The holiday season is the time of year when you get to spend quality time with people who think you’re a crank. I’ve got something a little longer (and on a different subject) to write about later that was prompted by this same family discussion, but first things first.

My position on “climate change” in four easy steps:

1. I believe climate changes.
2. Climate has warmed over the past couple hundred years as we’ve emerged from the little ice age.
3. I’m not convinced that human activity is the lead driver (or even a major one) of the warming we’ve experienced since the turn of the 20th Century.
4. I’m not convinced that the global temperature of the planet rising in the range that most scientists believe is most likely (3-5 degrees F over a century) will be catastrophic.

I was informed over Thanksgiving by a very bright guy that if someone doesn’t believe the accepted wisdom that the Earth is warming due to humans and it’s going to be disastrous, then that the individual is a crank.

He admitted that he doesn’t have the time or inclination to look into the science or the scandal (i.e. Climategate, “Hide the Decline,” etc.) but rests his opinion on the fact that 98 percent of climate scientists say that’s the case and that’s enough for him. Anyone who disagrees is anti-science.

Is it possible to argue with that?

Not really.

Of course, this appeal to authority is no different than those crazy creationists he also derides who believes the Earth was created in seven, 24-hour days.

(For the record, I don’t know how God did it. I’m simply confident he did. I’m also confident that an all-powerful God could do it in seven, 24-hour days and make it seem to us human simpletons that it took much longer.)

For those of you who are more interested in science, evidence and information, here’s Cal Poly grad and aviation pioneer Burt Rutan on Climate Change.