Maybe we can make this a new shorthand argument against climate change deniers: “What about oyster guy?”
Megan at From the Archives explains in a post from 2008 that’s only now making the rounds thanks to Ezra Klein. She cites this guy as an example of the thousands of uncelebrated scientists-on-the-ground who gather data every day:
If it is all a conspiracy and nothing is happening, how do denialists conceive of these guys? Do they think these monotonous nerds who talk in jargon (don’t take that the wrong way. I’m sexually attracted to every one of them.) are making it up to promote the conspiracy? Like, they spend the morning thinking up esoteric ways of measuring wave energy by sand lost at different gauges around the state, and the afternoon faking their data so they can please Al Gore? They’ve done this now for ten years and they plan to make an entire career out of making up the detailed groundwork for fake climate change? All of them? On nothing? Imagine the secret conferences they must hold to synchronize their stories and settle on an allowable variance between the made-up river data, the made-up precipitation data and the made-up ocean data. Besides the groupies, WHAT FOR?
Apparently there was a specific instance of oyster research that Megan refers to that made Ezra use the term “oyster guy” for easier reference. Can we build a meme snowball? Pass it on: “What about oyster guy?”
UPDATE: If you didn’t believe Google is updating in real-time, note that my site is now #6 in Google for “What about Oyster Guy?”