Today’s Climate Deniers Come in Exactly Two Forms
My post, “Most Congressional Climate Skeptics Simply Haven’t Come Out of the Closet,” offered some harsh words on the integrity of congressional climate skeptics, including: I seriously doubt there are more than a handful of true climate deniers in Congress; I think most of these people know climate change is real, regardless of what they say publicly…..to believe otherwise is to attribute some sort of integrity and moral courage to people who obviously have none.”
A reader asks in response, “When will you learn this type of advocacy only serves to distract from more moderate, but more credible environmental progress?”
There is no “moderate” position on climate change, or on the theories of evolution, relativity, logic, gravitation, probability and statistics, or any other matter of math/science. At this point, there are precisely two types of climate deniers: a) liars/shills who have been bought off by the forces of Big Money (largely Big Oil), and b) those stupid enough to believe them. Most of the climate deniers in Congress, of whom there are a peck, are obviously the former. These are sophisticated people who, on their own, would be far smarter than to challenge the scientific community on matters of science.
Agreed a thousand times.
There really hasn’t been a legitimate challenge to global warming in decades. No-one who has even a mild comprehension of the methodology of science could plausibly “deny” or “reject” or even be skeptical of the basic theory.
There have been some legitimate cautioning against alarmism, and some concerns that the models may have not taken certain feedback mechanisms into account, resulting in quibbling over details of median projections and probabilities of certain results. But you are correct: there is no one who understands science that could in any way legitimately question or deny that the energy state of the Earth is increasing and must continue to increase until a new equilibrium has formed.
People who claim otherwise are either liars or fools (or both).
Craig,
“There is no moderate position” !
Careful, you’ll find yourself marching when increasingly intolerant fanatics, book burners, totalitarians and other self-appointed persecutors of heretics .
The are always those with extreme views and those moderates possessing open and inquiring minds.
Nor is what is considered today’s “irrefutable science” likely to be considered so accurate or irrefutable tomorrow.
That’s because we aren’t really talking about actual science, we’re really talking about different interpretations of what scientific studies mean.
By the time advocates like yourself have interwoven a little (often misunderstood) scientific theory with a lot of political ideology, it no longer represents even a vaguely scientifically based debate.
Science is dispassionate and objective. It is what it is, it certainly doesn’t need to employ highly emotive language, demands for suppression of dissent or questioning (in fact to the contrary, true science demands continuous questioning).
Also, I note you remain a master of the half quote. This method is disingenuous, by deliberately altering the context, you are able to produce a indigenous reply.
Had you used the full contest and quote, it would be obvious that my use of the term moderate applied to your style of advocacy, not the science, and my objection that those ” who dissent or question your particular chosen orthodoxy as lacking “integrity and moral courage” .
The operative phrase is ” your particular chosen orthodoxy”.
There is a difference between not agreeing with your claims, and not agreeing with the science !
But here’s a little test on each other’s accuracy, (again the test is about advocacy, not science).
At least four times I’ve explained with highly documented and detailed verifiable sources why your claim of a 96% “consensus of scientists”, is nonsense, and a popular myth created by lazy journalism.
You on the other hand, continued (until very recently) to use this “96%” myth as a means of gaining credibility for your conjecture of what the scientific research concludes.
Now for a guy claiming to be guided by “scientific discipline and principles” , not to be able to substantiate this pretty fundamental claim, (or admit it’s lack of validity), seems a little unconvincing.
How can advocates like yourself create environmental harm ? In extreme instances, ill-conceived opinions can influence disastrous public policy (as in the Queensland floods).
Less spectacularly, but equally environmentally harmful has be the instance that Global Warming/Climate change is the main cause of damage to Coral reefs. For years this explanation was accepted, and funds diverted from other research.
This prevented the real reasons being known until it was almost to late to reverse the challenge.
Speaking of “science” and policies, I believe almost everyone if asked what spread the “Black Death” or bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis) would reply it was spread by rats.
In fact, the genus Rattus are innocent! The Black death has been recently discovered to be an air-borne infection. Fleas still be a contributing factor, camels, climate and exotic trade goods are the main culprits.
But for many centuries, the best scientific “consensus” blamed the humble, and innocent rat. Think of all the wasted resources spent on rat extermination, and indignation of any dissent by those who felt there were better methods of plague control ?