Wednesday, December 31, 2008

At the end of what may be the coolest year this century, a strange perspective from the alarmists/frauds at "Real"Climate
Most clueless US politician taking about climate change (with the exception of Senator Inhofe who'd always win):
Sarah Palin...
RealClimate: from the comment section
I came to your site via Climatedebatedaily.com, which named you as the most authoritative pro AGW site. I have learned quite a lot and am gradually managing to get to grips with the central issues. I have a PhD in Mathematics and my professional interests are in probability and statistics and I can understand much of the material. What I found surprising and disturbing is how the subject of global warming resembles a religious war. I am used to listening to spoilt young girls with artfully matted dreadlocks giving me physics lessons on the BBC news, but I wasn’t prepared for the, what only can be described as, childish behaviour of educated scientists (perhaps you are all just programmers!). Use of words such as “denialist”, “contrarian”, “denialosphere” does your cause no good. Neither does adopting a smart-alec superior attitude. Trying to discredit your opponents by bringing their religious beliefs and attitudes towards smoking sets alarm bells ringing in the minds of the curious layman. The majority of those who visit your site probably do so in a genuine quest for information, and resent being treated as if they had inadvertently wandered into a mosque carrying a bottle of beer. If your confidence in the science behind your version of events is so strong, why not stop at a calm, clear explanation?

Response [from Gavin]: Hmm… One reason is that much of the confusion that exists is engendered on purpose. While many of our posts do just explain issues that have come up, we are constantly asked to respond to pieces of deliberate disinformation. It does no-one any favours to pretend that these are just innocent mis-interpretations.

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