Pirate's Cove

That’s not according to me: Time magazine’s Jeffrey Kluger says it. Sort of

The Climate Deniers’ Newest Argument

It’s a lot easier to attack environmental scientists when you make up something they didn’t say—and then criticize them for saying it

There are few things more satisfying than when people you’re arguing with say something manifestly wrong or tone-deaf. It’s the polemical equivalent of getting a big, fat fastball right right in your sweet spot. Just swing away with a look of disdain or checkable fact and the home run trot is yours.

Alas, that happens less often than one might like, but there’s nothing that stops you from pretending your adversary said something dumb and then pouncing on the imaginary remark. Thus we had the “You didn’t build that” and “Let Detroit go bankrupt” silliness of the 2012 Presidential campaign, in which both President Obama and Mitt Romney were pilloried for saying things they never actually said—or at least didn’t mean—at all. And so, too, we have the “Climate science is settled” charade, in which climate change deniers hand-select four words environmental scientists often do say, reframe those words to mean something else entirely, and then beat the scientists up for faux-saying it.

Interesting. Because AL Gore did, in fact, say “the science is settled” in front of Congress. Climate scientists, leftist opinion writers, pundits, newspapers and media outlets favorable to the notion of “climate change” constantly say it.