[randallsquared]

members of the Shadowy Underworld Global Climate Change Cabal.

...because pretending that a group you don't like are conspiracy nuts makes them wrong.

If you're trying to correct misinformation, it's probably not most effective to make some more up and throw it into the fray.

[ubernostrum]

Unfortunately, to draw an admittedly-loaded parallel, the anti-AGW movement is basically running the playbook of Holocaust deniers, whose preferred methodology is, in a nutshell, to drag some 90-year-old's memories out, say "AH-HA! You said this happened at 3:30 on April 12, but the camp's log says it happened at 3:42! Therefore the entire Holocaust never happened and was made up by the Jewish banking conspiracy!"

It's not any prettier when it's used to argue against climate change.

[varjag]

To quote the article:

"Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as "voodoo science".

You have to give it to him though, he didn't play Holocaust denier card at least.

[ubernostrum]

The article also points out, though it's lost in sensationalism, that the core of the dispute is not whether the glaciers are melting, but how quickly they're melting. The anti-AGW folks will probably turn this on its head into a claim that no glaciers are melting, which is -- as I've noted -- the same methodology used by a known-dodgy group and just as invalid in this case as it is in others.

[tokenadult]

the core of the dispute is not whether the glaciers are melting, but how quickly they're melting.

Most glaciers melt at the margins, seasonally. Most glaciers refreeze somewhere, seasonally. Glaciers don't form at all at sea level at the equator, and haven't for a long, long time, but that hasn't stopped glaciers from forming elsewhere. As I experience an exceptionally snowy and gelid Minnesota winter (I have lived in temperate Minnesota or Wisconsin every winter of my life but for about six when I lived in subtropical Taiwan), I'm not seeing any radical climate change here yet, and the current weather pattern could hardly be called "warm" even on the historical pattern observed in my lifetime.

Weather varies all over the world. Climate change over broad historical time and especially over deep geological time is an established fact, but also has nothing to do with human activity. It's not entirely clear that the trade-offs of anthropogenic global warming, a phenomenon I accept as a fact, are all harmful trade-offs or even mostly harmful trade-offs for the majority of the human population.

[varjag]

Thing is, that crowd is not some cookie-cutter denier as often portrayed by their opponents. You have everything from cranky old farts to industry lobbyists (tobacco-company style) to actual scientists with substantial arguments. Just as the pro-GW side is also actual scientists, industry/political lobbyists and a bunch of tree-hugger liberal arts students who'd be hard pressed to name a difference between CO2 and H2O :)

[davidw]

We have a Godwin here!

Does that mean we can get rid of the stupid climate change articles and talk about something we actually know about and participate in, like hacking and startups?