Is Climate change a political issue or an article of religious faith to Progressivism?
I think the latter explains its rise.
11
@Stephen It's science, Steph.
65
@Stephen Is climate change denial an article of religious faith to conservatism?
Religion is believing something despite the lack of evidence or, in the case of climate change, despite the clear presence of evidence. The parallels to evolution and creationism are unmistakable.
Look at the melting Arctic. It's the idiot light at the top of the world.
55
@Stephen said: "Is Climate change... an article of religious faith...?" 120 years ago, Arrhenius took a winter to hand-calculate that doubling CO2 would increase global temperature by, on average, 4 C. 90 years ago, Hulburt repeated the calculation and got 3 C. Scientists have been getting 3 C ever since: Plass in 1956. Manabe in 1972. Exxon and Hansen in 1980 (Exxon didn't publish, of course). IPCC when first formed in 1990. IPCC today: still getting 3 C, by consensus. That's one hundred and twenty years, calculating the same number. Now, if this qualifies as 'religion' to you, then so be it. For me, I'm going to assume the correct answer is 3 C, in full knowledge that if I really wanted to, I could calculate it myself with a spreadsheet and a month of study. That's a 1 C rise due to the doubling of CO2, and a 2 C further rise due to the water vapor feedback. All other feedbacks kind of cancel each other.
43
The issues related to climate change and environmental sustainability should not have any partisan divide. Science does not care how anyone votes or what one’s ideology is.
The GOP will only give climate change enough of the front page to obtain the votes of moderates and younger conservatives. The needed action will kept behind the curtain or discredited or presented as unviable.
And the tree thingy really won’t help much…see link.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615102/tree-planting-is-a-great-idea-that-could-become-a-dangerous-climate-distraction/
2
It is not surprising to me the extent of willful ignorance the republican display on climate change. It existed before Trump and will persist at least until a new generation of conservative people will grow into adulthood. Nevertheless, the Republicans leadership from Trump down is trying to address aspects of the climate threat; the temerity of this effort- as evidenced in their recent House proposal- suggest that it is a hypocritical attempt to lure in the few conservatives who actually think climate change is a very serious issue. The gist of the House proposal is to keep on pumping oil and gas but capture the green house gases. Their "green proposal" is to plant a trillion trees and capture and store carbon dioxide emitted at the generating plants. The latter has not yet been proven to be feasible, nor economical (best estimate so far is a cost of at least $ 300-600 per metric ton (recall that the present annual world-wide CO2 emission is 37 gigatons! (37 with 9 zeros following). The tree planting proposal is nearly equally ludicrous. Think of a tree with a 15 foot spread (a footprint of 177 sq. ft). A trillion of these trees, close-packed, cover an area of 7.8 million square miles; that my friends, is a bit over twice the area of the USA, including Alaska. Presumably the planting is meant to be world-wide, but even that is untenable since it requires water and proper soil and thus will have to compete with land used for agriculture- a non-starter.
4
After reading these posts it appears a little education is in order.
1824 Fourier says the surface of the Earth is warmer than it should be, it must be doing something like a greenhouse.
1859 Tyndall says, hmmm, CO2 is doing it.
1896 Arrhenius says hey if we burn fossil fuels we're raising CO2, we're going to warm the Earth and this is how much and he was pretty close.
1940s the modern quantum version with the US Air Force right after WWII. They weren't doing global warming, they wanted sensors on heat-seeking missiles to shoot down Soviet bombers before they incinerated their cities.
The CO2 absorbs infrared whether it’s coming from the engine of an enemy bomber or the Sun warmed Earth. The idea scientists don't know what they are talking about is completely absurd.
3
Climate Change activists/scientists are doom-sayers?
Hardly, the Washington Post just published an article on the Colorado River and its losing a billion tons of water per year because of the rise in temperatures.
The one statistic that most people can understand is that the change in temperatures here on Earth is the same energy as 4 Hiroshima-sized bombs worth of heat per second. https://skepticalscience.com/4-Hiroshima-bombs-worth-of-heat-per-second.html (2013)
That amount of heat will grow all the time as we continue to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
This is a matter of changing our economy and the way we use energy. Even if people start to use less CO2 the change is going to continue to occur.
If the fires in California, Australia, and floods in the South don't mean much to you then you're not paying attention. The loss of water in the Colorado will mean drastic cuts in agriculture in the West very quickly.
Do you think we are gonna just tell Mexico they can no longer have Colorado River water? Then expect them to grow a lot of produce that's eaten here?
Climate Change is more of a disrupter than Trump will ever be. It's here and it's changing your life now. Expect it.
Then vote for a rational policy this November.
5
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" —Upton Sinclair
5
Why do people not believe in climate change?
#1- They do not want any "authority" telling the em whats they need to do. Light bulbs, solar, less water with toilets, smaller cars, less meat ,etc.They do not want any interference.
#2- They are unwilling to pay what they seem as extra cost. They are afraid the economy will be hurt.
#3- Its an issue those others believe and we are not going let them tell us what to do.
#4- FOX and others propaganda giving them"proof"that they are correct.
#5- Its human nature to want to believe in one thing and deny any evidence you are wrong. We all have areas we do this,
3
The left has hopelessly politicized global warming, sadly.
Here's how the Times described the main provisions of the "Green New Deal": 'The Green New Deal calls on the federal government to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create high-paying jobs, ensure that clean air, clean water and healthy food are basic human rights, and end all forms of oppression.' People who don't agree with this entire package - including elements like guaranteed government jobs - are caricatured as ignorant or corrupt fools who deny science. Is it any wonder we can't effectively reach a bipartisan consensus on climate change?
I sold my car in 2010 and never looked back. Climate change requires constant sacrifices, and how you spend your money has to match how you vote. The average American spends $2,000 annually on gas. Stop sending Exxon your money! Oh, and I sold my car while I was still in Los Angeles, so it's possible. Don't make excuses for yourself. Change.
3
No article about partisan differences in views about climate change is complete without pointing out why. This is what happens when Fox News lies about climate science. Fox News gave nearly 70% of its airtime to freak outliers in science who denied climate change, turning a generation of Republicans into climate change deniers, too. It's mind-boggling and maddening that they allow themselves to be brainwashed and turned into climate zombies while every year is hotter than the last, and we needed strong regulation of pollution with heat-trapping gasses years ago.
When suffocating summer comes again make sure to thank a Republican.
3
If you look at the priorities for Republicans in the poll, there is one clear common denominator: Fear.
3
How many actual Republicans exist? If they are 15, or even 20 percent of the overall U.S. population, who cares? Get on with fixing the issue and dealing with the climate crisis.
1
If you go to 100 doctors and 97 of them say you have cancer, but you side with the 3 that say you don't have cancer... you still have cancer. You are merely losing valuable time that could be used to fight the cancer in order to survive.
That, in a nutshell, is what the right-wing media has done to Republican voters on the issue of the Climate Crisis... they spout the results of 3 doctors -- while ignoring the other 97 -- and thus don't seek treatment. Meanwhile, the cancer grows.
If the Climate Crisis were only to wipe out right-wing media operators and Republican voters, this might be okay (sad, but okay), but the Crisis will wipe out my children and family along with them, thanks to their denial.
And that is not okay.
4
It is frightening to see how warped Republican priorities are that their number one concern is terrorism, which kills about the same number of Americans each year as falling vending machines, and their lowest priority is climate change, which has the potential of wrecking our entire civilization.
6
Here’s the bad news— the messiah isn’t going to save us.
Corporate or bureaucratic greenwashing as exemplified by Amazon’s Bezo’s and Trump’s Trillion Trees is so woefully inadequate that it hardly quantifies as news.
This requires the kind of moral fortitude to marshal every conceivable resource both financial & legislatively to fight what is tantamount to a World War, with one great exception: we are the enemy.
With the kind of straight talk that Americans need so desperately to hear— that their addiction to comfort and the wonton consumption that has been the by-product of it has made them and the planet sick.
And, unshackle themselves from the corporate interests that have only one interest— unbridled greed.
Here’s the good news.
As individuals, we have the ability to make a tremendous impact by reducing our individual carbon footprint. Firstly, and the highly unpopular “under the belt punch” is to change our eating habits to favor a more plant based diet. Yes, folks!— the juries out, our carnivorous ways are killing us, everything on the planet and the planet.
Now, that we’ve taken away your freedom to eat yourself to death. Let’s talk about...
What happened to those great American values like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” or presidents who had the audacity to say,” ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country?”
I ask NYT readers— What are YOU going to do for your planet?
Did Republicans get more Neanderthal genes than the Democrats of today? Sure seems like it.
Stuck in some romanticized past where everything was better (if you were white, male, and middle class or higher, and we didn't have rivers on fire or the planet heating up so noticeably).
3
It appears, as usual, that older white male Republicans refuse to acknowledge that manmade fossil-fuel global warming deserves any government action.
These folks would rather just push down of the climatic suicide gas pedal and blindly vote Republican.
The Party of Climate Death: GOP 2020
Nice GOPeople.
3
If the Dems are wrong we've still created a new, green, more habitat-friendly energy economy. If the Repubs are wrong all of humanity potentially dies. Seems like a pretty clear choice. Of course Chuck Todd will keep fighting for all those fracking jobs...
Duh. We know that Republicans are self-centered and do not have the capacity for empathy. If they are like this with human beings, why would you expect them to be able to move out of themselves to consider mother earth.
2
This will be the undoing of the Republican party. No one can outrun father time, and with each new generation facing the pressures of climate change in real time, not in a theoretical future, the Republicans will either have to decide that they were wrong the whole time (yeah right) or fade away.
Science matters, facts matter. Republicans have zero credible science or facts to back up their stance that climate change is a hoax. Every year, more data comes out, and they can only hold it off for so long.
Decades ago, Thomas Midgley, an inventor and later a vice president of General Motors, washed his hands in pure tetraethyl lead, breathed it in for 60 seconds and dried them on his handkerchief to show reporters that lead was safe and imposed no environmental risk. He later breathed in the ozone killing chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) and blew out a candle to prove its safety. Both are now banned worldwide. That is essentially what the Republicans are doing now.
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@Tom
The question is whether it will be the undoing the Republican party before it is the undoing of humanity.
18
@Tom
"This will be the undoing of the Republican party."
Extremely doubtful....the demise of the GOP has been predicated many times. Their propaganda and manipulation of voting rights will continue to keep them in power.
4
Shocking.
Climate change is far more important than any other problem. The only other problems which merit comparison are the political and social ones which impede our efforts to have any effect on the climate change problem.
Fix racism. Fix the economy. Fix guns. Fix drugs. Fix immigration. Fix health care. Fix poverty. Fix crime. Fix any other problem. None of it will matter in 50 years if we don't address climate change now.
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@David Liebtag
I agree completely.
At some point, you really need to prioritize your commitments. Entangling all these causes has just created a Gordian Knot of politics wherein nothing can ever get done, because to to anything necessitates doing everything.
8
More would agree on climate change if one side didn't say the only solution was to drastically cut energy production, stop flying planes, stop driving cars, give everyone a government job, etc. per the New Green Deal. If they focused on encouraging free market solutions, the Republicans would be more open to the notion than when the solution is more socialism and control over the economy.
1
@David 1. Don't exaggerate. Democrats aren't that lockstep.
2. A carbon tax is one of the quickest ways to reshape the market. Many green new deal supporters oppose it because it's regressive, but a lot of other Democrats would go there. Would there be as many Republicans?
8
@David there has been a partisan divide on this issue much longer than the Green New Deal has existed.
2
@David -- the "free market" you dream of has seen the corporations and billionaires whose revenue is at risk work very hard at politicizing the issue and spreading disinformation.
Exxon started funding groups that applied the regulation-delaying techniques the tobacco industry honed in the mid 1980s. Do you know what Exxon management had gotten from their internal staff of scientists in 1982? They got a primer on what continued use of fossil fuel was likely to do to the planet.
https://archive.org/details/1982ExxonPrimerOnCO2GreenhouseEffect/page/n3/mode/2up
So leadership at one of the biggest corporations on the planet was warned of a danger to society.
Their solution? Delay, deny, and drill, baby, drill.
And after actually admitting the problem existed in the mid-2000s, the GOP has tripped over itself to deny the issue. We went from Senator McCain trying repeatedly to put a carbon trading plan in place (it worked to stop acid rain's worst impacts) to Sen. "Snowball" Inhofe pretending snow in February is science, and similar stupid actions from a party that's given itself to the fossil industry and antiregulation donors.
I want the Republican Party with a spine back. They tossed theirs aside. It's a shame. I really would like to hear a conservative solution - carbon pricing is one. Why don't they all support it?
1
The partisan divide appears to be able to be categorized as "general good" vs. "personal good"... It is not a bad predictor on which side of an issue a political group will be behind.
10
@David this is a very good observation.
As a university professor I can say this without hesitation. The belief in climate change is not driven by knowledge on the topic. My students - undergraduate, MBA and EMBA - are overwhelmingly believers. Yet the know almost nothing about the topic.
Almost to a person, they have never read any articles that show skepticism. I'm not talking denials. Just people pointing out that the models have had poor predictive validity.
When asked simple questions, like which countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last 15 years; by how much would adherence to the Paris Accord reduce emissions; how much has the earth warmed in the last 150 years; how much is it expected to warm in the next 50; how much has the earth warmed since China went from a 3rd world country to an industrial powerhouse. Their answers are so wrong it's laughable.
Yet their belief is unshakable. These are educated people trained to question assumptions. It speaks to two things. Belief in climate change is modern evangelicalism; and our education programs are not producing critical thinkers.
I was going to provide answers to these questions, but it would be better if you just looked them up yourselves. Because I'm doubting that the NYT readership is any better informed on this topic than my students.
3
@Dred I have read articles that show skepticism, that point out the predictive validity of different models. Many.
I have also read many articles the explain how the predictive validity has changed as more data is gathered. And, I have read many articles that give examples of ways in which climate change is already effecting planetary systems. And I have also read articles about how much carbon other countries emit and how well they adhere to the Paris accord.
Nevertheless, I could not answer your simple questions. I choose to remember the big picture rather than arbitrary facts.
The facts that I have not memorized the facts that would enable me to answer your questions does not mean my believe is laughable or invalidate my conviction.
27
@Dred here here. I suspect that most alarmists know next to nothing about climate change other than what they've read in the NY Times -- which is frequently inaccurate -- or overstates the science journal articles they cite.
The alarmists are buying into a manufactured crisis, one that has been pushed by the left because most of the solutions fit the progressive agenda and things like the green new deal (pushed by science luminaries like Bernie 3 houses) have incorporated a social agenda.
I've done a lot of analyses on the global temp data set, it is one of the most incomplete and poorly put together data sets I've ever seen. Most of the globe didn't have but a handful of temp collection stations back in 1880 (or 1900 or 1950 or even now) and most of those are located on the coasts. So what we have is a data set based on very poor sampling that relies heavily on extrapolations, estimates and then adjustments (almost always to show a bigger warming trend). You wouldn't use it for medical research or constructing your portfolio.
2
@Dred Correct, most people do not read journal articles or understand the data. What people do understand is that ice caps are melting, weird things are happening off the coast (i.e. sea life that normally spends its time off the coast of Mexico showing up much farther north), and places that used go into a veritable deep freeze each year no longer doing so (Netherlands, Poland, parts of Alaska to name a few recent examples I have read about).
People know something is up whether they know the stats on carbon emissions or not. It's disheartening to hear our fellow Americans and leaders denying (yes, denying) that there is a problem.
15
You can interpret the gap in a number of ways. Maybe dems are smarter than repubs or vice versa (bet you find more engineers and hard scientists are repubs though). Or maybe, just maybe, the interest in CC by dems is because all the supposed solutions fit with their progressive orthodoxy (plus they've tacked on their social agenda). I think that is the most likely reason -- although I'm guessing on the dem side we have mostly liberal arts majors who don't know much about science and on the repub side we have as noted more scientists and engineers.
Whatever interpretation you put on the gap, the reality is that the US has reduced emissions -- we are basically flat with 1990 levels -- while the rest of world has accounted for the nearly 70% rise in annual CO2 emissions. With only 5% of the world's population there's not a lot we can do unless we all go live in caves -- it is the highly populated (and growing) emerging economies that account for most of the increases. We can try moral suasion I suppose but they want our lifestyle and that's not unreasonable. So unless everyone in the US wants to dramatically limit their lifestyle so as to set the standard, there's not much we can do -- and I can guarantee you most of the alarmists here aren't giving up their lifestyles. Bernie Sanders has three houses? Flies private jets? Give me a break. Take your green new deal and put it where the sun never shines
3
@Ralphie
You seem to be an AGW skeptic, yet argue that the problem is not with the US, as we hold our emissions nearly constant and then stating that addressing emissions is futile since we are only five percent of the world's population. But we are among the biggest per-capita polluters, spewing out more than double the emission rates of the EU and China (with India's about 1/8th of ours). In total we contribute 15% of the world's emissions. You can hardly argue that our living standards are better than most European countries.
You also attribute the disparity in climate change awareness between Dems and Reps to smartness, implying (or rather betting) that most engineers and hard scientists are Republicans. If that were the case, then most climate scientists must also be Republicans and hence nearly universally believe in AGW. Then, how come you don't trust them? But you don't have to, since from my own experience in a five decades long career, I can tell you that among all my fellow research physicist acquaintances, including geophysicist, meteorologists and oceanographers, there were precious few who were Republicans, and among them only one was a skeptic.
3
@Rudy Ludeke I'm sure you have a small sample size.
I don't disagree that our per capita emissions are higher than many other countries, but they are actually declining (our total emissions are flat since 1990 but population has grown quite a bit in 30 years). And comparing to India is ridiculous as the avg lifestyle there isn't what anyone aspires to. The facts that have to be faced are: 1) we aren't going to significantly reduce our lifestyles -- ok, maybe Bernie will sell a house -- but all the CC believers I know live large and don't try to change;; 2) people in emerging economies want our lifestyle and aren't going to wait on green energy to attain it.
We aren't that far above most European countries in per capita emissions (and we're behind Canada) -- So while I won't argue that we couldn't easily reduce our per capita by 10% or so, the math says that won't make much of a difference. Neither will 20% -- as long as emerging economies keep demanding more power and get it from fossil fuels.
1
@Ralphie Ralphie, apparently you are arguing that there is nothing effective that can be done for a problem that is dangerous over time. So what do you plan to do?
1
There is definitely a difference in the parties perceptions as to the importance of climate change and the environment. Unfortunately when it comes to action there is little to no difference. The republicans basically say it’s not a problem and we should party on. The democrats put up some milk toast ideas and some non controversial programs so they can take the moral high ground and essentially nothing changes. Get back to me when someone, anyone, proposes things that might actually change the mess we’re in. Like: population control, making family planning a cornerstone of health care here and abroad, charging Americans the true cost of our wasteful society, eliminating tax deductions for kids you shouldn’t have, restricting urban and suburban sprawl (this will offend lots of sacred cows), etc. you know, all the stuff that might work but isn’t going t o be popular, is going to require sacrifice, cost a bunch and wont get you elected.
10
One policy issue that wasn't mentioned is the protection of our American Democracy and our Constitution; This is my top priority. Without it, we cannot fight climate change, protect our natural world, protect our human and civil rights, etc... With the erosion of our Democracy under Trump, this should be everyone's top priority.
15
The gap in perceptions of climate change for the two political parties can be understood in the light that climate change has become affixed to a social agenda. In other words, the science of climate change doesn't really matter as long as one believes in the social agenda: Medicaid for all; Robin Hood economics (steal from the rich and give to the poor); micro-aggressions, personal feelings, politically correct speech, suppression of dissenters, etc. are the most important behavioral perceptions that should guide government policy. The social cost of greenhouse gas emission elimination is borne by people living in under-developed countries not being able to get bank loans to build what would be cheaper for them, coal fired power plants. The science that has emerged: climate models are running too hot precisely because the underlying assumptions of future CO2 emissions is not achievable (business as usual). Adaptation is ongoing; technology advances. The political will should be to introduce small modular nuclear power plants that are factory built, truck transported and linked together like freight train engines to fit the needs of small to large cities. Until the social agenda now promulgated by the left wing of the Democratic Party is detached from the issues of climate change, there will be little opportunity for coming together on a way forward.
2
@RiHo08
First of all, climate models are not running hot compared to the trajectory we are seeing in average temperatures. In fact, even the old climate models appear to have been relatively accurate (see Cornwall 2019 Nature - "Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming". The newer models are all showing dramatic increases between now and the end of the century. Are there differences in the approaches used -yes. Are there unconstrained variables - yes. Are either sources of uncertainty large enough to invalidate the trajectory of the models - no. In fact, estimates of future change have increased as the models get more sophisticated.
The critical take-away message here is that we are conducting an unconstrained global experiment on the climate of the only planet we have. Politics aside, that just seems unwise. Sort of like speculating on how long the branch you are sitting on will hold up as you continue to saw on it. Sure, it is a big branch - so how could any person actually make a difference with such a small thing as a hand saw. That rationale works right up to the point where it doesn't.
"snap"
14
@RiHo08 Perhaps, but agriculture and energy sectors also receive massive sums of taxpayer money in violation of equal protection under the law. Government subsidies break free market capitalism and produce the harms we suffer today.
1
@Roger Nielsen
Thank you for your response. However, the topic of climate models running too hot continues to be discussed whether in the literature (Millar 2017), the blogosphere (McKitrick 2017) or lay press (Bloomberg 2020) for good reason. The use by the IPCC Business As Usual scenario which seems to be a favorite selection of some media outlets like NYT, WaP0, LATimes, SFChronicle. As is becoming apparent, BAU scenario is less and less likely and the 2100 likely rise is @ 1.7C, not even 3C. Of course you are welcome to weigh in with the number of papers using a butcher's scale, but it only takes one negative to prove the hypothesis is incorrect (paraphrasing someone famous I guess).
Not only do Democrats and Republicans care about different issues, but they differ in their level of concern about the issues. Of the top ten issues where there is significant difference in concern among Dems vs Reps, Democrats are the more concerned party in seven cases, while Republicans are more concerned in only three cases.
So Republicans just aren't as worried about the issues. Is this because learn from conservative news outlets that the GOP is doing a great job and there are no real problems that need solving?
3
Voters are getting behind Sanders, who is the identified in polls as the BEST to handle 5 key issues: The Economy, Education, HealthCare, Immigration and especially Environment/ Climate Change. He's leading by 10 points nationally and leads by 14 points in Nevada and 14 points in California.
3
Kudos (again) to the staff who prepare NYT graphics. The figure with issues ranked buy partisan gap is simple but very informative.
6
Throughout U.S. history, the "Conservative" mentality is incredibly consistent--an outright hostility to necessary change, a dislike of people different from themselves, and the willingness to engage in acts of incivility, to use propaganda, to resort to violence, and to disregard the concept of national unity. This mindset is defiant and committed to actual conflict in order to prevent changes they oppose. The initiation of the Civil War perfectly demonstrates all of the above.
21
It seems this date reflects what happens when you get folks one on one thinking about climate change and most feel that it's a real thing and something needs to be done.
It's the what's to be done that's the problem. No one really knows. For some the perfect is the enemy of the good. Others are just exasperated by all the dire predictions that ignoring or denying it is easier.
May I suggest that in order to get folks on board with ANY movement toward improving our situation is to move Climate Change out of a wealthy white person's niche into something that's relatable to the rest of us? Folks who can't afford the upfront cost of an electric vehicle, folks who have kids and can't bike everywhere especially to work/daycare. Single parents who do not have time to walk to grocery store after pulling down two jobs. There has to be buy in from a broad range of folks otherwise nothing with get done.
1
Its like the gun issue. 90+% of Republicans can agree that shooting yourself in the foot is a bad thing but if it is even more important to the Dems, and it denies them a 'win' they will gladly lose a foot over it.
5
The best, most diligent human efforts cannot effectively quarantine an isolated cruise ship to prevent more passengers from contracting a virus. Yet somehow, people think we can actually control the weather for the whole planet?
When is the last time anyone who expressed alarm at carbon emissions ever planted a tree?
1
@HopeN'Change
Your comment reflects a cynical and naive perspective AND IS A FALSE EQUIVALENCY. Just because the quarantine efforts were botched has nothing to do with the fact that 99% of scientists worldwide agree that we are destroying our planet.
I have planted a lot of trees as well.
Get a clue.....
@HopeN'Change: I have 300 red pine seedlings on order, to arrive in late April for planting after the ground is thawed. What are you doing aside from making simplistic accusations of hypocrisy?
Is it possible to abate and retard climate change without precipitating global economic depression and impoverishment?
8
@BD
Is it possible to live in a world with a significantly changed climate without living in a global economic depression? probably not.
there's no choice, here. gotta make changes now.
24
@BD The answer is yes! Attacking the problem will require development of new technologies to cut costs. and increase adoption of energy sources such as wind, sunlight and tides, as well as conversion of transportation systems to sustainable power. A bigger question is how to deal with the inevitable losses of old jobs and the shifts of economic centers from some communities to others. Coal miners (already a declining group) won't be the only losers, but winners will include people with the skills to develop, manufacture, install or maintain new systems.
9
@BD : Of course there is. At the very least, the widespread switch to renewable energy will create millions of jobs.
It's also true that we're going to have to rethink the current, regressive tax code to ensure that there's a cushion to re-train people who lose jobs in dirty energy. But I'm not losing sleep over the notion of a handful of wealth-hoarding sociopaths having to make do with 1bil billion rather than 10bil -- and, yes, they *should* be taxed that aggressively, because their wealth-accumulation has come at the expense of hundreds of millions of people over the past 40 years; their current wealth is not only an aberration, it's a threat to social stability and to democracy itself.
You failed to ask two questions that are far more important:
1. Why do we (some of us) think that we're entitled to a life of ease that comes at the expense of someone else's life?
2. Why do we (some of us) think that inaction -- which will wipe out humanity, but slowly and with a massive amount of suffering and war for resources -- is even a choice?
15
They say know your history or be doomed to repeat it.
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters.
Graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
We have less time left to deal with this than many think. We may even be out of time considering how impacts have been arriving earlier and with greater amplitude than was projected just a few years ago.
23
Recently heard, from likely republican, in my small town: Going solar, or switching to solar sourced electric; ROI wasn't there or too small to make it worth it.
All I could think was the humorous image that he'd be saying the same thing as the world was coming to an end, not worth the extra $ to save the planet.
I fully support Green New Deal ideas, and do understand though that the greener alternatives need to be cost-effective to persuade many. More investments in this are needed NOW, not later. We need to be all in. Lets do it in a way that creates jobs and is a win win situation.
3
This issue, more than any other, is the reason people of conscience should vote for every Democrat in every race on the ballot.
Granted, not all Democrats have perfect records on the environment, but as a bloc, the Democrats believe in science, and the urgency to act on what science tell us. The Republicans are comfortable with a party line that eschews facts and data as a justification to prop up the industries contributing to the crisis. Closing one's eyes doesn't make the problem go away.
21
Vote green and blue, no matter who.
(Meaning any democrat will be better than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)
26
A few years ago Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned fellow Republicans they " must stop being the stupid party".
Then they elected Trump.
56
Is climate change is becoming more partisan?
It would be easy to agree, but maybe the question shouldn’t be posed as a flat, yes/no binary.
Maybe, Under what conditions do apparent deniers fully subscribe to the idea?
Certainly when it comes to their own private business, even the most strident deniers can shed their blinders.
The most prominent case: our own Climate-Change-Denier-in-Chief, President Trump.
Despite his public scorn of the ideas of climate change and sea level rise, he was apparently fully on board with them when it came to existential threats to his seaside business assets at Trump International Golf Links Ireland.
According to Politico in May, 2016, "The billionaire, who called global warming a hoax, warns of its dire effects in his company's application to build a sea wall." (https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-climate-change-golf-course-223436)
That is, a permit application that his company filed for the wall explicitly "cited global warming and its consequences of increased erosion due to rising sea levels and extreme weather this century — as a chief justification for building the structure."
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@caroline
I wonder who he’s trying to bill for this wall.
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That 39%of Republicans says the government is doing too little to combat climate change indicates the power of American sentiment that climate change must be countered. It should remind us that the Trump Regime reflects and expresses a relatively small minority of 25- 30 million hard core rightists who believe climate disaster is God's will along with a chunk of hyper-capitalists who literally don't care if the world burns as long as they rake in the profits. The single most important act that Americans can do to fight climate change is campaign against Trump and get him replaced with a President who not only talks about fighting climate change but seriously acts to reduce it.
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Unfortunately, many people like JK below, have thinking patterns which allow them to rationalize their way into what they "want" to believe, without open-mindedly taking in the scientific and mathematical information/consensus that is easily available on the internet. They may not understand things like exponential or non-linear or disproportional or chaotic, etc. But to close the door on validated or highly supported scientific concepts is tragic. Again beliefs or emotional biases or party/group or greed winning out over facts. I don't want to overgeneralize, but refer to this Psychology Today article which summarizes some common characteristics that may inhabit Republicans or Trump supporters and that may prevent scientific learning.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201812/complete-psychological-analysis-trumps-support
3
I'm heartened by the younger Republicans being more concerned about climate crisis; there is a chance with them.
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@kschwrtz
Young Republicans? Like Stephen Miller?
Climate change only becomes an issue if one experiences personally the effects of it and is engaged enough to know that something unusual is happening that never happened before. It's the silent killer and it is lurking somewhere in the world gathering the ultimate blow to everything we know to be normal. We are still living in the natural world that works for us rather than against us so we can easily ignore science and disregard events happening in someone else's backyard. This is the ultimate issue of all time but as the good times continue to roll we will continue to push it down the road and exploit nature to our immediate benefit.
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This is why the 2020 election is so vital. If the Democratic party does not win the White House and majority, by the time the next chance come around it will be too late. We are running out of time.
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To (re-)state the obvious- the largest (and still growing) gap between the two parties is reality itself. Accountability. Caring. The most important issue of our era is simply disregarded, attacked, or blithely addressed (‘just plant trees!’) by republican culture- with increasingly dire consequences for our planet, our species, and nearly all the rest of them. To paraphrase bloomberg (mostly a mess) from last night, re. how history will judge our current regime- especially its disregard for the earth itself- ‘We tried that... it was called ‘republicanism’ and it just didn’t work.’
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How tragic that the party of Theodore Roosevelt has been AWOL on the mother of all environmental issues. And how especially hypocritical for self-regarding "conservatives" that claim concern for future generations. This should be a theme that Democratic candidates (and the eventual nominee) hammer home relentlessly with voters still up for grabs.
7
Instead of ranting about climate change, carbon taxes, and the end of the automobile, perhaps we need to speak instead in terms of the effects we are witnessing: farmers' fields and people's homes flooded, wildfires devouring other people's homes, stronger-than-ever hurricanes ravaging our coasts, increases in tornadoes over the central US. Then we need to present solutions that won't impact people’s pocketbooks or their jobs, like leading with construction of carbon recapture facilities like those of Carbon Engineering and other companies that can be financed with a tax on incomes over $1 million but will benefit everyone. Stop with making carbon a threat to people's standard of living and livelihood, start making it a problem that can be solved with someone else’s taxes and little change to individual lifestyles, and attitudes will be less hostile. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/business/energy-environment/climate-change-carbon-engineering.html)
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Its become very clear that older white male Republican voters are a serious problem in addressing the beyond urgent Climate Crisis. Everyone who is paying any attention knows the imminent peril we face if we do not curtail the burning of fossil fuels. It strikes me as beyond selfish and maddening that these much older voters would hobble efforts of the younger generations to deal with this urgent problem. These older voters need to get out of the way and let the rest of us try and save a habitable planet for our children and grandchildren.
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@Ben Aren't older white male republicans generally the cause of most societal problems? It seems really problematic that we're allowing people that at most have another decade on planet earth to make decisions impacting all future generations. I've always been confounded by the fact that "conservatives" are willing to take the reckless position that "if dems are wrong, we get a diverse resilient power grid and clean air; if 'conservatives' are wrong, we get global calamity". Seems like conservative decision making to me...
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As hard as it's trying to hold the future back and do whatever it can to stay in power, the Republican party is unprepared and unwilling to adapt and, as such, will become extinct.
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Republicans are a direct threat to our survival as a species. They put short term money interests before a habitable planet. Their reckless stupidity is breathtaking. Vote accordingly.
92
Anybody graph the educational attainment levels of the respondents?
4
Belief in the extreme arguments regarding climate change and its imminent effects on life has taken on the trappings of a religion. Since religious belief is not subject to objective and rational discussion, there is no arena in which the two sides can come together and reach consensus on the problem much less the solution and the default option is the status quo.
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@Chris — good grief — as if there is an equivalence of the two positions. This “religion” analogy is pandering to arrogant ignorance of the deniers. “It’s the climate stupid.”
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The math word is exponential rise in temperature. The temperature does not rise in a linear fashion. It rises exponentially. This is what the graph put forward by most scientist looks like especially in the last decade or two. Yes it is a climate disaster waiting to happen and will eventually kill most living creatures on earth and is directly tied to carbon emissions. Those who think and say differently are fooling themselves. It is time to act now.
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@TheniD
Here is NASA’s former lead climate scientist, from 2016, to explain.
“Hansen: Some things do change gradually because of the inertia system. The global average temperature, if you average it over several years, is going up pretty smoothly, since the middle 1970s. January/February of this year, global temperature is now 1.3 degrees above the 1950-1980 average, but that was just two months. Averaged over the year, it’s going to be about 0.9 degrees Celsius, and that’s pretty much on this almost linear increase over the last four decades.
Locally and regionally you get abrupt events, which are the ones that have the biggest impact on people. The frequency and severity of extreme events increase as the planet continues to get warmer. Sea level and ice-sheet disintegration is also a very nonlinear process. It’s going to lead to rapid change within the next several decades.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/12/climate-scientist-james-hansen-i-dont-think-im-an-alarmist
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@Stefan Please cite your reference for your dubious claim. See https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-1/
Now, you may say that 1.5 degrees is small. However, it does not work like that. Think of a bell. The middle of the bell is moved to the direction of higher temperature by 1.5 degrees. The tails is where the damage is done. The tails of the bell shape extend a good bit beyond that. I don't have space to explain the stats to you, but the effect of just a small increase in the average, is much more frequent and severe weather events. This is why people should listen to scientists, and unfortunately, the scientists predictions have been accurate, and in some cases underestimates effects, such as the melting of Greenland, and West Antartica. Infrared images shows the melting at between 3 and 4 times more than expected.
11
If ever there were proof of which party is more beholden to large corporations - in particular, big oil - this is it.
Corporations, entities trained to prioritize short-term profits.
Not long-term life on this planet.
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