Granted, I didn't go to any of the Facebook links because Facebook, but the remainder of this is perfect.

Granted, I didn't go to any of the Facebook links because Facebook, but the remainder of this is perfect.



Originally shared by ****

Let's skip to the end of this tired public conversation between blinkered ignorance and actual reality, shall we, Jack Fitzgerald? You are in laughably complete denial of widely observable facts, but even if we pretend that there was any intellectually honest basis for your position, which there is not, it would all boil down to a simple logical argument: 

Either the science is correct, or it isn't, but whether we're asking the right questions and understanding the information correctly doesn't matter. We don't get to choose the facts. So let's imagine that we make a chart where column A says “the science is right” and column B says “the science is wrong.” We are in one of those columns, and we don't get to pick which one, we can only make the best educated guesses that we can. There is one thing that we do get to choose, though, and that is how we respond to the science. We either ignore the science and carry on with business as usual, or we take the science seriously and make changes to the way we collectively do things, so make those line 1 and line 2 down the side of our chart. Line 1 looks like this: If we follow business as usual, and the science is right [column A], it spells the end of human civilization as we know it. If we continue running our civilization the way we do right now, and the science is wrong [column B], the world stays pretty much the same. We're still running out of oil, damaging our environment, and widening the gap between rich and poor in a world where billions are crushingly poor, but we might be lucky enough to keep a climate we can effectively live with. So those are the possible outcomes of choice number one. Here's line two: If we make the kind of changes climate science calls for, and the science is correct [column A], we save civilization from oblivion and assume the mantle of greatest generation ever, revered by millennia of future humanity. If we make those changes and the science is wrong [column B], we reduce health and environmental hazards associated with dirty technologies, we have fewer global conflicts over depleting fossil fuel resources, and essentially, we make a better world for ourselves by accident. Oops. We don't get to choose whether the science is right, but we do choose how to respond to it, so which line on that chart would you rather live in? By the way, since 1991, 13,950 peer reviewed scientific articles on the climate have been published, of which only 24 of them reject human caused climate change, a ratio of more than 581:1, and this in a world where all the most powerful vested interests would do just about anything to prove column B, so how lucky do you feel? 
http://scienceprogress.org/2012/11/27479/

I personally find it valuable to look at denial of the science and the reality of our world changing around us as a pathological problem. Consider this article on "panglossian disorder" by noted psychologist Kathy McMahon on the subject.
http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=132

There's no credible argument for avoiding action. It's inexpensive as well as a moral imperative. 
http://www.motherjones.com/.../climate-action-cheap-david...

I've asked this again and again, but the trolls stubbornly refuse to even acknowledge that the question has been posed. 
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=587873051248203

And I've posed the question in meme form again and again.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=400156940019816
and
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=406429872725856

and it doesn't matter how baldly the issue is staring us in the face,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=450033685032141

or that the best and brightest minds who have dedicated their entire adult lives to the subject take it seriously,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=454243554611154

the deniers are going to keep telling us it's the sun
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=455311627837680

or that temperatures declined over a short term period, conveniently ignoring obvious long term trends
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=451736981528478

or that it's a natural process a measly seven billion of us couldn't possibly be having any impact on
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=398682580167252

while natural feedbacks stand poised to crank up the heat no matter what we do on a truly terrifying level,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=400596836642493

and it doesn't even matter that humans are the only species in denial about this particular reality
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457541917614651

or that the predictions of those warning us about climate change continue to come eerily, devastatingly true,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=460317964003713

or that it spells doom for major cities the world over,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=475724842463025
and
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=548745118494330

that we are overwhelming all natural systems' ability to adapt,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=563271030375072

that some of our smartest people are beside themselves with dread,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=532552816780227

that we are about to make most of the world uninhabitable to humans
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=584350461600462

for the next 200,000 years
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=567246236644218

and collapsing the global food supply
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=442899602412216

even though the cost of taking it seriously and averting catastrophe is tiny
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=510103355691840

All that matters, as far as I'm concerned, is this argument: 
We who are concerned about climate change do not have to make an argument to justify taking action. The shoe is on the other foot: deniers must justify calls to inaction. If there is ANY possibility that the impact is what we expect (hint: check the news and you'll see it all over the place), HOW DO DENIERS JUSTIFY TAKING THAT RISK? 

So there are two possibilities. One is that you alone among millions of deniers have a reasonable intelligent response to that question, and post it here. The other is that we don't bother wasting any more time on your public declarations that climate science is going to go away just because you use ALL CAPS to declare publicly that not only don't you know what you are talking about and are proud of that fact. Also: try using punctuation, it comes in handy when you want to tell the difference between "Let's eat, grandma!" and "let's eat grandma!" and gives you just a tiny bit greater chance of not looking like your communication skills haven't advanced beyond grade three at the same time as you are trying to convince us you personally know better than every single academy of sciences on the planet.
http://scienceprogress.org/2012/11/27479/