Weatherdude just had one of those massive explosive diaries. Stop saying everything is because of climate change. Just stop it. has, at last look, 447 comments with hundreds of recommendations. Simply put, that is a travesty ... while there is truth to this:
Please, for the love of FSM, stop trying to link every extreme to climate change. The ice caps are melting, the oceans are rising, and all sorts of other scary shit is happening, but not every single event is due to the climate's change. If all of this stuff is happening due to climate change, we don't yet have the trends to back it up. Wait until we do. Until then, warn about the dangers of climate change, don't say everything happened because of it.
In addition to truth, there is also concern trolling -- there is a difference between connected to and caused by.
In simple truth, it has now become impossible to seriously discuss weather patterns and events without putting it in the context of climate change (climate disruption / global warming). As per Bill McKibben's Eaarthand the scientific move to the term Antropocene era, we have fundamentally altered the planetary system. Thus, while it is absolutely true that it remains (and likely will remain) impossible to say "X" event occurred "because of" global warming, it is also true that global warming is now a factor (among many other factors) that impact weather events -- all weather events.
From the title on, this reader (not for one) saw Weatherdude's diary as concern trolling
Stop saying everything is because of climate change. Just stop it.
When it comes to climate disruption, knowledgeable people do not generally run out and say "global warming caused this tornado" or "we wouldn't ever have had this flood without global warming". Sure, those statements occur ... but relatively rarely and not from credible voices.
Far more frequent and typical is to have a rash of 100-year and 500-year events (floods and droughts and ...), a series of disruptive weather events out-of-pattern with historical events in an area, a rash of heat records being broken, etc ... without climate change or global warming ever being mentioned.
No, global warming isn't the determinate of any and all weather.
Clearly, the earth still orbits around the sun, January and July have different temperatures, etc ... There are many, many factors that coalesce and influence weather patterns.
For example, re tonadoes and damage, let's just talk about direct human activity (without getting into the complexity of global warming):
1. More population, more spread out -- greater likelihood that someone gets hurt/killed even with zero change in the number and strength of tornadoes.
2. Related to above -- ever more physical footprint (buildings, roads, transmissions lines, etc) means increased likelihood of fiscal damage.
3. Better scientific instruments (and more spread out population) means that we should, writ large, be better at data collection and will have (therefore) more reported tornados.
4. FAR LESS CERTAIN and a substantiated hypothesis: human land use could impact local weather conditions / patterns enough to influence (in some cases .. maybe) tonados formation (think urban heat islands ... and whether several degrees would matter within larger weather pattern)
5. Etc ...
There are many factors that influence weather events. Among them: climate disruption. We are now, however, in a situation where failure to discuss whether and climate change / global warming / climate disruption could be a contributing factor would be, well, gross negligence.
Of course, as Weatherdude emphasizes, weather is events and climate trends. "Weird" weather events have happened, it seems, throughout Earth's history. There were 2-inch rainfalls in a day 50 years ago (when Co2 count was about 300 ppm) in my area -- there are far more and these are a far greater share of total rainfall today. Thus, a big thunderstorm that knocks out my power isn't "because of" climate change but it is reasonable to discuss the increasing frequency of more severe storms within the context of climate disruption (and a Co2 count of about 394). (PS: And, of course, the local doesn't prove global ...)
To me, Stop saying everything is because of climate change. Just stop it. was a travesty -- even as there are elements within that are correct and with which I agree -- because it contributes to a 'don't discuss it because you don't have 100% proof of 100% causality'-type argument favored by those seeking to forestall action no matter that weatherdude comments within the diary "I believe that climate change is real." (On the problem of using the term "belief" and science.) No, climate disruption is not "the" reason for any specific weather event but, no, we don't have the decades to wait until the evidence is in.
SIGH ... TO BE CLEAR .. UPDATE. Writing that some of a diary reads like concern trolling is not (and is not meant as) an attack on another's character or capability or value or .... The diary began, with reason, pointing out that there was "truth in ..." And, while highlighting my arenas of disagreement, the final paragraph includes "even as there are elements within that are correct and with which I agree". This diary points to an -- important -- arena of disagreement as how to discuss a critically important issue.