I'm not a climate scientist, but something bothers me about this debate. Why is it that skeptics are dismissed at best as ignorant or stupid, as paid shills for big oil, or even terrorists. I'm skeptical of at least some climate change claims, but I don't feel like I'm stupid or ignorant or a terrorist. Instead, I constantly hear confused or misleading statements about the environment, often stated with a religious fervor that characterizes those who doubt as sinners.

While at happy-hour, a friend's boyfriend started complaining about how much waste there was in some pizza box. So far, I'm at least partially on-board with what he's saying, but then it goes off into alarmist claims about landfills. Now, I'm starting to realize that he hasn't really read anything about the subject (I read a lot). So I say, "Well, it's probably not the world's biggest problem, there's not a shortage of holes in the ground." He end's up getting mad and casting aspersions. (The best being that he accuses me of being a "Capitalist").

At a party I'm talking to a self-identified "geologist". He's talking about global warming and loss of glaciers, etc. I say, "Isn't it weird that that's going on while central Antarctica is actually cooling?". His response was "Oh, well of course, warming can cause that too." He was a nice enough guy, but I notice that it didn't matter what direction the temperature of Antarctica was heading, to him, it confirmed his belief.

I really like Phil Plat's Bad Astronomy, but even his recent post makes me wonder: he notes that temperatures haven't headed up as the models predict, but oh this isn't really a problem the heat has decided to go into the oceans. He says "it's observed" and not at all a new idea "we've known" this. Well I follow the link [1] and the way I read the web page is that top 700 meters of the ocean haven't warmed (hmm..), oh but the next 800 meters have and below that, well, we don't know or we don't understand or it doesn't seem to matter. This is so weak and unconvincing that I turn to another link in Phil's blog post, the "it's observed" link [2]. I don't get very far with this one either because this page says:

    If the oceans are warming up, this implies that the Earth must absorb more solar energy 
    than it emits long-wave radiation into space. This is the only possible heat source. 
    That’s simply the first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy. This conservation 
    law is why physicists are so interested in looking at the energy balance of anything. 
    Because we understand the energy balance of our Earth, we also know that global warming 
    is caused by greenhouse gases – which have caused the largest imbalance in the radiative 
    energy budget over the last century. 

This is just such horse-poop. The author is trying to impress us with (the scary word) "thermodynamics" and (wow) what "physicists" are interested in while telling us that this "is this only possible heat source". What happened to the heat generated by radioactive decay of the earths isotopes or primordial heat from the earth's core, these certainly affect the earth's heat balance. See what physicsworld.com has to say about this [3]. That web page sites a study claiming that about 50% of the heat given off by the earth is from radioactive decay. The page's author might be right about the oceans absorbing heat, but this doesn't sound like a real scientist speaking.

This is how it goes. I see journalists, newscasters, everyday friends and associates making uneducated and unscientific statements, while accusing skeptics of being flat-earthers. Every storm, every tornado, every hot summer afternoon (or cold winter morning) further justifies their belief in dangerous climate change. Even though they know nothing of the science behind climate and the real challenges of moving our planet to a more sustainable future.

[1] http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-I... [2] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-o... [3] http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/19/radioac...