What Happens When You Try to Debate Climate Change

I worry for humanity given the younger generations inability to think critically I do. I guess I’ll be gone by the time they wreak their havoc on the world so maybe I should stop worrying…

Anyway. When you try to have a debate with these younger people about climate change some strange behavior manifests. I have had several attempts at debating this issue with a young BBC reporter, A British MP (and a bunch of his followers who all piled in), some people on Facebook etc.

Rather than engage with you on the topic, the response includes all of the following;

  1. You write badly and need to pay attention to your grammar (I actually use Grammarly, so I guess that is a waste of cash),
  2. You just used the word ‘crap’ and I find it offensive and the same goes with bullshit (strangely common words these days and very mild by anyone’s standards),
  3. I’m offended that you capitalized the word SCIENCE in an article of yours I found (Please grow up …),
  4. You worked as a Geologist for BP so they must be paying you (Oh how I wish that were true),
  5. Your Ph.D. (if you really have one) is not in climate science (I don’t have any qualifications at all but I still know more than you do so there… (and Climate Science is a subfield of Earth Sciences which is…. Geology!)),
  6. Show me your peer-reviewed papers (Show me yours too),
  7. Why don’t you answer/You have gone very quiet – guess you know nothing after all (Sorry but unlike British MPs, I don’t have the time nor inclination to hang on Twitter 24 x 7 so please be patient – go fiddle your expenses or something useful and I will be back later),
  8. 98% of scientists agree that this is a serious issue (1. Science isn’t a consensus, 2. Yes – even I would say mankind impacts climate but I wouldn’t mean via CO2 so the devil is in the details, 3. And so what? – read 1 and 2 above),

I could go on but you get the drift. No attempt to debate or think about what I am saying at all. Just use ways to insult, belittle and undermine.

Unfortunately, I find this is very much how many younger people behave when challenged. It’s ignorance in action.

Really.

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