Feb 05 2009
Talking About Climate Change
We have work to do. For anyone who cares about climate change, our first job is talking to people about global warming — oops, I mean climate change. We all have to help in educating the public, because what the public doesn’t know will hurt us all.
Tip #1: First, we should stop calling climate change “global warming”. It’s climate change. The climate is changing. It warms here and there, it warms over all, and it’s warming on average, But, in some little pockets it’s getting cooler and that throws everyone off. People get confused just because winter came and it got cold. Yes, simple things like changing seasons confuses people. Call it ‘climate change’ and some of the confusion melts away.
Tip #1.5: (this is optional, depending on who you are talking to) Keep it simple: Storms, and hurricanes getting stronger, migration of large amounts of people due to sea rise as ice melts., etc. Insurance gets more expensive. Carbon talk can make people’s eyes glaze over. Say “parts per million” and see what happens.
Tip #2: Stop arguing with “Deniers”. It just gives them credibility, and since the denial movement is now approaching cult level, the last thing they need is credibility. Refer to them as flat earthers, to their face if possible. And please keep evolution out of analogies. (Evolution is currently undergoing its own bad street cred phase.)
Tip #3: Let go of your astonishment of what things cost. Fighting climate change will be very very expensive, but we have to do it. We have no choice. This is not optional. Whatever it costs, we have to do it. Let your elected representatives know this because they are reluctant to spend money on things that aren’t saving banks or a war.
Skeptics are still definitely worth talking to. Think of deniers vs. skeptics as the difference between an atheist and an agnostic. With the atheist, there is no possibility of convincing, so don’t waste your time. With an agnostic, you have a chance to convince them because their mind is still open. There have been many guides written on how to talk to a climate skeptic. The most effective thing to tell climate skeptics at the onset of your conversation is that you understand their skepticism. Tell them you were once a skeptic too. Then tell them that climate change can never be proven as being caused by humans with 100% certainty, but we have to act on it now anyway, like we act on other unproven things, like terrorism, because the stakes are so high. We can’t wait. Will terrorism happen again? We don’t know, but we have spent billions trying to prevent it, just in case, because the stakes are so high. And we didn’t wait. (That is not an endorsement of what we did, but war is another subject).
When people are receptive to your message, show them articles like the following. Don’t start out with hard science articles. Most people relate more to anecdotal type stories that segue into topics they can relate to.
Why We Must Stop [Climate Change]
By Chris Nelder
February 4th, 2009 — With all due sympathy for my readers in the Midwest and the East Coast, who have been suffering through relentless snow and extremely cold weather, here in California we’ve had just the opposite problem. Since the start of the rain year July 1, the state’s rainfall has been only 56% of average.
Marin County, where I live, had the third-driest January on record with just .58 inches of rain. At the Shasta Dam to the north, it was the driest ever, with just 4% of normal rainfall.
This is shaping up to be the third consecutive dry winter for the Golden State. Water levels in reservoirs and snowpack are so low that officials are predicting the worst drought in California history, and calling for cuts of 30% to 50% in water consumption, including immediate conservation measures and rationing.
High temperature records fell like dominoes across the state for weeks on end, with many locales besting the past highs by seven to 18 degrees. By all accounts, it has been a most unusual January.
As beautiful as it was, I found it a bit hard to enjoy the warm weather because I have an inkling of its implications. I was reminded of a piece I wrote at the end of another hot January two years ago (”Hot Fun in the Wintertime“) when, like this year, I was worried about the trees budding ahead of schedule and the impact it might have on fruit production.
This year, they’re even earlier. The acacia have been in full bloom for two weeks already. My plum tree has already budded and bloomed. Various insects are showing up earlier than they should, and others are not showing up soon enough to catch up with the warmer weather. It just ain’t right. Not right at all.
California vineyard owners are particularly concerned, as their vines are budding a month too early, leaving them vulnerable to frost. Vineyards normally combat frost by spraying the vines with water, but this year their water supply is too low to do that without depleting their wells, which may not get refilled later in the season. Growers with over 30 years in the field say they’ve never seen such a dismal winter rainfall. This is on top of a tough 2008, where a late spring freeze, wildly fluctuating temperatures, low rainfall and high winds conspired to cut into the harvest.
The lack of water is seriously threatening the survival of many of the state’s species of fish as well. Requirements to maintain sufficient water in streams and rivers to keep them from extinction are quickly coming up against the needs of farmers, who are concerned about having enough water to maintain their crops.
Extreme Is The New Normal
California is hardly alone in its extreme weather this winter. New York state had the 16th-coldest January on record, and cities from the Midwest to the East Coast received double their normal amounts of snow for the month.
The worst snow in 18 years brought London to a halt this week, paralyzing transportation in what was classified as an “extreme weather event” by the Met Office. Record low temperatures were recorded across Britain, marking the coldest winter in 13 years and raising the chances of 2009 being the coldest winter on record. This follows record rainfall in Britain in September, after a month’s rain fell in 24 hours, causing widespread flooding.
Meanwhile, Australia is suffering through its worst heatwave on record. Temperatures over 110 F were recorded for three days in a row. The nation has been in drought for a decade, making the worst drought on record.
Drought is the key concern in China right now as well. Last week, a drought “red alert” was issued for Henan province, the nation’s major grain producer and home to some 100 million people (that’s one-third the population of the United States). The drought is the worst since 1951, according to the provincial meteorological bureau. Droughts in northern China have reportedly affected 10 million hectares of crops, leaving livestock and millions of people with insufficient drinking water.
At this time last year, you may recall that China was groaning under record-breaking snows which later melted and became catastrophic floods.
In fact, extreme weather has become the norm worldwide, and it’s getting more extreme. Temperature and rainfall records, both high and low, are being broken year after consecutive year.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the top 11 warmest years on record have all been in the last 13 years. The past decade was the warmest on record, but the next decade is expected to be warmer still.
Don’t Call It “Global Warming”
I can hear some of you now: “So if there is global warming, why am I shivering in the snow?”
. . . . . . . “
