THE FAKE AND REAL CLIMATE DEBATES

The Climate Deniers’ Newest Argument; It's a lot easier to attack environmental scientists when you make up something they didn't say—and then criticize them for saying it

Jeffrey Kluger, Sept. 29, 2014 (Time)

“…[V]irtually all credible scientists acknowledge that climate systems are far, far too complex to analyze with precise accuracy. Do environmental researchers and green politicians ever say the science is ‘settled?’ Yes…but they mean that the fake debate over whether climate change is a vast hoax is finished. They don’t mean there’s no work ahead…Steven E. Koonin, [director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University and a former Obama Energy Department undersecretary recently argued the usual right-wing talking points in the Wall Street Journal]: that computer models are imperfect; the oceans’ role in warming has not been studied fully; the history of Earth’s climate is poorly understood; there has been a slowing of warming over the past 15 years. Stipulated, stipulated, stipulated and stipulated…

“Again and again, climate scientists acknowledge every single one of these x-factors and again and again they come back to the fact that the planet is sick and we’re playing a role. Knowing that cigarettes can kill you is not the same as pretending to predict which fatal illness—if any—you’re going to contract or just when and how severely that disease is going to strike. But you can surely tell when you’re beginning to cough, and if you don’t quit smoking straightaway you’re a fool…[Deniers] have spent the better part of 25 years flinging accusations of conspiracy and fraud at climate scientists just trying to do their work. The disingenuous ‘settled science’ argument may be a less shrill approach, but it’s a no more honest one.” click here for more

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