Thursday, April 24, 2008

Addressing Climate Change...skeptics

I'm putting together an article for those thoughtful skeptics of climate change, whether they range from not accepting in warming average global temps to those who understand climate change but don't agree that we should change our behavior for the future.

Please help in this endeavor. Let's share our phrases, sentences, paragraphs, whatever you have, that you use when trying to address climate change skeptics. Thanks.

4 comments:

Mick said...

What a great idea. Thanks, Stef.

I can sense you've had a frustrating discussion or two about this lately. Welcome to the club.

I think the average Mainer is skeptical after this last winter. Although the rapid switch to warm spring weather should seem strange to most.

But one thing I often find myself saying is, weather is related to climate, but not at all the same thing. Weather is like the coins and dollar bills in your pocket -- easy to count what you've got, and plan. But climate is like your bank balance, house value, debts, savings and all other aspects of your "net worth." Until you get all the current balances, and add them all up, and even get an appraisal, you don't know how much you really have or don't have. Most of us walk around all the time thinking we know how we are situated financially. But we rarely really know until we properly investigate. The average Mainer has never read a serious book or article or report on climate change in Maine, even though several are readily available, and written in accessible language.

So what most folks tend to do, in a far less than fully cognitive way, is notice the most recent weather, and walk around feeling more or less confident that climate is stable depending on how reasonable the most recent weather seems to be compared to the traditional weather of each season.

Naufragé said...

Well, I'll say check the fact. Check where all scientists stands. And you'll begin to understand that climate has always been changing, that it was warmer in 1000 than now, that since 1998 (the warmest year since 2 centuries) temperatures hasn't increased but have plateauted, that there is NO scientific consensus about the man being the primary cause for the latest warming, that a warming doesn't not mean the apocalypse, and finaly that the sun activity is likely to be the primary driver of temperatures, as it is logical to think, sun activity which, unfortunately, seems ready to going down and bring a little ice age, which would be far more damaging for populations than a warming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgaeyMa3jyU

And when I think of all the damages ecoterrorists are already doing, the food crisis coming because so much fields in the world are converted to produce biofuel instead of food... that makes me sick...

Stephenie JM McGarvey said...

Thanks for giving me renewed fuel that I need to do this naufrage. Look deeper than YouTube, ok?

Mick said...

Disappointing, but par for the course. And, in a very sad way, that's what you were talking about, Stef.