You can just say "appeal to authority" and be done with it if you like, but given the complexities inherent in this subject area (and many others) and the shortcomings of the human brain, we're just going to have to live with fallacy on this one. I'll listen to the experts. But it would be nice if there weren't some small contingent of them whose agenda-driven approach didn't undercut the credibility of the consensus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Climate change is one of those issues where scepticism or dissent of any kind is presumed to be in bad faith. Dogma tells us climate change is happening, because of A, B, and C, and we need to address it by doing X, Y, and Z. If anyone agrees that climate change is happening, but disputes B and questions the value of Y and Z, then they're discounted as someone who doesn't believe climate change is happening. The ideologues' need to maintain their belief in X, Y, and Z is so strong they deny even the possibility that people of good faith and can disagree about them.
You get this kind of thing anywhere dogma has become entrenched.
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Exactly... I think climate change is an existential threat to the species, personally, but I've been called a climate change denier simply for wondering if some event (like this one) may not have an actual connection to climate change. The extent to which it's become acceptable to link just about anything to climate change fully jumped the shark months ago when Bill Nye went on TV and blamed it for the Syrian refugee crisis.
"Climate change is bad and will have damaging effects, so we can say any nonsense we want if it's in furtherance of the narrative that climate change is bad and will have damaging effects" seems to be the thought process here.