Quote:First of all, the data says that its insignificant.  We're talking about less than two degrees of average surface temperature over the last two centuries.  I would make the argument that we can't even account for the accuracy of thermometers over that period of time.  

 

Second, no one on the stage said that we didn't have an impact.  Show me the pull quotes if you don't believe me.  

 

the response of the candidates was two fold.  

 

a.) We should not adopt any solution that is going to cripple the economy and not fix the proposed problem.    If everything the EPA recently proposed is fully implemented and everything goes according to their plan we are talking about less than a 100th of a degree over the next century and meanwhile sustained economic decline and skyrocketing energy costs.  True adherence to he scientific method isn't running around like a chicken with your head cut off just so you feel like you're doing something.  

 

b.) follow models that work.  Chris Christie simply said that he has reduced carbon emissions through market based solutions and that the only sustainable way to curb fossil fuel emissions is to make renewable energies an attractive business model.  

 

that's a long way from sticking your head in the sand and DENYING SCIENCE.  

 

The problem that i have is that the actual responses of the candidates is being cast aside for some slapstick caricature that doesn't fit the actually policy positions that are being espoused and that's not even counting my own personal skepticism about the underlying premise.  

 

The even bigger problem that I have is that whenever we get into these discussions its always those on the left that scream "deniers, heretic, anti-science" but then don't bring a compelling mathematical argument to the table.  the only response we ever get is that its all too complex for us to understand we should just trust the people who only have a job if climate change is as they say it is.  

Climate change is not insignificant, but I'm not going to beat my head against that wall anymore. It seems that you've heard so many people say that climate change is nothing to worry about that nothing I could say or do would sway you. Two degrees is a big deal. The even bigger deal is that human activity is accelerating that. I laugh a little every time someone wonders aloud what a one-meter rise in the sea level would really do. It would turn most of Jacksonville beach into a sandbar, for starters.

 

I'm pretty sure I've never called anyone a heretic. Like, ever. Just putting that out there for the record.

 

And, for the record, climatologists have a job whether there's global warming or not. Their job is to study the climate, not sit around fabricating evidence of global warming. And meteorologists? Are you kidding? You really think they wouldn't have a job if global warming wasn't happening?

 

I'll leave this behind then walk away: the data is too complex for you or I to understand. I've seen sheets and sheets of it. I've spent four years learning how to understand and forecast weather on the small scale, and I can barely make heads or tails of the first few lines. If you want to go back to college and take four years of calculus, three years of advanced physics, two years of discrete mathematics, two years of high-level chemistry and four years of meteorology classes that are, for the most part, glorified differential equations on a map, then please, come back in here and tell me how insignificant climate change is. Until then, I'm going to stick with the opinions of the people I know who have taken four years of calculus, three years of advanced physics, two years of discrete mathematics, two years of high-level chemistry and four years of meteorology classes that are, for the most part, glorified differential equations on a map.

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