A denier would say global warming isn't really happening. A cynic would say there's no hope in the face of such danger. The two positions are mutually exclusive. I can't be both. There's much we don't know about climate change and likening me to a Holocaust denier simply because I don't agree with certain assertions is really an attempt to dichotomize the situation.Robert Tulip wrote:You say you don't doubt anthropogenic causes for climate change, you just doubt the ability of scientists to measure it and of humanity to "do anything to change the path we're on". This sort of extreme pessimism is like a death warrant for the planet. It still amounts to denial.
All I've been saying all along is that such claims as the world will warm by x degrees are just not very meaningful. That the four degrees is an extrapolation of "current global trends" is exactly right. We have talked before of world population projections which are simple extrapolations of current birth trends. As birth trends change, so do the extrapolations. So to extrapolate current warming trends ignores all of the complexities that can lead to reasonable questions regarding climate change.
Indeed there are many reasonable positions between the two extremes: 1) global warming is definitely taking place and it's all due to human activity; and 2) global warming is a bunch of bull hockey. Just because I'm not jumping on your particular bandwagon doesn't mean I'm a denier. You are attempting to frame the argument with only two positions, not taking into account the many shades of gray in between.