# Any Other Lefties Dubious on AGW? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156 "2009-06-27T06:56:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/41 "2009-06-28T07:03:59Z")
In regards to the Lefty thing, I’ll note that the EPA endorses the science of AGW. The EPA was founded by a Republican, a strong majority of the heads of it have been republicans, and all of the ones who are still about agree that the agency is doing good science on the topic. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10913795](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10913795) Republicans who understand the science and know the people actually involved in the research are convinced. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/42 "2009-06-28T07:32:21Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > I didn’t realise that Pascal’s Wager itself was evidence against the existence of God. That does appear to be the logic you are applying here, **NoJustice**. Well, appearences can be decieving… > [@](#): > > Of course, unlike in Pascals Wager, where there is no way to determine the truth, for AGW all you need is a basic understanding of physics. This is the sort of claim I take issue with. If that were true, one would expect threads on the topic to generate simple straightforward explanations of the matter. Yet that’s never what we get. Instead we get crap like this. If we’re really lucky, we might have a few people who avoid fallacious arguments and simply allude to non-specific evidence, but anything better than that is too much to hope for. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except that analogy doesn’t work. For one thing, there’s actual evidence to argue for it; as opposed to religion which has none. I don’t think the analogy between one fallacious argument and another, is invalidated by the availability of evidence which is not taken into consideration in either one. > [@](#): > > For another, most of what should be done to try to stop AGW needs to be done anyway; as opposed to Christian dogma which could be safely ignored if we collectively wanted to. In case you didn’t know, Pascal’s wager is not an argument for acting like a Christian. It is an argument for belief in god. I was referring to similar fallacious logic used to support AGW claims, not arguments in favour of emissions reduction. > [@](#): > > And there’s also the little detail that it completely conforms to known scientific facts; as opposed to Christianity which denies them. It is not Christianity’s denial of scientific facts which makes Pascal’s wager invalid. Sorry, you fail at logic. > [@](#): > > AGW is the prevailing scientific consensus, like it or not. Christianity isn’t. Christianity isn’t even the religious consensus. The two don’t compare at all. Not that this is what I have attempted to argue above, but I feel compelled to point out that Christianity is supported by “_philosophical evidence_” which has everything in common with “_scientific consensus_” in that there is no such thing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/43 "2009-06-28T08:07:21Z")
I’m basically in agreement with **Sam Stone** here, though I lean politically left. The whole thing feels a little more hysterical than seems warranted, but I do think we need to be looking at alternative energy sources for lots of other reasons, so it doesn’t really bother me. I’ve been looking at the c[hart posskb posted](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png), though, and I have a question. I should probably know the answer already, I’m sure it’s basic, but bear with me, please. There is an obvious pattern, there, with spikes in temperature followed by long cooling periods. We’re at a spike right now. Why do we not expect a plunge into another cooling period? I see that the current spike is longer than the others, but why do we think this old cycle is broken? Again, sorry if this is common knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/44 "2009-06-28T08:12:58Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Not that this is what I have attempted to argue above, but I feel compelled to point out that Christianity is supported by “_philosophical evidence_” which has everything in common with “_scientific consensus_” in that there is no such thing. 🙂 > **[Scientific consensus on climate change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)** > > There is scientific consensus that the Earth has been consistently warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution, that the rate of recent warming is largely unprecedented,: 8 : 11  and that this warming is mainly the result of a rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human activities. The human activities causing this warming include fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land use changes such as deforestation,: 10–11  with a significant supporting ro Nearl... > [@](#): > > National and international science academies and professional societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that > > ``` > An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1] > > ``` > > Since 2007 no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organizations hold non-committal positions. That consensus there is better supported than the so called “philosophical evidence” for Christianity. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/45 "2009-06-28T08:25:00Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I’m basically in agreement with **Sam Stone** here, though I lean politically left. The whole thing feels a little more hysterical than seems warranted, but I do think we need to be looking at alternative energy sources for lots of other reasons, so it doesn’t really bother me. > > I’ve been looking at the c[hart posskb posted](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png), though, and I have a question. I should probably know the answer already, I’m sure it’s basic, but bear with me, please. > > There is an obvious pattern, there, with spikes in temperature followed by long cooling periods. We’re at a spike right now. Why do we not expect a plunge into another cooling period? I see that the current spike is longer than the others, but why do we think this old cycle is broken? Again, sorry if this is common knowledge. Basically, CO2 will overpower the potential cooling. > **[Are we heading into a new Ice Age?](https://skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm)** > > The warming effect from more CO2 greatly outstrips the influence from changes in the Earth's orbit or solar activity, even if solar levels were to drop to Maunder Minimum levels. > [@](#): > > Russian scientist Habibullo Abdussamatov predicts that around 2040, the sun will cool down to Maunder Minimum levels (Abdussamatov 2005). This was a period in the 17th Century with almost no sunspots for 70 years, coinciding with the Little Ice Age. Could a cooling sun overrule anthropogenic global warming? > > Predicting the next solar cycle > > Solar prediction is a problematic exercise as there are no proper physical models that allow predictions of even the next cycle. Therefore predictions tend to be based on statistical inference with little in the way of physics or modelling involved. For example, longer solar cycles tend to be followed by a weaker cycle. > > The closest thing to a scientific consensus on solar prediction comes from the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, consisting of members of NASA, NOAA, ISES and other US and International representatives. In March 2007, they released a consensus statement for the amplitude of the upcoming cycle 24. Their position: > > ``` > "In light of the expected long interval until the onset of Cycle 24, the Prediction Panel has been unable to resolve a sufficient number of questions to reach a single, consensus prediction for the amplitude of the cycle. The deliberations of the panel supported two possible peak amplitudes for the smoothed International Sunspot Number (Ri): Ri = 140 ±20 and Ri = 90 ±10." > > ``` > > In other words, cycle 24 may be larger or smaller. The cycle is expected to begin in early 2008 and predictions are largely speculative until it begins. The one thing we do know is when Solar Cycle 24 begins, the warming sun will add to the global warming trend as it heads towards solar maximum, nearly doubling the projected temperature rise from greenhouse gases from 2008 to 2012 (Camp 2007). > [@](#): > > What if the sun did go through another Maunder Minimum? > > However unlikely and difficult to predict, imagine for the sake of argument that the sun does go through another Maunder Minimum over the next century. What effect would this have on Earth’s climate? The difference in solar radiative forcing between Maunder Minimum levels and current solar activity is estimated between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007). > > In contrast, the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times is 1.66 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), far outstripping solar influence. And that’s not including the extra CO2 to be added to the atmosphere in upcoming decades. In other words, the warming from CO2 dwarves any potential cooling even if the sun was to return to Maunder Minimum levels. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/46 "2009-06-28T08:32:33Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > There is an obvious pattern, there, with spikes in temperature followed by long cooling periods. We’re at a spike right now. Why do we not expect a plunge into another cooling period? I see that the current spike is longer than the others, but why do we think this old cycle is broken? Again, sorry if this is common knowledge. Because we are apparently heating the world past the limit of that cycle’s stability. Climate is only metastable; enough change will break the old pattern, and the climate will settle into a new one. > [@NoJustice](#): > > In case you didn’t know, Pascal’s wager is not an argument for acting like a Christian. It is an argument for belief in god. I was referring to similar fallacious logic used to support AGW claims, not arguments in favour of emissions reduction. No; Pascal’s wager is an argument for belief in a specific Christian sect, although it can’t specify which one. That’s one of it’s flaws; all of the mutually exclusive One True Faiths that it provides no means of choosing between. And what you were doing is throwing out a bad analogy to try to discredit AGW supporters. > [@NoJustice](#): > > It is not Christianity’s denial of scientific facts which makes Pascal’s wager invalid. It’s not _ **just** _ Christianity’s denial of scientific facts which makes Pascal’s wager invalid. > [@NoJustice](#): > > Sorry, you fail at logic.Not that this is what I have attempted to argue above, but I feel compelled to point out that Christianity is supported by “_philosophical evidence_” which has everything in common with “_scientific consensus_” in that there is no such thing. 🙂 Christianity isn’t supported by anything but the writings of primitives and self indulgent delusions. It’s baseless garbage believed in only by fools. It has no evidence; AGW does. Science, which you sneer at, has a history of getting at the facts. Religion, including Christianity, has a history of being relentlessly wrong. There’s no comparison between the two. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/47 "2009-06-28T08:57:01Z")
Yup… hysteria. Seen right here. I never denied AGW. I just pointed out some bad logic, and said it’s enough to make me doubt. I never said it disproves anything. But the kneejerk reaction has overpowered the logical faculties of certain people here. **GIGObuster** : I never said there wasn’t a consensus. I said there is no such thing as scientific consensus. I also never said that philosophical evidence was supported by anything. Quite the opposite in fact. **Der Trihs** : I was not “_throwing out a bad analogy to try to discredit AGW supporters_”, that is your hysteria talking again. I had no intention to discredit AGW supporters, I only intended to do what I did, which was make an apt analogy to draw attention to flawed logic. You have absolutely no reason to assume I had ulterior motives. I also have never sneered at science as you say I do, nor have I (in this thread anyway) compared it to Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/48 "2009-06-28T08:59:28Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I’ve been looking at the c[hart posskb posted](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png), though, and I have a question. I should probably know the answer already, I’m sure it’s basic, but bear with me, please. > > There is an obvious pattern, there, with spikes in temperature followed by long cooling periods. We’re at a spike right now. Why do we not expect a plunge into another cooling period? I see that the current spike is longer than the others, but why do we think this old cycle is broken? Again, sorry if this is common knowledge. Those spikes are something like 20,000 years in length, taking something less than 10,000 years to climb and then fall 9 degrees. Say that “something less than 10,000 years” is 4000 years. That’s an average of 0.00225C change a year. At the moment, our best data is that the average global temperature has climbed 1C due to greenhouse gases since 1950, and looks to be heading up at about that angle for the immediate future. That’s a change of 0.02C per year. Given 4000 years at that, we’d be looking at an 80 degree temperature change, not a 9 degree change. I think you’d have to agree that for as impressive as the spikes in your graph are, they don’t quite compete with that. Even if you assume that the walls in those spikes are only 1000 years in duration, at the current pace that would be a 20 degree temperature rise. Looking at, for instance, [the last 65 million years of temperature change](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/65_Myr_Climate_Change.png) we can say that the Earth can change it’s temperature plus or minus 20C sheerly via natural factors. But ultimately that isn’t any sort of evidence that humans can’t cause equal changes nor that we aren’t. As I said in my first post, we predicted an occurrence like we are seeing, it follows our understanding of the physical properties of planetary atmospheres, and the natural causes explaining our historic climate changes like your spikes or the [Paleocene-Eocene peak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum) don’t explain what we are currently seeing. [Solar output right now, for instance, is equivalent to that of the 1200s](http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch06.pdf) (PDF, p. 477), and yet [we are approximately 0.6C higher in temperature than the 1200s](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/49 "2009-06-28T09:26:46Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Yup… hysteria. > Seen right here. Oh, nonsense. No one here is displaying “hysteria”. > [@NoJustice](#): > > **Der Trihs** : > I was not “_throwing out a bad analogy to try to discredit AGW supporters_”, that is your hysteria talking again. I had no intention to discredit AGW supporters, I only intended to do what I did, which was make an apt analogy to draw attention to flawed logic. You have absolutely no reason to assume I had ulterior motives. Given that the anti-AGW side of the debate is all about “ulterior motives” it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that anyone arguing against it has them. At this point, the great majority of opposition to acceptance of the existence of AGW is from people who desire to deny reality; the serious scientific debate is over. It’s ideology, theology, greed and/or ignorance that drives the anti-AGW crowd. > [@NoJustice](#): > > I also have never sneered at science as you say I do, nor have I (in this thread anyway) compared it to Christianity. Yes, you did. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/50 "2009-06-28T12:22:00Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > Yup… hysteria. > Seen right here. Hysteria != “arguments you disagree with”. Well, unless you’ve got a definition of hysteria I’ve never seen before. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/51 "2009-06-28T13:35:23Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > This is the sort of claim I take issue with. If that were true, one would expect threads on the topic to generate simple straightforward explanations of the matter. Yet that’s never what we get. Instead we get crap like this. You get crap like this, because people like you are taking issue with the basic science. You aren’t even attempting to argue against the physics, in fact you lopped that part of the quote off. Instead, your just vaguely taking taking issue with this “sort of claim”. The physics is rock solid. I tend to beleive that we need to start emphasizing the basic science, so that people can understand where it comes from. If you cover a lightbulb with a blanket would you blame the resulting temperature increase on the power company? AGW isn’t some left wing issue that cropped up recently, it’s well over 100 years old, and all scientists have been doing is debating the specifics since. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/52 "2009-06-28T15:04:26Z")
I’m with **Sam Stone** on this: there is probably something to it, but not as much as the political activists prefer to claim. That said, I would take environmentalists more seriously if their policy preferences actually showed that they cared about global warming, rather than simply supporting feel-good back-to-nature policies. They do not want to study “unnatural” solutions such as nuclear energy and geoengineering; they’d much rather prefer making everyone else cut back on energy consumption, which conveniently fits with their cultural preferences. Thus I characterize much of environmentalism as a cultural entity making a power grab, rather than a group genuinely concerned about ecological cost-benefit optimization. Obama dealt a huge blow to the future development of nuclear energy by nixing Yucca Mountain, as shown in the Science in Society blog: > [@](#): > > But President Barack Obama’s first budget a week ago proposes scrapping all spending on Yucca Mountain except for what is needed to answer questions from the NRC on the license application “while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.” > > The lack of a permanent storage site for nuclear waste has been a significant impediment to the expansion of nuclear power in the US. Despite the vague talk of other options for waste disposal, this plan means that plants will have to continue to store their waste on-site, and above ground, making the construction of new power plants very difficult… > > Yet of the various zero-emissions energy sources, nuclear power has been the most significant success, generating 80% of the electricity used by France. (The only alternative energy that comes close is hydrothermal, which generates a similar proportion of Iceland’s energy. But Iceland has both a smaller population and extraordinarily favorable geography for power generation.) Because of this success, some within the environmental movement have been pushing for increased nuclear power as the best option to combat CO2 emissions. > > But, like the majority of the environmental movement, Obama has a record of being less than wholehearted in supporting nuclear power, even as he pushes for subsidizing less quantitatively promising – but politically safer – sources of alternative energy. The safety problem with nuclear power is a real and significant challenge, but by piling up waste at over a hundred discrete sites, this move will likely only exacerbate the problem in the short to medium run. In the long run the risk may decrease, if only because nuclear power generation will stop altogether as old plants are shut down. > > The cynic in me must note that the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is from…you guessed it, Nevada. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/53 "2009-06-28T15:17:09Z")
So, let me get this straight: if Obama makes a poor decision about nuke waste disposal, that proves the cupidity of the environmental movement? And therefore, if the environmentalists believe the consensus of science on this issue, then that consensus must be wrong, because environmentalists are dumb, and anything they believe must therefore be wrong. I don’t think that quite works. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/54 "2009-06-28T16:17:27Z")
I’m entirely uninterested in debating AGW itself; the reaction of ardent supporters is, on average, inseparable in kind from the reaction of religious believers assuring the world that God is Real and the proof is all around us. I am not talking about the science itself; I’m talking about the type of reaction and the way it’s expressed that speaks to me of Great Cause and Hysteria. The hypocrisy of it bothers me too. As an example, controlling and reducing the World Population is a leftie politically Incorrect cause, on average. So you get this huge passion for AGW, but minimal interest in reducing the population of the world, even though a second grader could tell you that the single most important factor in Anthropogenic anything is how many anthros there are generating whatever the problem is. We got most of the developing world hard on our developed heels hoping to catch up, and a population that nobody thinks will level off before it’s 50% bigger, and cause-wise we focus on reducing CO2–an unlikely event–instead of reducing peeps making it (and about to make more). Sumpin’ just don’t set right. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/55 "2009-06-28T16:23:29Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am not talking about the science itself; I’m talking about the type of reaction and the way it’s expressed that speaks to me of Great Cause and Hysteria. Well, yes. I imagine if there was a not-insignificant portion of the populace who denied that 2 + 2 = 4, the supporters of the Four Theory would begin to get juuuust a little strident. > [@](#): > > The hypocrisy of it bothers me too. As an example, controlling **and reducing** the World Population is a leftie politically Incorrect cause, on average. So you get this huge passion for AGW, but **minimal interest in reducing the population of the world** , even though a second grader could tell you that the single most important factor in Anthropogenic anything is how many anthros there are generating whatever the problem is. Gosh, I just don’t know why killing off a chunk of the world population would be an unfavorable solution. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/56 "2009-06-28T16:23:32Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The hypocrisy of it bothers me too. As an example, controlling and reducing the World Population is a leftie politically Incorrect cause, on average. So you get this huge passion for AGW, but minimal interest in reducing the population of the world, even though a second grader could tell you that the single most important factor in Anthropogenic anything is how many anthros there are generating whatever the problem is. I always thought that birth control was more of a lefty topic than a righty one. It’s interesting that you have found the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/57 "2009-06-28T16:26:16Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > I always thought that birth control was more of a lefty topic than a righty one. It’s interesting that you have found the opposite. Well, if he’s implying that it’s lefties speaking out against abstinence-only education who are against controlling the world population (because that’s the only thing I can think of regarding birth control that’s a Right thing), then he’s unclear that the reason there’s not much interest in it is because it’s not an effective means to an end, not because lefties don’t want that particular end in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/58 "2009-06-28T16:34:19Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The hypocrisy of it bothers me too. As an example, controlling and reducing the World Population is a leftie politically Incorrect cause, on average. So you get this huge passion for AGW, but minimal interest in reducing the population of the world, even though a second grader could tell you that the single most important factor in Anthropogenic anything is how many anthros there are generating whatever the problem is. Absurd claim. The differences among the carbon footprint is staggering. Stemming the birth rate of the third world would have a much smaller effect than just killing off 1/100th of many rich westerners. Besides, most liberal support birth control in both the first and thrid worlds, and see the raising the living standard of poor people as best way to reduce birth rates. That is one reason we need green technologies and policy: raising third world living standards will increase the impact on the environment unless we find alternatives to how we do things now. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/59 "2009-06-28T16:39:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Oh, nonsense. No one here is displaying “hysteria”. Your flat-out denial does not amount to a refutation. > [@](#): > > Given that the anti-AGW side of the debate is all about “ulterior motives” it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that anyone arguing against it has them. Restating your irrational assumption as a ‘given’ and then saying it makes the assumption reasonable, is a circular argument at best. > [@](#): > > At this point, the great majority of opposition to acceptance of the existence of AGW is from people who desire to deny reality; the serious scientific debate is over. It’s ideology, theology, greed and/or ignorance that drives the anti-AGW crowd. Aside from your continued unwarranted assigning of motives, you are also assigning a position to me which I haven’t taken. I have no “_opposition to acceptance of the existence of AGW_” but you are too blinded by emotion to see this. More hysteria. > [@](#): > > Yes, you did. Sigh… **WHERE?** A rational person wouldn’t have made this mistake. Did you really think I would post any statement beginning with “_I have not…_” without checking to make sure I actually have not? > [@Lightnin](#): > > Hysteria != “arguments you disagree with”. Well, unless you’ve got a definition of hysteria I’ve never seen before. It is not mere disagreement which leads me to characterize the behaviour of some in this thread as hysterical. > [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > You get crap like this, because people like you are taking issue with the basic science. No I am not. If that’s what I took issue with, that’s what I would have quoted. > [@](#): > > You aren’t even attempting to argue against the physics, in fact you lopped that part of the quote off. No shit, Sherlock. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/60 "2009-06-28T17:27:34Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > It is not mere disagreement which leads me to characterize the behaviour of some in this thread as hysterical. _sigh_ Okay, let’s see some examples of the hysteria you say you’re seeing in this thread. While you’re at it, you can explain why “hysteria” on either side (assuming you can spot any) means that AGW isn’t a valid theory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156.md?page=4)