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How to Talk to A Global Warming Skeptic" by Coby Beck might be helpful in figuring out how to talk with skeptics of global warming. Beck is not a climate researcher; he is an engineer working on artificial intelligence but I think he provides a good layman's take on the debate in the general public.
DeSmogBlog was created to clears the public relations (PR) campaign that is trying to cloud the climate change science. They are very familiar with PR tactics.
The Truth About Denial feature article in the August 13, 2007 issue of Newsweek includes a history of the global warming denial movement. A number of postings in the comments area continue the same old denial arguments illustrating the strategy of trying to win a debate by shouting louder than your opponent. The old denial arguments are central to the "The Great Global Warming Swindle" discussed below.
In March 2007, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) broadcast a show called "
The Great Global Warming Swindle" that seemed to counter all that "Inconvenient Truth" stuff from Al Gore, et al with experts (including some with PhDs) claiming that the human-caused global warming was just a scam. Though broadcast overseas, it has been viewed by many thousands of people in the United States courtesy of internet TV (and will probably be broadcast on the Fox channel sometime soon). Needless to say, there were many problems with the "documentary". Here are a few links to critique the show:
- Chrisopher Merchant is a lecturer in Earth Observation in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in remote sensing and modeling of air-sea interaction. Merchant's analysis of the Swindle film shows how the film's editor and speakers use every trick in the book to attempt to deceive the viewers of the Swindle film. One logical fallacy Merchant points out is that the film uses the fact that the Earth's climate has always been changing (a correct statement) to "prove" that humans could not now be cause global warming (an illogical conclusion).
- George Marshall's posting "The Great Channel Four Swindle" examines the credentials and probable biases of the experts using in the Swindle show.
- RealClimate's "Swindled!" posting. RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.
- DeSmogBlog's play-by-play critique. Also see Jim Hoggan's editorial about the PR firms involved in confusing the general public.
Still Don't Agree with the Climate Change Scientists?
If you still think the conclusions of the IPCC and numerous other science organizations are invalid, the climate science is flawed, etc., then how about considering economic and national security reasons? Energy from fossil fuel burning (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.) is getting more and more expensive since it is a non-renewable resource that is shrinking while the demand for energy is ever increasing. Oil reserves in the most optimistic of scenarios will survive another few decades at most.
The US produces less than a third of the crude oil it consumes (the percentage has steadily decreased over the years). A sizable chunk of the United States supply of oil comes from countries that are politically unstable or questionable or have less than warm relations with the United States. While the top two oil exporters are friendly to the U.S. (Canada and Saudi Arabia), the
top 15 exporters list from the U.S. Department of Energy includes countries such as Venezuela, Iraq, and Russia. The other exporters will also feel more and more pressure to export to other countries such as China and India as their energy needs grow as a result of their conversion to a Western-style economic system. If you add in the health costs that arise from the respiration and ingestion of the by-products of fossil fuel burning, the costs will be prohibitive (especially as China and India ramp up to Western levels of per capita consumption).
"America's addiction to oil"
What Can You Do?
The world would get warmer even if we were to stop all fossil-fuel burning now because of the time it takes for natural processes to get rid of the human-generated excess of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and halocarbons). Does that mean it is hopeless? No. We can still prevent the warming from becoming catastrophic. We can lessen the amount of eventual warming. No one thing will be the answer that saves us. A number of simple, smaller things added together will be the answer. In the long run, the things we do now to slow the growth of greenhouse gas increases will not only prevent catastrophe, it will save us a lot of money and make the world more politically stable. Consider this like saving for retirement or like investing in the stock market for the long-term: invest some money now to reap a greater reward later.
- The Princeton Environmental Institute has created a Carbon Mitigation Initiative that divides up the difference between a "business as usual" carbon rise and a stabilization at 2005 levels of carbon rise into "Wedges" using currently available technology that is commercially produced.
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