Global warming makes me hot

While out on the town a few weeks ago celebrating a friend's thirtieth birthday, the ever-so-festive topics of religion and global warming were suddenly running amok in our drinking circle. In other words:

Happy birthday!

Leaving religion aside for the moment, that evening's global warming "debate," if we can call it that, ended on one in those awkward "agree to disagree!" agreements to lay down the verbal weaponry and focus on the delight that is beer and birthdays. For me, resorting to this truce was a strange result: after all, the other mouth in the dialogue was a college-educated, I-understand-science kind of guy. But yet, his position, or at least my interpretation of his position, was that there is reason to believe that modern climate theory is a vast conspiracy orchestrated by arrogant, grant-writing lab coats, and any claims from these "scientists" claiming to understand climate change are invalid because our own Mark Ronchetti can't put together a solid extended forecast. QED, apparently.

Well, let's say I remain unconvinced. Call me crazy, but I still have faith in the scientific method. Physicist Mark Boslough writes [HT jfleck @ inkstain.net],

Denialists have attempted to call the science into question by writing articles that include fabricated data. They’ve improperly graphed data using tricks to hide evidence that contradicts their beliefs. They chronically misrepresent the careful published work of scientists, distorting all logic and meaning in an organized misinformation campaign. To an uncritical media and gullible non-scientists, this ongoing conflict has had the intended effect: it gives the appearance of a scientific controversy and seems to contradict climate researchers who have stated that the scientific debate over the reality of human-caused climate change is over (statements that have been distorted by denialists to imply the ridiculous claim that in all respects “the science is settled”).

Now while I was out on the town celebrating birthdays thinking of rising sea levels, Thomas Friedman must have been doing the same because he published a timely opinion entitled "Global Weirding." Climate change is complicated, the science surely is not settled in all respects, but the evidence has been considered and the  jury has delivered the verdict on human impact. And why not? Our species has a knack for fucking shit up even when we don't mean it. They call that precedent.

Hope we didn't ruin your birthday, DL3!