Why do anthropogenic global warming skeptics so often present amateurish arguments?

One o the big problems that I see on both sides of this debate is that most of the people who take part in the debate have never read the professional scientific literature.

Instead they base their arguments on what they see in the popular media, that is the newspapers, magazines, television and radio. The popular media is not primarily concerned with providing accurate information. The popular media is primarily concerned with making money for the owners of the media.

The way the popular media makes money is to increase the number of viewers or listeners. The way that you increase viewers and listeners is to make outragogeous or frightening claims with little or no concern about the factual basis behind those claims.

To use an overworked example Rush Limbaugh is a very good example of some of the more outrageous claims without factual basis on one side of this argument.

If you believe Rush Limbaugh, Anthropogenic Global Warming is nothing more than a falsehood designed to scare us and take our tax dollars and create more government bureaucracies.

Rush Limbaugh has no factual support for these kinds of statements. However from the point of view of Rush Limbaugh, that is not the point.

For Rush Limbaugh, the point is to get as many people as possible to listen to his radio show so that he can make more money selling advertising.

Rush Limbaugh has made a great deal of money with this technique.

An example on the other side that many people I think are less aware of is some of the claims that I hear on National Public Radio.

National Public Radio is actually a non profit, that relies on listener donations for support. However, the more listeners that you get, the more donations that you get.

For example on one program not too long ago, one of the guests was claiming that more people would be killed by Anthropogenic Global Warming than nuclear war.

I think that this was a very surprising claim and I would have expected some very solid scientific data to back it up.

The guest had no factual studies to support his claim, but that was not really important.

By making this very surprising claim he gets many more people to listen to the program. That is the point.

Unfortunately many people hear these extreme attention geting claims, and believe them and repeat them here in this forum and elsewhere.

The sad part, it appears to me, that these extreme claims that are primarily designed to get ratings and not provide real information are the cause of much of the rancor and name calling that I see on this site.

I recommend that people who post on this site read the professional scientific literature on this subject and use that as a starting point for the arguments that are posted on this site.

If we could stop basing our arguments on what we see in the popular media and instead base those arguments on the scientific literature, that would eliminate many of the amateurish arguments that I see here on both sides of this question.

No SUVs on Mars

800 year lag a.k.a. CO2 lags behind temperature

It's just a natural cycle

It's caused by the Sun

These are big ticket items in the subject of man made global warming. Does amateurish mean 'not complicated enough?' I'm not a scientist I'm trying to discern what I see, hear and read. When I hear that many of the planets in our solar system are warming, it lends credibility to the idea, that the cause could be somthing very simple, like the sun that we all revolve around. Observation is part of science. (right?) The idea that this trace amount of co2 is causing the trouble seems far fetched. As for the 800 year lag time. That's cause and effect. First we were told that when co2 increases, so does heat. We saw the graph. Then we find out that on this scale, 800 years exist between elevated co2, with co2 lagging. Now were supposed to dump cause and effect, to keep this theory alive? For who, and why? There's obviously a problem with the theory. Then we find out that the hocky stick graph was derived from the original graph only now, we shaved off the midievil warming period. We find out the many of the 2000 prominent scientists on the ippc list didn't agree with the findings, or that some of them weren't scientist at all. Then, we find out that the subject is closed. It's been proven. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think it's proven. That's why they had to vote it in. And I don't think the discussion is over. You correct us all the time and we just don't listen? Is that what's happening?

The argument in favor of global warming is straight forward. Therefore, those who are skeptical about human involvement tend to give equally straight forward arguments.

Human caused global warming is predicated on the belief that green house gasses (CO2 and Methane) are the primary drivers of the recent warming trend. The emissions of these gasses have increased, therefore the temperature has increased.

The skeptical crowd basically argues that correlation does not equate to causation.

What you say are "amateur" others might say are insightful.

For instance, green house gas emissions in 2007 are substantially higher than they were in 1998. Yet the temperature in 2007 is going to be slightly lower. The global warming models have predicted a steady climb in temperature. The fact that this has not happened despite the accelerating growth in green house gas emissions makes the skeptics sound not like amateurs but as people simply seeing holes in the manmade global warming hypothesis.

What is needed is to continue the dialog with both sides having respect for the other.

I reject your premise and your characterization. Us heretics rely more on our own observations and actual facts than what a bunch of "climate experts" that depend on a fabricated crisis to obtain funding. After all how much funding would they be able to get if they concluded that climate change was not caused by human activity and beyond our control.

But, I guess name calling is a more professional argument than looking at facts, like the warmest year on record was in the 1930's.

I've been analyzing their arguments. Always the same themes. Socialist conspiracy. Scientist boondoggle for more funding. Simple, superficially appealing rhetorical arguments designed to stifle dialog. Theistic references about mans insignificance.

It appears they have been brainwashed, as linlyons suggests.

This is a major problem. It suggests that political action may be the only route to progress.

I speak out of ignorance of course but I thought that without the sun this planet would be a ball of ice?

I am also old enough to remember the magazine covers that raised the fearful future of the coming ice age.

I thought all scientist were supposed to be skeptical and objective.

How are those arguments amateurish?

What are your arguments for man-made global warming?

Instead of attacking, prove your case.

By the way, about 75% of warming is caused by water vapor. Only about 8% by greenhouse gases, and less than 2% of that is arguably caused by man.

Now, I look forward to your brilliant arguments.

As I thought. You have no arguments. I don't give people my e-mail. I don't appreciate spam.

You pretend that the left is informed. They invariably blame GW on ozone, pollution, GW Bush, and believe the climate is static and perfect. Warmer is better? You are so confused in your thinking that you have convinced yourself that warmer is necessarily worse. If you could acknowledge that there is some good in warming, it might go a long way toward curing your obvious paranoia.

And is there another perhaps less offensive way to characterize these arguments?

No.

you could say " flawed" arguments

edit: @jim z

Warmer is definitely worse, no doubt about it

ice caps go etc- none of that is positive