Some places on the planet have a way of making us humans feel kind of tiny. Much of the American West can give you this sense of things. There are places in Colorado, where I lived for many years, where one can leave a road and walk for 20 or 30 miles before crossing another road. Here in Alaska, there are places one can leave the Parks Highway and walk for hundreds of miles, and one will never cross a road, encounter a human, or even see any human-related activities unless one is lucky enough to stumble across one of the remote "bush" villages.
Even some animals make you feel a little on the small side:
Unfortunately i still cannot comprehend the size of a Moose 😲 pic.twitter.com/lEuwrsGcRX
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 25, 2024
Trust me, we have moose hanging around regularly, especially in winter, and the Alaska/Yukon strain is the largest moose and, indeed, the largest cervids (deer) on the planet. When you see a moose standing alongside the side road, and as you roll past, you realize that the animal's head is above the level of your big Ford Expedition's roof - well, that's a big critter.
So, when climate scolds lecture us, it's important to keep that perspective of size and scope, especially when they obfuscate by conflating "weather" with "climate."
A recent article in the Seattle Times, titled “From water destruction to deadly heat: Associated Press photographers capture climate change in 2024,” presents a series of photographs depicting various natural disasters and extreme weather events from 2024, attributing these occurrences to climate change. While the Associated Press (AP) imagery is compelling, it’s a false narrative because the article doesn’t distinguish between short-term weather events and long-term climate trends. Instead, the article conflates the two completely separate natural processes.
The climate isn't weather. Climatology - the study of climate - is not the same (although it is related) to meteorology, the study of weather.
From Climate at a Glance, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines climate as the “average weather conditions for a particular location and over a long period of time,” typically over 30 years. In contrast, weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions. Therefore, individual weather events, no matter how extreme, do not constitute climate change.
Extreme weather events have occurred throughout history, independent of human-induced climate change. For instance, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the Great Blizzard of 1888 were catastrophic events that predate significant industrial CO₂ emissions. Attributing modern extreme weather solely to climate change overlooks the natural variability inherent in Earth’s climate system.
Bear in mind that to the climate scolds, factual discourse isn't exactly a priority. This AP piece demonstrates that very plainly. But their prevarication aside, there remains the matter of scale. That's the problem that climate scolds never seem to address, not even when they are demanding we surrender our modern, technological lifestyle to deal with something on which we can't possibly have any long-term effect. And, as it happens, the AP's inference is, well, crap.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report, Chapter 11, concludes that changes in the frequency and intensity of most severe weather events have not been detected nor can they be attributed to human-caused climate change. Real-world data shows no significant increase in droughts, heatwaves, flooding, tropical cyclones, hurricanes, or tornadoes over the past 100 years.
In other words, AP has indulged in a little unforgivable prevarication.
See Related: CO2 Is Good for Plants. A Slight Genetic Tweak Can Make It Better.
Climate Activism Is Under Fire Across the Globe—Will the Push-Back Make a Difference?
Go outside. Touch grass (or snow, as the case may be). Consider the scale, the scope of this blue-white globe we live on. It's vast beyond our imagination, and we are and will be a small part of it. That doesn't mean we should be careless or capricious with the environment, but at present the nations of the developed world are cleaner, with cleaner air and water, than they have been since the Industrial Revolution. And the planet's climate is a vast, chaotic process that, despite the claims of the scolds, really is not that well understood.
And remember this: It's the height of human arrogance to assume we know what the planet's "correct" temperature range is in any case. This blue-white ball has been spinning around the sun for 4.5 billion years. Through the vast majority of that time, it's been warmer than it is now. Everything came out all right, despite all those sabertooth cats and gomphotheres burning up all those fossil fuels.
Don't panic. It's fine.
