Cite? Which climate model(s), by which scientist(s), predict the extinction of mankind, or the near-extinction of mankind?
Yes, we will have to see, and I’m not predicting that I will, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
It wasn’t ‘national monument land’ until 7 months ago. I answered this in detail in another thread, but the short version is that: I see certain areas that are worth protecting, but not all 1.3 million acres are such areas. There are some real natural treasures in Utah, and I’m happy with the status of our five national parks. I think Bears Ears and Grand Staircase could shrink by a good bit, without losing anything too significant.
I’m curious, where do you imagine the lower end of the income range of people who will benefit from Republican tax policies is?
Has some elected official used the word “vermin” to describe blacks / gays / poor recently?
As noted before in other threads about the issue, even more than half of the Republicans think that something needs to be done.
Even with the wide differences show most people (and even more than half or a plurality of the Republicans) do think that government should play a part on the solution and that there is strong bipartisan support for expanding solar, wind energy production. Something that the Trump administration and many Republican congresspersons oppose.
As I pointed before, a lot of people on the right are not really aware of how their representatives are the problem now.
I suspect Mattis has convinced Trump away from that pre-election position, but even if he hasn’t, do you really think a handful of hypothetical Japanese nukes are worthy of constanze’s concerns about repair costs and lost R&D costs? Here is the portion of constanze’s post I was responding to:
Phew! All caught up (I think). If there’s something any of you still have a burning desire for a personalized HD response to, point it out and I’ll try to reply.
Yes, The Other Waldo Pepper was indeed correct. But, I live in Utah, so it doesn’t really matter if I stay home or not.
I have seen scientists like Lovelock to harp about that, but of course he is not taken seriously by many other scientists. Of course projections that report increases in temperature as high as 6 or more degrees are still at the tail end of the projections.
Not likely, but the point here is that I remember Tamino at one of the best statistical sites about the issue mentions the point that those nightmare scenarios have virtually the same probability to happen as the low “lukewarmer” increases that misguided skeptics and deniers think we are going to get. IOW it should give you and many others pause that the same chances of seeing a nice result are the same as the chances of seeing an end of the world precipitated by the climate changes. We are discussing really how much pain we will get into. I think it will not be the end of humans, but the issue here is that we should ensure that the less number of people get crushed in the coming bottleneck.
So, just as it is not likely that all people will use their home insurance in a fire one still has to insure it when other less catastrophic problems can still take place and are more likely. Problem is that Trump and minions do not even think about insurance.
The point was that you were wrong, deal with it and Trump. Most Republicans are arriving to the conclusion that they can not rely on things getting better with Trump and his hapless cabinet nowadays. But even then they need to realize that most congress critters are against what they really want.
BTW, thanks for sharing this.
Is Tone Policing a valid means of deciding issues?
I wholeheartedly endorse this post and applaud the author.
My succinct take on the question at hand: we became bitter enemies when one side became batshit crazy, when Republicans insulated themselves from reality by only paying attention to Hate Radio, Fox “News”, and Facebook memes.
How was I wrong? My post mentioned European countries, your cite was about Japan (and South Korea). I was going to let it slide, but since you’re going to bring it up like this, why don’t you clarify how you think a cite about Japan addresses my post about European countries.
The cite also mentioned Europe, and Trump implied that what Europe needed to do was just as what South Korea and Japan should do.
In any case Trump was not shy to later point out that Europe should spent more on their defense capabilities.
BTW as I mentioned in my post I clarified that how “wrong” you were included the climate change part. As I said, deal with it.
This is probably the most ridiculous comment in this entire thread, and I only say “probably” because there are a few other howlers in it. But I call it out because it also functions as an excellent illustration of what is not just a political divide, but a factual divide – fundamental disagreements about the basic nature of reality in which one side seems to have lost the faculty of reason.
The Paris accord was not the result of a “whim” of President Obama, however much you might hate both the former President and those pesky climate scientists who provided the sound scientific guidance on which the agreement was based. So the first element of reality-denial we have to address here is the assertion that the terms of the agreement were arbitrary and not achievable; this is utterly false. The second fact of actual reality is that virtually every country on earth signed on in the belief that it was both achievable and necessary, and IIRC the majority – some 148 nations – have now ratified.
The third fact of actual reality, as previously discussed over here, is that political factors did indeed influence the agreement, by weakening it. The most aggressive goal was left as “best-effort”, and while the stated temperature objectives were scientifically sound, they probably won’t be achieved without more aggressive emissions targets and more binding agreements. IOW, the agreement was a practical compromise among the world’s nations to at least sign on to a tangible first step that would begin to have significant if insufficient impacts and set the stage for future progress.
Or to put it another way, the agreement was precisely the sort of compromise you suggest that the rational leaders of the world’s nations felt could be ratified. And it could be ratified by a US Senate, too – one with a Democratic majority. As for the gang of denialists that is installed there now, just what kind of agreement do you imagine they would ever ratify? Seriously. When Trump made the announcement about totally pulling out of the Paris agreement, virtually the whole of the announcement was manifestly a pack of lies. Do you imagine that there’s any climate agreement that would be endorsed by this gang of UN-hating climate-denying shills for the oil and coal industries and its plutocratic beneficiaries?
And this is the point that this thread is making about contemporary Republicans: anti-science, anti-fact, detached from reality, utterly careless of the truth, and devoted to the well-being of themselves and their plutocratic base.
And kindly don’t remind me that I’m being mean to Republicans. If you want to respond constructively, please start by addressing the facts. When their transgressions are as egregious as they are here, they deserve to be called out in appropriately emphatic terms. When someone has just set in motion a process that may send the world on a course of runaway climate change with catastrophic consequences, it seems kind of superfluous to feign indignation and accuse their critics of speaking to them in an unfriendly tone of voice.
All I hear from the far right on the Paris Treaty is how it will cost the USA TRILLIONS and we’ll have to subsidize other nations. Neither are true. The payments are voluntary and there is no enforcement mechanism.
But it does follow the usual right wing ‘ignore the facts, sell fear and outrage’ pattern.
Would you mind explaining why you are optimistic that your healthcare bills will decrease? Preferably with an explanation of what specific policy change you think will be enacted, and how that would lead to your desired outcome?
I’m just asking because I haven’t seen anything that indicates conservative legislators are even close to reducing the cost of health care. They just want to repeal ACA regardless of the consequences. I am not a blindly loyal champion of ACA, I agree that millions are unhappy with it, but it seems evident to me that repealing it without a considered replacement would be a catastrophe. If it is your contention that the current piece of legislation being kicked around is a good idea, I’d like to understand why.
Also, your continued insistence that liberals are out of touch with reality on climate change ‘‘killing us all’’ is a bit perplexing given the scientific evidence presented in this thread that human extinction due to climate change has occurred in the past, and may very well occur again. It’s hardly a fringe position, so much as, you know, inference based on science. Again, based on the history of the planet, we can conclude that human extinction is pretty much inevitable at some point. The question is whether we knowingly hasten ourselves toward that end or just wait for a meteor to strike.
Just a nitpick here. Remember, that fairly applies to almost all the Republicans in power. Many Republicans actually do think that something should be done about the issue and there are many places were compromise is possible, of course IMHO most republicans out of power still need to learn that the ones in power are not doing even an iota of what they want to do.