
The North Pole is an insane 20C warmer than normal as winter descends - Daishiman
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/the-north-pole-is-an-insane-20c-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends-20161117-gss3bg.html
======
wallace_f
While I'm certainly no denier of the scientific part of the global warming
phenomenon, I tend to have healthy scepticism of these headlines which seem to
solicit an alarmist reaction. Short-term weather can have high volatility and
deviance from the norm, and that's nothing new.

~~~
anigbrowl
We are aware of the difference between weather and climate. Most of us are
also aware that these significantly elevated temperatures have persisted for a
while now rather than being outlying data points, and are heartily sick of
attempts to derail the debate with facile arguments like the one advanced
here.

Of course, that might not be your motivation in posting it, but since you saw
fit to speculate about the motivation behind the headline I feel equally free
to speculate about the motivations behind your 'skepticism.'

~~~
wallace_f
The title is:

>The North Pole is an insane 20C warmer than normal

To be fair, in that context it is really not facile to point out the
difference b/w weather and climate. If anything the title is facile. It says
nothing of this difference, yet exclaims, "insane."

While you speculate about me derailing "the debate," (what exactly is "the
debate?" Is there only one? regarding the science, the politics, what am I
exactly derailing?) You're not clear about how I would be trying to derail the
debate. I did assert the scientific consensus regarding global warming in my
first sentence, so I don't know what you're getting at.

My point is that the alarmism around global warming is what's up for debate: I
think we have all met people who think the world is soon coming to an end.
Yet, despite the hysteria, we aren't doing enough in our public policy to
combat global warming. Have you seen two irrational minds discuss global
warming: one convinced the world is coming to an end ("go travel now before
all the world's coastal cities are underwater in 5 years") fighting against
the other "that's just lieberals making stuff up." It's not longer about the
science, that case has been closed, it's about the politics, and how is it
constructive for either side to radicalize their followers?

