Tom Toles for March 21, 2014

Hmmm, La Brea tar pits offer any hints?

All these left wing whackos who still keep claiming global warming is happening should come over to my place, and walk down to the beach. This afternoon the water was way up the beach. I came back at sunset, and the water was much lower. Sea levels are going down, not rising, people!Similarly, winter proves global warming is a myth…at least in the northern hemisphere.

Anthony, If that’s a Poe please ignore what follows… 

‘global’ may be a hard concept for you, but it’s quite a bit bigger than your back yard. The fact that SOME places have had a cold winter proves nothing (ask folks in Alaska). That’s why ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ is a better term for it. And as for anything ‘global’ being limited to one hemisphere is laughable. The fact that you seem ignorant of the tides has little to do with anything. If predictions are correct then over the decades that water will tend (‘tend’ is a word you should look up) to rise up the beach higher and not go down the beach quite as far.

Seriously, I did not see this coming. Where are all the real right-wing-whakos? Doonesbury is on vacation!

The dinosaurs lived in a hot spell of Earth’s history. We are too. The ice age is over. Long live people.

The reflex reactionaries are already starting to show up — the same three accounts, on pretty much every political cartoon I choose to look at — so you can study them in person.

Anthony 2816: Still can’t tell the difference between climate and weather? You should go to Australia before winter! Western Europe has been wondering where winter was. The whole world is quite different from your personal experience.

@AnthonySorry, I thought the term was world famous:(Nathan) Poe’s law: Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.

And I now see that someone got there first (so doubly sorry :-) )A lesson to us all to load all the comments first.

Love it… Tom Toles is a national treasure!

yes climate changes not too long ago tropical ferns grew in the antarctica

Other than “A guy I don’t like did something I don’t like and I have names to call people I don’t like”, do you have anything to support your assertion that global warming is mythical? Some math maybe? Science or examples? A fact to hang your claim on?

“There has been a cooling period for the past 16 years.” Not so. The trend has been consistently warming for 30 years at least; that there was a spike in 1998 not matched since does not mean a cooling period. If the average highs for a series of weeks are 77, 80, 82, 84, 102, 86, 90, 95, 98, 100, this does not mean than the last five numbers indicate a cooling trend. Climate change is a fact. Historically unprecedented global warming in recent decades is a fact. AGW is a theory attempting to explain the facts. True, it has not been “proven.” But no one has offered any other theory that does as well in explaining the facts. That’s one way that theories work. No one has “proven” the theory of gravitation, either. But no one has come up with another theory that does as well at explaining the facts. Are climate scientists unanimous in accepting this theory? No. Do climate scientists hold as simplistic a view of the subject as has been put forward by the popular press? Again no. But a large majority do agree, and their opinions are based on data and science, not on wishful thinking. If nine weather men tell you a hurricane is heading your way, and that you are in a vulnerable situation, and one weather man tells you there is no danger, do you bet you life that the one is correct and the nine are wrong, or do you chance taking unnecessary precautions, just in case the nine are right? The smart money says, don’t put absolute faith in any of them, don’t believe any of them blindly, but take the precautions necessary to protect yourself, just in case. Those who take the threat of AGW seriously might one day be proven to be over cautious, but those who dismiss AGW and do nothing are foolhardy, gambling high stakes on nothing but their assurance that what they want to believe is true. You don’t have to KNOW that burglar is in your neighborhood to lock your door at night.

“Anthropogenic global warming has not been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.”-Just because you have the ability to say “I doubt it”, doesn’t mean that global warming hasn’t been proven. You can deny the soil beneath your feet and the sun our planet circles, but such denial doesn’t change their concrete existence.

“What is the ideal temperature for the earth?”-The earth has no ideal temperature, it exists through a huge variation. The issue is “What is the ideal global average temperature for the systems that support OUR existence, and by extension, life as we now know it on this planet?” In an attempt to make me look foolish by asking two questions that have no answer (the last ice age was approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago), you’ve shown that you’ve missed the point altogether.-Also, you’ve provided nothing to support your position. I suspect that your questions were to distract from the fact that you have no proof to offer.

I’ve been as patient as I can be. I’ve asked over and over again for those who don’t believe that the climate is changing rapidly and that the change is partly caused by human actions to post their arguments. They have failed. I have to conclude that they have no arguments. Then they post silly questions, such as “What is the normal temperature of the earth?” Such a question only reveals the questioner’s lack of understanding.

““The earth has no ideal temperature, it exists through a huge variation. "- – – – There you go."[]

So, of course you ignored the rest of the post. Must have been too inconvenient for you…

“AGW is a theory.”-So is gravity. What’s your point?

“… that question is meaningless but not to them. Is it a lack of basic scientific knowledge or is it a difference in logical constructs that is the problem? I’m beginning to think it is the latter.”-When you have no facts, no data, no science, no proof, all you can rely on is attitude to bolster your defiance. Willful ignorance is the closest thing we have to perpetual motion.

True, but is it that they don’t have the ability to think, or that they’ve baanned selected subjects from their thinking process? If they DO have the ability to think but don’t, their ability to do so may atrophy.

It’s not that I want there to be AGW. I would much rather be persuaded that everything is okay. I would much rather burn coil and oil with no thought for the future. I would also like to eat all the fat and sugar I can stuff in my face, but I know it’s not good for me. And I know that burning coal and oil isn’t good for a liveable planet. At least that’s the way the argument seems to lead. I’ve asked and asked and asked those who don’t believe in AGW to post their arguments, and over and over they have nothing intelligent to offer. So please, while you’re proving that we can burn coal and oil forever with no bad consequences, prove that I can eat all the fat and sugar I want with no bad consequences. And prove that smoking is okay, too, while you’re at it. But if you don’t have any arguments, admit that you don’t.

(She’s finished — just waiting for a defense date. I’ll tell you more privately.)

Perhaps it’s not a problem of ignorance about the science at all. Perhaps it’s just a very self-centered selfish attitude that they don’t want us to make the long-term investment at the expense of short-term profits for something whose consequences are mostly going to hit after they’re dead?

On the other hand, Ansonia just devoted the time to make five separate replies, including to Lonecat’s observation that Ansonia never includes any science or proof to back up his position…and he STILL didn’t do so.So, Ansonia, since you can’t back up your position, can you at least explain it? Since the only answer to reduce global warming is to reduce pollution, why do you spend so much time fighting against that? Why are you so pro-pollution? Is it that you like to have toxins in the water of you and your family? Or do you just hate blue skies? Or is it just that you’re heavily invested in particularly polluting industries, and you’re putting your own short-term profits ahead of the good of all mankind? Which is it that motivates you?

“Remember when scientists believed in the “theory” that the Earth was continually increasing in volume? “The expanding Earth hypothesis stated that phenomena like underwater mountain ranges and continental drift could be explained by the fact that the planet was gradually growing larger.”.Remember when scientists believed in the “theory” that Vulcan was a planet existing between Mercury and the Sun? .Remember when scientists believed in the “theory” that light was transmitted through the universe by the “mysterious substance” ether?”-No, I don’t remember these. Who are the scientists who put forth these theories?-Remember: Just because you said/typed it doesn’t mean that it’s true – you’ll have to provide proof.

So I guess you think that all science is bunk and that we can never make any progress at all in our understanding of the world.

I had a feeling that once challenged to explain why he/she is so pro-pollution, it would be the last we’d see of Ansonia on this thread. He/she is off to spout the same garbage on newer threads, ready to tuck tail and run as needed.