Global Warming Conversations

How do you talk to someone who still doubts global warming?  First they said it wasn't happening.  Then they said it was just the ways things are, natural cycles and all that.  Then it was that it isn't a bad thing.  Then they said that it isn't as bad as others claim.  Now we are at "Well, even if it is true we can't do anything about it now and it would hurt the economy too much to try." 

Bogus.  But what do you say to someone who actually argues these things, wherever they are on the denial spectrum?  Here is a tool  to help.

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic is a series by Cody Beck that provides "responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming."  A couple examples:

Objection: It was way colder than normal today in Wagga Wagga, proof that there is no global warming.

Does this even deserve an answer? If we must ...

Answer: The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time is just weather, and says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change.

Objection: The earth has had much warmer climates in the past. What's so special about the current climate? Anyway, it seems like a generally warmer world will be better.

Answer: I don't know if there is a meaningful way to define an "optimum" average temperature for planet earth. Surely it is better now for all of us than it was 20,000 years ago when so much land was trapped beneath ice sheets. Perhaps any point between the recent climate and the extreme one we may be heading for, with tropical forests inside the arctic circle, is as good as any other. Maybe it's even better with no ice caps anywhere.

It doesn't matter. The critical issue is not what the temperature is, or may be, or will be. The critical issue is how fast it is moving.

Rapid change is the real danger. Human habits and infrastructure are suited to particular weather patterns and sea levels, as are ecosystems and animal behaviors. The rate at which global temperature is rising today is likely unique in the history of our species.

This kind of sudden change is rare even in geological history, though perhaps not unprecedented. So the planet may have been through similar things before -- that sounds reassuring, right?

Not so much. Once you look at the impact similar changes had on biodiversity at the time, the existence of historical precedent becomes anything but reassuring. Rapid climate change is the prime suspect in most mass extinction events, including the Great Dying some 250 million years ago, in which 90% of all life went extinct.

What we know about ecosystems, and what geologic history demonstrates, is that dramatic climate changes -- up or down or sideways -- are a tremendous shock to the biosphere and cause mass extinction events. That, all in all, is not likely to be a good thing.

There is a lot in here.  If you know a skeptic, or you are one, this is one to bookmark, at least, if you care to talk about this important issue.