A few ways to tell if your climate change denier doesnt have a clue what he/she is talking about

Climate change is an incredibly complex issue. It is no wonder why so many people seem to have no clue what to make of all the conflicting statements. In general, if you are familiar with the scientific/peer-review process and you put just a little bit of time into the research, it should be pretty obvious that the global warming deniers are just another highly organized/well funded anti-science movement with the goal of confusing and misinforming the public. However, with all the "scientific" sounding arguments that deniers use, it can get overwhelming to determine if the individual is trying to "talk over your head."

But there are a few ways to tell if your climate change denier doesn't have a clue what he/she is talking about:

1: They bring up the 31K "scientists" that deny AGW. They are uncritically accepting the scam known as the Global Warming Petition Project (uncritical acceptance of claims).

2: They bring up the argument that we haven's surpassed the 1998 temp. Not only is it highly unlikely they've actually looked at the NASA GISS Surface Temp Analysis. It also shows they have a general lack of knowledge about El Nino/La Nina cycle and 5 year mean (cherry picking). This argument has also been addressed and dismissed by the more academic climate change denialists. They have predicted that it will blow up in the denialists' faces.

3: They say that, because CO2 makes up such a small part of the atmosphere, it must not be that important. This should seem illogical right off the bat without even basic knowledge of climate science. Imagine if you made this very same argument to a police officer who pulls you over with a 0.1% BAC. The argument means nothing out of context. The small amount of CO2 in our atmosphere means the difference between the world we live in and a frozen planet.

4: They devolve the argument into politics. The argument is about SCIENCE, not politics. (red herring) They also frequently bring up Al Gore, a politician not a climate scientist. Although Al Gore is credited with helping to bring the Global Warming issue to the public sphere, his statements are frequently exaggerated or outdated.

5: They claim that climate scientists are creating a scientific conspiracy to get grant money (This one is a gem used by nearly EVERY promoter of pseudoscience! It is illogical (without sufficient evidence) as you could say that doctors are purposely making us sick, etc... It also ignores the fact that these researchers spent 8+ years in college, over $100k in tuition/fees/college expenses, and turned down $100k+ corporate/government jobs to pursue a meager $40k-$60k doing research at a university. Does this sound like the character of scammer? argument is baseless). One of the popular modern pieces of "evidence" is the "Climategate" collection of stolen emails. I Love this one because it shows just how easy it is for the right wing side of the media to exploit scientifically ignorant uncritical Americans who don't even want to ask what a "trick" is or what "decline" the scientists are actually "hiding".

Now there are a whole host of other arguments, many of them dead giveaways as well. But these are so horrendously illogical or just straight-up wrong that it is nearly impossible to conclude the denier really knows what he's talking about. Here are a few good sources of clear rebuttals to common denier arguments:

Skeptical Science
Peter Sinclair's Greenman Studios
RealClimate