Facts come first.
Any good "argument" (that word is used, not to refer to bickering and disagreeing, but in the classic and/or mathematical sense, as a set of statements that lead logically to a proof or conclusion) must begin with, and remain faithful to, "facts" (as in, actual reality). Politics and government have degenerated so severely, over the past few decades, largely because the voting public has failed to hold candidates, and elected officials, to any reasonable standard of knowing (or admitting, candidly and publicly) what the relevant facts actually are, when they need to make important decisions. And, there is no better example of that, than the utterly grotesque falsehoods that some people, and politicians, create out of thin air, pseudo-assemble, and then hide behind, when they are "arguing" (in the modern sense, of "merely bickering and disagreeing") about global warming, climate change, and rising sea levels.
So, this is part of an effort to identify, nail down, identify the sources (with a realistic assessment of the expertise, objectivity, and reliability of those sources), and bring a set of hard facts, to the attention of voters and candidates, in forceful, persuasive, and perhaps (hopefully) even "compelling ways".
Because, in any competent and truly useful argument, facts should come first. They must be recognized, and given their fair and due attention. Anyone who refuses to recognize or admit relevant facts is not worth listening to, and not worth arguing with – except in the types of arguments that are conducted on public stages, with audiences listening, where a failure to point out how and why something is false, is often interpreted – by those who WANT to believe a certain type of lie – as sufficient proof that some claim is "undisputed", and therefore probably true. And THAT is why the need has become urgent, for people who are trying to protect this planet, to do a better job of marshalling, organizing, packaging, presenting, and explaining, what the truly important actual facts really are.
What are "MACRO-Facts"?
The term "macro-facts" is used herein, to refer to facts which are important on a global scale, and which will affect everyone.
The 'macro-' prefix was borrowed from the field of economics. In their standard terminology, MICRO-economics refers to facts and factors that affect a single person, family, or company, and which should be taken into account, when some person, family, or company must decide how to get money, and spend money.
By contrast, the field of MACRO-economics refers to facts and factors that affect entire societies, industries, nations, etc. Those are the sorts of things that governments, economists, bankers, and investment advisors try to understand.
Accordingly, climate advocates need to do more to recognize, respect, and call the public's attention, to the MACRO-facts of global warming, and refuse to allow themselves (and the messages and warnings they are trying to get the public to understand) to become entangled by petty arguments over MICRO-facts. Why? Because an entire industry has emerged, containing pseudo-experts who have found ways to make money, for themselves, by saying things that pathologically selfish and destructive people will pay them to say. I refer to "climate deniers" as "paid disrupters", in public, and in this website. In private, I occasionally refer to them as "mouth-whores", a phrase that arose from a paid sexual practice that became common during the AIDS epidemic, among men who were poor, and desperate for money, but who were not homosexual.
As just one example – entirely true – "paid disrupters" will argue that we cannot really know what is happening to polar bears, because we don't have any really good and reliable numbers, for polar bear populations, from, say, the 1950s. No legitimate scientist has any doubts that polar bear populations are struggling, terribly, because of the disappearance of the relatively small "sea ice" floes that seals rested on, in prior decades, in visible and vulnerable ways, which supported the most important way that polar bears hunted and caught seals, their main food suply. And yet, if the "paid disrupters" can find and then triumphantly pull out and point to some particular missing data point, they will loudly proclaim and argue that THAT gap in the data is part of why global warming has not yet been "proven", or proven to be man-made. Clearly, the fate of humanity does not depend, in the slightest, on whether scientists can somehow prove – to their satisfaction of the climate deniers and paid-disrupters (which will never, ever happen) – exactly how many polar bears there were, in the 1950s; however, the ability of "paid disrupters" to hijack, commandeer, disrupt, and divert any serious attempt to discuss serious problems, and turn those attempts instead into loud, bickering, never-ending arguments about things like polar bear populations in the 1950s, is exactly the type of strategy that "paid disrupters" use, to help their puppet-masters stall, delay, and not have to face up honestly or squarely to the disasters that are coming at us, at high speed.
How do "paid disrupters" make money? That question should be asked, not of me, but of Bjorn Lomborg, the favorite "paid disrupter" of the Wall Street Journal, during its days under Rupert Murdoch (who also owned and controlled Fox News at the time). The last time I saw an actual figure, Lomborg had admitted that he had paid himself $700,000 (or possibly $750k; it was several years ago, I'm working from memory, and his prices have likely increased, since then), for his services, for one year, saying things in behalf of a "foundation" that was financially supported by money from oil and gas companies (and a few others), who wanted someone who could at least "claim" to be an actual scientist (Lomborg has a PhD in what is called "POLITICAL Science", a phrase which people should do more to openly question, and challenge, by asking whether it is truly a "science" for people to study and learn how to use bombast, rhetoric, demagoguery, underhanded trickery and deceit, and outright lies, to get one's clients elected to office), to keep claiming and arguing, as loudly and disruptively as possible, that global warming has not been proven, or is not sufficiently important or dangerous to be worth even trying to slow down. By paying other people to make those arguments in their behalf, "dark money" supporters do all they can to escape notice, deny responsibility, and create arguments that will be made, first, by others, so that the "dark money" people can then simply point to and repeat those arguments, and pretend that they came from "respected experts" rather than paid-for whores.
And, so, the "Macro-Facts" section of this website describes eight specific, selected macro-facts about global warming, climate change, and sea level rise. These eight macro-facts are nominated by the author(s) of this website, for evaluation by any "Global Warming Strategy Councils" that may be formed, in the future (which is a strategy proposal, set forth below, in one of the sections that follows the "Facts" portion of this website). On the next page, each of those eight macro-facts is summarized in just a sentence or two, and there is a button next to each short summary, which can take the reader to the page where that fact is explained in more detail.
One more note: the eight facts that were chosen, and listed, are limited to the Northern hemisphere. Why? Because most Americans really don't care all that much, or think all that much, about things like The Great Barrier Reef dying, or the Amazon rainforest being burned down, or how the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica (also called "The Doomsday Glacier", because of how much the ocean levels will rise, it if collapses) is "hanging on by its fingernails". Why bother going to the bottom half of the planet, when it's easy enough to come up with deeply disturbing facts, up here, on the top half of this planet, where we live?