Climate Change Doubt is Tea Party Article of Faith

nytimes.com

JASPER, Ind. — At a candidate forum here last week, Representative Baron P. Hill, a threatened Democratic incumbent in a largely conservative southern Indiana district, was endeavoring to explain his unpopular vote for the House cap-and-trade energy bill.

It will create jobs in Indiana, reduce foreign oil imports and address global warming, Mr. Hill said at a debate with Todd Young, a novice Republican candidate who is supported by an array of Indiana Tea Party groups and is a climate change skeptic.

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”

A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party.

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy.

As the article points out a little further down, the fossil fuel industries are the big benefactors of this anti-global-warming campaign on the right. Big Oil, natural gas, coal and propane companies, among others. If Al Gore is too "elite" to be credible, then what can you say about BP and Exxon? They're hardly concerned about the "little people."

Personally, if it's necessary to pass regulations to combat global warming, then so be it. I am less afraid of "big government" than I am of big capitalists. The government

On this subject, among many others, the conservative right is the biggest force for maintaining the status quo, and the rich elite, that exists in this country.

Climate change does not excist. Climategate has proven that. They want to cap and trade our electricity making OUR bills go up so we have to be brought down a notch and the big wigs at top still fly their big jets. I don't care if you have the money for a jet fly it baby, but don't make me have to drive a hybrid in your hypochresy!

reply to post by Sestias


cap and trade is a lie it destroys more jobs than it creates not only that the prices of good and services will be raised and job creation that occurs are in other countries such as china and india.

climate change is real but global warming is the creation of man to take more power of business and industry

when it comes to understanding the earth man has been here for more naught than the blink of an eye it is by his own arrogance that he and we think that we all have the power of mother nature when it comes to mans own power is is nothing that but a fly in the universe itself.

fossil fuels and petrochemicals and the derivatives products are massive coal for energy oil and its by products in in thousands of other products including plastics and synthetics to the asprin you take for a headache.

the scope and magnitude of cap and trade and cap and tax is nothing but destroying massive industries with no other way to make the products any other way.

regulations here dont do jack squat compare to the two most populace nations neither adhering of giving any thought to the rest of the world of course i am speaking of china and india.

nothing we do here helps the planet the only thing you people are doing is fattening the wallets and power of china and india and the rest of the world.

the status quo here is the global warming people arent not giving any thought whatsoever to the trillions and trillions and trillions that their ambitions want.

many of the products and services can not be produced any other way or more cheap or more efficiently the end result is wealth destruction meaning you will be paying more out of the pocket than any other time in history

its all about the cash

by the way i do live in indiana and i am not a teapartier

reply to post by Sestias


Generally, the problem with cap and trade is that it's arbitrary values and doesn't really address the problem.

Let's say I'm a paper mill - I come with some rather high amounts of pollution. However, this is no matter, as I can buy carbon credits from other companies that aren't really major environmental players and have nothing better to do with them, anyway.

If you want to see market development, stop taxing the bejesus out of corporations and give them incentives to invest in "green"(er) technologies as part of their manufacturing processes - or offer grants for start-ups that are going to build around these from the start.

We can argue about climate change all day long. It would take one hell of a cataclysm to seriously impact our population over the course of the next hundred years - I'm not inclined to get too emotionally involved in the issue.

However, I'm a perfectionist. I like efficiency - high speed, low drag. Making sensible and reasonable changes to industry and our ways of life to improve efficiency and lower cost of living and/or improve quality of life is a general good thing. The catch, however, is that it's not going to be something the government can legislate into existence. If you want recycling - you're going to have to do it - or devise a way to make it appealing to people accustomed to a disposable society.

I like glass bottles - I'd really like to see a return to them (the EPA and FDA would probably like it, too - glass doesn't leech nonsense into its contents) - though I'm not sure if it would actually be more efficient to wash and re-use glass bottles as opposed to recycle the plastics (by time you figure in added mass of glass to shipping costs and everything else). But nothing beats soda (or your beverage of choice) from a glass bottle.

And since we are wanting to move away from oil dependency - plastics will only increase in price. We will need to address the change in the market - as much of what we have in our world today is based upon the refinement of crude oil into gasoline.

reply to post by Sestias


Man made global warming is a lie. Man made pollution is a fact. But there is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest it's rapidly heating the planet.

Cap and Trade does not address "global warming" .. it's a scheme almost IDENTICAL to what a company called Enron used to do..

Liberals tried to use FEAR to push massively invasive legislation down our throats to tax the bloody hell out of us and increase our energy cost..

Over a lie..

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by Sestias

 

We can argue about climate change all day long. It would take one hell of a cataclysm to seriously impact our population over the course of the next hundred years - I'm not inclined to get too emotionally involved in the issue.

If the polar ice caps melt just a little it will cause the oceans to rise enough to displace large populations. You'd be surprised how much of the earth's population live within five miles of a coast. This can happen very quickly, and it is certainly possible in the near future, not in 100 years. There will be massive migrations inland, drawing upon the land and resources of inland populations and creating more and more human disaster areas. Consider what happened to New Orleans occurring worldwide in a short period of time.

BTW: I live in the mountains so I don't have much to worry about except possibly too many neighbors too quickly. Certainly real estate values in this area will go up astronomically. So I'm fixed just fine in that eventuality, but I am still concerned about what it will do to millions.

Scientific ice borings have proved that our climate is about to change dramatically in the very near future. The precursor to a major climate change is a period in which temperatures fluctuate wildly. The fact that some areas have had record cold spells recently is not proof that climate change is a myth. The same areas can also have record high temperatures and back again within a short space of time. The bets are mostly on the likelihood that the big change will be in the direction of global warming, though there is also the possibility that it could be the precursor to another ice age. In the previous ice age something like 90% of all species became extinct. If much of the earth turns into desert wastelands that will also destroy many forms of life. Neither possibility is a good one for human life.

It may already be too late to prevent the earth from either catastrophe. That does not mean that we should fold our hands and just say that it's God's will. It is in our power to try to save our planet, and we should take whatever steps are necessary to do what we can NOW. We are destroying our atmosphere daily and every step we take in the direction of allaying the imminent disaster is that much to the good.

When the human species is at stake, the profits of a few should not prevent us from doing what is best for the many.

By the way, I like glass bottles too.

reply to post by Sestias

Citing the New York Times as an objective source on tea party advocates or climate change is your first mistake.
Trusting government and foundation funded theories is your second. AGW advocates are just as dependent on money to feed their programs, except it mostly comes from taxpayers instead of corporate profits,

So, the Times story moves from "global warming" to "climate change" to "anthropogenic global warming" whenever the reporter feels the need to denigrate opposition or support allies. The fact is that Earth's climate is cyclical, with periods of dramatic heating and cooling long before man ever appeared or industry developed.

Then, it moves to "preaching" and "faith" and "denial" as biased interpretations overtake actual reporting.

AGW advocates act more on faith than science, themselves. It has become a religion, despite its "sacraments" having been proven to be illusory, at best, and economically devastating at worst.
The UK carbon trading scheme is an utter failure. The EU's, even worse. The Kyoto Protocol was worst of all. The OMB reports that cap and trade will add extreme costs to life as we know it; even the president admits this is so. All without measurable benefit.

Recently, even the most ardent "priests" of the movement, including the inscrutable Phil Jones of the CRU, admitted that the "science" is NOT settled.

The only "salvation" AGW advocates ever offer is dramatic redistribution of income, economic punishment as "penance," and the de-industrialization of developed nations.

The models have never come even close to being able to predict anything: all their theories are based upon looking backward at ancient tree rings, which are of questionable value, and entirely subjective "analysis."

You can belittle conservative politicians who mix politics with religion, but that does not make the "science" any better. They know that throwing money at a problem is never the solution; and the most ardent supporters (Al Gore, James Cameron come to mind) refuse to make any sacrifices themselves. Tea Party supporters and their candidates also know that wasteful spending will not change the climate.

Man will be long gone from the planet before we would see any benefit from the proposals on the table for climate remediation. Carbon dioxide is far from the most dangerous of the GHGs; water vapor and methane have far more serious consequences. AGW advocates cannot even agree about the effect of clouds on the climate.

As for fossil fuel industry funding, we never hear anyone take into account the BILLIONS already spent in futile attempts to measure, predict and "cure" the climate. There is much more money available to AGW advocates, most of it confiscated in taxes, than there will ever be for privately-funded skeptics.
If you learned ANYTHING in school about science, it is that many things once accepted as settled were far from it; and were, often, completely wrong. True science INVITES skepticism, criticism and re-examination of "settled" theories.

The only true sign of ignorance is the hubris that we already know all there is to know. We should spend wisely to learn more, but there is no "settled science" that justifies panic or waste.

Originally posted by jdub297
reply to post by Sestias

 

The only "salvation" AGW advocates ever offer is dramatic redistribution of income, economic punishment as "penance," and the de-industrialization of developed nations.

Aren't you being a bit dramatic? "Salvation" and "Penance" are religious concepts most often thrown around by the religious right. Scientists speak of a dire situation that needs to be fully addressed, not a condition of the human soul.

"Redistribution of income" (actually the phrase is "wealth" not "income"] is a Marxist term thrown around by the right to try to scare people into maintaining the status quo and keeping the pockets of Big Oil, Big Coal, and other corporate behemoths full. The industries dependent on fossil fuels may have to cut back on their production and find others ways of acquiring profits. They will find ways. Corporations might have to pay carbon emissions taxes and consumers may be charged more for electricity. These measures hardly rob from the rich and give all the money to the poor.

Do you really see a true redistribution of wealth in the EU or Great Britain? No, what the Tea Parties and the rest of the far right want is the giant corporations getting richer and richer as the middle class declines. That's what they are fighting tooth and nail for. Why average citizens should fight so hard for BP and Exxon Mobile is a mystery to me, but that's what some are doing. Could the leaders be getting big bucks from them?

The models have never come even close to being able to predict anything: all their theories are based upon looking backward at ancient tree rings, which are of questionable value, and entirely subjective "analysis."

As I mentioned in my earlier post, scientists regularly bore into the ice cores at the poles. The ice is very ancient and gives them information on the climate, diet, life forms, etc. that existed millions of years ago. Most reputable scientists believe that the earth is in for a major climate change and soon. The precursor to a major change is wildly fluctuating temperatures. The fact that some areas are beginning to experience record low temperatures and then record highs is an indication. The change could remotely be another ice age, which would be just as disastrous to the human species as global warming, but most concur that the change will be in the direction of global warming.

The science is objective and has little or nothing to do with faith. No, they are not 100% accurate on all things, but they do disregard corporate profits as a factor in their calculations.

The anti-global-warming contingent is more interested in maintaining the present rule of major corporations than it is with truth.