Facepalm, Part II

As expected, the Internet heated up over the weekend about hacked/leaked e-mails and other files from the Climate Research Unit in England.

Trot over to RealClimate.org at this link for some interesting information on consdiering the context of the purloined e-mails. Keeping things in context is always an excellent rule of thumb when trying to understand what's going on, especially when, s in most communications you and I send out, we write in shorthand, expecting the recpients of our messages to understand what we're talking about without having to go over everything in excruciating detail. So it's good to read the context that's beign provided, though the haughty "We don't have to respond to this because it's false" attitude generally being taken isn't the way to go. You don't get converts by essentially saying "You all are too stupid to understand what's really going on here" to those posing the questions. You offer context. You explain. A lot. You just gotta HAVE PATIENCE, man (start at 4:59 for the proper scene).



Of course, it also helps if you're not throwing horseshit at the wall to see what sticks (which is what your opponents on the opposite side of any argument expect you to do, and you them).

Meanwhile, over in England, there's word of an inquiry into the matter of the purloined e-mails and the (maybe) hack science. I don't know that it'll go anywhere.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, there's discussion that global warming may have stalled out, or at least that there are other factors besides human activity that are playing not-quite-understood but demonstrable roles in global climate change.

So it's a complicated matter, one that won't be solved here on this humble blog.

What Am I doing to save the environment for the three kids I've broughtinto the world?

We recycle aluminum cans. We re-read (and then burn) newspapers and other paper in our woodstove. (Yes, that puts carbon into the atmosphere. So do I and my wife and three kids. You've got to allow us some carbon, y'see. Besides, we burn waste from a log-home-building company that they would burn anyway. And we use less natural gas in our furnace as a consequence. We don't waste water. We grow a garden and bottle the excess. No guilt here.