Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Decent summary: Answering denialist nonsense

There are a lot of garbage, tin-foil-hat arguments out there purporting to prove that climate change is a fiction cobbled up by the left to provide a reason for establishing control over all aspects of the economy, outlawing freedom, hot dogs, and Chevrolets . . . . You only need to read the Statesman Journal regularly to see a regular parade of them (and not only in letters but also in insane columns by such icons of science as George Will).

Scientific American has a pretty good rundown on these and the responses from, you know, actual scientists.

Also, James Hansen of NASA has an excellent new book out that makes a compelling case for getting off coal ASAP: "Storms of My Grandchildren: The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity. It's not a page turner because of the writing (he's not the most compelling writer) but because of the urgency of his message: we are on a collision course with our own industrial wastes which are likely to force Earth's climate out of its stable, pleasant state and force it into a much more extreme state that we're not going to like very much at all.


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