Ok, so I keep getting gaslighted by people around me (USA) when I comment how crazy the weather is, and how we’ve never had it like this, and they say things like “oh, you just notice it more now because you’re older” or “the weathers always done this”
But I don’t think it’s normal for weather to be -10 degrees F with snow, and then 3 days later 75 degrees F! That seems insane to me!
Unless I’m wrong and we really have had this insane type of weather “forever”. But it doesn’t feel like it.
the Question: Am I crazy, or right, and is there proof?
Highly variable weather is nothing new. What is measurably new is the higher frequency of extreme weather events. That is the most apparent current consequence of climate change on the weather.
Things that used to happen once every generation are happening once every few years.
Which is generally outside the threshold of perception for the average lead poisoning victim.
Something that really brings that home is …
about 20 years ago my city redeveloped an old industrial waterfront area so now it’s one of the active parts of our city. All the buildings were built to handle 100 year storms
Now 20 years later there are regular floods and they’re talking about rebuilding to handle the new climate
Yeah I love being told by the auto mechanics I work with that they know more about the climate and weather than someone who has a PHD in climatology. I like to bring up how much they like it when someone comes in and tells them how to do their job - that’s exactly what they are doing. Leave the expertise to the experts, morons.
My city moved up half a USDA Plant Hardiness Zone (7B to 8A) when the latest map came out in 2023. That’s not weather, that’s climate.
You aren’t crazy, the weather is fucked. The proof is in min and max temps over the course of decades. You can also pull up precipitation/snow records over decades as well. A quick google search would find you tons of proof.
People who are climate change deniers, or just willfully ignorant, will deny there is a problem, and keep denying it until their home or workplace gets swallowed up in a climate calamity. Of those, there will be a percentage that doubles down on their bullshit even after being personally bitch slapped by the weather and becoming a statistic.
Stop engaging these people; it’s exhausting. I’m dating someone like this. We will discuss an issue, have a difference in ideology, then I will find and present data and proof that back up the things I am claiming, and my fiance will just double down on the bullshit to the point that it’s transcended to gaslighting.
Of those, there will be a percentage that doubles down on their bullshit even after being personally bitch slapped by the weather and becoming a statistic.
There were covid deniers who, while diagnosed and hospitalized with covid, literally used their last breaths to deny covid’s existence.
Yup. This guy gets it.
you must live in a conservative place where climate change denial is a part of their cultural-political identity … it’s the exact opposite where I live - strangers I chat with in a waiting room will openly and proudly state they believe in climate change in the midst of an otherwise banal discussion of the weather.
Ive never heard an IRL person say they believe in climate change, ever.
Sure, do you say you believe in gravity? Do you believe in air even when you can’t see it? Do you say so?
Human-caused climate change has long since become an accepted fact. You accept reality or are some sort of insane person
Conversations are more likely to go like “can you believe it’s so readily apparent already?”
That’s crazy.
To me, “believing” in climate change is like “believing” in oxygen. I don’t feel the need to say I believe in it. That’s fascinating
WTH do you live? We talk about it plenty where I live.
Magaland.
All you’ll hear here on a cold day is “Ha global warming amiright!!?” I’m not joking either. Or they complain the democrats are cloud seeding to change weather for immigrants.
I never knew I was surrounded by such dummies.
Does one pity the abused and deranged dog that reacts to fear with violence? Even if there is demonstrable proof that they can change and reform and get better? Even if it bites you?
Just look at the data, there are historical records going back a century in many locations around the US. Find one close to you and do some digging.
The simple answer is that crazy does happen, and has happened historically, but it’s much more common now than it used to be.
I mean everyone just points to the extremes of the 40’s and says how “humans couldn’t be the cause of it, because look how crazy the temp extremes were then!”
We need to get away from anecdotes as a way to describe this problem. There’s dozens of reasons a city can hit a record high or low. It’s like saying Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest basketball player of all time because nobody else has scored 100 points in a single game, or Bill Russell because he won the most titles. Those stats are based on key games or favorable conditions and not really an overall, day-in-day-out performance. The same goes with climate. The year you have a “100 year snow storm” could be the same year you have a record number of days above 90°.
Science isn’t about focusing on outliers, it’s about focusing on trends and what the majority of the data is telling you. Unfortunately we can’t always comprehend slow moving data points, which is why we capture data and view it as a whole.
The scary part is that it already is becoming apparent in our day to day. The problem is accelerating
Humans in general are awful at long term anything. I myself am much worse than most humans at it.
We are experiencing Climate Chaos, you are not wrong. The people around you are in denial.
Some people are much like Trump. They will contradict themselves midst their own narrative. One of my uncles literally texted that he remembered snow being around every day from early December to April - enough to play in - when he was a kid, and that nothing has changed with the weather, but then also said, so far this winter no snow that has stuck around more than a day and only a cm or so at a time. So which is it? Same as he remembered from childhood or the way it is now?
I’m in the Midwest, where we really have long had wild fluctuations in the weather day to day - think snowfall in the morning in early May followed by 60°F in the afternoon. I’m on the eastern half of Kansas, so there’s a lot of open land to the west for big weather patterns to bounce around, and not a lot of bodies of water to moderate things.
I’ve had better luck commenting on trends rather than days: “Loving all this nice weather the last few weeks!” “Yeah, but honestly, it’s kinda unnerving to have it in January…”
Welcome to the red states. You’ll be screaming internally a lot.
The food is good, though. And the sportsball team is looking good this year.
The fox news brainwash is just insane. I wish lemmings could live 1 day here and see how it really is outside their massive metropolis.
Huh, bit of a tangent, but I wonder what the plural of metropolis is? Metropolises? Metropoli?
Edit: metropolises
I thought the same while typing this!
Conservatives don’t care about facts. They have the idea that there’s a higher truth, and facts are supposed to support it, not the other way around, where facts define what’s true. So if their talking heads say “climate change isn’t real”, they think it’s the truth and any facts that get in the way are inconsequential.
