Recognizing different views regarding climate change

Every once and awhile I will Google the terms "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" to read up on the latest news being presented about this issue. Today I came across an article called "Civil War on the left, Part 28: Varieties of Climate Change Thinkers." The article was about a chapter in a new book by Berkely Physicist Richard Muller called "Energy for Future Presidents." In this chapter, the author gave a classification of different climate change views.

I was excited to see this classification because in the news you commonly only hear about the two extremes which are the alarmist and the denier. According to the author the alarmist "pay little attention to the details of the science. They are "unconvincibles." They say the danger is imminent, so scare tactics are both necessary and appropriate, especially to counter the deniers. They implicitly assume that all global warming and human-caused global warming are identical."  The deniers "pay little attention to the details of the science. They are "unconvincibles." They consider the alarmists proposals dangerous threats to our economy, so exaggerations are both necessary and appropriate to counter them." 

The other categories include exaggerators, warmists, lukewarmists, and skeptics. I will let you read the description for each of these categories, but I think they sound pretty accurate when it comes to different views. I have trouble voicing my opinion  on climate change because in the past when I raised questions, I felt I was automatically lumped into the denier category. I was shamed by people for reading views that were in the denier category, even though I tried to explain I was trying to understand the arguments of both sides. 

Check out the categories and remember that next time you discuss climate change with someone that not everyone believes in the extreme views.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/civil-war-on-the-left-part-28-varieties-of-climate-change-thinkers.php

Here is an earlier dated article discussing the same thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-classifications-of-cl_b_9729598