European Politics Thread

38 might be normal for Greece, but it sure as hell is not normal for Germany. This week was hell! Thankfully it has cooled down a little bit by now.

We're having an unusually cold winter here in Brazil.

I am enjoying the living hell out of it after a streak of years without a real winter and scorching summer.

When it comes down to it, Europeans aren't that used to heat waves and hot weather and it pretty much shows, specially when I get x people died in a heat wave in Germany in my news feeds.

Still, erratic and more cases of extreme weather are another set of evidences how climate change is affecting countries across the globe, despite of all the denial around it.

The weather this week was crazy...first a heat wave and then suddenly hail! For a moment I thought the hail would destroy our windows. But at least the heat wave is now over...for now.

Hah. In Atlanta, SE USA, twas 23 C ^note if that converter's reliable on Christmas^note Winter here. Yes, the same Atlanta that was snowed out a few years ago...

From earlier, can't the UK take any cues from the Velvet Divorce? What did Czechia and Slovakia work out with the probably numerous Czechs and Slovaks living on the other side of the line? (If your going to tear yourself asunder at least do it the "right" way....)

It was uncommonly hot last week in France. The temperature only dropped to more reasonable values on Thursday night.

Please refrain from using "one hot week" as proof of global warming, since deniers use the exact same thought process to equate one cold week or snow storm with "see, no global warming".

The weather: it's stochastic!

It's not "one hot week", it is weather which is really unusual for the countries in question.

Unusual weather is meteo. It's not climate. It's an isolated phenomenon.

There might have been such a hot week in 1318, centuries before humanity started screwing with environment. It should not be used as proof of global warming in any way. Statistical analyses that show those phenomenons becoming more frequent, however, could, but a single case of unusual weather is irrelevant.

edited 24th Jun '17 6:40:21 AM by Julep

Except that it isn't a single case. As was pointed out above, crazy weather can happen, but if it keeps again and again, it starts to become noteworthy.

Yes, but rambling about how hot it is is detrimental, as anti-GW idiots will just use the next cold wave to "prove" the opposite (especially as they remain common despite global warming). It's not sexy to talk about statistics, but it is important in that specific case.

Using the reasoning "I talk about unusual weather —> frequence —> global warming" is risky. Global warming is much harder to "disprove" when you rely on global trends and statistics and ignore local extreme situations.

Those idiots who use the cold wave argument are past any reasonable discussion anyway. Extreme weather is extreme weather. It doesn't matter if it is unusual hot or unusual cold, both are a sign for the climate change.

Not necessarily. That's Julep's point.

A single data point is not a trend. it's not even a data series. It's a single data point from which absolutely no conclusion can be drawn beyond 'we need more data'.

That is what an unusual weather event is — a single data point. The only conclusion that can be drawn from a single weather event (usual or unusual) is 'we need more data'.

If that one unusual weather event is a single data point within an existing data series, we're no longer dealing with a single isolated data point, we're dealing with a data series we can begin to analyse. Bear in mind, however, it's still possible that our most meaningful conclusion will be 'we need more data'.

Now, according to the Met Office, which has decades worth of data last week's weather can be added to, an exploration of a data series can indeed occur, such as the conclusion that the trend is showing increasingly warm and humid months and individual days over time for the UK.

Last week taken in isolation only tells us about last week.

edited 24th Jun '17 2:39:16 PM by Wyldchyld

Exactly because an isolated incident at a specific place isn't particularly telling it makes sense to compare notes and tell each other of strange weather incidents. That's what the internet is for, sharing information.

Sharing that information only gives more coordinates to a single point. I am very wary of conclusions drawn from the feelings of groups of people discussing together, as opposed to conclusions drawn by careful statistical analyses.

That's just a collection of anecdotes. Anecdotes can sometimes add context to statistical analysis but should never be used instead of statistical analysis.

Which nobody did. We don't need to do the statistics because the experts have already done it. There is no harm in pointing out that there are visible signs which become harder to ignore with each passing year.

This is anecdotal.

Us talking about the hot weather? This conversation has been almost entirely anecdotal.

References to organisations such as the Met Office where they've actually taken the numbers and crunched them through the existing data series' to produce statistical comparisons? That's the science.

You're right. There's no harm talking about it; the difference between anecdotes and statistically confirmed data still needs to be respected, however. For example, here, you're talking about an anecdotal conversation. There's nothing wrong with an anecdotal conversation^note weather talk is the national cup of tea of the British, for example, but we won't know if last week's weather is part of (man-made) climate change until the experts have done the statistics.

Statistical analyses have been done on past data and will be ongoing when new events occur and new data become available. Last week's weather isn't automatically evidence that fits past research. It can provide data that can be brought into statistical analyses before meaningful conclusions about last week can be drawn.

Statistical analysis does not have a 'stop' date when studying subjects that themselves don't have stop dates (ignoring finite concerns such as funding, of course). And, just because man-made climate change is a thing and statistical analysis has been done to evidence that, it doesn't change the fact that extreme weather events are not always going to be man-made climate change. Ongoing statistical analyses will show that, sometimes, an extreme weather event is just an extreme weather event.

edited 25th Jun '17 5:49:27 AM by Wyldchyld

Norwegians raise money to re-erect penis-shaped rock formation

...

Definitely better than burning churches. Not just in Norway.

edited 25th Jun '17 6:05:44 AM by TerminusEst

Someone looking for a little fertility luck, perhaps?

Europe needs it. That, and better migration policies.

That's one issue I never fully understood in the European countries, not the consequences but the reasons behind them. Could someone please explain to me because the only explanation I always had was that the more liberal a country (socially speaking) the less number of families in the long run.

edited 25th Jun '17 5:40:07 PM by raziel365

It's fairly simple...in the poorer countries people tend to get a bunch of children because the survival rates are so low, and also as some sort of security net, since you need someone to look after you when you are old. In the richer countries, people tend to stick to two or three children - if they get children at all. In the past, there was no question that you should eventually marry and have children, but nowadays a lot of people never get around to marry in the first place or divorce fairly early on, while also being very aware that raising children isn't really a one man job - it's not even a two men job. Or people are busy with their careers and are therefore missing their window of opportunity.

And sometimes people are simply unlucky....friends of my mother had exactly one child together, a son. Said son wasn't just the only grandchild in the family, it was the only grand-grand child, too, because for generations both sides of the family had a low birth rate....and then he did in a traffic accident in his mid-twenties.

All this said....the low birth rates aren't necessarily a bad thing, to a degree. Sure, our instinct sais that we need to secure our survival and broaden the gen pool, but we all know that there are too many humans on the world as it is.

edited 25th Jun '17 6:46:37 PM by Swanpride

I'm not so sure if that issue is really that problematic in the economic context of the European countries (China on the other hand...), my main concern though is the cultural aspect of not having a growing population and having to rely on inmigration to support it.

As a disclaimer, this is by no means an attack against migrants or the like, but merely an appreciation of the movement of people and the cultural shift that follows since this tends to happen in history, most notably in the medieval period with the germanic tribes (Visigoths, Franks, Saxons, etc), the Magyars and the Seljuk Turks.

edited 25th Jun '17 9:38:56 PM by raziel365