Debunking the climate-change denialists' talking-points

Cory Doctorow 10:29 pm Tue Jun 17, 2008

Have you noticed that whenever you mention climate change online a bunch of people show up with identical objections — almost as though there was a list of talking points somewhere on the Internet that astroturfers and denialists used to derail discussions of the most grave existential crisis facing the human race today?

Here's Grist's answer to that, a point-by-point debunking of the climate change "skeptic's" talking points:

I. There's nothing happening

1. Inadequate evidence
* There is no evidence
* One record year is not global warming
* The temperature record is simply unreliable
* One hundred years is not enough
* Glaciers have always grown and receded
* Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect
* Mauna Loa is a volcano
* The scientists aren't even sure

2. Contradictory evidence
* It's cold today in Wagga Wagga
* Antarctic ice is growing
* The satellites show cooling
* What about mid-century cooling?
* Global warming stopped in 1998
* But the glaciers are not melting
* Antarctic sea ice is increasing
* Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
* Sea level in the Arctic is falling
* Some sites show cooling

3. No consensus
* Global warming is a hoax
* There is no consensus
* Position statements hide debate
* Consensus is collusion
* Peiser refuted Oreskes

(via WorldChanging)

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