(Of the debate, at least.) Chris de Freitas's wife showed up at dinner, somewhat surprisingly. He's a denialist “skeptic” funded, it seems, by Exxon. It was a very intense encounter, which left me wondering whether I was just a jerk and should dial back my arguments a bit...until I was told who this was and why I was being made to feel like that.
I have good news, which is that I have some arguments that Exxon et al. don't like. It's the one about the girl and the truck. The counter argument to global warming is based on keeping people in the terrain of facts and factoids. If you can introduce a sliver of doubt, Fox et al. will jump on it. If Nancy or Chris de Freitas can keep me occupied for long enough, I'm neutralized.
But my argument doesn't depend on proving for the millionth time that global warming is real. Indeed I see that as an ideologically driven distraction. Saying that there have been periods of cooling as well as warming on Earth so why bother, is to me like saying that since the truck has been known to reverse and drive down other streets, we shouldn't save the girl.
Why do you save the girl from the truck? You save her because you can see her. You don't need to prove that she's your relative. You don't need to prove that the truck is going to hit her. You just save her. Because you can understand what's going on.
Why do we fix global warming? Because we can understand it. No need for proof. Thanks to Alphonso Lingis for backing this up for me...