I tell them their brain is fried and I move on. Nothing will convince these people.

Just be like, "Okay, what about the pacific garbage patch? Did human activity cause that? Should we be trying to fix it?" It's pretty hard to argue that the fish made all the used water bottles themselves.

I told my dad that even if climate change isn't real, or if it is humans don't contribute... what's the harm in doing something about it? What's the harm in doing something to help your grandkids have a world to grow up in and enjoy?

He installed solar panels a few years ago and now likes to talk about how he heats and cools his home without paying ConEd

This seems to have worked with my boomer mom: "be that as it may, wouldn't we all be better off by reducing pollution?"

Maybe show them this:

Tell them you're proud of them, they seem to be a high functioning mentally disabled person and are doing great in life.

I tell people that burning a 100 million barrels of oil a day, everyday, has to have an impact.

Imagine how much exhaust that is everyday.

The idea that burning a million barrels of oil everyday would not have an impact on the atmosphere is absurd.

Slap them in the face. If they complain, tell them the pain is real but human activity didn’t contribute to it.

Just show them that one xkcd about how abrupt the current warming is and how nicely it lines up with industrialization. The comparison between the natural slow shifts in global climate vs. what's been happening the last century or so is the clearest counter to "but the climate has always been changing".

The other times that things have changed in comparable timescales, it's been caused by supervolcanoes or other such calamities.

Edit: Oh yeah one caveat: The xkcd is ten years old and we're now actually already around +1.5°C.

Highlight the speed of change now, since industrial revolution, compared to historical data.

Nothing, there's no use in making him feel bad for something he has no control over.

Nothing, having arguments with people that lack basic critical thinking skills is a waste of time. A simple google search can give you all the data and numbers and you can show it to them but it doesn't matter if they believe they know better than actual scientists. There are people out there that believe the Earth is flat.

Ask them what prompted them to be a geologist.

Don't. Nothing you could say is going to change their mind. They'd need to hear it from new sources they trust and their peers and then it still wouldn't be guaranteed they'd reconsider their position. Confirmation bias and a whole host of other brain stuff makes changing someone's mind incredibly difficult. Save your breath.

Personally, now I would say 'fine, it doesn't matter what you believe. We are severely fucked and we are going to be lucky to survive. Making one person accept reality is not going to change anything.'

I've become more and more pessimistic.. simon Clark on YouTube has a bunch of accurately hopeful climate content that helps a bit, but so much hinges on 'if we don't actively make it worse' which is exactly what is happening.

My one hope is we will have enough mortally devasting weather before it's too late so that doubters will convince themselves.

Hot box em with a nasty fart. I just really hate cars and their world I am forced to live in.

What do they think caused it? Just time passing?

Ideally? As little as possible.

Try telling them that indeed the term "climate change" is not quite right. The correct one could be "human accelerated climate change"

Ozone. 🤷

"Fuck you!"