Drum on Global Warming Charlatanism
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009At Global Warming Charlatanism, Kevin Drum gives a concise response to those (like George Will) who have been saying lately that “the earth is actually cooling!”
In case you’ve missed it, this is the new favorite talking point in the chucklehead denialist set. The earth is actually cooling! But as about a thousand serious climate researchers have pointed out, it’s not true. Global temps have been trending up for over a century, but in any particular year they can spike up and down quite a bit. In 1998 they spiked up far above the trend line and last year they spiked below the trend line. So 2008 was cooler than 1998.
[snip]
This is idiotic, and only deliberate charlatans who think they have an especially gullible audience bother with it. It’s the trend line that matters, and the trend line has been going up for decades right along with rising CO2 concentrations. Listen to the climatologists, not the charlatans.
So, if you hear someone pushing the “global warming is a myth! the earth is cooling!” line, the only real question is, which of two things is that person revealing about himself: 1) he is dishonest, and thinks that you (or someone listening) is stupid enough to buy it, or 2) he is himself the victim of someone from group #1 who correctly guessed that he could be taken in.
