Spot on, in the past people like Reagan and Bush senior still listened to scientists and we got one of the biggest “we dodged a bullet” moment thanks to governments organizing a face out of the CFC gases that were destroying the ozone layer, if the current crop of republicans had been in power then we would be looking at this grim future:
As pointed many times before it is clear that controlling global warming gases is a tougher nut to crack, but what is clear is that it is even tougher because currently one party has decided that current profits for fossil fuel companies are better than the well being of future generations.
Of course they are still a lesser amount than the CO2 we release and of course to prevent them from becoming a larger problem on the global warming front we need the government and industry to work toward the control of them, unfortunately even in this case Ryan is bound to continue with the idea that nothing needs to be done.
Haha, RCP has moved Wisconsin back into the toss-up category. Okay, c’mon now, what’s this based off of? Yes, Ryan is from Wisconsin, but Obama has been leading in virtually every fucking poll in that state throughout this entire campaign. Having Ryan on the ticket might make the race there a bit more competitive, but it isn’t going to magically swing the state to Romney.
Even on that metric I think its a bad idea. People underestimate how much the “Tea Party Base” consists of elderly white people who were afraid Obamacare would lead to Medicare cuts. Having a VP whose signature issue was replacing Medicare with a much less comprehensive program isn’t going to motivate those people to go to the polls (at least, not motivate them to vote for Romney).
I’m not really sure who Ryan is supposed to attract to the ticket. He’s popular amongst a certain type of beltway deficit hawk, and I guess he might be good for a point or two at the polls in Wisconsin. But having him on the ticket is just going to let Obama focus the race on entitlement reform, where the public favours his position, and away from the slow economic recovery.
Someone really should’ve put a sign in Romney’s office saying: “Its not the entitlements, stupid”
People have so little faith in Romney’s ability to lie and rewrite history. By the time of the election a large percentage of voters could believe Ryan offered a voucher program for additional medicare benefits for white people and the evil Democrats blocked it. All the while the the press will be offering two sides of the story rather then correcting the falsehoods.
The amount of funding the Romney campaign has to throw into this is unprecedented. The shitstorm of misinformation that will be created will cloud the senses of even the most informed voters. While many will be able to find their way to the truth the majority might not do so until after they’ve cast their vote.
Look. We’re talking about climate change and global warming, which, by the way, I accept. What is reasonable to expect from those very concerned about this is the same thing I would demand from someone talking about anything in which their are still unknowns, i.e., an attitude that makes room for, “…but I may be WRONG!”
The FACT is that we do not KNOW the degree to which the warming we’re experiencing isn’t something that occurs rather normally in the earth’s long history. We also do not KNOW the degree to which it is now attributable to man’s actions. And we do not KNOW the degree to which our actions—even if we did everything that the most fervent global warming alarmist recommends—would reduce temperatures.
I know that there is a lot of good data and that we can estimate all things, and this is not merely the realm of opinion, but when people take an issue with important unknowns and then champion the cause the way GiGO does, attacking anyone who does not ascribe to his belief system and not admitting that he, and the scientists who actually do the work he relies on, do not KNOW that answers to important questions, then it starts to look much more like a religion than a dispassionate scientific endeavor. And THAT should be called out. Just recently I posted that the man who is considered the father of global warming thinks that the “movement” is out of control. Of course, he is now a “crackpot”.
The subject matter may be different, but there is very little separating people like GIGO from the most fervent sure-of-themselves evangelical preacher championing the rights of the unborn. Opponents are marginalized and demonized. There is only one interpretation of the facts, in spite of the gaping holes in the knowledge set.
To comment again on the subject of the thread (I’ll leave the global warming alarmist/evangelical debate for another thread if anyone would like to continue it), I’m torn about Ryan. I like him. I think he’s a smart guy. And I think choosing him sends a clear signal that Romney is going for substance. It says that he views the economy and fiscal matters as the things of paramount importance. And that is good and refreshing. And I think a lot of libertarian-leaning Independents will like that quite a lot
On the negative side, he’s not an orator. He’s not great at rallying people. Christie, my preference, is terrific at that. And given that Romney is rather challenged in that regard, as del, I fear he might have made a mistake in not picking someone like Christie, or even Rubio.
You have to realize that, yes, Romney is going to have an unholy amount of cash to throw at his campaign; the thing is, though, so will Obama. This is the one part of the Democratic line that I don’t really buy into; this idea that Obama will somehow be the underdog in this election because he might be outspent by Romney.
That’s just ridiculous. BOTH campaigns are going to have an insane amount of money to throw away at this election, and all that really matters is that each party has enough cash to get their messages out.
The real fact is that you are relying on discredited sources for your points.
As for not doing anything, that is just contradictory, it is either a problem or it is not.
The huge point that you are missing is that scientists already do know what is the more likely outcome of doing nothing, **if we do something **we will still suffer lots of trouble but it is very likely that we will manage, what we have in the current republican leadership is the solution of ignoring it or affirming there is no solution that is needed as there is no problem.
And you ignored that most scientists do not see him that way, he was not the father of the movement (and here you betray the fact that you got that point from discredited sources) on global warming.
Piffle, as usual you will ignore the evidence and ignore that Republicans right now have an even more extreme positions that the one you have.
I’m not ignoring squat. I’m acknowledging that we don’t fully understand climate change. Unbelievably, you seem to take the opposing view. You really need to adopt the same attitude that evangelicals do. “I believe this fervently, BUT I may be wrong.”
Give it a try, come on, read this aloud one word at a time:
Good, now stop posting unfounded points and learn to identify good sources. It is Ryan the one that needs to be taken to task for relying on discredited information, and making decisions in government that are appalling because he is not relying on science for sure.
It’s just an analogy. If you have a president who lacks an important piece of information, they will most likely not act on that information. It’s why an engineer who doesn’t believe in electricity will fare poorly, and a virologist who doesn’t believe in evolution will get fired. And in this case, Magellan is questioning our objections to a vice president who doesn’t believe in anthropogenic global warming, or at least is trying very hard to deny it. Yeah, no shit, we have objections. They’re valid objections, because AGW is here and causing extreme damage, and politicians who are incapable of facing the facts on global warming are also incapable of doing anything about it. Capisce?
Okay. There are still unknowns about gravity. Would you respect an engineer more or less who said, “Given my calculations based on gravitational force, the plane will take off somewhere between 80 and 90 miles per hour. But I may be WRONG, and it could be that it will just fly into outer space at 10 miles per hour”. There are still unknowns, but this doesn’t shove aside the knowns. You’re making the issue out to be far more controversial than it is, and that is stupid.
And GIGO already addressed these claims. As I said above: you’re making the issue out to be far more controversial than it is, and that is stupid. It is an utterly typical denialist tract – “I accept that this is happening, but we don’t know enough about it to make any sort of claims with certainty, and no I haven’t looked at the most recent research”. Newsflash: your ignorance does not make the rest of us ignorant.
BUT THEY AREN’T UNKNOWNS! For christ’s sake, you’re ignoring the most recent advances in the field and claiming ignorance for everyone when the fact of the matter is that you are ignorant, and they (the scientists researching these things) are not. You’re like an opponent of wind power claiming that they only get an average 24% return of energy, when that number has been outdated for ages – it’s closer to 50% now. Yes, there are unknowns. But not the ones you’ve been trumping up, and certainly not enough to excuse a politician who does not believe that humans have any effect in global warming.
Nope. You’re assuming a greater degree of true knowledge than exists. Not only do I think global warming exists and that man contributes to it, I probably agree with most of the steps that should be taken. That doesn’t translate that there are not unknowns. You want to compare it to gravity? Okay, I’ll tell you what, when any scientists who study climate change can predict things with the same degree of certainty of a schoolboy predicting that a ball he throws up into the air will return to earth, you let me know and I’ll join the Church of Gigo. Until then, repeat after me, “But I may be wrong.”
When the father of global warming things that the scientists are turning into religionists, that should give you pause. Oh wait, let’s just discredit him and say he’s a loon. Next!
