{"id":36518,"date":"2018-08-07T08:54:59","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T13:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36518"},"modified":"2018-08-07T08:54:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T13:54:59","slug":"in-defense-of-using-the-new-normal-to-describe-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36518","title":{"rendered":"In defense of using \u2018the new normal\u2019 to describe climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WHAT IS NORMAL ANYWAY?<\/span><\/div>\n

In defense of using \u2018the new normal\u2019 to describe climate change<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s been an unusual summer, to say the least. Heat maps keep taking on a red-orange glow, with some veering into rare magenta territory<\/a>. The Carr Fire, one of the most severe<\/a> in California history, has burned down 1,000 homes and spun a fire tornado<\/a> through the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver a decade or so, we\u2019re going to have more fire, more destructive fire, more billions that will have to be spent on it,\u201d California Governor Jerry Brown\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0last week. \u201cAll that is the \u2018new normal\u2019 that we will have to face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why on earth is the word normal<\/em> being thrown around to describe such extraordinary times?<\/p>\n

The new normal<\/em> is a catchy phrase, and one you\u2019ve probably heard before \u2014 if not from Brown, then perhaps from the New York Times<\/a>. In recent years, the cliche has shown up after disastrous wildfires, hurricanes, heatwaves, and drought.<\/p>\n

While government officials and the media like to throw the phrase around, scientists kind of hate it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like we left the old normal, the old conditions, and arrived at a new normal, a new stasis,\u201d Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of Idaho, tells me. \u201cUnfortunately, that\u2019s not what our climate projections are telling us. They\u2019re telling us that this is one step on a very long staircase that\u2019s heading toward extreme conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In climate science, \u201cnormal\u201d\u00a0is a well-defined word: an average over a 30-year period<\/a>. Thus, the use of normal does not describe our current period, in which we\u2019re going to continue seeing things we\u2019ve never seen, Kolden says.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHAT IS NORMAL ANYWAY? In defense of using \u2018the new normal\u2019 to describe climate change It\u2019s been an unusual summer, to say the least. Heat maps keep taking on a red-orange glow, with some veering into rare magenta territory. The Carr Fire, one of the most severe in California history, has burned down 1,000 homes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,21128,141,288,15759,21157,6465,18462],"class_list":["post-36518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-california","tag-carr-fire","tag-climate-change","tag-extreme-weather","tag-grist","tag-kate-yoder","tag-new-normal","tag-normal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36519,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518\/revisions\/36519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}