written by me, twitter-->@edwiebe, 2016-05-13
Tom Fletcher, journalist in Greater Victoria, BC has posted the graph below to his social media channel (Twitter). It is possible that he doesn't understand it is a standard part of the climate change denial toolbox.
My main Tom Fletcher is wrong about climate change index page.
My main Tom Fletcher is wrong about climate change page.
It's very simple to find explanations online about this sort of thing. The key to doing this is applying your intellect in the way that a billion years of evolution has provided: discrimination. Yes, it's not always a dirty word. We need to think about what the information being presented to us. What is the source of this information? What are the motivations of the people presenting this information? These are the questions that a journalist, to take a single, possibly relevant example, would certainly have experience asking.
A source you may discover online, Skeptical Science is a website rooted in science. It isn't perfect but it does at least rely on scientists and, importantly, it relies on what is published in peer reviewed journals. Yes, I hear you, of course peer review is also not a perfect process. It doesn't have to be though because science is ultimately self correcting. Skeptical Science has a page that discusses what is wrong with this figure. An annotated version is shown below.
If you are keen to see a better comparison, an apples to apples comparison as it were, of climate observations and climate models see the figure below. It comes from Gareth S Jones who is a scientist (presently) working at the UK Met Office.