FWIW, my parents were rabid climate deniers, after they got cable and foolishly started watching Fox, porn for the ancient (but I digress..). Then Super Storm Sandy. Now when it is being discussed they sit silently.
Personally, it doesn't seem to me that one storm is all that persuasive, from a statistical standpoint. But we are not talking about reason here.
The interesting point here, I think is that statistical evidence aka a trend, didn't serve to convince them. I don't know their exact circumstance surrounding the storm but I would venture a guess that "great loss" was the motivating factor in this case.
Deniers get mocked for bringing up cold winters ("weather is not climate, you MORON!"), but warmists have no problem blaming every hurricane and tornado on global warming.
"Warm" = "more energetic", in every sense of the word. In my own mind, I think of global climate change in a more simplistic way: global energy change. We humans are releasing, in short order, energies that took natural processes millions of years to convert to the form that we're liberating. I can't think of any other philosophy or activity done by humankind that wantonly, aggressively and cavalierly "blows the wad" without experiencing a terrible consequence as a result of upsetting the balance.
Matter can be subject to a chemical or physical process that liberates the energies that keep it together. Temperature is one form of energy that is liberated. It's how power is generated -- we used that heat energy to, usually, make another fluid move faster, and convert that to mechanical energy by way of a turbine, and convert that mechanical energy to electricity, by way of rotating magnets inducing electrical current in a conductor. That matter that we burn/react/oxidize doesn't convert wholly to energy, though. Some of the physical waste products go into the atmosphere, changing how the air itself itself reacts to various energetic inputs, such as sunlight or radiative heat from urban centers. We literally convert matter that took millions of years to make into energies and waste matter that were not there in those quantities for those same millions of years, and the simple, basic physics of it is that the result of that conversion is waste matter and energies that serve to either directly increase heat energy (a small part of human-induced climate change) or change the energy storage properties of the largest, by mass, energy batteries around: the atmosphere and the oceans.
So, yes, when there are stronger hurricanes and more destructive tornadoes outlasting their historical durations and exceeding their historical energies, there is little else but temperature that causes that to happen. And, yes, it goes the same way for winter.
This same climate change can have a chilling effect on winters, due to the changes in the propagation of that energy-as-temperature affecting the jet stream or deep ocean currents. The atmosphere and the ocean are huge, dynamic, swirling masses of differing energies, and the weather we experience is a result of how those masses of air and water move, said motion being a product of their energies (again, temperature). Wind itself, hurricanes, storms, blizzards, tornadoes, etc. are all caused by the interaction of large masses of air at differing densities (itself one effect of temperature). The energy imparted to those air masses comes, in no small part, from the ocean.
I think if more people equated "temperature" with "energy", the layman's summaries of climate change may reach a few more skeptics. At least, the ones who want to learn.
Except that the data doesn't support what you're saying... There's no uptrend in tornados, in accumulated cyclonic energy, or in drought.
I say this as someone who doesn't really consider himself a "skeptic". The scientists who are working in the field know more than I ever will, but I do try to separate the media hype from the legitimate science that is taking place. When people say that X event was caused by climate change, I can't help but think of this data, which doesn't support those assertions.
This reminds me of Dick Cheney's stance on homosexuality.
People will deny for myriad reasons, and are able to disassociate harm caused when that harm is borne by others. But the second it effects them? The tune changes quickly.
We have deniers in our families. The reasons seem to be "I want to be salty" more than anything real.
Edit: that said, I imagine most people behind Fox News and other right-wing news sources don't actually believe the vitriol they spit on anyone who says climate change is man-made... But it's bad for business, so whip up a bunch of people into a fury and make science a political issue, because $.
Edit 2: Wow. The down-votes came fast. Is it because I said Fox News was using people?
For every Dick Cheney there are probably a thousand parents who will ostracize or disown their gay children. And probably as many who will accept their children but don't change their views on homosexuality.
I'm not sure if the left means to praise Dick Cheney for changing his mind on homosexuality, or mock him for changing his mind because he's a right winger.
Neither. It stands on its own, that the right's de facto behind-the-scenes leader doesn't get behind homosexual discrimination almost entirely because his daughter is gay. It's not praise or put-down - instead it's an example.
Parents disowning their gay children is almost entirely religious-based. The Dick Cheney example is one of pure politics, which is a prime example of where the discriminatory views from the right become equally disgusting to people on the right when they're the victims of said discrimination.
Exactly, it's all just political games to scheme money. They shill the side that brings in the most lobbyist advert cash, fame and book deals. Most of the "journalists" on cable TV newstainment are ivy school educated and know they are peddling nonsense, unlikely any of them outside the studio believe their own climate science denial.
Personally, it doesn't seem to me that one storm is all that persuasive, from a statistical standpoint. But we are not talking about reason here.