Wow. This whole page is full of “facts.”
Not a single reference link to be found.
And three very common clinchers:
1) “All an author has to do is to show me that the scientific method has been employed in determining that AGW is unquestionably real.” Folks will always “question” the science. Especially when it is in their personal interest to do so.
2) “If you look at the data the article itself presents, there is no evidence of what the article claims. The graphic of the temperatures… To me, this is just one more blogger in search of attention than a serious article.” In a larger article, find a single point to disagree with, and use that to discount the entire thing.
3) “I suggest you read some more scientific data rather than just the National Enquirer of climate change.” Discount the entire site, and while you’re at it discount anyone who isn’t accepted by you as an Unquestionable Expert on the topic.
Usually at this point in the debate there will appear a bunch of links posted that are already debunked on the various sites that specialize in debunking anti-AGW articles. If you see any links, just find the article title and do a search for ‘debunk {article title}’. It’s that easy.
From this point on it’s a rabbit hole to a twisty, twiny maze of point-counterpoint. Folks on both sides have all their ammo racked and ready, and after a bunch of noise and smoke, the end result will be the same.
No action will be taken on Peak Oil or Climate Change. Just not gonna happen, because most all of us are trapped in the current infinite growth paradigm. Even if a sufficient number of us to make a difference were motivated enough to make drastic life changes, we couldn’t get out of the current system without sacrificing relationships with friends, family, spouses and/or children. Then there’s the matter of getting out from under our current debt burden (personally or nationally). The banks have a stranglehold and they’re Too Big To Fail.
Politicians and policy makers are fully aware of this. Everyone is kicking the can down the road and hoping it doesn’t roll off a cliff on the next kick. There’s an excellent NY Times article on how this came to pass. Turns out it wasn’t a Big Oil conspiracy.
I’ve been fighting this fight for over two decades now, and it’s not that the data isn’t there; it’s that there’s a never-ending stream of people flowing off the right wing propaganda sites spouting the same fact-free arguments over and over. Nearly all of them will never be convinced otherwise; the majority of them don’t understand basic statistics, much less things like what happens when/why a bell curve shifts, so they can’t understand a true scientific article or how it fits into the larger puzzle.
And I believe the anti-AGW folks feel much the same way. They’re facing what they perceive as a well-funded, grant-fed, long term conspiracy to pump research dollars into an alarming topic that has very questionable origins, like the global cooling meme from the 1970’s that they cite, or the arctic ice cap expanded one year so we’re all being lied to. And this flood of doomer news never stops, because it’s a well funded, broad-based conspiracy.
If AGW wins the argument, then we ALL have to stop flying, stop driving for the most part, move to areas served by rail or waterway and far enough from the shoreline, really cut down on meat, cut way back on the variety of food and products available to us, let most of the third world die of starvation, shrink our own population through attrition and lack of advanced medical care, go to sleep when the sun goes down, shift the bulk of careers from mental labor to physical labor, be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, etc. etc. That is truly a future to avoid. It’s worth fighting the good fight. I understand.
If Anti-AGW wins the argument, then it’s business as usual and we don’t have to trash our economic system on purpose. And no one has to think about the future.
But the future will come. Not as fast as predicted (thankfully), but the signal is now well out of the noise. We ignore it at our children’s peril.
It’s too bad we can’t find some middle ground.