Global Warming Kooks

Ten years ago on this blog, Hammer left a comment in which he coined an outstanding term that I've sadly not used.  I'll fix that right away.  Man, I miss his blog.

Why I'm a Global Warming Skeptic, part II

It seems that yesterday I fed the trolls.

I followed an interesting Sitemeter hit back to a blog where people were discussing Global Warming. Fellow Northeast Gunblogger Weer'd Beard had left a comment there pointing to my original post about why I'm a Global Warming skeptic.

A comment there replying to Weer'd basically said that I was spouting nonsense, and ended:

This is all just the same bogus junk science and fake petitions and other nonsense I've seen pop up all across the blogosphere. And most of that stuff can be traced back to oil, coal and gas industry astroturf campaigns.

You've been had, and so has your friend in the Bore Patch.

Well, then. I left a comment in reply summarizing the primary cause of my skepticism, which is that we've just come out of a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age", where we have historical records showing warming over around 300 years. The Little Ice Age was preceded by the Medieval Warm Period which was warmer than things are now. Most pertinent to the current climate debate, none of the computer models explain the shift from Medieval Warm Period to Little Ice Age, or why we came out of it in the 1700s and 1800s.

And this is where I made my mistake. I assumed that folks on the left were interested in an exchange of views, with an opportunity to examine new evidence and debate facts. Instead, here is a sample of the "enlightened" responses:

Wow, Ted, you're a twit.

You may be reading books/reports, but you most certainly don't seem to be comprehending them. 

And:

There is scientific fact, and then there's BS junk science peddled by flat-earthers like Ted. I'll stick with real science, thank you.

Oh, and some airbrushing to try to remove the Medieval Warm Period. Most interesting was this comment, though:

"None of the models explain why the Medieval Warm Period was warm. None of them explain why the Little Ice Age was cold. None of them explain the transition between them, which is around 3 times the magnitude of the worst case warming scenarios today, and around ten times the "consensus" estimates." [my comment - ed.]

Irrelevant.

Obviously, the trool has never bothered to take a science class, preferring instead to memorize and spout inane republic talking points.

Here's the deal, troolie -The Greenhouse Effect is very simple science. I understood it in the 7th grade.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Burning hydrocarbons (i.e. fossil fuels - aka gasoline) yields CO2 and water. CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere over the past several decades. The source is burning of gasoline.

The mean global temperature has been increasing over the last several decades. This tracks with the increase in CO2 and the increase in the burning of gasoline.

Real scientists say this. Not politicians, not paid oil company hacks. Real scientists.

That's all she wrote.

Translation: God said it, I believe it, that settles it. And I think you meant Republican talking points, Scooter.

Ironically, these folks all seem to absolutely believe that they represent the Defenders of Science, while dismissing inconvenient arguments and piling on Judenwissenschaft ad hominem attacks. Sadly, they're not by any means the only ones, as Bjorn Lomborg could tell you.

And this is why I'm very skeptical about the whole Mankind-is-causing-climate-change thing. Counter arguments are not met with scientific discussion, the arguers are trashed as enemies. This obviously isn't science coming from the pro- Global Warming side, and so I wonder what else isn't science. Adding in the sorry history of fraudulent data presented as evidence for their cause, and the brutal "remedies" proposed, my BS meter is pegged.

And this is a shame, actually. I'm quite ready to agree that the climate is changing. I'm even willing to be convinced that we're at the heart of it. I am not willing to be steamrollered.

Jim seems strangely out of place, but puts his sarcastic finger on things over in the comments:

Why bring history into this Ted? History has nothing to do with the current climate problems. It is obvious to anyone with a brain that humans are killing the earth and we have to put a stop to it. Who cares if a few million or even a billion people suffer and/or die to save the earth - there are too many humans as it is anyway. Get with the consensus and pony up your sacrifice to save mother earth.

Heh. And so let me say that I'm proud to be a leading Internet purveyor of flat-earth, tool-of-the-energy-industry, republic [sic] talking point, reading-but-not-comprehending, trooling [sic], paid-oil-company-hack BS! Sold more Rumors than Fleetwood Mac, I have ...

Hey you deniers trolls, get the heck off my lawn!