in the past year, climate researchers in the United States and Britain have formed a loose coalition under the banner ‘ACE’ — Attribution of Climate-related Events — and have begun a series of coordinated studies designed to lay the foundations for a systematic weather-attribution programme. Ultimately, the group hopes to create an international system that could assess the changing climate’s influence on weather events almost as soon as they happen or even before they hit, with results being announced on the nightly weather reports.

There’s a related and (equally excellent) editorial in the same issue, which asserts that climate scientists

have an obligation to provide more coherent answers to queries (or doubts) as to how global warming influences our weather. An attribution system with ample resources, running in near real time, could prevent scientists’ answers to those questions seeming either too cautious or too alarmist and speculative. It could also prevent the public from getting the (false) impression that climate research is confined to the virtual world of climate models and has little to offer when it comes to current reality, or that climate science is a quasi-experimental field that yields scary but mostly unverifiable results.

To say that climate change caused these fires is untenable.

Before all you well intentioned environmentalists have a reflux reaction,  breathe deep, swallow the bile, and then hold your noses while you link over to your favorite climate bogeyman, where you can read the analysis in its entirety. (It’s not by him, either.)

In all seriousness, we really need to tread carefully when trying to connect climate change to current weather disasters. To that end, it’s worth keeping a copy of this story on your desktop. I know, I know, it’s written by that second favorite whipping boy. But this piece–despite being two years old–remains one of the best distillations of the climate change conundrum:

By the clock of geology, this climate shift is unfolding at a dizzying, perhaps unprecedented pace, but by time scales relevant to people, it’s happening in slow motion. If the bad stuff doesn’t happen for 100 years or so, it’s hard to persuade governments or voters to take action.

Those of you driven nuts by this don’t understand human behavior. Look at it this way: few of us change our unhealthy diets or take up exercise in earnest until we feel that tightening in the chest or wake up in a cardiac unit.

I know that my life-long love affair with Lucky Charms, hostess cupcakes, and snickers bars is destined to end badly. And one of these days, I’m going to start eating tofu and more green, leafy vegetables….

Now back to the matter at hand. This passage in that 2006 article by favorite whipping boy # 2 illuminates the paradox:

Many scientists say that to avoid a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations, energy efficiency must be increased drastically, and soon. And by midcentury, they add, there must be a complete transformation of energy technology. That may be why some environmentalists try to link today’s weather to tomorrow’s problem. While scientists say they lack firm evidence to connect recent weather to the human influence on climate, environmental campaigners still push the notion.

So Mr. Indispensable, and all the rest of you who are taking this tack out of expediency, you get points for understanding the human brain, but I still think you’re betting on the wrong horse.

The science makes clear that many extreme weather events have increased in recent years — and that there is a link to climate change.

You can  shout from the rooftops:

CNN, ABC, WashPost, AP, blow Australian wildfire, drought, heatwave “Hell (and High Water) on Earth” story–never mention climate change

NBC News ignores climate change, blows bark beetle story

The NY Times Blows the Wildfire Story

The NY Times Blows the Drought Story, too

USA Today ignores the Link Between Extreme Weather and Climate Change

AP Blows the Extreme Weather Story

Or, you can be grounded firmly in science and still be declarative, as demonstrated by RealClimate in this post on the recent Australian wildfires:

So, did climate change cause these fires? The simple answer is “No!”

And you can still be nuanced and mature at the same time, in the same post:

While it is difficult to separate the influences of climate variability, climate change, and changes in fire management strategies on the observed increases in fire activity, it is clear that climate change is increasing the likelihood of environmental conditions associated with extreme fire danger in south-east Australia and a number of other parts of the world.

It’s your choice. In the next post I’ll talk about why the environmental community is going to have to decide on which which approach to take.