Climate Trolling

Danarchy said:

Thing about global warming is that...

It's a scam.

I've given you your very own thread so you can discuss this with like-minded individuals.

"American thinker", indeed.

Now, since the warming stopped 12 years ago, the alarmists are finally beginning to admit that the earth has started cooling again.

pack your things and get the fuck out.

Retarded troll science comics mandatory.

Vordakk said:

It's a scam.

Sure, because some webzine named American Thinker is going to be a lot more reliable than NASA. Proof: there is American in American Thinker, but not in NASA; so the NASA guys are commie traitors.

By F. Swemson

So, who is this F. Swemson guy? He made only one other article at AT. Let's dig around:
Global Warming: Exposing the Far Left’s Lies
The Progressive’s Foundation of Lies
The Obama-­Trump Deception? "Author’s note: This piece is purely speculation based on circumstances and Barack Obama’s prodigious past history of lies and deception."
F. Swemson "Most Recent Articles: The State of The Union: Big Problems Demand Bold Lies"

Okay, so we are starting to discern the profile of the guy. He is not a scientist. He is a far-right pundit who sees conspiracies everywhere. He seems pathologically unable not to use the word "lie".

Yeah, I'm shooting that messenger. Because, like a lot of other climate change deniers, he is pushing a political agenda and inciting people to reject actual science.

This is the same phenomenon as creationists trying to cast aspersions on the theory of evolution.

Nobody has ever offered a more succinct indictment of the global warming hoax than H. L. Mencken

Yeah, Mr. Mencken certainly was talking about global warming, given that he died in 1956; nearly twenty years before the issue started to appear in public debate.

The Mencken quote would be more easily applied to, say, terrorism; an overblown threat which has been used to justify unprecedented curtailing of privacy rights and continuous trampling of the Constitution. I'm tempted to put it next to a Newt Gingrich quote:

"...and it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."

Then there's the core of Mr. Swemson's argument. To sum up, it goes this way:

1. "It's all a lie! The proof is that I tell you so repeatedly!"
2. "Not only global warming is false, but in addition global warming is good for you!"
3. Unsourced allegations about other bodies in the solar system; contradicted by looking up any real science.
4. "Earth is cooling right now!" No, it's not.
5. "If you keep repeating a lie, people will end up believing it!" Yeah, that's why you're doing what you're doing, Mr. Swemson.
6. "It's not just global warming: anything about how pollution is bad is completely false!"

Here, I'm just going to leave this here. Yeah, I know, it's not from The Financial Times. But contrarily to Mr. Swemson's piece, the claims and allegations there are sourced.

Phml said:

"American thinker", indeed.

More like American Idiot, *smugface*

It tends to be called "climate change" rather than "global warming". This is because it encompasses more of the changes that might happen and, also, because in countries like the UK, the weather getting warmer doesn't sound like such a bad idea. ;)

Humans are funny. When we have a harsh winter or a crappy summer, people say things like "well, that's climate change happening right there" and the same people the following year which may have a mild winter and a scorching summer will say "well, that's climate change happening right there". Basically, human experience is too brief for most (all?) people to properly conceive the time scales involved.

I'm not saying that climate change isn't happening, I'm just saying that it's very common for people to have only a very slight grip on the concept.

I win, because none of you have been able to intelligently refute the actual meat of the article, and instead have resorted to ad hominem attacks on the author or some other equally useless response. I'm off to revel in my victory, though I must say it was all too easy.

There was no meat in the article to refute. As Gez showed very competently.

kristus said:

There was no meat in the article to refute. As Gez showed very competently.

I'm tempted to respond with an explanation of the article's key points(despite the fact that it's a fairly easy read for anyone whose I.Q. is over 100), but it's clear that this is another issue where no amount of reasoning is going to sway obstinate individuals. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I still win though.

Vordakk said:

I'm tempted to respond with an explanation of the article's key points(despite the fact that it's a fairly easy read for anyone whose I.Q. is over 100), but it's clear that this is another issue where no amount of reasoning is going to sway obstinate individuals. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I still win though.

So, do you really believe that we can put as much CO2 in the atmosphere as we want and it will never have an effect?

Can you explain, in terms of physics, how this is possible?

Vordakk said:

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I still win though.

How arrogant. Can't win at an argument? Simple, just say that you won it anyway and call it a day!

Ignoring the writer's history, I'll look at that chart of temperature first:



That last bit of increase, in the past 200 years, corresponds with a rise in atmospheric CO2, which also matches human industrial activity after the industrial revolution. Temperature may be similar to the Medieval Warm period, or it may get higher. This Wikipedia graph shows multiple mean temperature measures with this same rise, placing the 2004 mean temperature higher than the MWP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png


Regarding the solar activity, according to Wikipedia, "it has proven extremely challenging to directly quantify the link between solar variation and the earth's climate".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Solar_Variation_and_Climate



Even given the uncertainty of the solar effect, I can't ignore the unnatural higher levels of CO2, and he makes a common argument: that plants need CO2 to live, so aren't higher levels good? I've heard that higher CO2 levels can stress some plants, not to mention the movement of CO2 into the oceans where it can adversely affect corals and other ocean life, so even without a global warming effect, lowering the fossil fuel use worldwide is still a good idea.


EDIT: You can't "win" a discussion or debate when the truth is unknown and the mechanisms of Earth's Climate aren't fully understood....

Also, I like how my post about man-caused global warming is considered "trolling", yet if I had gone with the mainstream thought on this forum and said that global warming was real, I'm sure I wouldn't have been given a second thread. When global warming was brought up in the original thread, no one cared until someone(me) gave an opposing view. Then the thread was split and labeled "trolling". So basically "trolling" is when you don't agree with the mainstream.

Hipster troll?

yellowmadness54 said:

Hipster troll?

Aren't hipsters mainstream now? ;)

Oh I didn't see that it was a split. If you didn't intend for it to be a separate thread, splitting it doesn't seem necessary here. As it is, I had a much more vocal response than if I had seen just your post in the other thread.

Is this article a joke? I mean literally, I can't tell if the author was being serious, or was just making ridiculous claims in an attempt to mock and satirize climate change skeptics. Every point in that article has been debunked many times over. I'm actually a little embarrassed to have read the whole thing.

On the whole, though, I tend to avoid the climate change debate, as I just don't see the point. I just had to pop in because I find it incredibly difficult to believe that the author sincerely believes that nonsense he wrote.

So basically "trolling" is when you don't agree with the mainstream.

I would think assuming you are trolling is the nicest option out of all possible choices here.

A fellow on YouTube has created a series of videos devoted to the science of climate change. Here are the ones I picked out devoted to myths, many of which were asserted in the original article.

I can (on top of agreeing with Bloodshedder's recommendation of Potholer54) also recommend Greenman3610's channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610?blend=1&ob=4

Mainstream science = Liberal propaganda.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/02/02/a-case-study-of-the-tactics-of-climate-change-denial-in-which-i-am-the-target/

Global warming. Is it real?
Yope.

Vordakk said:

I win, because none of you have been able to intelligently refute the actual meat of the article

I'll start with an obvious point...

American Thinker said:

The truth is that CO2 is a beneficial trace gas that exists in such small quantities in our atmosphere, that the idea of it playing any significant role in determining our climate is simply silly. CO2 comprises less than half of 0.1% of our atmosphere, and only 4% of it comes from human activity. That's 16ppm, or 1 part in every 62,500 parts of our atmosphere. CO2 is plant food, and a key component in all life on earth. Plants need CO2 to grow and produce oxygen. They feed animals (including ourselves). Animals in turn consume oxygen and plant-based foods, and exhale CO2. Without CO2, nothing could be green! This brief video showing the effect on plants of increasing atmospheric CO2 is quite striking.

Atmospheric carbon levels have risen about 30% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, though that's only part of the problem. Being roughly 50% higher than average air density means (barring some radical shift that renders Earth unfit for human habitation) carbon dioxide simply isn't going to accumulate in the atmosphere, most of it has been absorbed by lakes and oceans - which is where the real harm could be done. One interesting side-effect of elevated carbon levels that's been noticed is that salt water becomes more acidic, which impairs coral and shell growth. While I don't know if there's any certainty as to what affect that'll have on individual species, I do know that if the micro-plankton start dying it will have a knock-on effect through the aquatic food chain - possibly a mass extinction event.

As to whether an excess of carbon is bad for your health - here's a source you can't argue with. :P

Quasar said:

So, do you really believe that we can put as much CO2 in the atmosphere as we want and it will never have an effect?

Can you explain, in terms of physics, how this is possible?

It's easy see, plants absorb co2 for photosynthesis. Thus if we want a wonderfully green eco-friendly planet we should probably increase our rate of co2 emissions. Also, leave all lights and televisions in your house on. Leave refrigerator doors open as well, which will also help offset the natural heating of the earth. It's all there in the OP article for you to read.

Quast said:

It's easy see, plants absorb co2 for photosynthesis. Thus if we want a wonderfully green eco-friendly planet we should probably increase our rate of co2 emissions. Also, leave all lights and televisions in your house on. Leave refrigerator doors open as well, which will also help offset the natural heating of the earth. It's all there in the OP article for you to read.

Now you see, the KIDS, they listen to the rap musi- ah fuck it

Here's what run-away global warming looks like:

Quast said:

Thus if we want a wonderfully green eco-friendly planet we should probably increase our rate of co2 emissions.

Heh - I remember some people arguing that ozone depletion was a good thing because the higher level of UV radiation would boost agricultural crops, the fact that it would also lead to higher rates of cataract blindness and skin cancer didn't dampen their enthusiasm.

Leave refrigerator doors open as well, which will also help offset the natural heating of the earth.

That's one of my favorite urban myths.