17c/62f is on the low side of comfortable though
Remember that since this is a planet-wide average, it includes places like the North Pole and Antarctica. Or just look at the graphs — it’s a pretty visual demonstration of how extremely abnormal recent temperature changes are.
yes the graphics are very shocking, to be sure - why is it only limited to 44 years though? do records not extend back further than that? I seem to remember reading somewhere that there’s climate records from as early as the 1880s but maybe that was in England only.
though, even 44 years, while easily half of a human’s lifetime, it’s just a tiny blip on a geologic time scale.
Air temperature graph starts from 1940, that’s 83 years. Enough to gauge trends, since industrialization and copious CO2 emissions in particular are a pretty new thing.
But here’s some data starting from the year 0, in case you’re interested.
ah, some actual data, thanks! still, it looks like an average variance of 1 degree celsius over 2000+ years.
let’s be honest though - nothing is going to change in the next ~50 years or so, not enough to stop the slight raise in temperature. no one is willing to go back to living like medieval peasants prior to the industrial revolution. no one politician is going to enact any laws that will return society to that state. no coalition or governmental body is going to do it either. not in America, not in China, not in India, not in Europe.
we would need most of northern africa and all of central australia covered by solar panels, wind turbines everywhere, and probably actual fusion reactors generating power in order to markably decrease global temperatures.
Let’s be honest though, actually solving this problem is pretty much unachievable given the lack of motivation and interest on the part of the populace, so why bother taking any action to mitigate the problem at all?
I’m really only interested in punchy 3 word concepts like “stop abortion now” or “fix gay people”.
The whole idea of investing some effort now so that the world is better off to some unknown extent later is pretty much Socialism. We won the cold war.
The populace isn’t who creates most of the greenhouse gasses. Try again.
This is the second time in a week someone has used “tumble” to mean “occur rapidly” instead of “fall”. Is this a new colloquialism or had"tumble" always had a second definition as “occur rapidly”?
If a condition is worsening (a “fall”) “tumble” applies just fine. Indeed, “tumble” is just a way to say “falling rapidly” in this context.
The reason “tumble” (and its notion of “fall”) is applicable is because the situation is worsening. If it was rapidly improving, nobody would say “tumble”; it’s not simply that it is occurring rapidly.
Taking a tumble referring to something that is worsening is another common definition that I’ve read countless times in reference to something problematically decreasing, I’ve never heard or read “tumble” used until very recently to describe a situation in which something is rising. Have you?
“falling rapidly” would make perfect sense in many other situations. “Food storage tumbles, democracy tumbles, winter temperatures tumble”, etc. But nothing is falling, all of the temperature records are rising.
Summer temperatures are so high they tumble?
This is a genuine grammatical question. I’m not trying to detract from your answer or the article itself.
I’m just very confused by this usage of the word “tumble” that I’ve seen at least twice now to refer to rising temperatures.
But nothing is falling, all of the temperature records are rising.
I see what you’re saying. I had taken the use to mean the situation is tumbling, not the temperatures. But upon a closer reading (of the title specifically) it seems a more reasonable interpretation of the word tumble is:
Climate records tumble,
The object of the verb ‘tumble’ is “climate records”. That is, the climate records are tumbling. A tumbling record is one which has fallen over and been surpassed. So what they’re saying by using the word “tumble” is: previous climate records have fallen over and been surpassed.
I do agree it’s a weird word choice, but I don’t think it’s wrong or even playing on a potential uncommon secondary definition. It’s not saying temperatures have tumbled, but rather records have tumbled.
