What’s in a name?

According to neuroscience, a hefty payload of condescension and disdain.

And that’s what makes the climate wars so ugly and venemous: our instinctive need to cram one another into dismissive, prejudicial boxes. To reduce each other to question-begging labels.

Both sides are guilty of it—realists and confusionists.

I may be the first person who’s ever said this about the climate debate but:

Something has to give. We can’t go on like this.

What do you reckon, fellow science-literates—shouldn’t we at least pretend to treat the climate gullibilist case seriously?

And to those who reject the facts, allow me to put exactly the same challenge:

Would it kill you and your fellow delusionists to respect those of us that have other, better opinions about the Earth’s atmosphere?

I know I’m asking a lot here—I know this can’t be easy for a largely hate-based faith movement like yours—but couldn’t you at least try to sound polite?

The history of science tells us that, for the good guys in this controversy, victory is a fait accompli. It’s only a matter of time.

Reader, let us dream bigger than that. Let us dream of basic etiquette. Let us dream of a world of lowered voices and cool civility, a world where—who knows?—the inevitable triumph of the correct might even be achieved without a single shot being fired.

Isn’t that a fantasy we’ve all had, at one time or another?