Ok, so I keep getting gaslighted by people around me (USA) when I comment how crazy the weather is, and how we’ve never had it like this, and they say things like “oh, you just notice it more now because you’re older” or “the weathers always done this”
But I don’t think it’s normal for weather to be -10 degrees F with snow, and then 3 days later 75 degrees F! That seems insane to me!
Unless I’m wrong and we really have had this insane type of weather “forever”. But it doesn’t feel like it.
the Question: Am I crazy, or right, and is there proof?
Highly variable weather is nothing new. What is measurably new is the higher frequency of extreme weather events. That is the most apparent current consequence of climate change on the weather.
Things that used to happen once every generation are happening once every few years.
Which is generally outside the threshold of perception for the average lead poisoning victim.
Something that really brings that home is …
about 20 years ago my city redeveloped an old industrial waterfront area so now it’s one of the active parts of our city. All the buildings were built to handle 100 year storms
Now 20 years later there are regular floods and they’re talking about rebuilding to handle the new climate
Conservatives don’t care about facts. They have the idea that there’s a higher truth, and facts are supposed to support it, not the other way around, where facts define what’s true. So if their talking heads say “climate change isn’t real”, they think it’s the truth and any facts that get in the way are inconsequential.
Phoenix is forecast to hit 100° on Wednesday, 3/18. This is a full week earlier than the current record for earliest 100° day (3/26/1988). Average is May 2nd.
Climate is fucked, yo.
But I don’t think it’s normal for weather to be -10 degrees F with snow, and then 3 days later 75 degrees F! That seems insane to me!
The climate is going crazy, but strictly speaking, you can’t logically conclude that from solely your local weather fluctuations. I.e., climate change is a global property of our planet, which requires global statistics…which we have, but your folks either refuse to look or refuse to listen to experts who have looked.
And extreme weather events are more likely, but that doesn’t mean they never occurred before or never would occur without climate change.
I’m not saying this to downplay the severity of the climate crisis or even to say that you literally can never use local weather events to reason about climate change, but IMO is it both politically and mathematically important to stress the global nature of climate change whenever it is brought up.
you can’t logically conclude that from solely your local weather fluctuations.
From a pure scientific method standpoint 100%
But changes local weather can easily be corroborated by satelite data of the polar vortex.
Like we can see that wind from the north pole is dipping south faster than it used to. Resulting in cold snaps as the wind rushes south and heat domes in regions between the jetstreams.
This directly results in the increasingly frequent and extreme weather fluctuations we’ve been been experiencing.
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In my region we regularly have a “false spring” this time of year. We get a week of warm that melts the snow in the valley and then a week later it drops back down and snows again.
But lately the hi’s and low’s are 10c hotter/colder. The heat in between is so warm trees start coming out of hybernation. The cold snaps so fast that it threatens local agriculture.
We just got a foot of wet snow and tomorrow it’s supposed to br 15c and sunny.
…
Couple years ago we were stuck in the heat dome and you could see the polar vortex swooping 100km below us and to either side on the weather channel.
I mean plants that have grown here forever, literally evolved here, are dying because they can’t handle the tempertures. That doesn’t alarm anyone?
Yep, I got ya!
My city moved up half a USDA Plant Hardiness Zone (7B to 8A) when the latest map came out in 2023. That’s not weather, that’s climate.
Some people are much like Trump. They will contradict themselves midst their own narrative. One of my uncles literally texted that he remembered snow being around every day from early December to April - enough to play in - when he was a kid, and that nothing has changed with the weather, but then also said, so far this winter no snow that has stuck around more than a day and only a cm or so at a time. So which is it? Same as he remembered from childhood or the way it is now?
Yeah I love being told by the auto mechanics I work with that they know more about the climate and weather than someone who has a PHD in climatology. I like to bring up how much they like it when someone comes in and tells them how to do their job - that’s exactly what they are doing. Leave the expertise to the experts, morons.
One in ten year events have turned into one in two year events.
It’s definitely worse and swings more wildly than it did when I was a kid in the 80’s. Plus the seasons are shifting, everything seems to start at different times than it used to. But you don’t have to notice it, it’s scientific fact that it’s happening and you can find endless amounts of research that prove it.
100% season shift. Now we dont get snow in November December, we get it in march April.
You aren’t crazy, the weather is fucked. The proof is in min and max temps over the course of decades. You can also pull up precipitation/snow records over decades as well. A quick google search would find you tons of proof.
People who are climate change deniers, or just willfully ignorant, will deny there is a problem, and keep denying it until their home or workplace gets swallowed up in a climate calamity. Of those, there will be a percentage that doubles down on their bullshit even after being personally bitch slapped by the weather and becoming a statistic.
Stop engaging these people; it’s exhausting. I’m dating someone like this. We will discuss an issue, have a difference in ideology, then I will find and present data and proof that back up the things I am claiming, and my fiance will just double down on the bullshit to the point that it’s transcended to gaslighting.
|Stop engaging these people
You’re literally engaged to one? How??
I stuck my strap on in crazy. She hid how dumb she was until she made fun of me for reading and researching things. When I explained why knowing about shit was important she shared her uninformed opinions. Then I spent time trying to educate… That’s when I realized she has no interest in doing better. I’m prepping for the break up. I am grey rocking hard.
Grey rocking to end a relationship? Why not just end it? That sounds like you’re taking a huge risk and potentially wasting a lot of both of your time. You’d probably be better off just packing up and leaving in the middle of the night and maybe leaving a note. Rip that shit off like a bandaid, assuming you have made your choice. Life is far too short for shenanigans, trust me.
Also, she’s currently living at my place, where I pay all the bills. I’m in the middle of trying to make the case for couples therapy.
I’ve also encouraged her to go to therapy for herself and she has so many excuses for why she can’t.
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“It’s too expensive.” I’ve personally shown her how to use her own insurance, and find in-network providers to minimize cost. I also pay all bills, (rent, utilities, food.) She pays her own car note, her own car insurance, and $250 lot rent for a modular home she co-owns with her mother. Rent at the place we live is $1304. We make the same hourly wage; I spend more $ towards our expenses. She can afford her copayments.
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“I don’t have enough time.” Her schedule is 7 days on, 7 days off. She has time.
I’m still in that head space where I am trying to get us help and work things out. If she isn’t prepared to listen to my feelings and keeps trying to gaslight me, ripping the band-aid off will be the sad conclusion.
So it sounds like you haven’t entirely decided to do it, but have a plan of action, with some contingencies. Being the one in power/higher responsibility role is often worse/harder, because you have the guilt threatening you in return. “Do I cut off this poor, helpless puppy?”
Have you thought about or sought therapy? I’m unfamiliar with a lot of Canada’s stuffs, but even an hour a week session with a good or even just decent therapist can help keep your head on straight, especially when you’re in an abusive relationship.
I urge you to try to make a character judgement though. Or even just a character test. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her? Companionship is REALLY nice, but so is being able to sleep completely spread eagle, or without without somebody snoring in your ear… Or not have your main partner in crime be willfully ignorant and abusive to you. I’m sorrynotsorry, but that’s horseshit.
I’m in the USA. I have amazing insurance that costs me ~ $80 USD a month, and has no deductibles.
I am bipolar. I spent 2 decades in therapy on and off, misdiagnosed, and on the incorrect meds.
(Even with my misdiagnosis, I was still making regular appointments with my primary to try and manage my medication.) It’s only within the past 3 years that I have had this amazing insurance, so I’ve only just recently, within the past 2 years, been able to find a psychiatrist, instead of trying to cobble together mental health care via a social worker/psychologist and my primary doctor. I meet with my psychiatrist and have 30 minute sessions as frequently as 2x a month, or as infrequently 1x every 8 weeks. If I’m feeling off or having uncontrolled mood swings, the first thing I am doing is calling my psychiatrist. My fiance has come up in sessions for the past 4 months.
My fiance has diagnosed anxiety disorder, AND refuses to take the medication that manages it. (The theme here is that she doesn’t seem to be interested in managing her mental health.)
I’m 10 years older than my fiance. From the beginning I was concerned about a power dynamic and leaning towards not getting into a relationship with her. From the beginning I insisted that she continue to pay her lot rent and maintain her financial obligations with respect to her own house. She moved in with me, I am the only person that signed the lease where we live, so I take full responsibility for finances where we are living now. We agreed that if things go south she would go back to her place she co-owns with her mom.
I know that she doesn’t want to share a space with her mom. (In her defense, I wouldn’t want to live with her mother either.)
I agree with you. You aren’t wrong. There is a piece of me that thinks, if she isn’t willing to get help, or try to learn and grow, I don’t want to do this. I haven’t fallen out of love with her, but without addressing what is going on in a meaningful way, that will be the outcome. That’s when the band-aid will get ripped.
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Not grey rocking the relationship. I grey rock her attempts to gaslight me. I should have explained better. The first time she gaslit me, it ended with me losing my cool and screaming, and accusing her of gaslighting me. That’s what a gaslighter wants; they want to make you look crazy and for you to doubt reality around you. Once she starts to gaslight, I disengage. It’s like trying to play chess with a pigeon, they just knock the pieces around, shit on the board, and claim to have won.
Gotcha, sorry to hear that, hopefully it all goes as well as it can and you can escape the crazy.
Of those, there will be a percentage that doubles down on their bullshit even after being personally bitch slapped by the weather and becoming a statistic.
There were covid deniers who, while diagnosed and hospitalized with covid, literally used their last breaths to deny covid’s existence.
Yup. This guy gets it.
you must live in a conservative place where climate change denial is a part of their cultural-political identity … it’s the exact opposite where I live - strangers I chat with in a waiting room will openly and proudly state they believe in climate change in the midst of an otherwise banal discussion of the weather.
Ive never heard an IRL person say they believe in climate change, ever.
Sure, do you say you believe in gravity? Do you believe in air even when you can’t see it? Do you say so?
Human-caused climate change has long since become an accepted fact. You accept reality or are some sort of insane person
Conversations are more likely to go like “can you believe it’s so readily apparent already?”
That’s crazy.
To me, “believing” in climate change is like “believing” in oxygen. I don’t feel the need to say I believe in it. That’s fascinating
WTH do you live? We talk about it plenty where I live.
Magaland.
All you’ll hear here on a cold day is “Ha global warming amiright!!?” I’m not joking either. Or they complain the democrats are cloud seeding to change weather for immigrants.
I never knew I was surrounded by such dummies.
Does one pity the abused and deranged dog that reacts to fear with violence? Even if there is demonstrable proof that they can change and reform and get better? Even if it bites you?
Over here there’s plenty who believe in climate change, but they think it’s neat that we now have the climate in the Netherlands that Paris used to have in the eighties. There’s also plenty who insist that the climate has always changed while ignoring that we see changes occuring thousands of times faster than before. And there’s a group who’ll say sure, but it’s not something we can change, so no use trying.
Welcome to the red states. You’ll be screaming internally a lot.
The food is good, though. And the sportsball team is looking good this year.
The fox news brainwash is just insane. I wish lemmings could live 1 day here and see how it really is outside their massive metropolis.
Huh, bit of a tangent, but I wonder what the plural of metropolis is? Metropolises? Metropoli?
Edit: metropolises
I thought the same while typing this!
Just look at the data, there are historical records going back a century in many locations around the US. Find one close to you and do some digging.
The simple answer is that crazy does happen, and has happened historically, but it’s much more common now than it used to be.
I mean everyone just points to the extremes of the 40’s and says how “humans couldn’t be the cause of it, because look how crazy the temp extremes were then!”
We need to get away from anecdotes as a way to describe this problem. There’s dozens of reasons a city can hit a record high or low. It’s like saying Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest basketball player of all time because nobody else has scored 100 points in a single game, or Bill Russell because he won the most titles. Those stats are based on key games or favorable conditions and not really an overall, day-in-day-out performance. The same goes with climate. The year you have a “100 year snow storm” could be the same year you have a record number of days above 90°.
Science isn’t about focusing on outliers, it’s about focusing on trends and what the majority of the data is telling you. Unfortunately we can’t always comprehend slow moving data points, which is why we capture data and view it as a whole.
The scary part is that it already is becoming apparent in our day to day. The problem is accelerating
Humans in general are awful at long term anything. I myself am much worse than most humans at it.
I feel like weather is vibes based. All I know is how today is relative to earlier that day.
We are experiencing Climate Chaos, you are not wrong. The people around you are in denial.
