Warmist Michael Lemonick: "The truth is, climate-skeptic arguments are very persuasive. They're simple, they're resonant, and they make good common sense"

Q and A: Michael Lemonick On Global Weirdness, Climate Change, And How To Talk About Science - New York - News - Runnin' Scared

I get really uncomfortable when people emphasize one aspect of the science and de-emphasize the parts that don't advance the mission. You see it in stories about climate, and also in stories about medicine. There's a pressure to make this seem as important as possible, because otherwise, why am I writing about it? And when you mix in actual advocacy with an issue like climate change, it gets even stronger.

So you take things that you think are plausible and you say that they're true. And you take things that are complicated and you pretend that they're simple. And you come out with numbers and tell people all the horrible things that could happen and you don't maybe mention that it's a worst-case scenario. And you use the word "could" and act like that absolves you of responsibility. And I've never been comfortable with that in part because it can come back to haunt you.
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Another example I worry about is this: We've had a very hot summer this summer, and there have been millions of stories about how it's the hottest summer ever, and the hottest month ever. If by chance we get a cold summer next summer, this will be a huge opening for climate skeptics to say "Ha! You can't trust anything they say!"
...we don't actually know for sure how much of a temperature increase is caused by a specific amount of C02. And the range of numbers that people have thrown out there is pretty wide. It could be at the low end. It could be at the high end. It could be higher than the high end!
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The two-degree threshold, that has no scientific meaning at all. It's purely a bureaucratic diplomatic number that people picked because they had to pick something. There's no scientific reason to say we're screwed if we go over that number, and there's no scientific reason to say we're not if we don't.
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The truth is, climate-skeptic arguments are very persuasive. They're simple, they're resonant, and they make good common sense. Some people who write about climate get angry about these arguments and dismiss them as ignorant and stupid and deliberate attempts to mislead (which they are, in many cases).
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What I've taken away is that a lot of very intelligent and educated people know essentially nothing about climate change.