Alas, no moose, but a useful link nonetheless

Hi folks. Today, I'll follow up on Drek's post from yesterday by giving you a short yet hopefully informative edumucational post. No moose here, alas, but plenty of information that you can use when facing global warming skeptics. There are plenty of them, some of whom are in extremely powerful positions. They are all various degrees of misinformed.

Some are confused about the extensive, detailed evidence that the world is getting measurably warmer. Some are not convinced of the meaningfulness of the scientific method. And some are deliberately and selfishly confusing the public with cherry-picked data and suspect interpretations.*

This is an excellent resource, put together by an astronomy professor at Bakersfield College, for arguing against the global warming skeptics. The link from there to the special issue of New Scientist is especially informative. Read, enjoy, use.

When talking with a global warming skeptic, however, I would encourage you to really listen to them. Hear what their arguments are and try your best to understand them. This will help you anticipate other people's arguments in the future. Even more importantly, if you really take the time to listen to someone, they will most likely return the courtesy by really listening to you. And if someone is really listening to you instead of involved in an argument, you finally have a chance to persuade them.


*I was going to link to the Global Climate Coalition site, but the site is deactivated. It seems to me that, now that the ties between the GCC and Exxon have been exposed, the voices behind the GCC would rather that we forget they ever existed. If true, this seems to me to be an act of extreme cowardice.