A Profanity-Free Rebuttal To All The Poor Dears Whose Feewies Got Hurted When We Did The Tornados

Your Wonkette is a Very Influential Blog on the Internet, an enviable position that nonetheless carries with it certain afflictions. For example, we often attract the attention of the sorts of folks who probably don’t get invited to many parties, because they are no fun at all. So it came as no surprise that yesterday’s epic rant by your editrix re: the destructive Midwestern tornados drew a response from a website called junkscience.com (Also, these guys, who didn't care that we were profane but called us "warmist vultures come to feed on the dead." "Warmist," haw haw, that's a clever pejorative for dummies who believe in climate change! Your editrix has instructed us to ask how many of those smug Aussies have their whole family in Oklahoma, 10 miles from Moore, and also to tell them to commit a lewd sex act upon themselves.) (Also also, we got some head-shaking from fellow liberals who thought we were "flippant" instead of OUTRAGED!!!1! So that's a true shame.)

The “junk science” that junkscience.com claims to “debunk” is what you think it is. No, it will not take long to read their entire post concerning your Wonkette, because it is about 20 words long. Here it is:

First Blood: Wonkette blog unleashes profanity-laden screed at Sen. Imhofe, skeptics over Oklahoma tornado.

Appalling.

Read the Wonkette screed.

That last part links to the “offending” article in the original, but you’ve probably already read it. Boy was it ever a stem-winder!

So, OK, let’s be COMPLETELY FAIR. There is no way to be certain that the Oklahoma tornado would not have killed a bunch of people had humans not been increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 for the last several hundred years.

That said, oh gosh, where to begin? Perhaps with junkscience.com’s central huckster, “ Steve Milloy .” It will probably not surprise you to learn that Steve Milloy’scurriculum vitaeindicates a man who likes money quite a bit! He has been a “securities lawyer” and an “investment fund manager” (no mention of dentistry, or any expertise in any field relevant to climate science, for that matter). As a man who seems to enjoy money, Steve Milloy has certainly chosen a lucrative hobby: he ministers to the many rubes in this great country who, for reasons of tribalism, contrarianism, personal gain, or/and religious fundamentalism refuse to believe that science is real. That’s the real beauty of the truly ignorant: once they’ve been taught a thing by a source they trust (God, Wal-Mart), they’ll spend their own hard-earned money on anything (such as Steve Milloy’s books) that confirms the thing, rather than consider, at no charge, the possibility that the thing they learned is wrong. We get it; learning’s hard — best to do as little of it as possible.

Then there's the whole "I am offended!" act. Oh, the delicate sensibilities of climate change skeptics! Oh, the profanity of rabid liberals! We acknowledge that these specific weather events may or may not be attributable to climate change. Fine. When will the Steve Milloys acknowledge that, if they are wrong (and they are), turning their do-nothingism into policy will, like, kill people? Already, North Carolina has passed a law "barring the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise." It doesn't take a junk scientist to figure out that this might be bad news when the next Hurricane Sandy comes barreling in. "But how could the storm surge be so bad? We passed a law!"

Alright, ya know what, this isn’t worth our time. Let us just throw this out there for anyone who finds themselves in an argument with a skeptic of man-made climate change:

First question: Do you deny the physical reality that carbon dioxide traps solar radiation as heat? (If yes, laugh in face, prepare for physical rebuttal.)

Second question: Do you deny the established fact that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activity? (Same.)

Third question: Do you know of some mechanism by which the acknowledged, physical heat-trapping effects of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are counteracted? (Anything they assert here is far less proven or even studied than anthropogenic climate change.)

Fourth question: How does it feel to know, deep inside, that you’re full of shit?

WHOOPS! Sorry, that was a vulgarity! We must not peddle such filth; the Lord will punish it, and lo, he will reward them that don’t do such things, for he cares not whether you’re arguing in good faith, from a place of scientific rigor and righteous passion, or whether you’re just a one-bit shill for the same kind of establishment-serving dogma that got Galileo arrested.

[ junkscience.com (your one-stop shop for all the junk science you can stand!)]