It astonishes me what idiots the right wing global warming deniers are. In essence they believe that Rush Limbaugh knows more about science than actual climate scientists do. That is the bottom line. The deniers believe that scientific data is not as important as the given word of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

But Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are scientific illiterates and everything they say denying global warming is made up, either based on no facts whatsoever, or focusing on only isolated data points, ignoring most of the data out there. Science has to include ALL data, not just the data that supports your own faith-based beliefs.

Once, when I was complaining about having to go over the same facts about evolution and global warming over and over again, someone on Daily Kos told me he agreed and put it like this: "It sucks to have to defend the blatantly obvious."

It's like we have to continually review the facts that the earth is round or that the earth goes around the sun rather than the other way around. Science like evolution and climate change is based on the same kinds of scientific work and effort and thought as any science. Global warming denial is based on the same kind of blind refusal to face solid facts as shown by those who deny evolution, deny the earth is round or deny that the earth revolves around the sun.
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The Climate Change Denial Lobby has been pushing their most recent lie: that there has been no warming for a decade and that, in fact, there has been cooling. They claim that this is "proof" that global warming isn't happening.

Of course they are wrong on so many levels. Even IF they were right that there had been a decade long cooling trend, it still wouldn't disprove global warming. However, they aren't even right about that decade of cooling. In fact, the past decade has been the warmest decade on record. Yes, folks, global warming has continued despite the lies of the Denial Lobby. From BBC News:

The first decade of this century is "by far" the warmest since instrumental records began, say the UK Met Office and World Meteorological Organization...

The WMO said global temperatures were 0.44C (0.79F) above the long-term average.

"We've seen above average temperatures in most continents, and only in North America were there conditions that were cooler than average," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.

"We are in a warming trend - we have no doubt about it..."
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Last month a coalition of 18 Scientific organizations (and these are big ones...some of the biggest in the world) issued this statement (PDF) to the Senate:

Dear Senator:

As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.

These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades. [See Footnote #1 below]
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I got notice of this from an email from Congressman Tom Perriello's office, though his response was rather restrained. Daily Kos has a diary from Senator John Kerry that goes to the heart of the matter: lobbyists are stooping to forgeries and deception to further the Global Warming Denial cause. Since science has disproven pretty much every Denial Lobby tactic, they are resorting to outright and blatent lies. From the Charlottesville Daily Progress:

As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman’s office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.

The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.
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I covered this before, but here is a segment from the Rachel Maddow show discussing George Will's deliberate distortion of the truth on global warming: (hat tip to Media Matters)

Now I expect fools like Rush Limbaugh to lie. Rush has routinely used false information to support his ideological fantasies even when scientists correct him. But I expected better of George Will who, unlike Rush, does have a brain. In Rush's case he probably is unable to understand science in any meaningful way. But George Will can and yet he still deliberately distorts science even when those very scientists he refers to try to correct him. THAT is worse than Rush's drug induced ravings.

The latest drivel from anti-Science Global Warming Deniers is this:

Global warming stopped in 1998 and it has been cooling since then.

I am hearing this all over the place. What they then do is carefully pick the temperatures from individual years and compare them with other individual years to try and show a pattern that suggests cooling. There are three problems with this.

First, the possibility of cooling trends, locally or temporary, is quite likely within a general warming trend. Climate does not change linearly, but will vary up and down from year to year. This is why, as I will say again below, individual years are not significant. An individual year can include anomalies like El Nino or La Nina conditions. In addition, things like volcanic eruptions can cause temporary cooling (something deniers like Rush Limbaugh seemed to ignore when they used to claim, in the 1990's, that global warming was caused by Mt. Pinatubo). An initial cooling over Antarctica was predicted by the global warming models. This Antarctic cooling has been used by some deniers, who either don't realize or ignore that temporary cooling of Antarctica was predicted by the models, as "evidence" that global warming wasn't happening. Well, as predicted, that cooling trend has ended even in Antarctica. The only deviation from what was predicted by the models was the temporary cooling didn't last as long as predicted.

Second, there is a major error made by the deniers: you do NOT judge science based on selected data points. Only using a complete data set. The deniers cherry pick individual years to make their point. Scientists use entire data sets. When you do that, THIS is what you see:

And THIS:

And, as requested by one of CK's more loyal trolls, a 2000 year record:

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