Al Franken 1 – Climate Change Deniers 0

Good evening. This is your Random Truth (RANT) bulletin with your random fact.

Today’s topic: climate change skepticism.

Sorry to break it to you, dear climate change skeptics, but it’s real. Climate change is happening, end of story. The peer reviews are in, and they’re pointing to good old human activity as the primary cause. The scientists in their vast majority have spoken. As much as we would like to Perry the thought, it’s happening.

Speaking of Perrying and other unfortunate processes, can you believe this guy, this ‘leader’ of the Energy department? Who died and made the dunce secretary? Is this a joke? You can’t be a skeptic on corroborated facts, buddy. You can perhaps doubt the nuance of a fact, subject it to further scrutiny and deliberation until you shave off the inconsistencies and reach some deeper truth, an updated set of facts, polishing them down to smooth theory — and by ‘theory’ we mean ‘a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena, e.g. “the wave theory of light” — that kind of theory’ — you can be skeptical about a theory’s nuances all you want, putting into question whatever parts fail to add up.

But the parts that have withstood the tests and experiments and peer reviews, you can’t be ‘skeptical’ about them. You can’t doubt the established and proven segments of the premise. You can’t be a skeptic on the theory of gravity, for example, not as a layman. You can’t not believe in the phenomenon of weight, or in the notion of gravitational force, denying their existence, pretending they’re not there, saying you need more evidence before you can fully acknowledge their existence.

What are you, seven years old?

Come to think of it, you either haven’t caught up yet, or you’re just playing dumb. Or plain dumb. It’s hard to tell, Mr. Secretary. Your questions don’t make sense, and neither do your points. Skeptical about what? The fact that your brain is floating to the top of whatever liquid it’s suspended in, perhaps. You don’t want to admit you’re chock full of bubbles and fat, and I don’t blame you. No one likes to incriminate oneself, hence the act you put on.

But we see through you, or, rather, into you and the mess that constitutes you. It’s hard not to, with all the thick and gravy you got going on. Not a good sight, and even worse on the smell side. Something reeks. Hot foul air would be a fancy way to put it, not that you’d notice. You have a certain tolerance for that, what with all the hot-air on your side of the river.

So yeah, argue all you want over the finer points of our paradigm and the parameters formed via our hard-earned knowledge — the axiomatic phenomena that underpin this world, and how to interpret them, and how to augment their function. Question all you like whether the Earth is pulling you in or whether some other force is pushing you down; whether the future of energy is in renewables or whether it’s in innovative technology that processes CO2 and other waste products in a way that leaves no toxic footprint. Whether solar can be combined with ‘cleaned-up’ fossil fuels to create a hybrid energy source, or whether we need to invent an energy source from scratch. Whether plastic can be broken down by designer bacteria whose energy output may be harnessed. Be skeptical about the numerous angles and applications and iterations of theories such as gravity and the conservation of energy, mindful of how axioms such as these work on our floating little ball in space.

But dare to deny them altogether and you’re a dunce. You can’t doubt gravity any more than you can doubt the tides anymore than you can doubt the billion-year-plus age of the planet any more than you can doubt our goddamn climate change.

Newsflash, Perrywinkle Bullworth, the world turns whether you like it or not. Stop being a dingleperry and catch up. Get your face out of your righteous ideology’s asshole and start looking at the world from the vantage point of something more auspicious. You want to be lofty and virtuous, high and mighty, inspirational and didactic and exemplary? Ditch the nonsense and join us on level ‘think with your head, not its opposite.’

And if you still choose to cast doubt on the findings, do so with an informed mind from an informed viewpoint. Find a constructive way to be skeptical, by all means — we need the right kind of questions for our understanding to become deeper and sharper, our arguments franker, sturdier — so fire away, cast those doubts with impunity, but please, do so after you pass scientific methodology 101 — or is it 91? or 81? — so you don’t waste anyone’s time with immature arguments.

And please, for the love of God, don’t get your genitals in a twist when others are skeptical in turn of your uncorroborated doctrines of faith.

Being a skeptic goes both ways, you see. It’s called science.

It’s a wonderful thing.

You’ll love it once you get to know it. You’ll see — you will, once you un-dingleperry yourself.

Bottom line is, if you’re going to be a skeptic, do it with style, and brains. You need plenty of it to ask the right questions.

Or stay a seven-year-old for the rest of your life.

Fact!

From RANT headquarters,

Have a nice day!