Showerthought: is alarmism worth discredit?

We've been hearing about global warming and climate change and the need to do something NOW for decades. I'm not saying there is no climate change, and I'm not saying there is no mad-made global warming. But I am saying other than the inevitable storm and wildfire (which would happen regardless), there are no obvious (to the layperson) changes. No cities underwater, the icecaps are still there, and we appear to be fine for the moment. (And I can't help but keep noticing the lack of references to nuclear energy in these alarmist articles. Littering the land with wind farms is not going to replace all the coal power plants. If you're serious about reducing carbon emissions, nuclear is a necessary and large part of that conversation).

Wouldn't you think after decades of alarmist language and moving the goal posts, the general public would at least be skeptical, and the alarmists would change their strategy, or at least their tone?

But they keep using alarmist language. We may no longer hear about cities being underwater in... [rolls dice] eight years, but we are hearing about an increase in the severity of storms and a slight temperature increase (how does one reliably measure the severity of a storm, and scientifically compare it to the severity of previous storms? And as this is a major claim, shouldn't it be measured? Where is the evidence to support this claim? I found some stuff about quantity of storms, but even those doesn't support the claim).

But even as we continually fail to see obvious or catastrophic evidence of man-made climate change, the alarming language persists. Is that because the goal of action is more urgent and important than being found guilty of exaggeration and being discredited? The alarmists run a very real risk of being ignored (they already are in many circles) like the boy who cried wolf. It's a huge gamble. And I'm frankly tired of being lectured at about this.

On the other hand, it's not like every climate scientist is an alarmist and 110% agrees with this method and message. We might just be hearing the loudest.

Chart of the day

via Coyoteblog and Mark Perry

NYT: BP took unusual risk, lied to Congress.

According to the NYT, BP has some extra explaining to do:

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure...

The company went ahead with the casing, but only after getting special permission from BP colleagues because it violated the company’s safety policies and design standards. The internal reports do not explain why the company allowed for an exception. BP documents released last week to The Times revealed that company officials knew the casing was the riskier of two options.

I doubt BP will have any good excuse, and shame on them. And on us for that matter.