What Being a "Denier" Means

So I'm a global warming "denier." What does that mean?

It means I'm not persuaded that global temperatures are actually rising over a significant enough period of time to mean it is a real trend and not merely a natural cycle based on factors we don't understand. For example, I'm not persuaded by graphs showing increases since 1850. We were coming out of the Little Ice Age then. Of course, temperatures will go up in that time frame (despite decades long fluctuations, that in the 1970s was interpreted as predicting a new ice age). Part of this means I am not totally comfortable with the temperature reconstructions based on proxies.

If we really are warming, I'm not persuaded that mankind is causing it. Many factors go into our climate and I have little confidence that we have tipped the scales.

I'm not convinced, if we are warming, that the models can predict what the climate will be decades or centuries down the line. I just don't trust that the models accurately reflect our climate. Let's not even get started on the quality of the data that is fed into the models!

If we are warming and the models (and data) are accurate (whether or not we are responsible for it), I am not persuaded that the effects will be catastrophic--or even bad overall. Some will win. Some will lose. But will the net effect really be bad?

But for each of these objections, I stand ready to be persuaded. I can be convinced that temperature increases are real and not a local cycle.

Can warmists say the same thing about evidence that the temperature change isn't significant over the appropriate time frame?

Can warmists say that they can be persuaded that our production of global warming gasses just isn't big enough to be more than spitting in the ocean?

Can warmists admit that their model doesn't predict the past temperature record reconstruction, let alone predict the future?

Can warmists be persuaded that the effects of climate change might be positive?

I don't believe they can. The science is "settled," they say. You are in "denial" if you say otherwise. Yet I'm anti-science?

But if the rise is real, the planet really will warm like the global warmers say (and regardless of whether we are causing it or whether some large natural effect will, in centuries down the line, reverse the warming), and the effects will be bad, I cannot be persuaded that the plans to place wise (dare I say "reasonably enlightened?") autocrats over us to control our lives to limit our carbon emissions is the best way to respond to that bad future. But that isn't a matter of science, is it? That's politics. And economics. And the very concept of freedom based on individual liberty.

Science is science. It can change. Socialism is socialism. It can't. And the global warmers won't change their mind about the glories of reasonably enlightened green despots telling us what to do--for our own good. I fear that is the biggest question that the global warmers cannot answer differently.

If that is "denialism," I'm a denialist. And proud of it.