Those who accept the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists have a simple-yet-scary argument to make:
Humans are changing the climate and making it warmer because we are burning massive amounts of stuff that used to be underground and took millions of years to form.
It is internally and externally consistent and backed up by science. It would be nice if none of those things were true, but unfortunately no one has yet come up with something more compelling that survives anything resembling scrutiny.
Those who argue against climate science consensus (for whatever reason) often trip themselves up with inconsistent statements:
Climate change is not happening. Scientists are lying about the data (for whatever reason). Climate change is a good thing. Climate change is happening but is not our fault.
All of those things cannot be true at the same time. Hearing one, two, or all of those arguments from someone when talk turns to climate change can be exhausting. But instead of getting exhausted, give this flowchart a try, created as a collaboration between the folks at Grist and the folks at Climate Desk.
It’s a good bet that the follow-up flowchart on “so what do we do then” is going to have a few more boxes and arrows.
If you need more granular detail of specific climate myths, give the Climate Reality Project’s Reality Drop, or Skeptical Science’s site a try.
This article was originally published on Climate Progress. Reproduced with permission
