How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic
Tue, Mar 11, 2008
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You may have heard the rubbish: The earth is in a ‘cooling phase,’ lots of scientists disagree, look at all the snow we had this winter, and more.
Image from Say Hey
It’s all garbage, and mostly recycled trash at that. Unfortunately, there are still many who believe it - perhaps because they read it in the National Post, or heard it on Fox News, or heard our Prime Minister or George Bush say it. There are many, many more who think there may be a little bit of truth, so there’s no rush to act.
When I was in my ‘climate sceptic’ phase I actually researched many of the claims and discovered them to be bogus, but not everyone has time to do that. Fortunately, others have taken the time to assemble lists of the common claims, and to show they are:
- outdated
- exaggerated
- outright fabrications
For those who are interested, here are some excellent sites to send deniers to:
#1 is entitled “Fibs, Frauds and Whoppers,” and was put together by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. It starts with a brilliant comic and covers the essential arguments briefly and effectively.
#2 is far more detailed and is for the hardcore sceptic. It covers every conceivable argument in detail, with graphs and scientific references galore, yet is still easy to read. It is also nicely indexed by argument and degree of denial required to actually believe the claims.
A word of caution: In my travels, I have run across people who cannot and will not be convinced, at least at this point in their development, regardless of these things we call facts. As far as I can tell, this is because these people have an almost religious belief in ‘the market’ to solve all problems. As a result, they see climate change as some sort of ’socialist’ attack on ‘the market,’ and respond with religious fervor and no sense whatsoever. Our Prime Minister and Environment Minister (and the U.S. president) fall into this category, and this fact alone should disqualify them from holding any high office.
Also, anyone who quotes an economist against the reality of climate change is automatically disqualified. Anyone who doesn’t understand the reason why economists are disqualified is also disqualified.
Ms. May (for non-Canadians, she is the leader of the Green Party of Canada) once took some heat for comparing Stephen Harper and the other fiddlers to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler pre-World War II. If we don’t get moving on this climate crisis, Mr. Harper will be very lucky to be compared only to Chamberlain.
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper once called the Kyoto accord a “socialist scheme” designed to suck money out of rich countries….
“I’m talking about the ‘battle of Kyoto’ — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2007/01/harpers_letter_dismisses_kyoto.h…
Why do I post this now?
- Mr. Baird has just introduced a waste-of-time and life bill that allows the tar sands to continue to pump pump out CO2 for years without regulation.
- The CBC is running ‘Green Rush,’ a special showcasing all the companies embracing green technology and doing quite well by it. There is simply no need for the tar sands; we have alternatives, we just need to use them. We never will, at least in any significant way, while Mr. Harper and Mr. Baird are in power.
- There is increasing evidence that we have a very short time to cut our emissions to zero (0). Nada, nil, zilch, zip. The climate change - crisis - is coming faster than expected, and if we don’t act now, we will be in such big trouble that we literally cannot imagine the consequences.
- The denialist fools have stepped up their efforts to confuse the issue. They’re on the run, and they know it. They are making a last-ditch effort to create fear (the economy!), uncertainty (the earth is cooling…really!), and doubt. FUD. It’s all they’ve got left; their conscience departed some time ago.
It’s up to us. Get out there and spread the word.
Cross-posted to my Green Party of Canada blog: http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/4105. Though, let’s get real, one’s political party has nothing to do with the climate crisis.
Brian Gordon is a Canadian Green Party member and candidate trained by Al Gore to present An Inconvenient Truth.
If you want to keep up with Brian’s adventures in the Green Party, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even give you a free album.
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“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
March 11th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Al Gore trained eh? If you are so into your own ‘facts’ why don’t you look up his money making schemes on the environment. $100 million in 7 years is quite a haul, and he’s in the top 1% in the world with that net worth.
Why have you not demanded that he give away most of his money to environmental causes? Why have not demanded that instead of ‘offsetting’ his lifestyle he simply tone it down? I know why, because you are just another hypocrite that wants to push offsetting sumptuary laws so you can pollute while the rest have to a higher % of their paychecks in order to simply live.
Ahhh, its good to be part of the ‘party’.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Hey the argument is not over re climate change - we’ve always had it - always will and it is not caused by CO2 emissions! Indeed looks as though we have Global cooling!
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let’s hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans — and most of the crops and animals we depend on — prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
But the warmists have a response! Apparently they are describing the current exceptional cold as “suppressed warming”!
March 13th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Well, you’re both full of rubbish:
Dluv: What does Gore’s lifestyle/money/haircut/whatever have to do with the reality of climate change? None. You’re attacking him because you can’t attack the science, which clearly says global warming is real and we are causing it.
TB: Widely discredited. You need to check your facts. See here for some samples: http://realclimate.org/index.php?s=global+cooling&submit=Search&qt=&q=&cx=009744842749537478185%3Ahwbuiarvsbo&client=google-coop-np&cof=GALT%3A808080%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A34374A%3BVLC%3AAA8610%3BAH%3Aleft%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BALC%3A66AA55%3BLC%3A66AA55%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A66AA55%3BGIMP%3A66AA55%3BFORID%3A11%3B&searchdatabase=site
One cold winter does not undo years of science. Also note that this past winter was not colder everywhere. I could also say, with truth, that climate change predicts more variability in the weather.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Why do you have to talk to a climate skeptic?
I also don’t want to hear from Jehovah’s witnesses, snake oil salesmen, palm readers, born again christians and astrologists.
When there is a reproducible experimental result with full disclosure that supports the AGW hypothesis please give me a call.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:36 am
You mean another Earthlike planet similar in all respects to ours, but without human-emitted greenhouse gases?
There have been plenty of lesser experiments, tests, models, and analyses, all published in peer-reviewed journals that you can read, if you want. And all support AGW.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
A scientific mind should never be closed to new data, but the AGW crowd would have us close our eyes to everything save their little vision of the world. The world “heat” measurement, as taken by Hadcrut, GISS, RSS, and UAH continue to drop like stones. So what have the AGW crowd started doing in response to this unpredicted cooling? They are (a) tweaking the historical data to make it fit better with their models, and (b) changing their models to predict a cooling phase before the “real” warming kicks in.
Like doomsday prophets who have to keep adjusting when the world is going to end, they keep changing the numbers and screaming louder.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 am
Well, Brian
Here we are another year and a bit down the track and the cooling is even more obvious; Gore is headed toward being the first carbon credit billionaire and there are even more scientists that have signed up to petitionproject.org.
If you want to do more research, read the just released book from Proffesor Ian Plimer called Heaven+Earth with mor than 2000 footnotes linking to peer-reviewed papers.
Good Luck!