Comment by OrvalWintermute | Hacker News Reader

Comment by OrvalWintermute | Hacker News Reader

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OrvalWintermute

Before there was Climate Change, there was Global Warming.

Why was there a name change, a rebranding if you will? In some cases, there is conflation, but they mean very different things.

When it comes to Climate, scientists say that climate is in 30 year intervals. Day to day that is just weather.

> The problem is the ruling class

I would be much more inclined to believe that there was an actual problem if the ruling class was not gallivanting around on private jets to nonstop events to preach to us plebes about the evils of our fairly tame lifestyles in comparison.

Strangely, COVID has been great for driving down wanton energy use

> that would endanger their investments, and rapid change away from fossil fuels and other climate-change causing investments is a danger to their interests.

That sounds like one of the prevailing narratives in the media.

However, I think the truth may be complex than that. After all, it is Exxon that did invent the ubiquitous Lithium-ion battery.

https://energyfactor.exxonmobil.com/energy-innovation/rd/the...

If we are going to replace our oil-based economy I have little doubt that the innovation behind it will come from either Academia or BigEnergy, and market reasons will drive this change.

I don't understand how you can be this cocksure about being absolutely wrong when the first hit on google for "global warming vs climate change" leads to this page:

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-difference-between-global-war...

The term "global warming" doesn't capture everything involved in the climate change that is caused by global warming. This was already known as a myth almost a decade ago:

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming-b...

You should not repeat "talking points" without at least trying at least a little bit to verify them. Please.

> I don't understand how you can be this cocksure

Please don't respond in a hostile manner.

Responding to a discussion of climate with weather measurements is a non sequitur.

Our understanding of climate systems is actually in its infancy. We don't have the observing systems, at fine grained enough resolution, the accurate models, to actually understand what is going on, because in many cases, observations do not match models, or have huge gaps around inputs.

> You should not repeat "talking points"

The ironic thing about that website you linked is how far it is from the truth of what scientists in the know actually are talking about. We internally talk about the woeful accuracy of our models. "We were only off by 1.8 this year". We talk about the importance of correct siting for in situ measurements, and coming up with better fixes to build a reference system. This is also why our observing systems have changed since the 90s, and why there is an effort to ensure incorrect systems like ASOS do not enter the record, and things like HCN are improved.

What were you saying about talking points?

It's weird that you bring up responding with a non sequitur when that's exactly what you've just done:

- You alleged some vague conspiracy about renaming global warming to climate change ("a name change, a rebranding if you will")

- I responded with two links that clarify that there was never any such name change.

- You ignored that and started talking about how you think the models are wrong.

So do you agree that there was never a name changing or rebranding?

Please refrain from an aggressive style of argumentation.

Climate is not weather, and weather is not climate.

I never said there was a sneaky conspiracy. There was definitely a name change, and my organization at the time (one of the leading data producers for what is happening) changed all of our naming at the same time this occured, in both the media, and other places.

Our models are wrong. Deeply flawed. We know this. Just like our HCN siting has been deeply wrong too (the data that is the premise for it occuring). We know that in certain cases ASOS data was incorrectly used in the climate record, and also, in the weather record. That is completely inappropriate use of a data set that was never intended for generalized observations.

The process of fixing these things, and making changes to improve them, and iterate upon them - we call that science.

This is why the legacy HCN now has been updated by the release of the reference network.

> There was definitely a name change

If you read the second link I posted above, you will see that there was no name change. You have not provided any evidence or links to the contrary.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/4141....

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/14/the-conversation-ther...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a30524/renaming-g...

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obamas-science-adviser-...

https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/a-rebranding-for-...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-...

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-people-start-using-the-term-cl...

https://www.euronews.com/green/2019/05/20/guardian-style-gui...

https://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/global-warming-re...

The crucial aspect you're missing is from the latter half of the skepticalscience.com link I posted above. Here is the particular graph that shows usage of "global warming" vs "climate change":

https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/climate-change-v-gl...

Both terms were in common usage, with "climate change" existing before "global warming". It's not "rebranding" to realize that of the various terms in common usage, one of them is more accurate. "climate change" started rising relatively in popularity around 1994 after being roughly equal to "global warming", a decade before Watts' conspiracy theories.

> https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/4141.... > https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/14/the-conversation-ther...

Anthony Watts dances around understanding here, and writes "It is an unequivocal fact that the terms “climate change” and “global warming” have both been in use for a long time." So he agrees with the link I posted above. The PDF doesn't disagree, much as he'd like it to. Saying "climate change might be a better labelling than global warming" isn't saying "therefore we should rebrand it". It's agreeing that "climate change" is better than "global warming", but then detailing why "climate change" doesn't even capture everything going on.

> https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a30524/renaming-g...

That's honestly just a bad title. The article can be summed up however by the last sentence: "Rebranding a complex issue that most people think has already been rebranded ...". In other words, it disagrees with you: there was no rebranding from "global warming" to "climate change".

> https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obamas-science-adviser-... > https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/a-rebranding-for-... > https://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/global-warming-re...

Holdren is saying why "global warming" isn't a great term. He's not arguing for a rebranding, he's pointing out why it stopped being as popular of a term 15 years prior to his speech. He does argue for rebranding to "global climate disruption", but that's irrelevant to your claim about "global warming" vs "climate change".

> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-... > https://www.euronews.com/green/2019/05/20/guardian-style-gui...

This is a rebranding, from "climate change" to "climate crisis". We can argue about whether it's a good change, but it's irrelevant to your claim about "global warming" vs "climate change".

> https://www.quora.com/Why-did-people-start-using-the-term-cl...

Almost all of the answers there point out that it's a myth, agreeing with the skepticalscience.com link I posted above. The few answers that try to push that myth are diatribes that don't cite any supporting evidence.

Am not missing anything, am well aware of when terms moved from lingua franca for insiders that work in the industry, to common vernacular for the general public. Those are two completely different things.

Of course, Watts is talking as an insider. He is not Everyman Joe listening to broadcast news. He has been exposed to all the terms.

The public branding has changed, and also, so has it too for the industry that is the key data producers. The producers of the data have moved terms also. And, I think that is interesting.

Just because you say something is a myth, and a partisan fact checker say it is, does not make it so.

If something gets posted to Quora, or another question site, it is likely that something is an open question. I am not the only one to ask this.

Good science is about asking questions, hypotheses, predictions, falsification, data gathering, theory development, observations, and iteration repeatedly. Data crunching comes in particularly handy for this. Data is not inherently partisan, nor is asking tough questions. That is science as a process.

I noticed you are not responding to any of the comments I have made regarding the actual observing systems (HCN, ASOS, etc). So, to bring up things likes discrepancies between things like HCN data and remote observing system data would be overkill.

I think you want to have a political/ideological debate and I am not on HN to do that.

I'm not responding to anything other than the rebranding myth, because that's what I originally responded about. Going beyond that scope would involve walls of text that HN is ill-suited for, as evidenced by the amount of text already written for a narrowly-scoped topic.

I'm here because I saw a comment repeating a falsehood, and wanted to call it out. I dislike seeing blatantly wrong things such as this:

https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/201...

Please, take your manichean battles around political extremes elsewhere.

HN is not the place for ideologies.

> "I'm not being political, you're being political!"

Your original comment had factually incorrect information, as demonstrated. Please don't try and hide that behind name calling or distractions.

The original commment I made was:

> Before there was Climate Change, there was Global Warming.

> Why was there a name change, a rebranding if you will? In some cases, there is conflation, but they mean very different things.

> When it comes to Climate, scientists say that climate is in 30 year intervals. Day to day that is just weather.

So, stay on topic.

I'm not sure what you mean? This is the entire and only topic that I have talked about, straight from your original comment:

> Before there was Climate Change, there was Global Warming.

> Why was there a name change, a rebranding if you will?

That quote contains factually incorrect information, as discussed above.

The market won't be able to adapt fast enough, I think.

I don't think all prevailing narratives in the media are false. The idea that most of our industry benefits from climate change being considered an "externality" is true. Anyone who benefits from this unpriced "externality" has full interest in keeping it that way. And that's probably 90% of economic activity.

I have little doubt that the innovation will come from industry, but the issue is that as long as we consider all of this an externality the market has no forcing function to change.

On the Davos crowd who goes around talking about climate change while jetting around, that is a PR effort that's to be expected. In the end it doesn't matter. Since it's an economic externality to heat up the planet, we all benefit and get destroyed by it at the same time. A billionaire can be making great talks about climate change but it is impossible for him to achieve net-zero when so much of our economic activity relies on pricing climate change at 0$. The exception to this is literally 1 billionaire, who's invested humongous amounts of net worth into Tesla.

Either way, there is 0 ways for the market to solve climate change when it is obvious that climate change is not priced into economic activity at all.

> The idea that most of our industry benefits from climate change being considered an "externality" is true. Anyone who benefits from this unpriced "externality" has full interest in keeping it that way. And that's probably 90% of economic activity.

I do think there are benefits to change that include many things that are already in development, or working now, such as better use of CO2, rather than merely emitting.

Given how much of green energy is completely dependent on fossil fuels for initial bootstrapping, I don't see the status quo changing for many years. However, once an alternative energy source whether biofuel algae, or others, or a combination start to grow their benefits over present day pricing, I am certain we will transition. Not from pricing in externalities, but because of obsoleting and profits. Who'd care to dig up oil for 30% profits when you can generate an efficient biofuel for 75% profits? Not saying it will be anything of the sort, just providing an example.

> Either way, there is 0 ways for the market to solve climate change when it is obvious that climate change is not priced into economic activity at all.

Given the rise of ESG investing, and how it is now dominating portfolios as many funds altogether refuse to touch dirty energy/ Big Energy, there is already pricing power built in. Because Wall Street values ESG, therefore there is a "valuation tax" being applied to Big Energy. This outside of pure ESG funds too.

Even Exxon just got a more activist board thanks to a tiny fund.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/little-engine-no.-1-beat-exx...

This is tiny steps. I agree there is some evidence of movement in the right direction, but I can't agree that ESG puts a price on carbon - I don't know how much of an impact it has, but it's doubtful that it has the impact a carbon tax would.

Everything that you're saying is true but they are incremental changes. I would put a bet that within 10-20 years massive market regulation + carbon tax will be forced onto industries across the world - that will be because climate change will be such a huge multiplier of horrific things we'll be forced to. But by then it's likely too late for 1/2 of the world's population to escape unharmed.

In fact I increasingly suspect that climate change is already causing horrific events around the world that we are ignoring because we are in the first world. It would be interesting to go around agricultural areas in the hottest areas of the world and see if food insecurity is increasing. I would bet that we're already seeing huge changes, but because we're insulated from it, we're ignoring it.

Basically we're looking at the same facts, but I think you are a huge optimist.

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