Why is it...

... that when you are talking to an advocate of climate change, you either aren't looking at the long term, or you're not taking into account recent trends, whichever argument allows him/her to remain convinced global warming is human-caused and will continue indefinitely? For example:



Me: "Boy, look at all the snowstorms the mid-atlantic is getting hit with this winter. Global warming? preposterous!"

Climage change advocate: "Ah, but you have to look long term, a few storms doesn't mean the world isn't getting warmer on average!"

"Thats funny, the last five years have been successivly cooler."

"There you go again, too short term. The 2000-2009 decade was the warmest since temperature recording began."

"Okay, if you want to go long term, substantial environmental evidence suggests a long term, significant cooling trend over the last 10 million years!"

"Oh no, no, no, now you aren't taking into account recent trends! There's been a warming trend since about 1850, when the industrial revolution really started getting under way."

"Well okay then, why was there a cooling trend from the 1940's to the 1970's? Wasn't that the period of booming economic activity after the Great Depression? Shouldn't the 1930's have been cooler than the 1940's?"

"Oh that was just a short term blip on the radar. The long term still shows an upward trend."

"Well okay, the 1o million year trend is still down so what does long term mean? Actually, there's good evidence that 7,000 years ago the world was warmer than today and many places were warmer than today only 1,000 years ago. Not to mention, if 30 years is a short term blip on the radar, how do we know the 30 year period of warming from the mid 1970's to the mid 2000's wasn't the real 'short term blip' and the already 5 year long down trend isn't the resumption of the 'long term' trend??"

"Now you're being ridiculous. There was a natural slow cooling trend from 1,000 A.D. until 1850, and since then we've experienced a significant upward trend due to greenhouse gases, with only a few minor blips."

"Alrighty then. I guess that settles it. Now, if you could just explain to me how our ancestors were producing all the greenhouse gases that caused the significant upward trend seen in many tempurature reconstructions that occurred from approximately 800 - 1,000 A.D. I guess we'll be on our way. I'm sure I won't need to remind you, of course, of the 600 year period of generally flat-to-down projection of temperatures seen before that point, but I would like to know how our ancestors managed to cut back so drastically on greenhouse gas emissions for so long to bring about the ensuing 850 year decline in temperature."