Comments

1

Gee. Fucking NO THANKS, MEIN TRUMPFY ADMINISTRATION! Climate deniers can roast in hell.

2

@1 To be fair, I'm pretty sure some of the factors contributing to wildfires might have developed prior to January 20, 2017.

3

faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/Swetnam%20using%20the%20past.pdf

Science! It will support any argument you're invested in, all you have to do is find the angle.

4

@2 Yeah, well, "to be fair," you can't argue that the current disastrous administration hasn't bothered to stop the gluttonous fossil fuel industry-caused death and senseless destruction of the Earth. Instead, they're out to promote it at the expense of this planet and the rest of us.

5

@3 no, you can use whatever citation you Googled but failed to critically read even once out of context to support any claim. Science does change, but it isn't just whatever you want it to be. Sadly, it
sometimes seems that only trained scientists know this.

We can argue about who to blame for that, but when you propogate lies with misdirection and rhetorical slight of hand, some of that blame is per force on you. Just stop. Your link does not imply what you think it implies, and your argument is that confusion and fear are better than progress, which laid bare is something any four year old can see through.

It's absolutely true that Trump did not start global warming. People like Trump have existed since the dawn of time, and perhaps more importantly, those like the Koch brothers who have trouble seeing beyond their own benefit have existed longer than humans. That said, I can't think of a Trump, Jackson, or Henry VIII that we didn't ultimately regret giving power to. Arguments about who started it have no relevance to stopping bad people from doing evil, and there is no honest moral philosophy that can justify the reign of Trump, except that all too common refrain, 'I got mine'.

6

@5

I've also heard that scientists know when they don't know things. But how could they know that?

Science is always real and solid and settled and says only one thing, it is never in a state where lots of different scientifically sound research suggests different conclusions. Right? There are no debates in Science, no conflicting theories or viewpoints.

There is nearly universal scientific consensus on the existence of global warming, and on its human origin. The evidence is overwhelming.

There is no such consensus in the scientific literature on the cause of recent (since ~1960) increases in wildfire extent and frequency, nor on the slightly less recent (~1900-1950) decrease in wildfire extent and frequency, of at least equal magnitude.

Changes in forest management and decadal (plus ENSO) oscillations are offered (and debated) as explanations for both changes. Global warming is offered as an explanation for one, but not the other. The end of the steam locomotive era is offered as an explanation for one, but not the other. Expansion of human settlements is offered as an explanation for one, but not the other. Many of these and more can be and are combined in different ways by scientists with different current, working hypotheses.

But you, you have made up your mind. You know which parts of the published, peer-reviewed literature are Science and which parts are Fake Science that can be dismissed with the wave of a hand. You have a story, and you are sticking to it.

You don't really need the science at all, do you?


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