Global warming: why does the RW dispute it ?

[steve2470]

From what I have read, the evidence for global warming is overwhelming, beyond a simple "natural climactic cycle". Two part question: 1) Where does the RW get these so-called scientific experts to dispute it ?; and 2) why is there such fierce opposition in the RW to accepting global warming ? I have no answers to sub-question #1 and for sub-question #2, my theory is that they are afraid it will reduce their financial status to accept global warming and be compelled to act effectively upon it. Your thoughts please, thanks.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. The Neocons figured one they kill everyone off

in their religion wars, they'll have the place to themsevles and that the earth will heal itself. In the meantime, they've got well stocked bunkers to ride out the worst of it.

[melm00se]

12. while Neil Boortz can

be a jerkweed (besides it is always humorous to read...the theater of the absrud), he does list these as republican points of view:

1. The sun is hotter. Period. This fact cannot be denied. The sun is going through a lengthy period of increased activity that causes it to radiate more heat into space. Is it really that hard to believe that a hotter sun would lead to a hotter earth?
2. Our polar ice caps are melting? Sure looks like it. But .. the polar ice caps on Mars are melting also. So, are we to believe that this is caused by man on the Earth but by the hotter sun on Mars?
3. And while we're talking about ice caps melting, it's worth noting that the ice pack in the heart of Antarctica is actually getting thicker!
4. Scientific data clearly shows that the Earth has undergone warming and cooling cycles for millions of years. Why, all of a sudden, does a warming cycle just have to be caused by the actions of man?
5. Scientists who work on government grants are more inclined to blame global warming on the actions of man than are scientists who do not depend on continued government (political) funding.
6. And just how much warmer has our atmosphere become in the last 100 years? One degree. That's it. Just one degree.
7. Many of the people who are so involved in promoting the man-made global warming theme are people who are also involved in anti-capitalist movements. So, what is their true goal? Do they want to solve the global warming problem, or do they want to cripple the capitalist systems they so hate?
8. The U.S. Senate snubbed the Kyoto treaty by a vote of 99-0. This was during the Clinton years! What did these 99 senators know about the Kyoto Accords that we don't know?
9. Speaking of the Kyoto accords, they would severely impact the U.S. economy, but would leave China absolutely alone! China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Since a huge number of Kyoto proponents can also be called anti-American, could this cause you to wonder what the true goal of Kyoto is?
10. And just how many years ago was it that these very same scientists were warming us about the earth getting cooler?

Please note that I am not agreeing with him, just poinitng out exactly with the right has running thru their collective minds.

[Bill McBlueState]

16. nice rhetorical trick

"Scientists who work on government grants are more inclined to blame global warming on the actions of man than are scientists who do not depend on continued government (political) funding."

Boortz turned that around well.

A less misleading statement of the same truth would be, "Scientists who are funded by industry are less inclined to blame global warming on industry than are scientists who do not depend on continued industry funding.

[AlienGirl]

17. Even if climate change were due to completely natural forces

We'd best figure out now what we're going to do if we want to continue living in cities on coasts, growing crops in farmlands that are likely to desertify, and depending on seafood that requires cold-water oceans to sustain its stocks.

Also it would be nice to know whether or not Greenland's ice cap melting will shut down the Atlantic conveyor current and send us into an ice age, and if so, what we'd do then.

But the Republican point of view on the whole matter seems to be, "La la la la, I can't hear you, it's not happening." I wonder how many of them are selling off their oceanfront properties these days?

Tucker

[Solon]

19. Debunking time...

1. Sure the sun goes through cycles of being SLIGHTLY hotter than in the past, big freakin deal, but it is NOT determined whether the sun actually would affect the Earth that dramatically. We suffered through a "mini-ice age" that only ended 2 centuries ago, however, given that we KNOW now, what CO2 and Methane levels have been for the PAST 100,000 years, today has HIGHER CO2 levels than EVER recorded before, I think that would have a larger effect.

2. OK, Earth's polar caps are mostly Water-Ice, Mars is mostly CO2-ice(dry ice), though some water is present, also, Mars has the same seasons as Earth, and its polar caps "melt", it actually evaporation, the atmosphere is too thin for anything else, with the seasons, they have yet to disappear, and they are no smaller today than they were 30 years ago.

3. This is a dumb argument, Antartica WAS the DRIEST place on the planet, the largest desert, even larger than the Sahara, that is CHANGING, it was PREDICTED by climate experts on Global Warming predicted that Antartica, as it melts on the coasts will have increased PRECIPITATION, holy shit they were RIGHT!

4. Refer to number 1.

5. Actually this is false, the reason is the reverse, the ONLY scientists that actually argue as you said are those paid for by industries that most profit from the lack of government regulation on pollution.

6. Yeah, and the tempurature difference that caused the Permian extinction(95%+ of ALL life wiped out), was 5 degrees, we are only 1/5 there in a hundred years!

7. This is a strawman, NEXT!

8. Do I give a shit about what most politicians think? Kyoto didn't go far enough, in my view, but then again, many of them voted against it for THAT reason as well, but it would have been a good first step.

9. Actually it distinguished between developed and undeveloped countries, your insertion of "Anti-Americanism" when we consume 25% of all resources on the planet with about 6% of the population is laughable.

10. Newsflash, they STILL say that, a rapid warming of the Earth's atmosphere and ocean can trigger an ICE AGE.

[JeffR]

2. It runs contrary to the perceived agenda of the corporate overlords

And we can't have that, now, can we?

[SpiralHawk]

3. Republicans have Big Trouble with facts. Really, they do.

This is not just rhetoric. They actually prefer "beliefs" over facts. And that's a fact, Jack.

Republicans do not like to think for themselves based on evidence. They prefer to have Charismatic demagogues like Limbaugh, O'Reilly or Hannity (none of whom served one freaking day in the military) do their "thinking" for them.

So Republicans Assume the Position, listen to their Charismatic Corporate Propaggandists, and then dismiss any facts that inconveniently pop up in opposition to their "belief" in the corporate propaganda spewed by the electronic demagogues.

That's a fact, Jack.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. The answers are quite simple

Assuming that human activity is one of the main causes of global warming, then most of the blame falls on the leaders and financial backers of the GOP. If there is an ecological collapse, they will be the ones who receive the brunt of the outrage.

[marmar]

5. Their polluting corporate masters tell them to...

:think:

[bryant69]

6. 2 Reasons

1. It's bad for business.

2. It proclaims that Man can destroy what God has created.

There's a certain iconoclasm in their opposition too, at times - they are aware that they are going against the grain, and in a perverse way that pleases them.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[rurallib]

11. Actually stopping global warming would be good business

just not for oil.
The answer to both questions 1 & 2 is 'the oil industry' which owns our government lock,stock and barrel.

[Bill McBlueState]

15. Gore's movie emphasizes your first point

-that there's a lot of money to be made in solving environmental problems.

[bryant69]

20. Well I don't want to minimize the importance of the oil industry

cause certainly they are major players.

But if you ask a Republican why they don't believe in Global Warming they aren't going to say "Because our oily masters command us too." If you ask a local Conservative he probly believes that his opinion on Global Warming has nothing to do with the oil industry.

Bryant

[bowens43]

7. $$$$$$$$$$

Two of the top 10 Conservative values - greed and selfishness.

[underpants]

8. API (Amer. Petroleum Institute) has invested millions into raising doubts

That is really all they want, to raise doubts. You don't hear them (RW talking heads) say that it doesn't exist they just say "Well, you know there ARE some questions about this..." and usually they say that there is no concrete irrefutable evidence (please do not apply that standard to their friends in the churching business).

GREAT article here

Yet some forces of denial—most notably ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, of which ExxonMobil is a leading member—remained recalcitrant. In 1998, the New York Times exposed an API memo outlining a strategy to invest millions to “maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences.” The document stated: “Victory will be achieved when…recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.’” It’s hard to resist a comparison with a famous Brown and Williamson tobacco company memo from the late 1960s, which observed: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html

[jobycom]

9. Same reason the LW disputes Oswald shooting Kennedy.

They don't want it to be true, so they deny all evidence of it, and cling to disproven evidence to the contrary.

Global Warming hurts their basic views of the world, namely that the "free market" (as the erroneously interpret it) can't control everything, that there are forces that are out of their control, and that regulation is necessary. If they accept GW, they have to accept that just working really hard isn't enough. They have to accept that there are consequences to their actions. They have to accept that even people who are trying to do only good can bring about bad things. And they have to accept that their God isn't saving them from this. They truly believe they are the ones who are right about everything, and accepting that their actions are destroying the planet is just too awful for them to accept.

RWers are all about black and white, good and evil, pure absolutes. It either is one way or the other. So, since GW hurts their view of the world, it is just wrong, and no proof will change that.

That's my theory. Probably wrong, as always.

[gasperc]

10. the oil companies told them to

it's as simple as that

[dipsydoodle]

13. They are not going to take any notice

until a major city along your Atlantic seaboard gets flooded. I'm not sure how much above sea level NY is and to be perfectly honest I don't really care. I'm 14 miles NW of central London and according to Google Earth I'm 270 feet above sea level. If NY is less than 21 feet they've got a problem looming as loss of the Greenland icecap alone would give rise that increase.

Start spreading the news .................. :)

[lpbk2713]

14. They're anti-science and always have been.

You could provide them with a truckload of scientific data backing up any position and they would be totally in denial.

[LeftHander]

18. Need for conflict....

Modern Conservative ideology cannot exist without conflict.

So ANY fact, issue, theory, belief or value that any person holds outside of a conservative based one is rejected and not simply rejected but attacked.

[zbdent]

21. The RW gets those same "experts" the same way that they did

for the cigrette doctors who said "we're not sure" in the 60s/70s . . .

You keep feeding them money until they are bought off . . . you spend enough money, you'll find someone who will say anything you want them to.

And freepturds are doing it for free . . . (mostly)

[Uncle Joe]

22. Because they have always

been full of hot air and so cannot tell the difference.

[Fleshdancer]

23. Because responsibilty above profit is not an option for some

sad, isn't it?

[bigmonkey]

24. They revere authority above all.

Evidence just muddies the water, from an authority-focused perspective. The scientists are from "their side," and so have authority to back them up (from a RW point of view.) Fierce opposition comes from the unwillingness to disparage authorities they have revered in the past, or look to now. It really seems like treason to them.