{"id":38261,"date":"2018-09-25T09:27:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T14:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38261"},"modified":"2018-09-25T09:27:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T14:27:04","slug":"florence-is-not-the-new-normal-weve-destroyed-normal-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38261","title":{"rendered":"Florence is not the \u2018new normal\u2019. We\u2019ve destroyed normal forever."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Florence is not the \u2018new normal\u2019. We\u2019ve destroyed normal forever.<\/a><\/h3>\n

If each new decade brings its own unique, ever-worsening climate disasters, there won’t be any new norms for a long, long time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Hurricane<\/picture><\/div>
HURRICANE FLORENCE FLOODS A LOCAL BUSINESS ON SEPTEMBER 16 IN WILMINGTON, NC. CREDIT: MARK WILSON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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You\u2019ve probably seen the term \u201cnew normal\u201d used to describe how human caused climate change has forever changed the kind of weather we can expect.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a catchy, alliterative phrase used in connection with Hurricane Florence by the\u00a0National Geographic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and to describe climate impacts more generally by\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0and many others.<\/p>\n

But the problem is that the phrase is counter to both the latest climate science and the \u201cnormal\u201d connotation of the word \u201cnormal\u201d which means \u201cconforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If each decade brings its own unique, ever worsening disasters \u2014 and if this never-stabilizing condition continues for a century (and, more likely, many centuries<\/a>) \u2014 then there are no norms, no standards, no regular pattern or points of reference.<\/p>\n

Because things will keep changing with rising temperatures, with extremes becoming more extreme, there is no point at which one can plausibly say \u201cThis is the new normal, and this is what it is going to be like from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the \u201cnew normal\u201d catchphrase is utterly misleading to the general reader and should not be used.<\/p>\n

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Bombshell: Recent Warming Is \u2018Amazing And Atypical\u2019 And Poised To Destroy Stable Climate That Enabled Civilization<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A quick look at the science yields further insight into why this term can be so misleading.<\/p>\n

First,\u00a0in recent years, research has made it increasingly clear that \u2014 after an 11,000 year period of relative stability \u2014 the climate has become destabilized by human emissions of carbon pollution<\/a>, putting\u00a0us on a path towards steadily rising temperatures throughout the century.<\/p>\n

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

Florence is not the \u2018new normal\u2019. We\u2019ve destroyed normal forever. If each new decade brings its own unique, ever-worsening climate disasters, there won’t be any new norms for a long, long time. HURRICANE FLORENCE FLOODS A LOCAL BUSINESS ON SEPTEMBER 16 IN WILMINGTON, NC. CREDIT: MARK WILSON\/GETTY IMAGES You\u2019ve probably seen the term \u201cnew normal\u201d […]<\/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":[141,288,21583,15783,6465,21877,16192],"class_list":["post-38261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-extreme-weather","tag-hurricane-florence","tag-joe-romm","tag-new-normal","tag-normal-weather","tag-think-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38261","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=38261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38262,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38261\/revisions\/38262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}