Sunday, February 12, 2012

Arguments that Annoy Me, Part 1: Phytoplankton

This is a really obnoxious argument that has found its way into parli and needs to die.  Usually the argument goes something like - Phytoplankton, the micro-organisms that live in the oceans and other waters and are at the base of the food chain for most species on earth, are extraordinarily temperature-sensitive and will go extinct if the earth warms one or two degrees.

I mean, just intuitively, this is wrong.  For chrissakes, how much temperature variability do phytoplankton experience in a given year?  Now, realize that life has been around for...a really long time.  Imagine the worst, hottest year in the last few hundred million.  Hot, right?  Yeah.  Phytoplankton survived that.  And the Ice Age, and the medieval warm period.

Oh, and the study that launched that scare - turns out the methodology was bullshit.

Pro tip: if you are losing a lot of substantive debates, maybe you should focus a little less on trying to win the impossible-to-evaluate debates on top-level uniqueness, and instead focus on reading a little bit of intutive, obvious, and true impact defense.  Like the fact that a slight increase in temperature won't destroy all life on earth.

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