Americans now more politically polarized on climate change than ever before

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Plazma Inferno!, Sep 2, 2016.

  1. Plazma Inferno! Ding Ding Ding Ding Administrator

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    American voters and politicians are now more polarized than ever before across all aspects of climate change — from the cause, to the science and the impacts — a major new analysis has found.
    Campaigns funded by vested fossil fuel interests and pushed by a network of ideological think tanks, many linked to the oil billionaire Koch brothers, have helped to widen the gap, pushing Republican politicians, elites and voters away from action on greenhouse gas emissions.
    The researchers found the widest gaps between Democrats and Republicans come when they are asked about the causes of climate change and if the media exaggerates the seriousness of the issue.
    While virtually all climate scientists and the world's leading scientific academies have long agreed that the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change, only about half Republicans accept the science.
    A Republican controlled Congress, the article says, would be a “huge step backward in our nation’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” and could also undermine international cooperation, especially if Republican nominee Donald Trump won the Presidency.

    http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/3...-polarized-climate-change-ever-analysis-finds
     
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  3. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    What has caused the divide over global warming is the Democratic Party is the party of big government, big taxes and big regulation, all justified by feelings. Manmade climate change follows that template, making the Republicans suspicious of another scam like ObamaCare. ObamaCare followed that template and led to bigger government, higher costs and lots of new regulations. In the end all it has done is shift the burden of health care and regulatory costs to the middle class.

    One can't trust the Democrats to tell the truth. Hillary, Obama, Harry Reid, etc., have all demonstrated their willingness to lie and then lie about lying to get their way. PC, which is a democratic party tool, was designed to regulate thinking using regulatory feelings. The scam degenerates to one-sided acceptable PC name calling; denier. Global warming is the boy who cried wolf too many times. If the wolf is coming, people are tired of being scammed and will not show up.

    What you need to do is look at the Democrat party plan for manmade global warming/climate change remediation. Work under the assumption the Democrats have been able to scam their way. Ask yourself if the plan involves bigger government, lots of new regulations, higher taxes, crony capitalism and more government control over the lives of its citizens and businesses.

    For example, carbon credits, does not eliminate carbon, but rather is a pay-to-play scam that can be obtained through campaign contributions and special treatment. The Republican don't trust the Democrat Party, since with the Democrats, the ends justifies the means, with the ends big government socialism. The means is lying. Manmade global warming and climate change is a distraction away from the real end game; boy who cried wolf.

    One way the global warming scam fools the Democrats party base, is connected to the well oiled scam called the transposition of time. For example, if you look at slavery, women's right, illegal immigration, etc., the scam is that the people of the present are responsible for the actions of the past. This is a liberal/atheist version of original sin. If my grandfather did wrong, I go to hell, unless I pay. And if my grandmother was abused, I get to go directly to heaven, even if I don't deserve it by my own actions. Manmade global climate warming change is the past being blamed on present. This feels right due to conditioning.
     
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  5. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    It is ironic that you do not mention Trump and his lying. It seems like every day there is a new lie. Just yesterday he said that he and the president of Mexico did not talk about who would pay for The Wall, which of course was a lie and when he was caught in the lie his campaign admitted he lied.
    I am really leaning towards thinking he may have some form of dementia. Maybe he is not lying so much as just forgetting what he said, did or what he was told. I mean for crying out loud, his lies are so transparent and frequent it doesn't make any rational sense. He is just so odd, scary odd.
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    The AGW loonies had grossly oversold their hand.
    I am continually amazed at the number of seemingly intelligent people who have bought their hogwash hook line and sinker.
    97% (of 3%) agree with them.

    OK
    I've got my baskets of eggs and potatoes ready to go. Let me know when the oceans boil.

    ........................................
    On another note-thanks to the desmogblog complainer,Graham Readfearn(known mostly for sports writing) (...won him the regional sports writer of the year award from Britain’s Sports Writers’ Association).I looked at Anthony Watts site to see his findings that most global warming alarmists are doing nothing personally to support their rantings.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It's not dementia; it's a craving for external validation. Whatever gets his supporters' attention and approval is the right thing to say at any given moment. Trump's index of rightness, according to a fragment of interview I saw recently is exemplified thus: "They're liking it! They're liking it a lot." Factuality is simply not a consideration.

    As for the climate issue, the divide is obvious enough. Who supports the Democrats? People who need to breathe, work and live in cities. Many of these people have secular educations and at least a rudimentary grasp of science. Many of them are seriously concerned with their fellow humans and even some other species.
    Who supports the Republicans? Big money and big religion. Religious leaders who want all science discredited and disregarded. Industry leaders who caused the problem, don't want to be held responsible or pay for the damage - who can get away from bad weather and pollution, and can hire a dozen quacks to flood the networks with bogus counter-science. High earners who want to keep making and don't want to pay tax for anything. How not to be taxed for something? Claim it doesn't exist.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Yep.

    Some thing very similar is happening with smoking. All these intelligent people (and basically all doctors) think smoking is bad for you. But I am sure you know someone who smoked two packs a day and lived to be 100, which means you'll reject all those loony ideas about smoking being bad for you.
     
    PhysBang and Kristoffer like this.
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Your brilliance occasionally astounds me.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Why thank you!
     
  12. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Au contraire mon ami:
    Thank You
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Americans aren't polarized on climate change only, but all science.

    If I had to hazard a guess at the root problem, it would be the division of people into those who react to incoming information as primarily an opportunity to learn something themselves, and those who react to it as primarily an attempt by others to achieve social dominance.

    Illustration, from a less fraught arena: over many years now I have occasionally in the past - not as a crusade, just as a minor thing that comes up when it comes up - tried to get people to shut off their "bug lights" - those blue light lanterns with electric kill grids - at night. Or at least disable the kill grid. It's not a big deal with me, as it is with some of my background - I'm more of a live and let live type, the bug lights make them happy - but the topic was common in my mosquito-infested part of the world. (It's sorted out now, pretty much). And this became obvious: some people who have bought and installed "bug lights" to kill mosquitos, can be persuaded to shut them off via reason and information they get from an ordinary source: but some cannot. Among those who cannot, incoming information and reason, from any source, will invariably be interpreted as an attempt to one-up them, to "know more" than they do. If the source is me, and they like me, and don't want to think ill of me, they will assign the one-upmanship attempt to the people who have fooled me into believing obvious hogwash.

    Illustrative extreme event: I once ended up, as specifically challenged and not my idea at all, sorting the kill debris from a bug light: A large pile of male mosquitos, a collection of various other insects including a couple of dragon flies, damsel flies, robber flies and crane flies (there's a "wetland" nearby) - and two or three (ambiguous remains) female mosquitos.

    In other words, the last few days he had killed more female mosquito predators than he had killed female mosquitos. His bug light had created a kind of oasis for female mosquitos searching for blood - he had eliminated a good share of the harassing males and predators, and set a light out to show the females where they could find hairless, pink, juicy, warmblooded prey sitting around with their skins flushed with blood from drinking beer.

    The reaction was: The idea that male mosquitos don't bite is nonsense - look at them, they look just like mosquitos that bite; the idea that those big mosquitos (the crane flies) don't bite is likewise goofy; I don't know what I'm talking about. And the next week he bought another bug light - because he was still getting bit a lot. I think he's up to three, now, triangulating his yard.

    The people who sell bug lights know their market. Imagine if a company could make hundreds of billions of dollars a year selling bug lights, and the only penalty was that they changed the air temperatures by a degree or so.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Back in the 80's, a friend of ours bought one of those new-fangled devices. It didn't make outdoor sitting any more pleasant with its humming and crackling, and mostly seemed to kill moths. Soon, it disappeared and was mentioned no more.
    I love the bug light story. Reminds me of another lite - a beer, whose only virtue, according to its own advertisements is being cold. Personally, I find a decent German beer. after a couple of hours' refrigeration far more satisfying. But I wouldn't try to persuade an aficionado of the former product.
    Some topics are just not worth the effort. But I think maybe science is.
     
  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    IMHO:
    If beer doesn't taste good warm, it ain't worth drinking.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, that's nothing. There's a beer out there that is advertised to be just like _ice!_
     
  17. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Still Coors lite.

    DAB dark. Actually, any of the English stouts, and Waterloo, an Ontario microbrewery, makes a pretty decent brown ale.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I'm talking about Bud Ice, which is even colder. Because it has "ice" in its name. And it's "ice brewed!"
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Aside: On the Ravages of Age

    I should note that my intelligence just took a predictable midlife nosedive. I quit smoking cold turkey.

    I don't know; I've tried before. Even succeeded; eighteen months, once. Eight months another time. And every time I found reasonable success it was purely a matter of how I felt about the damn cigarettes. Trouble is I've been running into some enabling interference, lately; every once in a while it hits me that now is the time, and the first response I get is discouragement from all the smart people around me who want me to keep smoking because ... I really don't know, apparently I'll be a pain in the ass for a couple of weeks, which in turn doesn't make sense since I'm a pain in their ass, anyway.

    My kid just did a road trip to California with my Dad and stepmother; two weeks in which nobody can point to my kid and remind how scary and annoying The Quit can be in order to tell me that today isn't the day, and what do you know? I'm dumb enough, these days, that it worked.

    I'm slipping. They ain't kidding when they say, "Over the hill." I'm forty-three. Watch me tumble.
     
  20. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    1,364
    Can't remember if it was Carlsberg or Tuborg that had an ice beer in the '90ies. It was pretty shit.

    Had a watermark, or something, showing when it was below freezing.

    What does this have to do with US citizens being polarized about climate change?
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    See #11-12 above. It's just a roadside diversion.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nothing. But talking about AGW in this thread doesn't accomplish all that much; Sculptor (and a few others here) will continue to deny it exists, and thus beyond serving as a good example of why polarization happens, nothing will really be accomplished.

    However, talking about beer . . . well, that will accomplish a lot.
     
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  23. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    Or, even better
    A good low cost whiskey, or whisky.
    A few years ago, my cousin's daughter's husband gave me a very smooth scotch whisky which he claimed was "reasonable".
    I couldn't find it locally.
    A smooth rye will do also.
     

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