What you claimed was not that Watt was controversial or that professional environmentalists and journalists did not like him. I have never disputed either. What you claimed was that Watt believed we do not have to protect the environment because Jesus is coming back soon. You provided an obviously fake quote by him to back up that assertion. What he actually said was the opposite, that no one knows when Jesus is coming back and we have to protect the environment in the meantime. Perhaps you were in a fugue state when you made that post and don’t remember it but if you reread the thread I am sure you can find the post.
You say Obama took the initiative to ratify the Paris agreement by executive authority. This is incorrect because while he did write an executive order he does not have the authority to commit to treaties, the constitution is very clear only the Senate can do that.
Fracking is the single largest reason the US is leading the world in carbon emissions, you are being pedantic over whether it is the main reason or just a big reason.
The post in question is #62. I stand by everything that I said. Watt was just an example I gave of religious nuttery among Republicans, who, regardless of whether that quote is accurate or not, (a) was a devout Dispensationalist Christian, a form of fundamentalism whose followers believe their religion should inform public policy, and (b) as I’ve repeatedly demonstrated, was extraordinarily hostile to the environment. I gave lots of other examples of religious nuttery influencing Republican policy positions. To nitpick on whether that particular quote is apocryphal or not is avoiding the real substance of an important point about Republicans and religious fundamentalism.
What I said was not “incorrect”. What I said is what happened. It was based on the premise that the Paris accord was not a “treaty” and could be ratified by the Executive. Some disagree, but that doesn’t make anything I said “incorrect”. It does, however, make your statement misleading, where you attempt to position it as Obama pretending to care about climate change but not even bothering to take the agreement to the Senate – which you know and I know would have been a waste of time since it was controlled by Republicans who were hostile to the agreement, many of them outright climate change deniers.
You said “… the primary reason that the US leads the world in reducing carbon dioxide missions is the growth of fracking and the switch from coal to natural gas. I also know that the Democrats are the group attempting to ban fracking despite its success in fighting global warming.”
To my reading, this is deceptive, and it’s actually deceptive on several levels. It gives the impression that if Democrats had been in charge of things, emissions reductions would not have happened, because Democrats are generally opposed to fracking. The truth is that the majority of the emissions reductions – roughly 67% – were due to various clean energy initiatives championed by Democrats that Republicans are almost universally opposed to. The truth is also that fracking is in aid of extracting more fossil fuels, namely oil whose environmental effects are extremely damaging, and natural gas, whose effects are less damaging, especially when it replaces coal, but both of which are strong net carbon emitters into the earth’s carbon cycle, and both of which have to be phased out.
So to suggest that Republicans are somehow responsible for the emissions reductions over the last decade or so is pretty laughable. There’s nothing pedantic about that.
http://www.sulloway.org/PoliticalConservatism(2003).pdf
Page 346-347, 353-354 among others
I wonder if you can be more specific. Best as I can tell, there are various attributes being discussed there, some of them the ones you describe as “compartmentalized thinking, dogmatism and use facts (and lies) selectively to maintain an emotionally comfortable narrative” and some of them ascribed to conservatives, but I didn’t see anything which showed that “authoritarians are more prone to compartmentalized thinking, dogmatism and use facts (and lies) selectively to maintain an emotionally comfortable narrative” (in particular for a definition of “authoritarian” which applies more to conservatives - there’s a lot defining and categorizing going on in that link).
Well, here is a recent example: Trump was found to once again fit his lies to a comfortable narrative:
From a Washington Post article that needs a subscription:
And, to get to the subject of this thread: A lot of the followers of Trump also have the ability to categorize items like that as unimportant or to put it in the ‘we will wilfully ignore’ records.
This is another example, Dispensationalism has nothing to do with whether religion should influence public policy. Perhaps you should do some researchbefore further commenting.
Did you actually read the article? You seem to be assuming that those who oppose mandatory vaccination are anti-vaccination and therefore idiots.
From the article:
Supporting voluntary vaccination doesn’t mean the person is an anti-vaxxer. And since supporting personal responsibility seems to be more a Republican thing than a Democrat one, the percentages make sense.
(Let me be clear: vaccinations are a good thing.)
I sure did read it, I even quoted it. Including the part where over the last decade the % of democrats who think vaccines should be mandatory has increased while the % of republicans who think it should be mandatory has decreased.
Ummm, they are and they are. If someone is not for mandatory vaccinations, with the only exceptions being for valid medical reasons, then they are against requiring people to vaccinate their children, and the only reason for that is if they are stupid enough to “still have some questions”.
Personal responsibility is being a responsible citizen, and not being a vector to introduce disease into your community. It’s not personal responsibility that causes people to risk the lives of those in their community so that their child doesn’t have to get a shot, it is ignorance and selfishness, so you are right on that, the percentages do make sense.
So after conceding my other arguments, this is the point that you’re going to hang your hat on? All I can say at this point is that you don’t appear to have read your own cite, and that you also seriously mischaracterized my statement. My statement was that Dispensationalist Christianity is “a form of fundamentalism whose followers believe their religion should inform public policy” – their religion, Dispensationalist Christianity – not any or all religions.
And your own cite bears this out. From the intro (emphasis mine):
[Dispensationalism] considers Biblical history as divided by God into dispensations, defined periods or ages to which God has allotted distinctive administrative principles. According to dispensationalist theology, each age of God’s plan is thus administered in a certain way, and humanity is held responsible as a steward during that time.
If that isn’t clear enough, it goes on later to say:
Israel has allied with U.S. evangelicals and dispensationalists to influence U.S. foreign policy including protection of the Jewish people in Israel and continued aid for the state of Israel.
Political commentator Kevin Phillips claimed in American Theocracy (2006) that dispensationalist and other fundamentalist Christians, together with the oil lobby, have provided political assistance for the invasion of Iraq during 2003.
Tony Campolo, an American sociologist, pastor, author, public speaker and former spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton expands on these ideas in his book, Speaking My Mind, where he asserts that, among other things, dispensationalists’ impact on geopolitics leads to war, and that dispensationalism leads to environmental ravaging. On that latter point he mentions Watt specifically, saying that
… Watt advocated the unrestrained exploitation of oil deposits on government land, even in such places as Yellowstone National Park. This was because he was convinced by the “signs of the times”, as dispensationalist prophecies outlined, that the end of the world would very likely occur within the next few decades … we need the oil now, so why not drill for it now?
– Tony Campolo, Speaking My Mind
Now, you may claim that Watt said something more conciliatory and politically correct in a public hearing before Congress, but that’s hopeless weak sauce when one considers that his reckless actions bear out exactly the view Campolo describes.
You are of course free to hold your own opinions contrary to the facts in evidence. You are not free to suggest that I’m an idiot suffering Dunning-Kruger delusions.