<story><title>‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the US heatwave</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/18/us-heatwave-west-climate-crisis-drought</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rossdavidh</author><text>So, I believe in anthropogenic climate change, and I don&amp;#x27;t doubt that there are areas (California) seeing droughts the likes of which have not been seen in a long time, but...they are throwing a lot of things together here.  In central Texas, where I live, the reservoirs are near to full, because we had a lot of rain in May.  The problem is a higher than normal abundance of mosquitoes, and the foliage is all growing out of control because they have the water to do so.&lt;p&gt;We are definitely having issues with power, but that&amp;#x27;s mostly due to increased population (and other issues related to changing power sources), not from excess heat.  Temperatures in central Texas are in the mid 90&amp;#x27;s, which is not unusual for Texas.  There&amp;#x27;s problems, sure, but not really related to climate change.&lt;p&gt;When scientists try to link anything that is going wrong currently to anthropogenic climate change, they don&amp;#x27;t convince more people.  If anything, they create more skeptics, because people can tell that they&amp;#x27;re not getting an objective read on the situation.  There are probably scientists who are willing to provide a nuanced, balanced read on things, who would probably say that drought and wildfires in California might be related to climate change, but power shortages in Texas are not.  They are not the sort of scientists who get their pictures in The Guardian.</text></comment>
<story><title>‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the US heatwave</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/18/us-heatwave-west-climate-crisis-drought</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Flatcircle</author><text>Overly dramatic articles like this do a disservice to helping convince people to be more proactive about climate change.&lt;p&gt;There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years and the temperature proxies used, like ice cores, or tree rings, haven’t been consistently reliable.&lt;p&gt;The truth is, no one knows what the annual temps of major cities were before about 1870.&lt;p&gt;Real scientists lack the hubris to be sure of basic truths like whether dinosaurs were warm blooded or cold blooded, how general anesthesia works, how great whites mate, or even why we sleep, much less the exact ebbs and flows of 350,000 daily temperatures.&lt;p&gt;So for these scientists to say they have an understanding of what the previous thousand years temps were before that, turns the science into faith and adds fuel to those who argue climate science is more religion than science.&lt;p&gt;Focusing on the last 50 years is more than enough quality data to definitively prove the world is getting hotter, start there. Then provide a list of 3 basic things people can do to help lower temps themselves.&lt;p&gt;ie,
Campaign for nuclear power.
Eat less meat,
Adjust your thermostat,
Change your tires,
Buy an electric car,
Buy better bulbs,
Plant trees with friends.</text></comment>