But arguing with various irritable conservatives isn't all fun. Especially when that conservative is our father.
Now, if the SMB has one talent, it's trading pointed verbal barbs with our eminent paterfamilias. But sometimes our conversations are just plain stressful. Yesterday's was a case in point:
"Look at all this rain," he said. "Global warming in action?"
"Well," we reply mildly, "It was a very warm winter."
"Yes," he shot back. "But wasn't it cold in DC?"
Next time, we will take a cab.
Now, the Strawman Blogger doesn't claim to be an expert on climate modeling1. But we feel there's a lesson in this particular argument. So let's follow it to a hypothetical extreme. My father names a city that enjoyed an unusually cold winter. I name a city that had a very warm one. He names another, and I reply.
Given enough time, we'd exhaust all of America's largest municipalities. What then? Perhaps we'll go international. What was Paris like last February? Perhaps ocean currents hold the key - drop a few sensors in the Atlantic and we'll clear that up nicely. And so on and so forth.
Eventually, we'd have a more or less complete set of datapoints of temperature changes across the globe. Sound familiar? It's called a climate model. Scientists have been making them for quite awhile. And, in a not-unexpected victory for our world-view, they overwhelming support the concept of man-made global warming.
We've lost count of the number of times a cold snap has discredited the entire science of climate change. But no one has properly explained how a single data point is more relevant than half a century of research. So do us a favor! Stop trying. Or we really will have to call for a taxi.
1Who the hell cares? Seriously. If you can't be an irreverent jackass with a poor grasp of actual issues, than frankly there's just no point in blogging at all.
