My rebuttal to Global Warming deniers:

[Jackpine Radical]

It happened again. Someplace attained a record cold temperature, so my wingnut friend sent me a link to the story with a snide comment about “Global warming, huh?” This happens every time there is an unusual snowfall or late frost or whatever.

Now, the fact of the matter is, every one of these incidents can be seen as further evidence for the global-warming model. As the earth absorbs heat, it does so very unevenly. There are certain hotspots that warm up more quickly, and other cold spots that take on heat more slowly. The result s that there is more heat energy in the system, and the atmosphere of the earth functions like one large and very complex heat engine that becomes wilder and more unpredictable in its actions as more energy pours into the system.

Yes, overall, the temperature is going up (very rapidly on a geological scale, but apparently much more slowly on a human scale). But what is increasing much more rapidly than the mean temperature is the total craziness in the weather machinery. More energy, absorbed very unevenly at various points on the globe, means greater turbulent variation in high and low-pressure systems, unpredictable shifts in ocean currents, and a general increase in events that are outside the norm.

Put in statistical terms, the variance is increasing much more rapidly than the mean. The net result is that the wild swings in the weather are much more dramatic than are the comparatively small, but cumulatively disastrous, upward trends in temperature. We observe a set of record low temperatures that seem to cancel out the string of record high temperatures that are also occurring. But when we attend merely to the individual temperatures, we are missing the main point, which is that we are seeing unprecedented extremes in the weather, and it is these extremes--both high and low--that are the signature of global warming.

[qb]

1. Well put, but do you really think the Global Warming deniers will understand it?

:shrug:

[timeforpeace]

2. You have a friend you call a wingnut? Does he/she know? Also, it doesn't help the cause to say that

anything that happens, hot/cold/other, is another sign of global warming. You're preaching to the choir here, of course, but the undecideds will say that if you claim that EVERYTHING that happens means global warming, your credibility will be suspect to them thus hurting the cause, IMO. Hot = global warming and cold = global warming, while true, sounds ridiculous to the average man.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I didn't say EVERYTHING.

In fact, the null hypothesis is obvious. If the mean temperature goes down or stabilizes for a reasonable length of time, then global warming is not happening. Also, if the variance in temperature decreases, the model would at the very least need to be revised. All I'm saying is that their supposed counterexamples are not actually counterexamples.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. I call him a wingnut HERE.

We've discussed politics for years, and we both know that neither is going to change the other. He used to have a picture of Bush standing on the aircraft carrier that I'm pretty sure he put up in his office just to annoy me. I keep offering to deprogram at a special low rate because he's a friend.

[dembotoz]

3. the problem is the name global warming.

if we had started out with the label of cimate change it would have been less of a problem.

Conservatives are just much better at twisting a phrase than we are.

[Hugabear]

5. I think that 'global warming' works just fine

I understand the reasoning, but overall the planet IS warming up - hence GLOBAL WARMING. It doesn't mean that EVERYWHERE is going to warm up, quite the opposite. As the OP states, global warming can have the opposite effect in some areas.

Let's have this discussion in 100 years, and decide if the planet has "warmed up". :)

[louis-t]

4. How can you reason with someone who says:

"It's cold today so there's no global warming."?

[emdee]

7. They must have gotten some mass email....

because this past week several of my friends have brought up the cooler weather and how it debunks Gore. I just told them that they evidently don't know what Gore's position is if they believe that. I also tell them that according to their logic, cigarettes don't cause cancer.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. The hardcore deniers won't get it, but the reasonable but uninformed types

who are getting only the deniers' propaganda may very well profit from hearing this.

[Turbineguy]

9. It works something like this:

If Al Gore is wrong we end up with a sustainable economy. If the climate change deniers are wrong, we're dead.

[HopeHoops]

10. Those who deny global warming might as well deny gravity.

Neither belief will change reality. They're just plain fucking stupid idiots. But hey, where ELSE would FOX get viewers?