denier demagoguery and faux science

Helpful work from Jeffrey Tucker...

If you're going to call those who ask good questions "deniers" (as in "Holocaust deniers"), then you're a demagogue who makes Trump look good by comparison.

If you're not going to make the case for 1.) significant GW; 2.) significant AGW; 3.) the costs of AGW being greater than the *acknowledged* benefits; and 4.) the benefits of your policy proposals being greater than the *acknowledged* costs-- then you're more interested in ideology and demagoguery than truth, science, and the social good. Without all four of those, you have NADA. Please be quiet; you're making life worse...oddly, you're engaging in pollution. 

Or put it this way: all that's needed to take action on climate change is:

1.) significant GW

2.) a significant proportion of GW is anthropogenic

3.) GW has more costs than benefits

4.) we have a public policy that will create more benefits than costs

Unfortunately, if we accept 1 and 2, we still need 3 and 4 to take action-- well, at least, if we're trying to make things better, rather than pretend/pose, assuage some sort of guilt, use this as a tool to grasp for power, etc. But on the rare occasions that 3 and 4 are addressed, it's almost always the costs of GW and the benefits of policy, rather than a thorough look at costs and benefits. When people tell you half of the story-- and the half that leans their direction-- they're morons or demagogues. I don't have time for either, especially when they're self-righteous (and hypocritical).

This author compares the complaints to Groundhog Day-- but people don't pay much attention and have short memories, so this strategic (or reflexive?) approach can still be effective.

Even though Trump is obviously a mess, many of his critics are no (clear) improvement-- and they hurt their credibility in this arena by...

1.) opposing everything with an hysteria akin to the last admin's Birtherism

2.) failing to call out the false prophets in their camp

3.) their penchant for nasty name-calling ("deniers"? really?!)

4.) failing to make the necessary case for effective climate change legislation, if such a thing exists (from their approach, one *must* suspect that it doesn't-- and that they're just trying to play a demagogic game with us)