Quark Soup by David Appell: The CharlesH Problem

But CharlesH, this idiot, this — I’m sorry — this fucking idiot who sits home and probably watches America’s [sic] Idol in the evening, who has probably never read a science paper in his life, really, truly, somehow honestly thinks he knows better than all the professional, study-deep-into-the-night, sweat-the-data, devote-their-lives scientists about all this.

What can you possibly say about such a person? This person — CharlesH — now threatens civilization.

Think about that — ignorance from Tea Party types in rural Utah threatens the well-being of the entire human race.

…

I don’t know. Donald Brown, the philosopher at Penn State who has been writing about the ethics of climate change for well over a decade — I interviewed him in the early 2000s — thinks they are perhaps guilty of crimes against humanity.

Are they? Are Anthony Watts and Marc Morano and Tom Nelson and Steve Goddard smart enough to be guilty of climate crimes?

I think so. You can simply claim that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas.

I think they’re crimes will be obvious in about a decade.

When I profiled Michael Mann for Scientific American, he said he thought it would eventually be illegal to deny climate change. I had doubts about that, but maybe.

…It’s obvious (barely) they’re not smart enough to be so evil…

…

None of them has much of a science background, if any. I mean, please.

And CharlesH, who clearly knows no science either.

But on the shoulders of these idiots, fools, and incoherent minds our future seems to turn, if only just a bit, if only in the blogosphere. And they are probably proud of this, somehow.

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But them, still, I think: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. 5 molecules per 10,000 trap more heat than 4 per 10,000, or even three.

On that small divide, our future lies. One molecule out of 10,000.

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I’ll be flying home tomorrow…

I just hope I can get my WiFi to work again. It always seems like a crapshoot, and frankly, I don’t even know if I remember the password.