PBS Digital's Be Smart debunks 'The Biggest Myth About Climate Change'

I'm not done with environmental themes this week. Watch PBS Digital's Be Smart debunk The Biggest Myth About Climate Change.

You’ve seen it in the comment section before: “Climate change is natural. It’s happened before and it will keep happening”. In reality, comments like these are the newest kind of climate change denial. In this video we’re going to learn about all the reasons that Earth’s climate changes, natural and otherwise, and then how we know that modern climate change can’t be blamed on natural forces. Maybe we can finally put this biggest myth about climate change in the trash.

I have mentioned several times that I'm a paleontologist who studies Pleistocene fossils, particularly snails. What I don't mention is that I used data from the snails, clams, and plants of Rancho La Brea to reconstruct the late Pleistocene climate of southern California, so I'm quite familiar with natural climate change. That's why I was able to respond intelligently to Ed, the troll who was better than a spammer, when he snarked "Maybe you can tell us what the climate is supposed to be so we will know if it's changing too much."

Ed, actually, I can. The average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere should be almost two degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it is today based on the pre-1900 temperature trend, three degrees based on the progress of previous interglacials. If you want the reasoning and evidence, you will have to wait until I put together an entire entry with links; it will take more effort than a simple comment is worth. In the meantime, count your blessings that you stumbled onto someone who actually knows the answer to what you may have thought was a rhetorical question too hard to answer.

That was back in 2015. He persisted his climate change denial trolling for three more years, when he asked "What was the Climate Science Special Report in the years 1818 and 1918?"

Strictly speaking, there wouldn't have been any, as the document is a product of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, which I mentioned in R.I.P. George H.W. Bush, the last Republican President I voted for. However, a 1818 report would have been written at the tail end of the Little Ice Age right after The Year Without a Summer, so it would have reported continued cold climate. As for 1918, would have been written after a brief warm spell that happened after another prolonged cooling trend. In both cases, a warmer climate might have been welcome. That's not the case now. It's warming up too quickly.

As I wrote, better than a spammer. Those, I just insult and delete. Ed at least sparked intelligent answers. Too bad I haven't seen him here since November 2, 2020, when I told him so.

By the way, not only are you better than a spammer, you provide a service; your comments tell me when my posts are linked over at Crooks&Liars. Thank you. Based on the comments, you apparently spend a lot of time hate-reading liberals. I know some liberals who do that with conservatives, but I don't understand the attraction beyond "know your enemy" and "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." If I don't like a person and don't like their ideas, I won't read them. I think it's a wasted of time.

Ed hasn't been back since.

Enough reality. Stay tuned as I return to television tomorrow.