If global warming affects everything and you cannot say exactly what stopping global warming will do for “everything” (or even the dry trees in dry SoCal) then you’ve just made the transition from a statement about cause and effect (science) to one far more religious in nature.

People like to say that God, like global warming, has a presence everywhere as well, and if I acknowledge His presence I will reap the rewards.  Somehow I have never found that very convincing.  Especially so when the pastor tells me that he sees the hand of God in events like the California wildfires.

Steve B, following your own logic, you cannot say that the fires were unaffected by God.  Thus, repent sinner and you will reap the rewards.  Trust me, there is a consensus on this point.

“You might bear in mind, Keith, that the flip side of ”no single climatic event or catastrophe can be pinned exclusively on greenhouse gases” is that no such event or catastrophe can be said to be unaffected by global warming.”

Totally wrong. There is NO flipside. Reason being that the statement is that there is NO empircal evidence to link global warming to any one weather related event. End of story.

In almost all cases there is not even evidence of increased frequency of these events (e.g. Hurricanes, and wildfires in Australia) in recent times.

“Since 1980, U.S. wildfires have burned an average of 8,500 square miles per year, a jump from the 1920-1980 average of 5,000 square miles per year.
“In the past three decades, the wildfire season in the western United States has increased by 78 days, according to work led by Anthony Westerling, formerly at Scripps, now at UC Merced. Roughly half that increase was due to earlier ignitions, and half to later control. Burn duration of fires greater than 1,000 acres has increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days in response to a spring-summer warming.
“People on the fire lines see that the wildfire intensity and size have changed and question whether global warming is to blame, Stephens said. “They know that the temperatures are increasing, and the snow is leaving earlier. One thing is certain: Weather and fire are tied together. They know that better than anybody.”"
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/20/MNSC11Q7RD.DTL#ixzz0Q0PfkPDo

This Climate Progress reader channels Romm and also makes my point.

You just admitted that don’t disagree about the first point, and of course Joe links to the peer-reviewed research backing up the second.  So what’s your point?

Today he tells us Spain is booming because of it’s green initiatives.  spain has over 18% unemployment.  The worst in the EU.

What I object to is Romm exploiting these disasters to advance his own arguments. Per the latest example, it also confuses people on the real causes for the CA wildfire.

That’s simply wrong, considering that repeated burning is a component of the transition from semi-arid to arid landscapes.

You might bear in mind, Keith, that the flip side of ”no single climatic event or catastrophe can be pinned exclusively on greenhouse gases” is that no such event or catastrophe can be said to be unaffected by global warming.