Why don't people look up the facts when they doubt the truth of global warming?

Question

Most of the arguments I see on here about how we shouldn't worry about global warming fall into four categories. The writers:

1) get the facts wrong
2) launch ad hominem attacks on Al Gore and others
3) claim global warming is a conspiracy
4) quote "scientists" who are awash in money from oil and coal companies

Check this out: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics.

Seriously, people, look up the facts and listen to the thousands of climate scientists out there. We don't have to do anything radical, we just have to live smarter. Your grandkids will thank you.

Answer 1

Several responders to your question have helped reinforce your main position! They don't seem to realize it, either. Hmmm...

It is the nature of science to be, or strive to be, value-neutral. A good scientist seeks to add to the body of knowledge with repeatable experiments and verifiable data that is reviewed and investigated by people capable of understanding it. When the media gets hold of the information, it can be twisted and bent to meet the questionable emotional and political needs of the media's customers--us. Political and social agendas are then dusted off and fingers are pointed, voices are raised. Accusations of stupidity, greed and bias are made. Those who perceive their personal opinions, attitides and values to be at odds with the new information will deride and revile it, and they will attack the information with whatever tricks of illogic they can summon; they will also, from necessity, attack any person who accepts the new information. The more inept will advance transparant, even laughable defenses of their positions. These people are easy to dismiss. The educated and intelligent, however, will use their intellectual gifts to raise more plausible arguments and they will eventually gain an audience of the like-minded.

Irrational people are eager to ignore any scientific facts that force them to battle their upbringing and opinions. For instance, people who dislike the US often concoct bizarre scenarios in which some tiny, secret government group infects its people with AIDS-that might be easier to swallow than an accusation of promiscuity. Or they might claim that the US attacked itself to start a war. Similarly, if you hate Jews, it is easy to claim that millions of them conspired to invent the Holocaust, to get sympathy. Others can claim, despite a tsunami of evidence, that OJ didn't 'do it' because he's a nice guy or cops are racist. Or some feel the Apollo landing was done in Hollywood--("if the US is that advanced and superior, then we must be cavemen here in our dusty little country, and we KNOW we're the advanced Chosen Ones--ergo, it didn't happen"). Or Tupac and Elvis are alive and well and living in a trailer park in Tennessee, waiting until the time is right to launch a new comeback album. Lots of people hate and fear facts. No pill is more bitter to swallow than Truth.

So scientific fact and personal agendas will always collide. Too bad for us all. Incontrovertable truth begins to look like honest debate. It is not. Sanity, evidence and reason are igonored and/or attacked-this is especially true when money and religion are on the line. So, if global warming is a real threat, then the moral, rational person absolutely must accept some of the blame and seek a solution which includes behavior changes, some of which would be difficult and costly. On the other hand, if global warming is just a cockamamie, left-wing-nut-case, tree-hugging, Al Gore-loving, Birkenstock-wearing, homosexual-tolerating notion of questionable merit, then the moral, rational person need not sell the SUV, turn off the lights, dump the Texaco stock, write angry letters or care for whom they vote. People can then dismiss the science and sneer at its messengers and absolve themselves of responsiblity and action. By the way, yes, there are some reputable scientists who dispute global warming. But if, say, 35,688 people at Fenway Park swear they saw Alex Rodriguez hit a homer in the fifth inning off of Josh Beckett, right over the Green Monster, and 4 people say he struck out, who are you going to believe? Those who deny the science and fact of global warming do so because their hearts tell them they must--otherwise, they will lose something important, or they will be forced to admit a hated enemy is right, or the guy they voted for is wrong, or that they are guilty of something. Re the ice age thing, my Baptist minister told us years ago the world would end by 1980. In 1958 the American Medical Association predicted a cure for cancer by 1988. In 2001, GWB stated that US soil would definitly be attacked, and very soon. I was told in 1963 to learn the metric system before it was too late. None of those things were based on the landslide of verifiable, repeatable data available in 2007 from tens of thousands of researchers in every nation, of every political persuasion. And it is not unreasonable to state that climate change is normal-that is an established fact, and that the Earth now experiences such a normal fluctuation is also a reasonable claim. But what humans do is additive--we intensify and exacerbate it. And we CAN change that! Don't cling to the absurd fantasy that this is not real and not devastating. Thoughtfully and honestly examine your private reasons for rejecting the science. Learn. Change. Act---NOW!

Answer 2

Once again people believe what the media is saying. That global warming is happening. Believe it or not nothing is happening. CO2 levels have no direct relationship whatsoever to the temp. Also like stated above there was talk of an Ice Age in the 1980's well now its gone to global warming. America needs a story. Saying the truth about the earth which is that man-made global warming is false and we will be fine is a boring story. Saying we all going to die if we don't change makes more money. All those climate experts get more money if there is a problem. No problem less funding simple as that. All the do is tweak the system so it shows global warming. The truth is CO2 is natural and nothing we do to cut emissions will have an effect. ALL LIVING THINGS PRODUCE CARBON DIOXIDE OR CO2. Volcanoes, decaying vegetation, and the ocean all let out billions of tons more CO2 then us humans. So stop listen to the B.S. the media is feeding you and get your damn facts straight.

Answer 3

All of the accurate charts used to defend global warming fit nicely on the end of an accurate chart showing the history of ice ages. They all take up less than a linear inch on the one I just found.

I didn't have to look for some right wing nut anti-global warming website to find it. I just typed in 'ice ages history' in a google image search and found it on a site made by some paleontologist in Colorado.

The one I have listed in my source is no different than several I have seen over the years, since the scientific research about ice ages has not caused scientists to change the charts. You can find it about a third of the way down the page.

I have found several of these charts and remember seeing one of them in my science book in the early 70s. There was no global warming theory until around 74 or 75.

All of the cool periods, or ice ages, as they used to call them, are thought to have been caused by disasters. If this is true, global warming, as maligned as it has become, is in fact how the earth repairs itself.

Answer 4

people need comfort. Believing that the world is going to come to an end when you can do nothing to prevent it is not a thought most people like to accept.
There is also laziness to consider, once you accept that you can do your part to prevent disaster, you have to start recycling and such... it's easier just not to believe it. And if you don't do anything then all of a sudden the responsibility for destroying the world is partly your.
Finally... it's very difficult for people to accept something like evolution which has been around (at least knowledge of it) for over a century. They are far less likely to really be able to accept such a "new" theory. That's what you get when we are so far behind in educational funding and yet so readily reached and "educated" by the corporate sponsored media.

Answer 5

I don't question global warming. I question that man is the cause of global warming. Since Mars is also experiencing global warming and the melting of its ice caps, that does point to solar cause for warming. During the mid 1970s, the concern was about global cooling and another posible ice age. We need to focus on Science FACT not Science FICTION. And a concensus of scientists is still NOT fact.

Answer 6

People tend to be lazy to read all the sources around them but when the topic is brought up they like to sound like pros. There may or may not be Global Warming, it is hard to say. For example, in the seventies we were supposed to be on the edge of the next ice age but that ended up being bogus. That was taken just as seriously as global warming. who knows

Answer 7

exactly, it is mostly about our grandkids, but it is also about the hurricanes, the floods the forest fires that have all been happening recently. This year maybe a rough year for hurricanes, I see in August we will be aligned to four planets, including Jupiter, I am not a scientist but I know gravity has a roll in the coriolis effect. If we have another Katrina or if Florida gets hit four times in one season maybe people will start waking up. Good step Yahoo on bringin up the green push.

Answer 8

Because there are no true facts concerning global warming. Only projections, speculation and Al Gore's lies. There is nothing to base facts on!!! Thirty years ago the environmental wackos were saying we were all going to die in a new Ice Age. They missed that one and will miss this one too.

Answer 9

But where can you go to get reliable information?

Why does Scientist "A" state that global warming is a fact and Scientist "B" says it is a myth.

Who is the solid, trustworthy reference point?

Answer 10

People deny things, just because they do not want to believe it themselves. Even when there are countless amounts of evidence that global warming is happening.Some people don't like to hear bad news (like global warming), some people are just ignorant to the facts that we need a new change in our daily lifestyle, so that we can live a longer, healthier life. So if people doubt the truth of global warming, i say we forget about them and change the daily things that we ourselves do.