(Thanks, J. :)

Reader John wishes to say:

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Re: Tweet: '40 yrs of shameless, baseless fear....

I have been debating with climate skeptics for 2 decades!!! They have consistently used unsound reasoning, and emotional triggers. There are a few honest skeptics around but the vast majority are either naive or liars or both. How can people in good conscious attack scientist saying that, hundreds of thousands of them, are in collusion to get government grants by making up global warming????? No scientist has called CO2 a poison, yet the word "poison" is put into the mouths of the scientists. Yes, plants thrive on CO2, but then the skeptic uses this common fact to deduce that global warming is beneficial to the world (poor logic!). The skeptics admit that CO2 levels are rising, just as the scientists say. Fifteen years ago, the skeptics say that there was no warming. Now they admit that there is warming. They also agree that CO2 levels are rising and sea levels are rising. So the scientists are right all along. After all this admission, the sticking point is that the scientists say that man is a major contributing factor to today's warming, while the skeptic say that the warming is caused by natural forces (especially the sun). Question: Why is it so important for the skeptics to refuse to accept any responsibilities for man's damage of the climate???????? Why hide behind ideology??? Why not just search for truth and let the chip fall in the way of truth??? In previous warming, the CO2 lags behind the naturally caused warming. The warming releases more CO2 which as an effective green house gas, then warm the earth even more in a feedback mechanism. So the previous warmings show that CO2 is effective in warming the earth. Today's warming is different. The warming is LOCKED IN STEP with the rise in CO2 showing that this rise in CO2 is the primary driver of warming, while in previous warmings CO2 was the secondary driver. That is why today's warming is happening over a relatively brief time (one hundred years) while previous warmings took thousands of years. It is true that water vapor is a more portent green house gas, but water vapor has a life cycle of about 3 days in the atmosphere before returning to liquid water. However, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, making it effectively much more portent than water vapor. The rapid warming of the planet means that the planet is unbalanced and it does not have the time to re-balance. Like a sick person that has fever and chills, the earth will suffer from extreme cold and extreme heat. Thus when skeptics say, some areas have extreme cold, that actually supports the science of global warming. Basically, the naturally circulation pattern of the planet will be changed by the rapid warming. Where the monsoon comes year after year for hundreds of years, they may not come because the monsoon will be shifted a few hundred miles. Yes, more and more severe weather events will take place and the planet gets more unbalanced. Even as severe weather pounds us and civilization is collapsing before our eyes, the skeptics refuse to accept man's responsibility and do everything to bad mouth the scientists. They say scientists are lying to get grant money (ridiculous!),or that the whole thing is a scheme to shift wealth form the rich countries to poor countries (again ridiculous!). The truth is that the mild manner scientists have been cowed and have been DOWN PLAYING the dangers we are facing. Now with severe flooding, severe hurricanes, severe droughts, etc, etc, even they are speaking up when they used to keep silent.

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