Humans have a peculiar penchant for eschatology, and I just realized that I haven’t yet sounded off on the doomsday scenario du jour, global warming. With one notable exception—namely, the risk of nuclear war—all previous eschatological angst has proven to be misplaced. So, is global warming another exception? In other words, are we all going to die?

I’ll end the suspense right now: the answer is no. But what about all the science? What about the conspiracy by conservative closet-homosexual Republican pedophiles to suppress the truth about global warming, as helpfully reported recently in Newsweek? (Perhaps I exaggerate a little.) And what about Al Gore? Please, for the love of God, what about Al Gore?

Part of the problem is that “global warming” is used in at least three distinct senses:

1. global warming: Earth is getting hotter.
2. global warming: Earth is getting hotter because of human activity.
3. global warming: Earth is getting hotter because of human activity, and we’re all going to die.

Here’s the deal: #1 is indisputable. #2 is probably true, but that’s irrelevant as long as #3 is false, which it almost certainly is.

Unfortunately, these three usages often get conflated. Those who doubt #3 are accused of doubting #1, which makes them look like idiots. Furthermore, those who fret about #2 often implicitly assume #3, and treat those who doubt #3 as immoral assholes, because goddamn it, it’s our fault, so it’s up to us to do something about it! And here I’m looking squarely at Al Gore when I say: if global warming represents a calamity for humanity, it doesn’t fucking matter whose fault it is. When we discover a world-destroying asteroid on a collision course with Earth, nobody’s going to say “well, we didn’t put the asteroid there, and it’s not our fault, so we don’t have to do anything about it.” I’ve long admired Al Gore, and I wish he were President instead of W. too, but on this issue he is the biggest, most self-righteous, most sanctimonious sack of shit that I’ve ever seen in my life.

So, in the end, we should only be worried if “we’re all going to die”—i.e., if global warming is actually a looming disaster. Is it? It’s possible, of course, though even the consensus IPCC report hardly looks like Armageddon. But what about all those scary pictures of Manhattan under water in “An Inconvenient Truth”, you say? Go and watch it again and see for yourself: Al Gore never talks about how likely the scenarios are, nor how long they will take. These are crucial omissions, and it’s no coincidence, because as far as I can tell no reputable simulations show effects on that scale on any reasonable (say, less than two-century) timeline. Moreover, even the worst-case scenarios are based on delicate, complicated computer models, and anybody who has any experience with such models knows not to trust them any further than they can throw them (which is, coincidentally, usually the distance to the nearest journal willing to publish them). (Anyone so good at writing computer models that they can actually believe the results is probably making millions of dollars on Wall Street right now anyway. Why worry about global warming when you can just buy a yacht and sail around while the little people drown?)

Finally, climate simulations typically ignore the effects of technology—technology that will be vigorously pursued if the consequences of unchecked global warming prove dire. Even at current technological levels, we could probably swing something. Moreover, our technological capabilities are increasing exponentially; when people worry about the sea level rising a few feet by 2070, I think Jesus, there might be superintelligent robots by then! In this context, it’s hard to imagine how our posthuman civilization would have much trouble with a few melting ice caps.

None of this is to say that global warming isn’t a problem. It probably is. It may cost billions or trillions of dollars to avert its worst effects, though decisions about whether it’s worth making any particular change need to be based on a rational cost-benefit analysis (and the negative effects have to be considered against the positives, such as opening up Arctic shipping lanes and exposing billions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas under the Arctic seafloor). But, as far as I can tell, the idea that global warming represents an existential threat to humanity’s global technological civilization is utter bullshit, totally unsupported by the evidence. I’m a scientist; I could be convinced otherwise. But if the best you can do is show a graph with CO₂ levels going off the chart and a few slickly produced movies of the World Trade Center Ground Zero underwater, it’s hard to take you seriously.

Global warming? Yes. Anthropogenic global warming? Probably. Global calamity? Show me the evidence, or, seriously, STFU(AG).