I have a grudging respect for anyone who just owned it and voted for hoax. More concerning is the 25% ‘not made made’ folks skirting by on a non answer. If you believe that climate change is happening (ie. there is an increase in global temperature in the troposphere from pre-industrial levels) but largely not anthropogenic, please answer the following:
- Do you agree that climate change is caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the troposphere resulting in the greenhouse effect? If no, then what are the other natural forces causing climate change?
- If yes, do you agree that along with the increase in temperature there is also a dramatic increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in the troposphere from pre-industrial levels? If no, you probably should have chosen hoax since this is easily measurable and there is a ton of data supporting this.
- If yes, do you also agree that levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide have for 800,000 years correlated almost perfectly with temperature changes in the atmosphere? If no, again hoax might have been a better answer.
- If yes, is the increase in greenhouse gases in the troposphere from pre-industrial levels caused by anthropogenic emissions from burning fossil fuels along with other industrial activities like agriculture and landfills? If no, what natural forces then are causing the dramatic increase in the levels of greenhouse gases and thus global warming?
- If yes, where is the space left for climate change being ‘not man made’?
Of course ‘hoax’ is absurd on its face, akin to denial of evolution or anti-vax. The ‘not man made’ folks however at least acknowledge a real phenomenon but never seem to offer any alternatives to explain the mountains of available evidence for anthropogenic global warming.
Science works on skepticism but real skeptics ask for evidence, replicate findings, and offer competing theories that include, account for, or explain already available data and accepted theory. Waving away a unified theory and thousands of independent studies worth of evidence or being ‘skeptical’ of organizations like NASA or the IPCC doesn’t make you a real skeptic, it just makes you a conspiracy theorist and hoax would have been a more honest answer to the poll.
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