the face of mother earth and the sooner we are eradicated the better off the planet will be. You see our existence… Our survival if you will is insignificant when compared with the sanctity of the planet and it’s more deserving, more worthy… And less politically incorrect denizens… Like the humpback whales, or the polar bears.

If you do the “Thought Police” along with an angry mob of Sierra Club and Green Peace members will hunt you down…

I’m just sayin’…

Lelia

Oh, wow, you’re melodramatic in another way. If you’re that impressed by the planet as a hunk of rock and in animals as other hunks of matter, then perhaps you should start with yourself when it comes to the eradication of humanity. “Just sayin’.”

But the reality is if you believe in a god, you believe we were put here for a reason and are just as important, if not more so, than some of the other creations here. If you don’t believe in a god, then you believe we either came from matter already of the earth, like slowly evolving bacteria, for example, or from evolution through animals, such as apes, and, therefore, have just as much of a right, through chance and survival of the fittest, to be here as any other evolved creature. If you believe humans are terrible for the earth and have no place on it, I don’t know where that puts you. Perhaps in with those who believe in Gaia.

I think you’ve been watching too much Happy Feet.

josh

Right, lets not get too cautious here. Cause you know, acid rain in industrialized areas is just coincidental. Oh and global average temperature warming along with million year old glaciers melting? Thats coincidental too. Hurricanes don’t favor heat, they favor the cold, right? Change might be the norm, but it does not mean that it is always for the good, or that the change would be occurring if we were not mass-exploiting this rock. I don’t see what is wrong with the melodramatics. It motivates people to change. Usually when things are sensationalized, some people who might not otherwise give a damn, might actually give a damn. It may not be pin head accurate, but It’s at least we’re over melodramatic because the right people who need to be convinced that somethings wrong will not be convinced if everyone is under-melodramatic. The people in charge making millions off resource exploitation just don’t care enough unless there’s a boatload of overly influenced media brainwashed minds hating them.

Lelia

It’s more like let’s not get too self-important here. The very idea behind a lot of this is amazing to me–how arrogant we must be to believe that a planet that has gone through more tumultuous changes than the majority of us can imagine, much less have seen in our lifetime, is so affected by us: significant humans.

Plus, you’ve not been reading some things, it looks like. Better to read, than have the news insinuate things to you.

…acid rain in industrialized areas is just coincidental.

Of course it’s not, but the solution is not a simple one, unless you are willing to give up nearly every modern luxury you have, unless you are willing to rob developing nations of their growing industries, simply because we’ve developed and now have the money and power to seek alternative means. Sort of.

Also, for those who are not very versed in it, let’s not act like the media and imply to them that acid rain happens only in industrialized areas, because that is untrue. Because of the chemical makeup of acid rain, it is formed through other means, including through the eruptions and let off of volcanoes, which, again, was very common during the Little Ice Age, a time that was much colder than now.

Oh and global average temperature warming along with million year old glaciers melting?

Glaciers have been melting, then growing bigger, melting, then growing bigger, since the dawn of time. There is no solid answer. There have been times where it has been colder, so that they have grown. Then there have been times where it has been warmer, so they have melted. It’s very cyclical. We have had cooling periods, the ice ages, and warming periods, like the Medieval Warming Period. Sea levels have changed because of this, rising or falling as glacier freeze or melt. Again, no melodrama, please!

Hurricanes don’t favor heat, they favor the cold, right?

Please quote me on where I said that one! Of course they favor the heat, and because we are seemingly entering a warming period (estimates say we might warm up by 1-degree Fahrenheit in the next century), we can assume that we will have more hurricanes on the whole. What I said in this entry, and what I will say again here, is that we cannot pinpoint them for sure, however, because, like all parts of the climate, they are subject to sudden and immense change. Thus the reason you had climatologists coming out in 2006, saying, “get ready for a big one,” and yet…they were completely wrong for the U.S., who they were predicting for.

And let’s not forget that certain events do favor the cold, since you felt the need to be snarky and act like I insinuated hurricanes are one of them, because they are not. However, if we were entering a cold period, rather than a warm one, you can imagine the media would still be presenting its information in a way ironically similar to what it is now: doomsday forecasts. It’s very good at presenting a fact, but exaggerating the emotions around it, to receive a reaction, because, remember, it’s all entertainment.

Change might be the norm, but it does not mean that it is always for the good, or that the change would be occurring if we were not mass-exploiting this rock.

Oh, yes, because it was never warm during the prehistoric periods (no polar ice caps!) or cold in the ice ages. And how do you define a “good change,” as well? I honestly don’t see why there is such concern about the whole planet warming by one to two degrees in the next century (as it increased, on the whole, by 1F from the last century). The planet would still be much cooler than it was in other historical periods, including the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene period, both of which saw not the decline in humanity’s successes, but the rise in them. So what do you define as “good change” when it comes to our climate as we know it? To my ears, it sounds like the “good change” you and many others insinuate is no change at all, because humans naturally fear change. It would make you and millions of others much more comfortable to think that the world, as a whole, is not ever going to warm up or cool down, because that might make you have to change the way you live your life on a day-to-day basis. The “good change” that you all seem to be referring to is more of a “comfortable, nonexistent change,” so there will be no scare, and there will be no extreme weather that we have to face. Yet that is unrealistic, I believe.

I don’t see what is wrong with the melodramatics. It motivates people to change. Usually when things are sensationalized, some people who might not otherwise give a damn, might actually give a damn. It may not be pin head accurate, but It’s at least we’re over melodramatic because the right people who need to be convinced that somethings wrong will not be convinced if everyone is under-melodramatic.

This is a scary notion, Josh, and I hope that you realize this notion does not just carry out through the melodrama surrounding climate issues. It also means the melodrama is carried out in political and social issues, and guess what: not always for the good of the people. If you support the media’s melodrama in this, you are also, through your lack of outrage toward their melodrama as a whole, supporting it when they sensationalize the wrong things, such as the war in Iraq or the “need” to buy something.

You’re right that the melodrama motivates people to change, but I am right in saying that allowing any melodrama within the media is a very dangerous thing and should never, ever go unnoticed. To give them such leeway in this is to give them leeway in other avenues as well, which, in turn, can support “wrong change.” We see this in nations where the media is nothing but sensationalized reporting (some would argue–myself included–that that greatly exists in America itself), and those who believe in it can be quite scary. And let us not forget that, probably especially when it comes to visual media, such as the television, there are motives behind sensationalized reporting, those not always inline with wanting positive social change.

I’m also concerned by your “it may not be pin head accurate” statement, because, like the melodrama, I cannot fathom why you or anyone else would be okay with mass corporate bodies, which are the media, lying to you, even on the smallest matters, because it means you hand over the right for them to lie to you on the big matters, too.

The people in charge making millions off resource exploitation just don’t care enough unless there’s a boatload of overly influenced media brainwashed minds hating them.

“Overly influenced media brainwashed minds”–sorry to get off the course of the subject here, but the fact that you’re okay with such a concept, even for an event that you agree with, boggles my mind.

And, so, really, you feel people cannot come to conclusions on their own, cannot make educated theories and decisions of right or wrong without the media brainwashing them and telling them what is “right?” I ask: how do you know the media is right? How do you know the media is telling you the truth? What makes the multi-billion-dollar media (and advertising) companies so much more innocent than the multi-billion-dollar corporations that are exploiting the planet’s resources? Ironically, you see, you and many others just accept, subconsciously, that the media exploits a different resource: you.

Josh

Of course it’s not, but the solution is not a simple one, unless you are willing to give up nearly every modern luxury you have, unless you are willing to rob developing nations of their growing industries, simply because we’ve developed and now have the money and power to seek alternative means. Sort of.

Agreed. Trying to ’save the world’ would be foolish as you’d inevitably have to deny many people of the right to … live comfortably and progress.. Not only is it wrong, but it would be pretty much impossible to stop. China is huge and it’s people won’t just listen to us if we present laws. We cannot stop the train, but slowing it down can go a long way toward making sure it keeps running.

Also, for those who are not very versed in it, let’s not act like the media and imply to them that acid rain happens only in industrialized areas, because that is untrue. Because of the chemical makeup of acid rain, it is formed through other means, including through the eruptions and let off of volcanoes, which, again, was very common during the Little Ice Age, a time that was much colder than now.

Well OK, but my point was to illustrate how, generally speaking, the media is bringing two and two together to make logical conclusions.(Generally speaking. I know the specific details in that article were far from accurate and it was mostly hype) It isn’t a bad thing.

Hurricanes don’t favor heat, they favor the cold, right?
Please quote me on where I said that one! Of course they favor the heat, and because we are seemingly entering a warming period (estimates say we might warm up by 1-degree Fahrenheit in the next century), we can assume that we will have more hurricanes on the whole. What I said in this entry, and what I will say again here, is that we cannot pinpoint them for sure, however, because, like all parts of the climate, they are subject to sudden and immense change. Thus the reason you had climatologists coming out in 2006, saying, “get ready for a big one,” and yet…they were completely wrong for the U.S., who they were predicting for.

You didn’t say this word for word, but how can you attack the weather service in such a way? They may not have been accurate (el nino is the warm period more conducive to hurricanes), but they were saving their asses and many other peoples. It is better to be prepared for the worse especially when you have no idea what the hell is going on. Since so many people rely on the weather forecasters I don’t think I blame them for being a bit pessimistic. If I were stupid, I would rather hear that my house will blow down tomarrow, than that I will be fine. The right thing for the media to do is to say “I don’t Know” But you have billions of people in the media, and outside the media believing that we have some kind of almighty answer and the media ends up being forced to give an answer. Which unsurprisingly ends up to be false.

And let’s not forget that certain events do favor the cold, since you felt the need to be snarky and act like I insinuated hurricanes are one of them, because they are not. However, if we were entering a cold period, rather than a warm one, you can imagine the media would still be presenting its information in a way ironically similar to what it is now: doomsday forecasts. It’s very good at presenting a fact, but exaggerating the emotions around it, to receive a reaction, because, remember, it’s all entertainment.

Agreed.

Change might be the norm, but it does not mean that it is always for the good, or that the change would be occurring if we were not mass-exploiting this rock.
Oh, yes, because it was never warm during the prehistoric periods (no polar ice caps!) or cold in the ice ages. And how do you define a “good change,” as well?

A good change is something that is conducive to our lifestyle. Which can be anything. … For example If the mid-west never experiences a drought for the next two millennium, I would call it a good change. It is easier to define a bad change - something which makes our life harder. Essentially These good changes rarely have been happening lately. There have been a lot more bad changes if you ask me.

I honestly don’t see why there is such concern about the whole planet warming by one to two degrees in the next century…The “good change” that you all seem to be referring to is more of a “comfortable, nonexistent change,” so there will be no scare, and there will be no extreme weather that we have to face. Yet that is unrealistic, I believe.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I don’t like warming cause the ice caps are pretty amazing. I’ve never seen them, but I plan on it sometime… And I think that It’ll be pretty sad once they’re gone. Rising temperatures just a few degrees is only a little bad. But if it keeps happening for years to come our planet will go the way of Venus. Thoroughly inhospitable. I would argue that this is pretty much an inevitable fate anyways - there isn’t much we can do to prevent our planet from going this way over a long period of time. But this is outside the discussion.

This is a scary notion, Josh, and I hope that you realize this notion does not just carry out through the melodrama surrounding climate issues. It also means the melodrama is carried out in political and social issues, and guess what: not always for the good of the people. If you support the media’s melodrama in this, you are also, through your lack of outrage toward their melodrama as a whole, supporting it when they sensationalize the wrong things, such as the war in Iraq or the “need” to buy something.

The melodrama isn’t always positive, but that doesn’t mean I hate it. I’m glad that I see through it, and I encourage other people to see through it when I can, but I don’t care. I don’t get very hung up over it otherwise. And I refuse to give into all the melodrama. Its fun sometimes, but terrible at other times.

You’re right that the melodrama motivates people to change, but I am right in saying that allowing any melodrama within the media is a very dangerous thing and should never, ever go unnoticed. To give them such leeway in this is to give them leeway in other avenues as well, which, in turn, can support “wrong change.” We see this in nations where the media is nothing but sensationalized reporting (some would argue–myself included–that that greatly exists in America itself), and those who believe in it can be quite scary. And let us not forget that, probably especially when it comes to visual media, such as the television, there are motives behind sensationalized reporting, those not always inline with wanting positive social change.

Right, and at those times it is wrong. But right now, I think climate issues are long overdue for some over-exaggeration because frankly no one gives a shit.

I’m also concerned by your “it may not be pin head accurate” statement, because, like the melodrama, I cannot fathom why you or anyone else would be okay with mass corporate bodies, which are the media, lying to you, even on the smallest matters, because it means you hand over the right for them to lie to you on the big matters, too.

I don’t listen to the media! I’ll read their news, give it a thought, but rarely to I take everything they say truthfully. They can lie to me about how bad ‘global warming’ is all they want. I don’t care. Because I know it is really only a localized problem and we’ve got plenty of time.

The people in charge making millions off resource exploitation just don’t care enough unless there’s a boatload of overly influenced media brainwashed minds hating them.
“Overly influenced media brainwashed minds”–sorry to get off the course of the subject here, but the fact that you’re okay with such a concept, even for an event that you agree with, boggles my mind.

I am Ok with it because in order to have intelligence, you have to have the idiot masses. Its just a natural balancing act. If you don’t have idiots out there showing the smart people how not to act, who will? It’s not right that the media does what it does. I totally hate seeing the people I see believing some of the crap they put out. But they do. I could waste my time getting angry over it, but i have better things to do. Idiots will be idiots. Media will be media. I’m glad they make me look smart.

And, so, really, you feel people cannot come to conclusions on their own, cannot make educated theories and decisions of right or wrong without the media brainwashing them and telling them what is “right?”

Some people can, and some people can’t. In this particular case, the people who can’t are the ones who need to be receiving some of the consequences for their own greed.

I ask: how do you know the media is right?

This depends. usually It’s easy to figure out. But if it’s a perplexing situation I can always just do a bit of research - or even read the news thats getting released through independently owned firms.

How do you know the media is telling you the truth? What makes the multi-billion-dollar media (and advertising) companies so much more innocent than the multi-billion-dollar corporations that are exploiting the planet’s resources?

Nothing. But in this very situation it looks as though the billion dollar media and advertising companies are on the verge of potentially destroying some of the richest billion dollar resource-exploiting corporations. How can you not applaud that?

Ironically, you see, you and many others just accept, subconsciously, that the media exploits a different resource: you.

Ok so I’m being exploited? Sounds great! What gives? I’ve been born into it, so why would I care. I have a mind of my own (which I use often), so they can exploit me all they want. In fact, maybe they should exploit more people like me. I bike often, eat well, and occasionally start my cars engine. What a great resource I am to exploit! :)