Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

'Global Warming' or 'Climate Change': Does it make a difference?

Today, we are releasing a special report (based on a nationally representative experimental study) that finds the terms global warming and climate change often mean different things to Americans—and activate different sets of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors, as well as different degrees of urgency about the need to respond.

We found that the term global warming is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term climate change.

For example, the term global warming is associated with:

Greater certainty that the phenomenon is happening, especially among men, Generation X (31-48), and liberals;
Greater understanding that human activities are the primary cause among Independents;
Greater understanding that there is a scientific consensus about the reality of the phenomenon among Independents and liberals;
More intense worry about the issue, especially among men, Generation Y (18-30), Generation X, Democrats, liberals and moderates;
A greater sense of personal threat, especially among women, the Greatest Generation (68+), African-Americans, Hispanics, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, liberals and moderates;
Higher issue priority ratings for action by the president and Congress, especially among women, Democrats, liberals and moderates;
Greater willingness to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action, especially among men, Generation X, liberals and moderates.

That why I personally favor the term Global Roasting.

Planet Porking

xp That sounds aromatic and delicious, though.

"Planet Porking" not so much.

not really -- I was on Planet Porking last month on my OKCupid shuttle.

the Greatest Generation (68+)

That can't be right. Greatest Generation is Depression-era kids.

uh baby boomers are totally the greatest generation didn't u get the memo

Maybe they have it mixed up with people who bought The Greatest Generation in hopes of feeling bad about themselves/basking in the reflected glow. I also sold a lot of copies to Gen Y types, confused about the historical timeline and apparently planning to bestow it honorifically on their boomer parents. So who knows.

lol

Sadly, me:

http://assets.amuniversal.com/fdcd6530c7fd01315e28005056a9545d

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/03/china-pledges-limit-carbon-emissions

cartoon otm

top right corner has been an interesting transition over the past 5-10 years. all the people now saying "sure, the climate's changing, but not b/c of humans" were the same people who only a few years ago were denying anything was changing.

sorry, top LEFT corner

http://www.climatecentral.org/images/sized/images/sized/remote/assets-climatecentral-org-images-uploads-news-6_3_14_Brian_SummerTemperatureTrends-720x405.jpg

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-summer-temperatures-climate-change-17510

Nationwide, the summer warming trend averages out to a little more than 0.4°F per decade since 1970. The places warming the fastest also happen to be some of the hottest places in the country, with a large chunk of the Southwest and all of Texas warming more than 1°F per decade.

The notable blue spot in a sea of red is the Upper Midwest, where substantial parts of Iowa and the Dakotas have seen a slight cooling trend since 1970. Interestingly, that region is actually home to some of the fastest-warming states when you look at the change in annual average temperatures. Winters in particular have warmed dramatically there over the past 40 years.

Of the 344 climate divisions, which are set by the National Climatic Data Center and divide the country into climatically-similar zones, less than 10 percent have seen a summer cooling trend. In general, every state in the lower 48 has warmed since 1970 and the most recent decade was the warmest on record for the country. Those trends are consistent with the overall warming that has been observed for the planet as greenhouse gases emitted by humans build up in the atmosphere.

California's Central Valley sees big drop in wintertime fog needed for fruit and nut crops

California’s winter tule fog — hated by drivers, but needed by fruit and nut trees — has declined dramatically over the past three decades, raising a red flag for the state’s multibillion dollar agricultural industry, according to new research.

Crops such as almonds, pistachios, cherries, apricots and peaches go through a necessary winter dormant period brought on and maintained by colder temperatures. Tule fog, a thick ground fog that descends upon the state’s Central Valley between late fall and early spring, helps contribute to this winter chill.

“The trees need this dormant time to rest so that they can later develop buds, flowers and fruit during the growing season,” said University of California, Berkeley biometeorologist and study lead author Dennis Baldocchi, whose father grew almonds and walnuts in Antioch and Oakley. “An insufficient rest period impairs the ability of farmers to achieve high quality fruit yields.”

The study, published May 15 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, has implications for the entire country since many of these California crops account for 95 percent of U.S. production, the authors noted.

Spt 20-21 NYC

http://peoplesclimatemarch.org/

http://cmu-energy.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/how-much-public-support-is-needed-for.html

xkcd isn't real popular around here, but this is pretty great: http://xkcd.com/1379/

Toobin blames Citizens U. for herding the GOP towards denialism (deep pocketed petromoguls becoming GOP gatekeepers).

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/6/12/1402540696416/updatedcartoon.jpg

so I guess I'll ask in this thread but so what is Clinton's climate voting history and where does she stand and does she have any post '08 statements on climate change? Assuming there's even a serious primary challenger I'd like to think this is the biggest issue in the Democratic Party. I'm probably being a naive idiot.

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says young people understand the significant threat of climate change and that she hopes there will be a mass movement that demands political change.

The potential 2016 presidential candidate says at a Clinton Global Initiative University panel that young people are much more committed to doing something to address climate change. Clinton says it isn't "just some ancillary issue" but will determine the quality of life for many people.

The former secretary of state cited global warming as a major issue that students could face in the future.

She made the comments Saturday during an interview with late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel at Arizona State University. The weekend gathering also features former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea.

from that finger in the wind to her mouth

never knowing who to cling to when the acid rain set in

http://climatedesk.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DaysOver95-MJ.jpg

http://climatedesk.org/2014/06/these-maps-show-how-many-brutally-hot-days-you-will-suffer-when-youre-old/

haha, yeah, i've seen that going around...the age categories are a little weird! take the first years of each four:

Birth: 1981
College: 2020 (age 39 for someone born in 1981?)
Adulthood: 2040 (age 59 for someone born in 1981?)
Retirement: 2080 (age 89 for someone born in 1981?)

lol

cool visual though

all those 59 year olds like "yes we can finally see rated r movies without our parents buying us tickets *buys tickets to blind side 2 anyway*

at any rate, the curious age categories provide even more proof that global warming is a hoax

admire Appalachia for keepin cool there

during the Great Melt, college will be scheduled on the Bluto Blutarsky timetable

Can one justifiably hold the belief that climate change is real and potentially cataclysmic while avoiding the possible pitfalls of these predictive models? I'm always put off by claims that it will get more hot here, or more wet there, when in truth there is no way to know and besides, what actually happens could (may? will?) be so much worse than predicted, or sooner, or somewhere else. It just seems self defeating as a debate stance, giving denialists further fuel for no good reason. "Oh, you said it would be cold and now it is super hot in January, you were wrong! It was not a tornado that hit D.C., it was rising coastal tides, you were wrong!" The scariest aspect of climate change (switching from the more specific and definitive "global warming" was a good start) is that we just don't know how bad things will get, but expect it is likely to radically change the way we live our lives in several different ways. Isn't that enough?

It just seems self defeating as a debate stance, giving denialists further fuel for no good reason. "Oh, you said it would be cold and now it is super hot in January, you were wrong! It was not a tornado that hit D.C., it was rising coastal tides, you were wrong!"

the debate stance you're talking about is real, but only among people who think there's a "debate" on the scientific merit of climate change. no one who has a minimum understanding of climate change would make a prediction that it will be cold in a specific January (or hot). the people that make the "it's snowing in march! you said it would be hot!" argument are those that either misunderstand the meaning of long-term projections themselves, have been lied to by intermediaries, or find political or financial benefits in spreading false information.

no one is saying that it will 100% certainly be hot on a certain day or even a certain year. i think some people have a fundamental inability to understand that the difficulty in predicting a single event that is near-term doesn't imply that it's just as difficult to make long-term projections. an analogy i often use is that it's impossible for me to predict if a coin toss will be heads or tails, but i can say with a high degree of certainty that if you flip a coin 100,000 times, about 50% of those will be heads and 50% will be tails.

I'm always put off by claims that it will get more hot here, or more wet there, when in truth there is no way to know

lol

The scariest aspect of climate change (switching from the more specific and definitive "global warming" was a good start) is that we just don't know how bad things will get, but expect it is likely to radically change the way we live our lives in several different ways. Isn't that enough?

also, fwiw, the switch away from 'global warming' was actually a media strategy pushed heavily by GOP legend frank luntz: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

Xpost how is that lol?

xpost I understand only knuckleheads take that stance, but there are clearly enough knuckleheads around to either prevent protective measures from being enacted or to spread the myth that there is two sides to this debate.

FWIW, I was responding to those charts, where were US region specific, and predicted out to the year 2200.

I think the most apocalyptic part of this is the casual assertion that given the way things are going, 99 is going to become the new retirement age. In all seriousness though, the maps do at least drive home that things are changing, things have already changed, and that I better not wait til my golden years to visit the places I grew up, as the landscape I knew will probably be pretty much burned to a crisp and not really trigger the cornucopia of ineffable sense memories one might expect.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/fe774fb43533470e4a52194eeb457e97/tumblr_n7w37qdsqz1qbypg1o1_500.gif

From here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php

i should start buying land in michigan's upper peninsula, shouldn't I?

thinkin about doing that anyway, tbh, it's real pretty up there

The UP will be overrun by displaced polar bears in just a few more years, so you should not start a seal ranch.

noted

https://ca.autos.yahoo.com/news/conservatives-purposely-making-cars-spew-black-smoke-protest-190500408.html

ca.autos isn't the Canadian version of The Onion, right?

No, but it seems like kind of a tiny non-story, right? ''Traffic on this issue has gone from virtually nothing to *seven* times virtually nothing''....? Feels very trumped up.

I fully believe the stats behind this. I just..don't care. Shit's crazy. There's endless universes. Our planet is not special. Trash is everywhere, and I love the smell of smog driving into Chicago. Reminds me of my childhood.