Climate Change. Crazies on both ends of the spectrum.

I hope this doesn’t turn in to a GD, as I am trying to keep the debate aspect out of it. But I have pet peeves with people on both sides of the issue. Just my two cents:

On the one end you have the climate change deniers, most of whom come from the Rush Limbaugh end of the political spectrum. What’s disturbing about these folks is that they don’t even want to see the data, let alone discuss it on a rational level, and they go running back to their radio to receive their daily talking points from the Ditto Master when you bring up the topic. They stick their fingers in their ears and sing Mary Had a Little Lamb when you show them undisputable evidence that burning billions of tons of fossil fuels for umpteen years has – imagine this – changed things. They have it in their minds that it’s nothing more than a big conspiracy against God, guns, and freedom. Save your breath, because it is impossible to reason with these people.

On the other end of the spectrum you have the tree-hugging hippies who want to ban all conventional fuels (oil, natural gas, coal, nuke, etc.) because they’re “bad for the environment,” and replace them with “environmentally-friendly alternative fuels.” Or at least they claim that is their reason, because I suspect the real reason is that they’re simply anticapitalists, and their true aim is to punish the evil energy producers for having the *nerve *to make a profit. When you discuss conventional solutions on how to *help *curb human-induced climate change – which is a real thing – they are not interested in solutions that do not radically raise taxes or hurt the energy producers. In a nutshell, they are simply using the climate change issue as a vehicle to advance a radical agenda. Furthermore, when asked which alternative fuels could be used to replace conventional fuel sources currently used for large scale energy distribution, they can’t come up with any, and say the evil energy producers are in a world-wide conspiracy to bury R&D in alternative fuels.

With crazies on both ends, it is no wonder the issue has become so politicized.

The subject is not corporate profits or taxes. The subject is greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is to reduce them.

How do you suggest they be reduced? Can you propose an approach that will keep everybody happy? Will it work? If your approach is based on self-regulation, is it possible to correlate it with greed (so that people will have a selfish reason to reduce emissions)?

I, personally, don’t have answers. Carbon trading is probably the least-bad answer to these questions, but it’s a difficult concept to grasp for the general public, and right-wingers have been trying very hard to prevent it from taking hold.

The OP is ignoring a lot of history, Reagan and Bush the first listened to the scientists and joined efforts to deal with global warming gas emissions, It is the current crop of Republicans that are even willing to dump politicians that can have excellent conservative ratings only because they agree with the science.

The point here is that this issue did not need to be politicized, but it was thanks to very powerful interests, it is very important that conservatives be aware of that.

You need to see the Frontline documentary “Climate of Doubt” what the current crop of Republicans did to Republican Bob Inglis, he is a former South Carolina congressman, not a congressman now, in large part thanks to agreeing with the science.

In essence, the TLDNR: The OP clearly has not paid attention of what is going on with the current crop of Republicans, many republicans are still not aware that the crazies from the right are almost all the current crop of Republicans in congress, and their votes are the ones affecting us and the future generations by their denial. On the left side of the spectrum, there are even several democratic leaders in favor of nuclear power, the point here is that in the left side most of the ones in congress do listen to the science, so one important thing to realize is that the OP is going for a false equivalency, the big difference is that virtually all crazies are in positions of power in the right.