Thread by @AndrewDessler

after every severe weather event, the forces of dipshittery come up with an ad hoc excuse for why it's not CO2.

after the CA fires: "you need to rake the forests"

after Harvey: "you paved over W. Houston"

after Australia: "arson!"

there hasn't been any scientific analysis of the Australian fires yet, but I am 99% sure that when it's done it'll show that climate change made the fires more intense. this will be true regardless of whether there were more fire ignitions due to arson.

but the far more likely conclusion is that "arson" is just an excuse that was developed so that committed ideologues can scream in twitter messages.

to get the clearest picture, it's best to look at all of the extreme weather events together rather than look at each one individually.

the combination of these events is reshaping the planet we live on.

for context, the last ice age was about 5 deg C (10 deg F) colder than today. and that looked like a completely different planet, with ice sheets covering much of N. American and sea level 300 feet lower. flora and fauna were completely different.

so if we warm the planet by 5-10 def F over this century, we can expect the planet to look completely different from today, with each region having different assemblages of plants and animals than in our world.

you can view the Australia & CA fires, severe floods, etc. as the way the planet is being re-made right before our eyes for the warmer climate we seem committed to experience.

ecosystems are being changed/wiped out as the planet adjusts, species are going extinct, ...

postscript: "Forces of Dipshittery™" is my new band name. (h/t @DavidSchechter)