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Post by marchesarosa on Sept 22, 2010 9:46:03 GMT 1
I was thinking of my changing perception of the weather over the years.
As a child I spent quite a long time every day waiting at bus stops, winter and summer alike. I used to get cold standing at bus stops. Our house had no central heating when I was very small. Before mum lit the fire in the morning the house was cold.
Today I have central heating which I can turn on whenever I like, as I did yesterday because it was perishing cold in Leeds on 15th Sept with strong wind rain perhaps not unconnected with the two hurricanes currently building in theAtlantic.
I no longer stand at bus stops in the winter, I drive around in a nice warm car.
Could these simple changes in standard of living trick us into thinking the climate is warming because, actually the tenths of a degree average variation that are purportedly measured are quite imperceptible to us?
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 7, 2010 15:04:13 GMT 1
Here's someone who has had similar thoughts:
Craig Loehle | October 6, 2010 at 10:52 am on Judith Curry's blog topic "What constitutes "dangerous" climate change.
"As people have become more urban and outdoors less, and with better car heaters and air conditioners, I think they have come to believe weather is more stable and benign, because they never suffer from it. In the old days farmers all knew that periodically their crops would be wiped out and even cows get frozen to death. This goes along with a general increasing risk aversion of wealthy citizens to risks like playgrounds and germs and “contamination” in food. Thus what is now considered "dangerous" has shifted to almost the standard of the phobic individual."
It's not in the least surprising, really, that climophobia (aka climate of fear of climate) is a condition of the Worried Well of the West. The rest of the world has more important things to worry about like infant mortality, dirty drinking water, inadequate health care, poverty - thank goodness! These REAL concerns are what will ultimately save the world from fantasy-climate scares.
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