tornadic rhetoric

this is quite the rhetorical deluge by bill mckibben. i just want to point out that while it is important to make connections, it is important not to make them willy-nilly, or get obsessed with them. harold camping makes connections. every conspiracy theorist gives you an 'argument' like this: coincidence? in such cases, one good question is: what could actually happen to make you doubt it? or has anything ever happened that gave you pause, or that didn't confirm your belief, or was in tension with it? if not, it's not empirical. now, i don't think mckibben is really giving an argument, and i do think that the crazy-bad meteorology should make you wonder. ok, i'm wondering! now the actual argument would have to be a systematic causal account of the connection, using, i would suggest, something besides retroactive computer modeling wherein we ask: how could all these events be explained by climate change? that is, we need information that doesn't assume the conclusion is true. is the weather - the droughts, the floods, the tornadoes, the fires, the hurricanes, etc - worse than it was two hundred years ago? alright convince me (don't just bludgeon me). are simultaneous droughts and floods, fires and deluges, explicable on the same causal basis? (ok, maybe we need some computer modeling after all.) one thing i want to point out about the tornadoes: partly it's a matter of bad luck: you could get an outbreak of ef4 tornadoes, and there'd be minimal loss of life or property if they didn't rake a big town. in fact that is usually the case, and it would be a hard argument i think that the route of the storm through tuscaloosa or joplin rather than the vast countrysides that surround them was itself caused by global warming. the death tolls and the images of nuclear-blast-style devastation are extremely compelling, but not in themselves evidence of the effects of climate change. but i'll go with bill this far: i definitely think we should be wondering.