My general experience with CONs is that they

[brokephibroke]

Do not understand the difference between climate and weather. Is it possible to educate them, or give up? How do you tell a CON that just because one day in June it's a little cool in his backyard that that does not disprove climate science??

[CentralMass]

1. They also tend to cherry pick data to support their point.

[brokephibroke]

2. I see that too

But the everyday CON only parrots what they hear a shock jock say....

[LiberalLoner]

3. They know they are being difficult....they are

Being ignorant on purpose. All part of "winning" and winning is all they care about. They love to irritate liberals. They feed their inner monsters all the time and the monsters are growing and crowding out any sanity remaining.

[theaocp]

10. Indeed.

I follow a conservative # standwithrand-type on fb and he posted something that he "defended" by saying he "just felt like pissing off some liberals". When is the last time liberals post something just to "piss off some conservatives"? I hope it's infrequent. We all feel frustrated, but just to irritate someone is hardly productive. It's short-sighted middle school horseshit and I should know. I teach grade 7.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. They're incapable

No matter what their local weather they are not capable of accepting the science of global warming. The fact that millions of scientists worldwide agree that man made global warming is a fact is foreign to them. The overall global trend is clear, but that takes critical thinking, something most Cons don't have the capacity for. You might as well tell your dog to fly to the store to pick up some beer for you.

To be fair, Libs fall into the same trap when it's unseasonably warm in their area for a stretch. Warm weather events taken individually don't prove global warming anymore than a single cold stretch does. And in fact global warming could mean some areas of the planet get much cooler. Western Europe for instance could see much more severe Winters in the future because global warming has shut down the great conveyor belt of warm water from the gulf isn't forced to the surface by cold water from the Arctic off the coast of Western Europe.

An absolute catastrophe for the world is upon us and the US just ceded leadership in stopping it. Sickening.

[Towlie]

5. They also tend to confuse inches of snow (precipitation) with temperature.

"We just had 2 feet of snow here in (some northern city during winter). What happened to global warming? Ha ha."

[marylandblue]

6. They have trouble with abstraction

Weather is something you can see, climate is an abstraction based on statistics, so it requires more high level thinking. my

I usually tey to explain it this way. Weather is what is happening right niw. Climate is how you know June is a hotter month than January.

[brokephibroke]

7. That's a great point

It's like they have outsourced their critical thinking to shock jocks and bloggers...

[world wide wally]

8. Fuck them. It is a true waste of breath trying to educate them when they don't have fucking brains!

We just absolutely have to get out the vote in 2018.
No more excuses!

[dalton99a]

9. Heck, they can't tell their body temp from their IQ

[theaocp]

11. I'm teaching middle school weather and climate right now.

I find it's easier to differentiate between what they buy with what they wear each day. In Michigan, we buy both sandals AND winter coats. That's climate. We decide what to wear each day based on the weather. This begs the question: would you be concerned if you still lived here and didn't have to own a winter coat? Why? Let the discussion begin...

[Leith]

12. Just Give Up

They're a lost cause.

The best I could ever do was once on "that other site." Some idiot claimed that since the US hadn't had any major hurricanes for a couple years, it proved that the warnings about how climate change predicting an increase was wrong. I replied with about 6 links of major typhoons that devastated Asian coastlines in the previous 2 years - all category 4 or 5. The idiot actually shut up after that.

[JHB]

13. My general experience with CONS is that they don't care about the difference...

...and their siding with deniers is mostly due to "I'm on Team Jeer, and if liberals like it, it must be stupid and anti-American".

There is a margin that can be productively engaged, and with others you can plant seeds that might eventually sprout in the cracks of their bricks, but don't expect much from a mere conversation.

[onlyadream]

14. I was just doing battle in a Huckabee face book post

And a guy asks me when I've been to the artic to confirm glaciers melting. He said that until I see this, I should shut my stupid brainless mouth. And the thing is, this guy had a masters degree in education administration, so he is educated. I'm seriously like WTF???

[brokephibroke]

15. LOL! Clearly that guy has gone 100% emotion...