RE teh stupid:
IMO, people aren’t sufficiently trained to distinguish valid logic from specious reasoning and rhetorical devices. Nor are they sufficiently trained in scientific values.

RE teh pants afire:
Aeon magazine has an article which, while specifically addressing violence, happens to explain a whole lot of what goes on in the world, I think. Blame people’s unsophisticated and parochial views of morality:

“By ‘moral’, I mean that people are violent because they feel they must be; because they feel that their violence is obligatory. They know that they are harming fully human beings. Nonetheless, they believe they should. Violence does not stem from a psychopathic lack of morality. Quite the reverse: it comes from the exercise of perceived moral rights and obligations.” aeon

“That’s because the ‘level of warming’ is never ‘significantly different from zero’ in anything less that 12 years for any ‘most recent… period’ and often it’s not ‘significantly different from zero’ for 18-20 years or more….”

Indeed. Deniers of observed reality also love to misquote Dr Phil Jones on the subject. Deniers love to conflate anomalous warming that is not statistically significant above a=.05 to “no warming at all.”

BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity. Phil Jones is saying there is a warming trend but it’s not statistically significant. He’s not talking about whether warming is actually happening. He’s discussing our ability to detect that warming trend in a noisy signal over a short period. To demonstrate this, look at the HadCRUT temperature record from 1995 to 2009. The linear trend is that of warming. However, the temperature record is very noisy with lots of short term variability. The noisy signal means that over a short period, the uncertainty of the warming trend is almost as large as the actual trend. Hence it’s considered statistically insignificant. Over longer time periods, the uncertainty is less and the trend is more statistically significant.

The truth hurts. Hence, like a 3-year-old, they simply deny the way things are, childishly thinking that doing so will make this unpleasant thing just go away.

They’d be better off running to their mommies for comfort.

The level of warming in the most recent 15 year period [since 1998] is not significantly different from zero…

That’s because the “level of warming” is never “significantly different from zero” in anything less that 12 years for any “most recent… period” and often it’s not “significantly different from zero” for 18-20 years or more:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/resolving-met-office-confusion.html#89481

But it’s still warming.

…and “natural variability is responsible for late twentieth century warming and the cessation of warming since 1998.

No, “natural variability” is responsible for making it impossible to statistically identify the warming on timescales that are too short. In any sufficiently short period of time there is a statistical “cessation of warming”. But it’s only a statistical cessation, not a physical one.

FFS, why are deniers so stupid and/or mendacious that they can never, ever let this false meme die, no matter how many times it’s pointed out to them that they’re reversing the directionality of their alimentary canals?

“Al Gore likens skeptics to racists, homophobes and violent alcoholics

No.

Also, we’re so very sorry but the word “skeptic” is already taken: you deniers will have to use one that isn’t taken already. Looks like “denier” is available: try that one.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology completely failed to predict any floods, with only claims of drought.

Australia declared drought free
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/its-official-australia-no-longer-in-drought-20120427-1xpsp.html

Texas, Oklahoma Drought ‘All But Over’
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/texas-oklahoma-drought-over-19017

New Zealand’s worst drought in 30 years is over
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-06/nz-drought-over/4671688

Confidence returning as drought lifts in small part of Queensland’s cattle industry
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-26/confidence-returns-to-cattle-sale/6496942

Australia is apparently “the canary in the coalmine”:

Climate Change and the End of Australia
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-change-and-the-end-of-australia-20111003

And, yes, Rolling Stone is not “scientific”, but Prof. David Karoly, of the ‘canary’ quote, is.

Gore wasn’t talking about kindergarten teachers.

After all, they’re unconcerned about bleak outlooks and severity… as they watch their houses float by. And dead neighbors floating along with them.

No worries, right, handjive? Yup. But damn, it’s hard to bury your head in the sand when the sand is under 6 feet of floodwater, ain’t it?