Thursday, May 09, 2013

154 one-line rebuttals to climate-change denialists

Each item on this list (compiled by Skeptical Science) gives a common denialist claim, followed by a one-line comeback, followed by a short-paragraph version of the rebuttal.  You can read them HERE.

(Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the tip. For a more compact satirical rejoinder to climate-change denialism from Stephen Colbert, see here.)

=> Since I'm talking about climate-change denialism, conscience compels me to reiterate something I've said more than once before:
I know some serous and intelligent people who think it is unfair and even offensive to use the word "denialism" in this context, but I use it advisedly. Yes, I recognize that there are some thoughtful and reasonable forms of skepticism about climate change and its implications, whether or not one finds them convincing. But the perspective on climate change that now dominates the national Republican Party and the right-wing propaganda apparatus, running from talk radio and Fox News through right-wing think-tanks and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, goes way beyond that. (For one good illustrative example of how honest and intellectually serious climate-change skepticism might differ from intellectually irresponsible and crudely demagogic climate-change denialism, I recommend this piece by a skeptical conservative analyst of climate change and its implications, Jim Manzi.)  [Update: Manzi's piece is—surprise!—no longer accessible on the NRO website.]

And monolithic climate-change denialism is just one manifestation of a more general pattern of across-the-board knee-jerk anti-environmentalism that has increasingly become a central defining feature of Republican orthodoxy in US national politics.  Sometimes the truth is unpleasant, but we still have to face it.
—Jeff Weintraub