Mutually exclusive arguments

If you discuss climate change with a climate contrarian, (who may call themselves a skeptic) you will quickly realize that progress is very difficult and usually impossible. You may likely be met with denial that defies reason and initially be surprised. How can one put forward viewpoints that are mutually exclusive? Sometimes they may otherwise seem fairly intelligent or educated, but what drives them to unashamedly debate in this way?

Conspiracy or consensus.

One minute they may argue there is no consensus on climate change and next minute they may be arguing that it is the greatest hoax ever by the whole scientific community and politicians.

Contrarians can often be seen supporting both these viewpoints with apparently no realization of the contradiction.

Are most scientists saying that global warming duty to burning of fossil fuels is not occurring (no consensus) and are most scientist in on the biggest hoax ever saying that global warming is occurring?

Massive fiddling of data to show.......no warming since latest cherry-picked peak.

There are many examples where two arguments that cant both be right are supported while refuting the consensus viewpoint that is coherent with many lines of evidence; that the burning of fossil fuels is adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and is the main cause of present day global warming. It really is the case that they will argue “anything but carbon”

Is Data fiddled to show global warming when it isnt or does Data show global warming is not occurring?  It should not be necessary to say that both of these cant be correct. 

There are many mutually exclusive arguments that climate contrarians can simultaneously use. here

Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

How much carbon dioxide has built up in the atmosphere due to human activities and how long will that CO2 remain in the atmosphere?

Before looking at how the contrarian is likely to answer these questions it is worth stating that the approximate answers to these questions are not controversial among climate scientists. So far the CO2 in our atmosphere (2015) has increased by about 40% due to human caused emissions since the industrial revolution and much will stay there for hundreds of years unless we find ways of geo-engineering and removing the excess CO2.

Carbon dioxide and the contrarian.

The contrarian can come up with a variety of very low estimates depending on which combination of flawed methods they use and that this CO2 will only last for a few years before it is removed naturally.

How can they argue these two points? There are two flawed methods that are “liked” by contrarians but they are mutually exclusive arguments.

(A good cherry-picker will make their own boundaries, time scales, which laws to apply and when, when they want their data adjusted and when they don’t. Having this total freedom they can then get any data to show their pre-conceived conclusions.)

The first argument will be based on an admission of natural carbon dioxide sources such as respiration in living things and decay of plant material but denial of natural sinks such as photosynthesis. Simple arithmetic compares man made emissions with natural sources but omits natural sinks. An answer of a few percent is achieved. Downplaying sinks of course implies a very long life time for CO2.

The second argument requires denial of both natural sources and sinks of CO2 which results in a continual exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the oceans and biosphere as described here.