Here in Michigan, it's been freezing. Yesterday, the actual temperature (not wind chill) got down to -19 F in Flint (that's -28 C for my international friends). As a result, I've been hearing some chatter that goes something along the lines of, "Aren't those people who believe in global warming stupid! I can't believe how dumb they are! They only want us to believe in global warming because they're going to make money from it! Let's all keep buying big cars and destroying the environment!"

Rebuttal:

1) Global climate change is theorized to cause extreme swings in temperature and oddities in weather patterns. In other words, this cold snap fits the model perfectly.

2) Just because you aren't noticing climate change doesn't make it non-existent. Consider the fact that the scientists who are talking about whether or not climate change exists have devoted their lives to studying it. So, if the consensus says that climate change exists, we'd better have a darn good reason for disagreeing--and the fact that we don't want it to exist because it's too expensive or too scary is not a good reason.

3) Even if climate change isn't happening, it doesn't give us license to ravage the environment. Let's care for it instead.

I am annoyed.