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A Climate Flowchart To De-Confuse The Confused — And To Defuse The Confusers

Sunday, May 5, 2013 6:27

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(Before It's News)

First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.

Those who accept the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists have a simple-yet-scary argument to make:

Humans are changing the climate and making it warmer because we are burning massive amounts of stuff that used to be underground and took millions of years to form.

It is internally and externally consistent and backed up by science. It would be nice if none of those things were true, but unfortunately no one has yet come up with something more compelling that survives anything resembling scrutiny.

Those who argue against climate science consensus (for whatever reason) often trip themselves up with inconsistent statements:

Climate change is not happening. Scientists are lying about the data (for whatever reason). Climate change is a good thing. Climate change is happening but is not our fault.

All of those things cannot be true at the same time. Hearing one, two, or all of those arguments from someone when talk turns to climate change can be exhausting. But instead of getting exhausted, give this flowchart a try, created as a collaboration between the folks at Grist and the folks at Climate Desk.