Pirate's Cove

It’s that time of year where the media is giving all sorts of instructions on how to totally ruin the holidays by making it uber-political, which emanate primarily from liberal outlets, since Democrat voters need to be told what to say. And, because they’re pretty much the ones who ruin holidays. And what better than combining the talk with ‘climate change’? And where better to go than an “arts and leisure” section?

HOW TO TALK ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE (AND NOT RUIN TURKEY DINNER)

David Court gave a lecture on Wednesday night, something he does a lot as a professor of Geography at Santa Barbara City College, only this time his audience was at the Mammoth Brewing Company and was probably much more sober than he’s used to. 

Court, who also works at the Earth Research Institute in UC Santa Barbara and as a guide with Dave Miller’s International Alpine Guides in the summers, gave a presentation entitled “How To Talk About Climate Change and Not Ruin Turkey Dinner.” 

During the conversational lecture, Court debunked climate myths, offered facts that his audience could cite in conversation, and ran through some social psychology techniques that may make it easier to change your stubborn Uncle Bob’s mind at the Thanksgiving table.

Or, better yet, keep it to yourself rather than starting a fight at the table (or while people are just enjoying the day). Yeah, I know, that would be asking too much of Warmists

Myth #1: The Science is Not Settled

“If its cold outside, how can there be global warming?” your Uncle Bob might ask.

“It’s like Colbert said,” Court joked, “I just ate, therefore there is no world hunger.”

Court described climate as a personality and weather as a mood. Your grandpa might have a lovely personality, but when the Packers are losing he’s in a foul mood. So, too, does a cold day not preclude a warming climate.

It was this early on in the lecture that Court kicked the piece of paper he had been holding and said, “F*%k the notes.”

“There is consensus among 99.9% of scientists on anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change. Only one in 17,000 disagree, and that will always happen. It’s like the guy in [Monty Python’s] Life of Bryan who after Brian tells the crowd that they are all individuals says, ‘I’m not.’”

Oh, now it’s 99.9%. Love to see him prove it.

Myth #2: So what if the planet gets warmer? I like it warm.

If your Uncle Bob says he likes it a little warmer, Court said try to humor Bob and think of what benefits might come from climate change. It will be easier to explore the arctic. Crops will grow farther north, Russia will certainly have more usable land. Some even say there will be fewer winter deaths, but that doesn’t really make sense. That’s about it.

The ill-effects are slightly scarier and more numerous. There will be drought and famine, like there was recently in Syria, which will exacerbate migration crises. Rising seas will reduce beaches, and reduced habitat will kill many species of animals. Less of the planet will be habitable for humans. 

Oh, you mean like the famine during the Little Ice Age, like in, say, Ireland? A famine that was so bad across Europe that French nobles were trying to get the upper and middle classes to eat potatoes, a crop that was so low that even peasants didn’t want to eat them? But were easy to grow? Because there was no wheat for bread? How many civilizations were wiped out due to cold, like the Vikings in Iceland, the Mayans, and the Aztecs?

Myth #4: It’s not humans. It’s the natural changing of the climate.

There are some natural causes of climate change, i.e. volcanoes, which can put lots of sulfates into the air all at once. However, there are not enough volcanoes in the world to cause the amount of warming we’ve seen. Three-quarters of warming is anthropogenic. What can get confusing are the natural feedback loops that causes the earth to feed the flames of anthropogenic change. For example, warming causes the release of more water vapor which acts as a greenhouse gas. Also, as the ocean warms the thermohaline circulation of the oceans slows, which affects pretty much everything.

Oh, how nice, they put a percentage on it. My answer would be “prove it using the scientific method.”

There are a couple more, just more ways for liberals to ruin everything. That’s what they do. And you can bet they won’t debate, they’ll argue and scream and talk over people.