zapkitty wrote:What you're not mentioning is the other side of the coin: the decades of junk science and manufactured doubt paid for by a plutocratic oligarchy that got its extreme money and almost total power from control of access to energy... and who see nothing wrong with quietly spending billions over the decades to preserve that power.
Those who tried to warn the world were well aware that they were trying to outshout an artificially generated and very well-funded noise machine. So they yelled louder, as the simple facts weren't enough, and they were called "shrill" by front organizations funded from plutocratic spare change... but nonetheless were very well funded indeed.
And it is an unfortunate but easily verifiable fact that most critics of the science of climate change are far more apt to quote some piece of drivel subsidized by the Koch brothers and their ilk than they are to quote original research.
And then you have the sad display of honestly concerned scientists trying to do serious work based on actual data... unaware that the oligarchs paid to shape the data they were trying to work with.
As has been proven again and again on all sides honest scientists are ready prey for those who lie for a living, and they were exceptionally easy prey for a dishonest scientist who doesn't bother to mention the fat check from a Big Carbon front group that's burning a hole in their bank account.
Wow. Well written. But I don't think it is entirely fair minded. Yes, there is a big oil influence but I don't think that a skeptical argument hinges as entirely on the data from this influence as you imply. Nor do I think that as many skeptical scientific opinions are directed by these influences as you say.
Just because there exist influences with motive and money does not necessarily implicate all skeptics. It most definitely does not make their arguments incorrect. You ignore the possibility that the interests with money and motive may also be correct that AGW is an insignificant issue.
zapkitty wrote:
And now the oceans are dying.
Amazing overstatement.
zapkitty wrote:
As with other aspects of climate change it's happening much faster and is ramping up much more quickly than even the pessimists had expected.
False
zapkitty wrote:
The first precursors of mass extinctions may even already have begun.
Source?
zapkitty wrote:
And the storms will only get worse.
Highly contested. No evidence.
zapkitty wrote:
I do not speak from a sense of self-righteousness, only sadness, but there is going to be a lot of guilt-based anger to deal with as climate skeptics realize how badly they were used by the plutocrats.
I was formerly an AGW believer. I took the time to look at the arguments and data, both for an against AGW being significant, weed out the junk science from both sides, and I changed my mind.
Have you actually looked at the skeptical arguments at all or do you simply dismiss them because of the perceived influence of the plutocratic oligarchy?