Top Five Climate Skeptic Red Herrings

DeSmogBlog provides answers to the usual lame arguments that come up in comments and deranged websites. Their top five, abbreviated here:

1. A group of "experts" signed a letter stating that there is no consensus on climate change: Science is a process of proposing an hypothesis, testing it and then publishing those results in a peer-reviewed research journal. A letter signed by a bunch of people stating that the theory of human-caused global warming is wrong does not prove anything scientifically.

2. The climate is always changing - it's natural: The fact that there has been historical variation in temperature and greenhouse gas levels is well known in science. But natural variation is not what has been observed since the industrial revolution.

3. Scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970's: And in the 1950's scientists were using LSD to treat alcoholism.

4. Al Gore flies around the world in carbon-emitting jets. What would you have Gore do? Walk to China?

5. The Mann "hockey stick" graph: the Hockey Stick is just another red herring propped up by those who insist on keeping their heads firmly planted in the nice warm (and getting warmer) sand.

Read the full versions at ::Desmogblog