Jesse's adventures on the Internets

I spend a good deal of time -- way too much time -- yesterday evening and this morning on a conservative blog. Something I do from time to time, part for that "staring at a horrific accident" feeling I also get from Fox News, part to see what the Other Side says. Normally I don't post, I just read.

But yesterday they started going off on environmental science. Apparently some scary environmentalist-types went off and said we had a 10-year deadline before climate change becomes catastrophic. I'm no expert on climate change, but this seems ridiculous on its face, and I sure hadn't heard anything in the atmospheric chem community. Funny how environmental scientists and serious environmentalists just ignored it while right-wingers took it to be a reflection of the state of modern environmentalism. But anyway, the post's original point was valid, regardless of what you might think of global warming: the warning isn't based on science, so it can safely be ignored.

But then people started attacking real environmental science, making false claims about what scientists "used to think". So I posted a comment, calling them out on it -- asking for a single reference supporting their claims. Predictably, I got yelled at, mostly by some borderline-psychotic woman named Julie. Check out the Comments -- they're fun!

What I found interesting is that the entire right-wing anti-environmental blogosphere (god I hate that word) takes as fact that in the 1970's scientists widely believed that thanks to pollution, we were headed to a new ice age. This is simply not true; it was based on one paper from 1971, which was quickly retracted in 1972. Hardly scientific consensus. Interestingly, that link (a great reference site for climate change) was kindly provided by someone much more open-minded than most people on the site -- he believed the ice age myth until investigating my claims and finding that site. As you can see from the Comments, most people couldn't come up with a single bibliographic reference to back up their claims; one came up with the 1971 paper but didn't know about the 1972 retraction.

So, in my first internet argument, I actually got a

"Score one for Jesse."

and a

"Let's just end it by saying that [Jesse] won this one by default."

Which, if I do say so myself, is as close to victory as one might reasonably expect in an internet argument, particularly one against right-wing nutjobs. Victory Is Mine!

Part II coming up later...I really should get some work done this morning.