Recently I had the opportunity to argue with a gentleman who was doing his best to remain intellectually honest with me (a friend of his son). The normal topics came up: socialized medice, education, the cost of gas, Haliburton, the war in Iraq, stem cells and of course global warming.
There was a lot of back and fourth on standard talking points and I did my best to keep him thinking about facts, but when it comes to global warming the argument coming from the right is completly ridiculous and this guy could not let it go. Let me elaborate…
The first thing confused republican will come at you with is always: there is no proof. There are no conclusive studies, there have always been fluctuations in the earth temperature and people can make data look any way they want to accomplish their anti-business goals. Since he was the first out of the gate with these stock arguments I decided to try to back him into a corner–not always the best tactic but I tried non-the-less.
I agreed that the studies are inconclusive and that the climate does undergo occasional changes and that we what we are experiecing in our current warming trend was almost certainly linked to some natural phenomenon. He, of course, agreed. Then I asked if it might be possible that humans are having some effect on the environment, he said thats possible but there is no way to know for sure. I conceeded that point, but followed by asking if he thought we should be researching the problem just in case the warming did have something to do with us. Of course he said yes. So now I had him right? I mean, if he thinks there’s a chance it has something to do with us then we just need to do our best to find it out, so I mentioned that there are many studies which show that global warming is being influence by humans and that there are some that suggest we are influencing it pretty significantly. Then comes the old argument: the data can be manipulated, there is no way to trust the study. So I asked him if there was any way to even do a study up to his standards and then would he believe the evidence. He said yes and it would have to be done by a respectable institution and have to be reviewed by other scientists and so on…
BINGO! I’ve been waiting for a great opportunity to present this to someone who was unaware of it: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
They analyzed 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change”. The study found 75% of the studies supported human influence in global warming, 25% did not give cause for the climate change and 0% concluded that humans had nothing to do with it.
So out I come from my computer with the ink drying on the report to show this guy what I had found… did it change his mind? Of course not! Apparently he has a true non-biased study to draw upon which contradicts all 75% of the 928 studies science magazine had covered. What was his source?
Turns out its a fiction novel by Clive Cussler (whom I’ve never read) apparently he has a book that deals with climate change and in it he points to the conclusion that people don’t affect it–and to legitimize this author, the dude with whom I was arguing said that he did site some sources in the back of his book. I tried to point out the ubsurdity of this dudes conclusion, but in doing so I went back to the computer to try and figure out what the hell Clive Cussler was talking about… to my dismay I couldn’t find any info to debunk and when I got back out the dude was on his way home. I thanked him for the discussion and I like to think I got him thinking… although I’m not sure.
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Boy oh boy, I sure feel safer knowing that a $200,000 boat, bought by the Dept. of Homeland Security for East Baton Rouge, made its first arrests recently. My question is, what is wrong with floating down the Mississippi, smoking a little pot and flying a pirate flag? Were these people terrorizing the Exxon refinery? Maybe the Exxon folks thought that the two guys on board were part of an Al Qaeda surveillance team? I think these dudes should have made the cops walk the plank.
