The first thing would probably to avoid using the word “deniers”, meant to equate people who do not believe every weather event and temperature change is caused mostly/solely by Mankind with those who say the Holocaust never happened.
How to debate climate change deniers (without scaring them off)
If you want to see an expression of pure despair, ask a college freshman to parse Rachel Carson’s rhetorical choices at 8:00 in the morning. That’s what I’m doing this semester for a composition class I’m teaching at the University of Virginia. The course is called “Representing Climate Change,†and our collective goal is to discover and deploy effective methods of talking and writing about our looming environmental crisis. The task is daunting. Climate change is at once really easy and really hard to write about. It’s easy because there is so much to say, and hard because progress toward a solution is so slow.
I can understand their despair…or, really, the despair of those who saw the effects of effectively banning the use of DDT, which has resulted in millions and millions of deaths that didn’t need to occur. But, then, this mostly happens in 3rd world nations, and Warmists are more than happy to decrease their lifestyles and lives. Anyhow, maybe the special snowflakes despair over the shoddy science in the book. Na, they’re brainwashed, else, why would their be a course called “Representing Climate Change”, which will provide lots of help in obtaining a job in the fast food and coffee service industries?
Would you believe the class is in the English department? Yes, this is what they’re teaching now. Hence, so many kids exit college unable to speak and write in Adult
My students are trying to figure out how their writing can contribute to the climate conversation. One tactic they love is finger pointing. In class discussion and in their papers, I come across a lot of “greedy corporations†and “soulless†oil companies and “people who just don’t care.†But is blame rhetorically effective? How should we use it? Working answers: sometimes, and its usefulness depends on the audience.
Essentially, there is little about how to debate, beyond a cautious “careful with the finger wagging and Blamestorming”. And they want to “change the message” to one of “positivity” to attempt to convince Other People to Do Something. There is an acknowledgement that the writer and the students are complete hypocrites, but, hey, they are searching for a better world or something.
But, don’t ever expect anything to change. Warmists are primarily Lefties, who use insults and personal attacks as their main weapons. Mostly because their so-called science is shoddy, they are complete hypocrites, and being nasty in righteous indignation is who they are.
