To all my friends posting and sharing climate denial codswallop on socal media, I love you but please consider spending those late night hours looking up the real climate science first, before believing Mike Hosking or some other clueless twit on the telly or the internet.
Start here, at Skeptical Science – a list of all the myths, misconceptions and outright nonsense, sorted by popularity, with their rebuttals and counter-arguments, and as much actual scientific detail you could possibly need.
If you want to build a bridge, consult an engineer. Do not consult the aromatherapist who thinks engineers are conspiring to build fake bridges. Ditto vaccinations, flat earth theory and all the other anti-intellectual bullshit that seems to be circulating these days.
I spent three years studying climate science at university, and I can tell you that it is complicated and resistant to summary, which is why it doesn’t do well in the US media, so if you want to understand it you’ll need to spend some time. Let me assure you though, it does all add up; multiple otherwise unrelated datasets all say the same thing: that climate warming is happening, human civilisation caused it, and it won’t end well for us unless we do something about it. But don’t take my word for it, go see for yourself, start here. And no, I do not care about rebuttals, I’ve heard it all before. This is not a discussion. This is also not a matter of opinion, like your favourite restaurant. In scientific matters, you are not entitled to your opinion unless you can successfully defend it in the appropriate forum (published journals), so good luck with that.
I’m probably going to regret posting this later, but I’m so fed up with it, and it’s doubly frustrating because it’s such a difficult topic to try and explain properly, and endlessly refuting the same old tired long-debunked arguments over and over again is EXTREMELY tiresome. Please understand that I’m just trying to help, and this is a good place to start. You’re welcome.
See also:
Stokes, P. “No, you’re not entitled to your opinion” in The Conversation, 5 October 2012.