Watch The American Climate Change Debate Devolve

[The Cadet]

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/22/12590380/american-climate-politics

This 10-minute video reminds us of something I had actually forgotten: up until about 7 years ago, the debate surrounding climate science was almost rational. Many congressional republicans and many major figures within the republican party agreed with the science: climate change is real, its effect on our planet will be negative, and we should do something about it.

In the last 7 years, this has changed. Not because the science changed; what's being published is more or less the same as ever, if not even more clear. Not because there is good reason to believe the science is flawed; "Climategate" marked a change in the tone of the debate, but investigation after investigation found absolutely nothing damning or even suspect in the emails. Simply because of a shift in position by the republican party, based on extremely bad evidence and reasoning.

How did this happen? How did we get here?

 

[The Cadet]

It's also perhaps worth noting that this is pretty much a uniquely American phenomenon; virtually nowhere else in the west has this devolution happened. Almost no other country in the western world denies the existence of or harm of climate change.

 

[Albion]

How did this happen? How did we get here?

IMHO, a simple and apparently reasonable proposition--that we should be careful about carbon emissions, etc.--was made into a de facto religion by a certain faction of the public and the Democrat Party, which then led to embellishing the idea with all sorts of exaggerated predictions of doom and gloom and even the end of the world.

In addition, there started to be efforts to punish any scientist, student, or teacher who didn't agree totally. And also, we saw off-putting examples of the hypocrisy on the part of some of the best-known proponents of action against climate change.

Naturally, reasonable people began to draw back from all of this.

 

[The Cadet]

IMHO, a simple and reasonable proposition--that we should be careful about carbon emissions, etc.--was made into a de facto religion by a certain faction of the public and the Democrat Party, which then led to embellishing the idea with all sorts of exaggerated predictions of doom and gloom and even the end of the world. In addition, there started to be efforts to punish any scientist, student, or teacher who didn't agree totally. Then too, we saw many examples of the hypocrisy on the part of some of the best-known proponents. Naturally, reasonable people began to draw back from all of this.

Do you believe that global warming is real, humans are responsible, and the results will be largely negative?

 

[Albion]

Do you believe that global warming is real, humans are responsible, and the results will be largely negative?

No witch hunting, please. It's that kind of thing that I was referring to when I said that reasonable people have cooled on the Climate Change movement although not necessarily on the idea of climate change itself.

 

[pakicetus]

Naturally, reasonable people began to draw back from all of this.

I'm confused, do you mean "reasonable people" who believe climate change is an international Marxist conspiracy or reasonable people who believe the Chinese made it up to hurt American manufacturing?

 

[Albion]

I'm confused, do you mean "reasonable people" who believe climate change is an international Marxist conspiracy or reasonable people who believe the Chinese made it up to hurt American manufacturing?

I can agree that you seem to be confused. Otherwise, you wouldn't be going on about something that has no relation to anything that appeared in my post, right?

 

[SolomonVII]

I don't know that America is much different than any other Western country when it comes to Climate Change. We were all living in carbon based economies seven years ago, and we will all be living in carbon based economies seven years hence.

Reduce/reuse/recycle are still the common sense solutions to the environment, and that includes pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Still, because of the successes that many third world countries have had in raising the standards for their people on account of adopting capitalist economies, that means that there will be more carbon being pumped into the air globally.
That does not spell doom for the world. In general, those countries that adopt these more rational economic models will be better prepared to deal with the future than those who do not. Venezuelans have already figured this out, for example.

But it does mean that we have to prepare as much as we can for fluctuations in the environment.

Many on the far left have hopped onto the Climate Change bus as a means to the ends of disrupting the capitalist economies. Outside of the US until seven years ago when climate change became more of an American topic as well, most countries would provide lip service to this agenda, without really doing anything significant to change things. Now American government provides lip service too.
Outside of reduce/reuse/recycle, there is very little that anybody can do anyways. There is no magic bullet or rain dance that will save the day when it comes to the climate. The far left agenda has had some small successes, shutting down a pipeline here, or influencing a judicial decision there, but in terms of changing the trajectory of Climate Change, or thwarting capitalism, no rational governments would ever provide anything more than lip service to that agenda. Stopping a pipeline does not stop the trains after all, and the oil will keep on flowing through the path of least resistance, even when that path of least resistance is less environmentally sustainable than a thwarted pipeline.
Long term, there are possibilities that the fuels driving economic growth will become less and less carbon based. Supply and demand will be the force driving this change. There have been baby steps in that direction, and steps away from that direction too, after the Japanese tsunami.

In the short term, there is no possibility of an economy not based on carbon happening. There undoubtedly will be problems as a result, but an environmental apocalypse is not one of the problems that we need to develop ulcers over.

 

[Vylo]

I think much of it comes from the nation being mostly reactionary to crisis. So when many saw the red flags of climate change, they thought people wouldn't listen unless the threat was exaggerated (looking at you, Al Gore). This lead to a distrust because many environmentalists inflated claims to provoke action to prevent passing a point of no return.

 

[Armoured]

It's also perhaps worth noting that this is pretty much a uniquely American phenomenon; virtually nowhere else in the west has this devolution happened. Almost no other country in the western world denies the existence of or harm of climate change.

Australia is trying hard. Our worst elements always copy America's. Fortunately our worst are bad copies, and invariably just look like lunatics.

 

[jgarden]

Worst Weather of the 20th and 21st Centuries
Date(s) Event
***************************************************************************
1900 Galveston Hurricane
1925 Tri-state Tornado
1928 Great Okeechobee Hurricane and Flood
1930s Dust Bowl
1935 Florida Keys Hurricane
1938 New England Hurricane
1950 “Storm of the Century”
1969 Hurricane Camille
1974 Super Tornado Outbreak
1978 New England Blizzard
1982–83 & 1997–98 El Niño Episodes
1992 Hurricane Andrew
1993 Great Midwest Flood
1993 “Superstorm”
1999 Okla./Kan. Tornado Outbreak
2005 Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 1836 deaths
2012 Hurricane Sandy

Watch The American Climate Change Debate Devolve

Given that America has experienced "storms of the century" on a regular basis with a disproportionate number of these occurring in "conservative" areas, the opponents of climate change must be having a harder time reconciling their position when faced by the facts.

Anyone still interested in buying ocean front property or building on flood plains along the Mississippi?

 

[SolomonVII]

I think much of it comes from the nation being mostly reactionary to crisis. So when many saw the red flags of climate change, they thought people wouldn't listen unless the threat was exaggerated (looking at you, Al Gore). This lead to a distrust because many environmentalists inflated claims to provoke action to prevent passing a point of no return.

It was like Greenpeace and the baby seal issue of a few decades back. There is nothing more cute than a seal, and nothing more bloody than a seal hunt against a backdrop of pristine snow. It makes for great video footage, and highly emotional message to get people on board of the Environment Train.
The only problem is that the seals were never an endangered species, and the Greenpeace environmental activists were fully aware of that all along.
In the meantime, livelihoods of people who did not have a lot of economic options outside of the sealhunt were destroyed.

Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. Things never quite worked out well for the boy who cried wolf either.

 

[Vylo]

Worst Weather of the 20th and 21st Centuries
Date(s) Event
***************************************************************************
1900 Galveston Hurricane
1925 Tri-state Tornado
1928 Great Okeechobee Hurricane and Flood
1930s Dust Bowl
1935 Florida Keys Hurricane
1938 New England Hurricane
1950 “Storm of the Century”
1969 Hurricane Camille
1974 Super Tornado Outbreak
1978 New England Blizzard
1982–83 & 1997–98 El Niño Episodes
1992 Hurricane Andrew
1993 Great Midwest Flood
1993 “Superstorm”
1999 Okla./Kan. Tornado Outbreak
2005 Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 1836 deaths
2012 Hurricane Sandy

Watch The American Climate Change Debate Devolve

Given that America has experienced "storms of the century" on a regular basis with a disproportionate number of these occurring in "conservative" areas, the opponents of climate change must be having a harder time reconciling their position when faced by the facts.

Anyone still interested in buying ocean front property or building on flood plains along the Mississippi?

My parents own property near the ocean and it may become a real concern in my lifetime whether it remains above water.

 

[PapaZoom]

Termite farts are to blame. Look it up.

 

[PapaZoom]

http://www.eflex.net.au/termites-methane-farts-global-warming/

 

[SolomonVII]

Termite farts are to blame. Look it up.

Well, I think that taking a stand against termite farts is something that we can all agree on.
We are all against termite farts.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No witch hunting, please. It's that kind of thing that I was referring to when I said that reasonable people have cooled on the Climate Change movement although not necessarily on the idea of climate change itself.

Why would you consider someone who is merely asking for your position on a topic "witch hunting"?

Is the simple act of asking what someone believes regarding the basic aspects of climate change now "witch hunting" in your eyes?

 

[aieyiamfu]

Do you believe that global warming is real, humans are responsible, and the results will be largely negative?

That scenario can't sit well with anyone who believes it and participates in modern society.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

It's also perhaps worth noting that this is pretty much a uniquely American phenomenon; virtually nowhere else in the west has this devolution happened. Almost no other country in the western world denies the existence of or harm of climate change.

Perhaps this is because North America isn't the problem. We sequester 14 percent more carbon than we produce, and legislators know this. Meanwhile the rest of the world expects us to do more so they can do less. The hypocrisy of the rest of the world is amazing. Recall that the Kyoto Protocols were rejected by the U.S. because we would not received 'carbon credits' for the sequestration of carbon by our vast forestlands.

 

[Douger]

Most of the talk on climate change completely misses the point IMO. We could quickly (like in a couple of decades) reduce atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial levels by tweaking the management of arable and pastured lands (and lead to higher productivity in the process).