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Comment by Banthum | Hacker News Reader

I think it'd be a challenge to even dig up a serious Internet comment that clearly stated this. If you think someone's saying this, be sure you're not just inferring it to make a strawman.

In any case, it's verifiable that nobody of consequence in the public policy debate on climate change is saying that the climate is perfectly static. The disagreements are about degrees, certainties, consequences, timelines, and appropriate responses.

This insistence on debating such a strawman looks really bad, I have to be honest. Why not "steelman" your opponent and argue against his best points, instead of "weakmanning" the dumbest things anyone on that side has ever said? It'd be a lot more productive.

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While you're stubbornly clinging to semantics, the rest of us recognize that the debate is indeed about the severity and consequences of a rapidly changing climate. On one side is the consensus opinion that manmade emissions have artificially accelerated global warming, and the other says that CO2 has no effect on natural, periodic climate cycles. Is that pedantic enough for you? Can we move on?

>the rest of us recognize that the debate is indeed about the severity and consequences of a rapidly changing climate

And yet, your grandparent comment...

>the other says that CO2 has no effect on natural, periodic climate cycles

[Emphasis above mine] No, this absolutely is not what "the other side" says.

This is not about "semantics", it's a fundamental disconnect wherein people are talking past each other because they are stubbornly not acknowledging (or even aware) or what the others are saying. Your comment leads me to believe that it's not a tactic of any kind, but rather an internal perceptual distortion, which can only be solved by effort on the part of the perceiver.

Steelman your opponents, people. You can do so much better than this!

There's obviously a spectrum of unscientific positions, take your pick:

Extreme right position held by POTUS and the like: climate change is a hoax and humans aren't responsible for changes in climate.

Chair of house science committe: Carbon dioxide isn't a pollutant and climate isn't significantly sensitive to manmade emissions

EPA: extreme whether events don't signify a trend, economic concerns are more important than regulations

I'd be satisfied if politicians just quit playing scientists and started making policy decisions instead of steering/filtering scientific results.

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