Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Rhetoric of Climate Change

Random thought for the day:

Climate change skeptics have a peculiar refrain every time the weather is unseasonably warm for the time of year. "So much for global warming!" they say. It goes without saying that this is pretty silly, since climate change is an aggregate phenomenon and any individual instance of weather doesn't make a real difference in such a vast pool of data. The problem, really, is coming up with a convincing way of communicating that in a pithy way to the skeptics. Something along the lines of an analogy: that weather is to climate as x is to y.

The only thing I can come up with at 3AM is the really boring one of: Weather is to Climate as a Trip is to Distance.

Anyone out there have better - more snappy (and perhaps more sophisticated) - ideas? Let me know! Hopefully this can lead to a better conversation than the stonewalling I've experienced in the past.

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