Fools in the comment section

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If someone would pay me, I do believe I could make a complete living just debunking — and ridiculing — the boneheads who troll the comments sections of interactive media. This one appeared in reaction to an item by Beth Daley of the Globe about a suit filed regarding Reggie, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative:

I wonder how much money the Global Warmers are making on the carbon credits. The truth has come out, the cost will be passed on to us, and the carbon credit people will make money. 
Posted by 57-states January 31, 09 10:50 AM

Yikes, 57, how many ways is this just absurdly absurd?

  • The climate-change crisis is just a scam to make money? Scare the world into thinking it's going to roast, in order to pick up a little illicit cash? Brilliant!
  • "The cost will be passed to us." So who should it be passed onto, dumbo? Who do you think has been running up the costs that are now coming due? You! Me! Everyone! We've been getting a "free" ride that turns out to have a huge cost. So who better to pay it?
  • "The carbon credit people will make money." If these people, whoever they are, provide a service that society needs, then shouldn't they get paid for it? Isn't that why you work, to get paid? Should they do these carbon credits for nothing? Would you work for nothing?
  • I grant that my argument rests on what one accepts as society's needs, but that gets us back to the beginning: Is there a problem or not? Overwhelming evidence says there is. Just because some people don't want to believe it doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

If the house is on fire, it doesn't stop being a problem because the homeowners don't believe it. You can see the fire, and we can only see this danger indirectly, through measurements, but at this point, deniers have to be contortionists to hang onto their beliefs.

 


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