How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to Common Arguments | Hacker News Reader

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to Common Arguments

grist.org

17 pointsmasijo14 comments

This is a nice collection of facts and figures and reasoning.

But why would a “climate skeptic” care about all that?

If you have two camps fighting each other facts are only useful when the own worldview is supported. Everything else is discarded as propaganda, false facts or conspiracy.

What I would like to have seen is how to really convince skeptics: By instilling doubt.

It’s much more subtle. It’s also much less fact driven.

I haven’t found a good source on that.

"Maybe it's man-made, maybe it's not, but I'm not willing to take the risk for my children." That kind of thing?

Climate change skepticism is borne of social engineering. Probably need to fight for with fire.

Since I have an interest in Catholic apologetics I thought it would be interesting to see what apologetics for global warming look like. Without feigning any hypothesis myself, it’s clear that climate apologetics is in an immature state. A lot of the answers come off as little more than “we’re the experts, trust us.” I suppose that’s due to the hypothesis’s defenders primary and virtually exclusive strategy being discrediting any dissenters rather than building strong arguments. Put in Aristotelian terms, the discourse on the climate is almost purely rhetorical and void of dialectic. Can you imagine a Catholic apologist attempting to defend the faith with “we’re the theology experts, trust us?”

This is perhaps better as a resource to feel better after dealing with someone's Gish gallop at a dinner party or whatever. It probably won't help you convince a movement skeptic.

Fighting skeptics is playing in their court. If you honestly believe we are heading to crisis, we need to work on actions and lobbying to implement them. The more time you spend debating the less you have to act.

Finally, skeptics don't lose when they're proven wrong. We all do, but it becomes the new normal, and the skeptic gets to continue to believe whatever they want and feel superior. Keep moving forward, don't try to hold terrain.

Anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Don’t bother talking to them.

Even worse, even if we reach our goals the skeptics will say: "I knew there would be no catastrophe, I was right all along"

It's good but I prefer the https://skepticalscience.com/

I don’t particularly care if humans are a cause of climate change or any of the other debated topics in the sphere of climate science. I want a clean planet for my kids/grandkids/their grandkids, so I want legislative and foreign policies that support that. Some things are a lot more important than economic growth.

A noble goal for sure. How do you decide how much to value co2 reduction over clean water or clean air or nature preservation?

Should all of our environmental energy be on co2?

I’m not an expert on the topic, I don’t understand the question.

What valid reasons are there for emissions in a world with nuclear reactors and electric vehicles?

The quality of air and water is much more measurable and has a direct immediate impact on life. Even a non-scientist can tell the different between the foul air in a city versus a forest. CO2 on the other hand is a much more nuanced technical topic that needs measuring sea levels, CO2, temperature and several other variables etc.

So why not focus of the immediate measurable aspect that can be potentially changed?

Why the endless distraction with CO2 and the several hundred variables associated with it? In fact I suspect that as a good side effect of cleaning up the air and water might be a reduction in CO2 levels.

Alternative title: source material for a global warming Gish gallop. Read just the italicized parts and ignore the replies.

A different approach, perhaps only useful if you are quite old:

- No, you are really not interested in their anti-science arguments. They are (metaphor) obviously a loyal Green Bay Packers fan, and listening to Green Bay fans explain why the Packers are far better than the Chicago Bears gets old just as fast as listening to Chicago fans explain why the Bears are far better than the Packers. (Or substitute some long-running sports rivalry more familiar to your audience.)

- No, you are not a left-wing Climate Science zealot. The climate's obviously getting worse in a lot of places - it didn't hit 120 degrees in Canada back in July'21 because of hot air from some Science Convention - but the the Climate Science fans are obviously a bunch socially clueless jerks, who'd have a tough time convincing any normal human that the sun is kinda bright, and rainwater is kinda wet.

Needs "2021"

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