Two recent events have provided us clear view of the difference between those who wish to communicate clearly the science of climate change and those wish to deny it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you have to bash in minds
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Unprecedented global warming in past year! Warming 20 times greater than predicted! Oceans to boil any day now!
The rate of warming for the past year is far greater than even the most crazed alarmists predicted. We are all doomed!
From January 2008 to January 2009, the planet warmed a remarkable 0.37°C (see data here).
Deniers aren’t skeptical, they are gullible
Back from the Oregon Coast
I am back from a wonderful week on the Oregon coast. I promise to post some pictures as soon as I can go through the hundreds of pictures we took.
On another note I realized something as I was driving home yesterday.
I’m getting the hell out of dodge…
… and going to the Oregon coast for a week. Be back soon, hopefully with some pretty pictures I can post.
Where is the debate on climate change taking place?
Whenever I mention the scientific consensus on climate change I get plenty of people pointing to opinion pieces or blog posts written by people who clearly do not agree that a consensus exists.
The 1998 cherry pick
One of the common threads of most denier rants on recent temperature change is cherry picking 1998 as the start of their analysis. This is a dead giveaway that they either are clueless about basic statistics or are being dishonest.
Antarctic warming derangement syndrome
Recently an article was published in Nature which came to the conclusion that despite an earlier belief Antarctica has not been cooling, but rather warming. Given that deniers use the possibility that Antarctica may have been cooling as ‘proof’ of that climate change is a farce, many now predictably refuse to accept the results of this study, and have fallen ill with ‘Antarctic warming derangement syndrome‘
How real people (aka non-cranks) debate science
In reading up for an upcoming post on the recent paper in Nature I came across a simple 4 point list showing how real people aka non-cranks/denialists/deniers debate scientific issues.
- Not knowing everything is not a synonym for not knowing anything;
- Listing things one doesn’t know in no way negates what you do know, especially when the examples are irrelevant;
- If you want to demonstrate that the knowledge about something is inadequate or uncertain, then talk about that thing and provide facts and evidence;
- Rambling on about irrelevant things is a tacit admission that you cannot demonstrate any problems with the actual subject, in which case why are you talking at all?
Global Warming is over! once every decade or so …
Given the recent spade of ‘global warming is over’ articles over the past few months I figured this article by Greenfyre is particularly relevant.