# Why do conservatives so strongly oppose the idea of climate change **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 16, 2018, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713 "2018-08-16T02:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/241 "2018-08-24T17:47:30Z")
This nuclear thing is an absurd red herring. As mentioned up thread, I’m in favor of nuclear power, but I would not argue that there’s something inherent to nuclear power that it must be part of the energy mix and there’s no possible plan B. Let alone that anyone against nuclear power must not _really_ believe in AGW. I give you points though for at least coming up with a new excuse. Most of the denial sites just, well, deny that climate change is happening. Of the remaining excuses, “Look – Al Gore has a big house!!” and “Climate has changed in the past too” are the most common. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/242 "2018-08-24T17:56:35Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > This nuclear thing is an absurd red herring. > As mentioned up thread, I’m in favor of nuclear power, but I would not argue that there’s something inherent to nuclear power that it must be part of the energy mix and there’s no possible plan B. Let alone that anyone against nuclear power must not _really_ believe in AGW. > > I give you points though for at least coming up with a new excuse. Most of the denial sites just, well, deny that climate change is happening. Of the remaining excuses, “Look – Al Gore has a big house!!” and “Climate has changed in the past too” are the most common. I would say that for a short term fix to carbon emissions, there literally is no Plan B. Non-hydro renewables only make up about 2% of the world energy market. They simply cannot scale up quickly and cheaply enough to supply the other 91% of energy use (hydro is the missing 7 - hydro can scale up to some extent, but not in the developed world. Displacing millions of people forcibly just isn’t our thing. China though can get a lot more capacity that way.) I personally just don’t believe it’s possible. Nuclear though can scale up that quickly. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t scaling up renewables at the same time, but if you want to cap emissions on anything resembling a reasonable scale, it’s pretty much nuclear or nothing. ---
**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:** [August 24, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/243 "2018-08-24T18:27:58Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I assume that Shodan is talking about nuclear power and he’s sorta right. If it truly is apocalyptic global warming that we’re talking about. [snip] Not really, the apocalyptic scenarios are there _ **if** _ there are no preparations for the expected effects nor making moves to stop dumping global warming gases into our atmosphere. More realistic scenarios are not apocalyptic, but they are not a walk in the park. I have to say it: [there is a lot of propaganda geared to paint all environmentalists as the ones pushing catastrophic scenarios always](https://www.skepticalscience.com/alarmists-not-in-deniers-league.html), this is done precisely to deny that many that investigate the issue do not advice going cold turkey on decarbonizing our economies. That in turn is grossly and illogically misinterpreted by many right wing sources as “not taking it seriously” while at the same time having **the same** or other critics from the right to say that “the extremists want us to go back to the stone age!” :rolleyes: > [@senoy](#): > > Of course, what Shodan doesn’t mention is that it’s not really NIMBYs and Greens blocking nuclear power (although they ARE the ones that are causing existing plants to shut down - while Czarcasm is right in saying that the Federal government is completely Republican, the same can’t be said for state governments who are the ones exerting pressure.) [/snip] Sorry, but in reality there is a constant I have seen from many conservative sources on using crisis from business as the chance to blame regulations or critics of the system as the ones causing the disaster,[like when the coal industry told many on the right that they were closing mines mostly because of environmental regulations, when it was progress in other fields like natural gas the main cause. Even conservative sources like Reason Magazine reported that that was poppycock.](https://reason.com/blog/2016/10/11/natural-gas-ambush-killed-off-coal-minin) I already did cite how a manager from a Nuclear group is not optimist, and environmentalists are not the main reason for it but the costs involved thanks to competition from other energy sources. > [@senoy](#): > > Bottom line though is that if you really truly believe in the global warming apocalypse, subsidizing nuclear is really the way to go. It’s proven, it’s scaleable, it’s effective. The fact that no one is doing it tells me that no one really has a firm grasp on their climate change beliefs. And that statement is the fallacy of the excluded middle. As noted by others, nuclear power has a better chance by pushing the environment angle, but right now the party in power does think that this is a hoax so even that reasonable angle is not supported by the current rulers. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/244 "2018-08-24T18:46:58Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I already did cite how a manager from a Nuclear group is not optimist, and environmentalists are not the main reason for it but the costs involved thanks to competition from other energy sources. That’s simply not true. As I stated in my previous thread, the reason new plants aren’t coming online is due to the cost of natural gas. Current plants shutting down are largely the result of environmental activism in blue states. Once a nuclear power plant is online, they are by far the cheapest form of electricity, way below natural gas. Their main cost is in construction and startup and that is extremely high in comparison to natural gas and the lifetime of the plant can’t recoup those costs. For existing plants though, the building costs are spent. All that’s left is maintenance which is cheaper than natural gas. What we see happening though is environmental groups are putting pressures on blue legislatures to block operating permits or to close down nuclear plants for small violations. Look at what happened in New England. Vermont Yankee was the subject of a decades long campaign to get it to shut down over environmental issues. Pilgrim closed in part due to natural gas prices, but also because environmental groups demanded more rigorous inspection processes that were going to cost 60 million a year. It was pressure from both sides. Seabrook is the only one left in the north and it’s the target of a campaign to block its operating license renewal. Millstone in Connecticut just had the legislature strip it of its ability to apply for carbon-free generation grants and now it’s threatening to close. Environmental activism basically has killed 1.2 GW and threatens to kill another 2 GW of carbon free power generation that is largely being replaced with natural gas. It’s foolishness. I will say though that New York is putting its money where its mouth is and does subsidize nuclear to a degree and I shouldn’t put everything in the negative basket, but there is a large scale attack from environmental groups on nuclear and it’s foolish and at cross-purposes with the larger threat from global warming. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/245 "2018-08-24T19:04:09Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > That’s actually my point. The science is behind it, but the movement is not. Well, it’s still a mystery to me how you can claim that “no one” in the environmental movement supports nuclear power, especially since it isn’t a monolithic movement. It’s a diverse group with different goals and agendas. The environmentalists that I know tend to be scientifically informed and all support nuclear power, and in fact where I live more than half of all electricity generation comes from nuclear, and most of the rest is hydroelectric. ---
**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:** [August 24, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/246 "2018-08-24T19:13:13Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > That’s simply not true. As I stated in my previous thread, the reason new plants aren’t coming online is due to the cost of natural gas. “Not true”, after I was saying the same… :rolleyes: > [@senoy](#): > > Current plants shutting down are largely the result of environmental activism in blue states. Nope. > **[Nuclear Power Won’t Survive Without A Government Handout](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nuclear-power-wont-survive-without-a-government-handout/)** > > Some plants are shutting down, new ones aren’t being built, and the ones still operational can’t compete with other sources of power on price. > [@](#): > > Instead, it’s the cost of upkeep that’s prohibitive. Things do fall apart — especially things exposed to radiation on a daily basis. Maintenance and repair, upgrades and rejuvenation all take a lot of capital investment. And right now, that means spending lots of money on power plants that aren’t especially profitable. Historically, nuclear power plants were expensive to build but could produce electricity more cheaply than fossil fuels, making them a favored source of low-cost electricity. That changed with the fracking boom, Morgan told me. “Natural gas from fracking has gotten so cheap, [nuclear plants] aren’t as high up in the dispatch stack,” he said, referring to the order of resources utilities choose to buy electricity from. “So many of them are now not very attractive economically.” > > Meanwhile, new nuclear power plants are looking even less fetching. Since 1996, only one plant has opened in the U.S. — Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2 in 2016. At least 10 other reactor projects have been canceled in the past decade. Morgan and other researchers are studying the economic feasibility of investment in newer kinds of nuclear power plants — including different ways of designing the mechanical systems of a reactor and building reactors that are smaller and could be put together on an assembly line. Currently, reactors must be custom-built to each site. Their research showed that new designs are unlikely to be commercially viable in time to seriously address climate change. And in a new study that has not yet been published, they found that the domestic U.S. market for nuclear power isn’t robust enough to justify the investments necessary to build a modular reactor industry. > > Combine age and economic misfortune, and you get shuttered power plants. Twelve nuclear reactors have closed in the past 22 years. Another dozen have formally announced plans to close by 2025. Those closures aren’t set in stone, however. While President Trump’s plan to tell utilities that they must buy nuclear power has received criticism as being an overreach of federal powers, states have offered subsidies to keep some nuclear power plants in business — and companies like Exelon, which owns 22 nuclear reactors across the country, have been happy to accept them. “Exelon informed us that they were going to close a couple plants in Illinois,” McIntyre said. “And then the legislature gave them subsidies and they said, ‘Never mind, we’ll stay open.’” > > So intervention can work to keep nuclear afloat. But as long as natural gas is cheap, the industry can’t do without the handouts. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/247 "2018-08-24T20:46:10Z")
If that’s the case, then why not advocate for subsidies for nuclear power, especially since you want heavy subsidies for other ‘green’ power sources. But then, of the reasons why nuclear has become so expensive, most of them can be laid directly at the feet of the environmentalists and the left who have spent decades scaring the public with horror stories and impeding nuclear development with regulations, protests, injunctions, etc. They made nuclear expensive, and now oppose it because it’s too expensive. And while there are a few voices on the left who will quietly admit that nuclear power is okay, they aren’t exactly a loud voice in the global warming movement. I’ve been saying this on this board for 15 years - wind and solar are NEVER going to make up the majority of our power in any sort of time frame that will help the immediate problem of global warming. Countries and provinces that have tried have caused skyrocketing energy prices for very, very little gain. The charts that get floated around to show how rapidly solar power is increasing tend to show you only percentage increases, or increases in overall generating capacity. This gives you a nice exponential curve that makes it look like solar power is going to save the day. But when you look at the same thing as a percentage of total power generation in the world, the bubble pops. For example, look at this [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics) on the growth of solar power. All those charts and terrible pie charts and tables would make you believe that solar has been taking off since 2000, and is on an exponential growth curve. But then you read carefully in the text and find this: “By the end of 2016, cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached about 302 gigawatts (GW), estimated to be sufficient to supply between 1.3% and 1.8% of global electricity demand.” Got that? The big multi-decade push to solar, including massive investments in Europe, California, Canada, and other countries, has resulted in a grand total of 1.3% to 1.8% of our electricity coming from solar. If you add in all renewable sources including hydro, wind, geothermal, and biomass, you can get to about 8%, with most of that being hydro (and with most viable hydro sources already tapped). And note that this is just electricity, and electricity is only a fraction of the total energy we consume. It’s not even clear that the price of solar power is coming down much. Sure, panel prices are getting significantly cheaper, but the labor costs to install are going up, and a lot of what goes into a solar installation is mature technology that isn’t going to come down much in price at all. Things like the mounting hardware, inverters, labor, wiring, land… Copper has been increasing in price, which affects the cost of everything in the system, but distributed low grade power like wind and solar needs a lot more in the way of raw materials per KW that do concentrated sources like petroleum and nuclear. Wind has a problem in that it is only cost-effective in a fairly small number of places, which typically already have wind plants. The cost per KW for wind power goes up dramatically as you locate it in areas with lower average wind speeds or with more variable wind, or are too far away from the consumers of the power or would need to be located in terrain where building and maintenance is expensive. Solar suffers from the problem that the most populated, wealthiest nations that consume the most energy are also in higher latitudes that get less solar insolation, where the periods of maximum sunlight occur during the time of year where energy demand is lowest, etc. Solar panels lose efficiency if they do not track the sun, which almost no residential solar does. Fixed mount solar needs to be angled for the latitude for optimum efficiency, and it doesn’t produce when there’s snow on the panels. That causes those nice theoretical payback times to explode and for the promise of GHG gas reductions to not be met. But the biggest problem with intermittent renewable power is that it’s intermittant. Not only does this mean you still need baseload power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, but that the grid is inundated with small power sources that vary greatly as clouds pass over, wind gusts hit, etc. The cost of dealing with all this is a lot more than the price of solar PV panels, which is why every jurisdiction in the world that has dramatically increased solar energy contributions to their grid have seen power prices spike, while France which gets over 70% of its electricity from ‘expensive’ nuclear power has the cheapest electricity prices in Europe. The hard facts are that if you demand that our new energy future be reliant on only renewables, expect the world to be powered mostly by fossil fuels for at least another 50 years, and I’m tempted to say longer except forecasts even 50 years in the future are kind of ridiculous. Maybe there will be some breakthrough that will change the equation. But do you want to bet the world on that? It’s not enough that some in the green movement quietly agree with nuclear power. You need to be the ones hammering this issue with fellow greens. It’s THE most important issue with respect to global warming. If you spent half the energy promoting nuclear as you do promoting carbon taxes and renewable subsidies, we’d already be in a much better situation. Because there is no question that the majority of opposition to nuclear power comes from the left and the environmental movement, and they don’t listen to people on the right. If you aren’t spending MOST of your global warming debate time trying to convince other AGW activists that nuclear is their only hope, you are doing it wrong. Because it is. What you are doing right now is advocating for taxes and statism and global treaties that will do nothing but move more money to people in power while only changing the global warming situation by almost nothing at all. Look at Germany for an example of what happens when the environmental left gets their way: [Germany shows how shifting to renewable energy can backfire](http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/369386-germany-shows-how-shifting-to-renewable-energy-can-backfire) > [@](#): > > Germany is often used as the standard to judge other countries’ actions on climate change. It began creating aggressive environmental policies pushing renewable energy more than 20 years ago. Its policies are often referred to as Energiewende, which is German for “energy transition.” For example, Germany’s feed-in tariff, first created in 1991, essentially provides a payment above the market rate for using renewable energy and thus guarantees a profit for the renewable energy industry. > > Energiewende has come with high costs, however. Estimates of the total cost over the last 20 years are usually around $200 billion. With about 80 million Germans over that same time period, each paid about $2,500 dollars in taxes to fund these programs. So the solution has so far resulted in a regressive tax on energy that hits poor people the hardest. But it might be worth it if it seriously improved Gernany’s power grid or reduced its Greenhouse gas output. But did it? Not really. [Germany’s energy use and emissions likely to rise yet again in 2017](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-energy-use-and-emissions-likely-rise-yet-again-2017) What actually happened is that Germany started suffering brownouts when the renewable supply was low, and even had to resort to paying factories to shut down on days when there wasn’t enough renewables. That turned out ot be horrifically expensive, so instead now Germany is has rebuilt 10 GW of coal plants, and has restored its baseload power, meaning that when the sun shines and the wind blows Germany makes far more power than it needs, which is inefficient. It has to sell that power at a discount. And in addition, Germany is now ramping up natural gas power, and is building a pipeline to provide Russian natural gas, which puts its energy security in the hands of its main political and military opponent. In the end, even all that might be worth it if it resulted in a significant reduction of greenhouse gases. But it hasn’t. There were some reductions early on, but those were reversed when Merkel shut down their nuclear plants in a panic after Fukushima (a move that I note was widely applauded by environmentalists and the left in general). So after all this, Germany can produce almost 40% of its electrical power from renewables (over 100% on peak days), and yet their greenhouse gas footprint has not really much changed at all - about 10% in the past 10 years, or about 28% since 1990. In comparison, the U.S’s GHG emissions have gone down from 5.7Gt in 2000 to 5.1 Gt in 2015 - 10.53% decrease. In the meantime, Germany’s went from 1.043 Gt in 2000 to .902Gt - a 13.2% decrease. That’s a hell of a lot of expense and effort for a very minor difference. And yet, we’re told that the answer to global warming is to attempt globally what Germany, Ontario, California, Australia and others have not managed to do locally to any degree that has any effect at all on global warming. It’s insane. ---
**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:** [August 24, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/248 "2018-08-24T21:19:26Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If that’s the case, then why not advocate for subsidies for nuclear power, especially since you want heavy subsidies for other ‘green’ power sources. Uh, last I checked many are not advocating to fall back on Nuclear power in Arizona. There is some grumbling about some possible environmental proposition that could come in November that was reported by some as a proposition to close the Palo Alto Nuclear plant, but that was shown to be yet again to be misguided propaganda. As for your cite about 2017 increasing emissions in Germany: > **[Energy sector drives slight drop in German emissions in 2017](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-sector-drives-slight-drop-german-emissions-2017)** > [@](#): > > Energy sector drives slight drop in German emissions in 2017 > Germany saw its greenhouse gas emissions dip slightly in 2017, as wind power continued to replace coal-fired electricity generation and hard coal power plants were shut down, new estimates released by the Federal Environment Agency show. Other reports show that the energy from renewable sources is not a failure, but it is increasing and the problems found are not eternal as you are implying. > **[Germany’s six-month renewables output could power houses for a year](https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/renewable-energy-germany-six-months-year-solar-power-wind-farms-a8427356.html)** > > Country's green power output has grown by a third in three years > [@](#): > > Germany produced enough renewable energy in the first half of 2018 to power every household in the country for a year. > > The nation’s combined wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power output hit a record 104 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) between January and the end of June, according to energy firm E.On. > > The figure is 9.5 per cent more than the same period of 2017 and a third more than three years ago, the company said, citing in-house analysts who supply data to its sales teams. > > Germany now produces over a third of its power from renewable energy > > “This shows how renewables become increasingly important for our energy supply,” said Victoria Ossadnik, head of Munich-based Eon Energie Deutschland. > > Wind power accounted for 55 billion kWh of Germany’s renewables output, with 21 billion kWh of generated by solar, 20 billion kWh from biomass energy and eight billion kWh from hydroelectric plants. > > E.On said the supply would be enough to power every household in the country consuming an average of 2,500 kWh. > > It is the first time the country’s renewable energy supply has topped 100 billion kWh in six months. BTW I do agree that Germany should not had dropped their nuclear plants, and there is still a lot to work to get rid of less environmentally friendly lignite. It would had been a more flexible environment for the continuation and deployment of renewables with Nuclear present. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/249 "2018-08-24T21:26:51Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > There is one very clear anti-science party in the US. > Only 1 republican candidate for president (Jeb!) would admit to believing in evolution out of 17. And even he said words to the effect of “Teach the controversy”. I will give you creationism, although it’s by no means a ‘right wing’ phenomenon. Plenty of Democrats are also creationist. But the fact is, if you’re going to be anti-science, creationism is probably the area where it does the least harm. The left’s anti-science is much more dangerous, in that it involves things like evolutionary biology (the daft notion that there is absolutely no difference between men and women, for example), opposition to nuclear power, crazy nonsense about ‘toxins’ from factories and anti-vax positions (slightly more anti-vaxxers lean left than right, but it’s close). And while AGW is opposed mostly by the right (because they don’t trust the left’s prescriptions for it, I’d say), opposition to fracking, which has proved to be perhaps the biggest contributer to GHG emissions reduction, has come mostly from the left. And while more the right opposed using infant stem cells, more on the left oppose animal testing in science. The left is far more anti-GMO than the right, and is more anti-nuclear. Those two things alone could do more damage than all the anti-science foolishness on the right. When my kid went through school, I had to correct the school’s teaching on several occasions. Sometimes they were non-partisan errors (like teaching that beavers are amphibians), but some of it was straight-up left wing nonsense, like forcing the kids to watch the very anti-science “Story of Stuff” (favorite quote: “When thinking about building a new factory, just remember - Toxins in = toxins out!”). The school system is essentially under the control of the left, with over 90% of teachers identifying as being on the left side of the spectrum. And science education in schools is a disaster and getting worse. Our left-wing government announced that they would be cutting back on even more science education in favor of more ‘social justice’ instruction. When I was in high school, matriculation required two of physics, chemistry of biology all the way through grade 12 (in my case, Math 10,20,30 and 31, plus physics 10, 20, 30 and chemistry 10, 20, and 30). Today, you just need ‘business math’, there’s only a general ‘science 10’ for everybody, and then you only need to take two 20-level sciences. That’s roughly half the science instruction kids get today then they got in my day. In universities today, the biggest threat to science isn’t coming from the right - it’s coming from the postmodernists and deconstructionists on the left, and from the left-inspired attempts to ‘equalize’ men and women in STEM through various means (because they refuse to believe the science that men and women might actually want different things). When you look at the places where the left and right differ on science, you almost always find that it’s not really about the science at all, but the science opposition is a proxy for an underlying tribal battle. I think if GMO’s came from big government programs instead of the evil Monsanto and other multinational corporations the left would probably be all over it. And if the only solution to global warming was to cut taxes and shrink the size of government, the right would be championing it and the left would be claiming that it was a conspiracy by big corporations to kill poor people or something. Because once you get away from the big politicized fights on certain subjects you find that the differences between left and right are swamped by things like the differences in ages, religious affiliation, and race. Here’s a pretty good overview of current opinions on science: [Pew Research Center - Americans, Politics and Science Issues](http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/americans-politics-and-science-issues/) Here’s a good example: According to Pew, belief in evolution is much more strongly correlated with age and religion than with political affiliation. A young Republican is more likely to believe in evolution than an old Democrat. I believe this is probably true because evolution was much more politicized 30 years ago when there were still major battles going on about including creationism in school. Now that it’s not particularly political, new Republicans are politically excused for believing it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/250 "2018-08-24T21:38:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The left’s anti-science is much more dangerous, in that it involves things like evolutionary biology (the daft notion that there is absolutely no difference between men and women, for example) 😕 Citation needed. Where are you getting the idea that “the left” supports the position that “there is absolutely no difference between men and women” or anything else that contradicts evolutionary biology? This seems like an absurd strawman. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/251 "2018-08-24T21:39:59Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Uh, last I checked many are not advocating to fall back on Nuclear power in Arizona. There is some grumbling about some possible environmental proposition that could come in November that was reported by some as a proposition to close the Palo Alto Nuclear plant, but that was shown to be yet again to be misguided propaganda. > > As for your cite about 2017 increasing emissions in Germany: > > [Energy sector drives slight drop in German emissions in 2017 | Clean Energy Wire](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-sector-drives-slight-drop-german-emissions-2017) > Other reports show that the energy from renewable sources is not a failure, but it is increasing and the problems found are not eternal as you are implying. > > [https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/renewable-energy-germany-six-months-year-solar-power-wind-farms-a8427356.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/renewable-energy-germany-six-months-year-solar-power-wind-farms-a8427356.html) > BTW I do agree that Germany should not had dropped their nuclear plants, and there is still a lot to work to get rid of less environmentally friendly lignite. It would had been a more flexible environment for the continuation and deployment of renewables with Nuclear present. Nothing you quoted contradicts anything I said. In fact, I gave them even more credit for the amount of renewable energy - 40%. The small differences between your numbers and mind probably have to do with the fact that my source was from 2015. The point is that even with all that renewable power potential, it’s not being realized because intermittent power is very hard to use efficiently. So while their theoretical peak renewable power is over 100%, their actual greenhouse gas emissions reductions are barely better than what the U.S. has managed over the same period without the massive expenditure, and with much cheaper energy costs. And really, we should take hydro out of the mix, because hydro makes for good baseload power and in many countries the major exploitable hydro resources are already being tapped. I’m all for tapping as much hydro as we can. Canada has a major hydro project underway in BC - a province more committed to GHG reduction than any other. Guess who’s opposing it? If you guessed “the greens”, you’d be right. They’re now miring the project in lawsuits in an attempt to kill it, even though it’s more than 70% complete, and would be a major source of GHG-free energy. In the meantime, there has been a revolution in safe nuclear power going almost unnoticed by the activists. Small Modular Reactors are amazing. You buy them complete, they ship them to the site on a truck, bury them in the ground, and by pumping water through them you get enough steam power to run perhaps 20,000 homes for 10 years. When the 10 years are up, the company comes in digs them up, trucks them out on a flatbed, and puts a new on in place. No local nuclear waste storage problems at all. The SMR’s go back to the factory for refurbishment and refueling, then go out again. The fuel can be recycled as well. They are very cost-effective, leave a tiny footprint on the land, cannot melt down, and are not risks for nuclear proliferation. We should be going gangbusters to prove out and install these things all over the place. ---
**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:** [August 24, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/252 "2018-08-24T21:47:14Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I will give you creationism, although it’s by no means a ‘right wing’ phenomenon. Plenty of Democrats are also creationist. > > But the fact is, if you’re going to be anti-science, creationism is probably the area where it does the least harm. The left’s anti-science is much more dangerous, in that it involves things like evolutionary biology (the daft notion that there is absolutely no difference between men and women, for example), opposition to nuclear power, crazy nonsense about ‘toxins’ from factories and anti-vax positions (slightly more anti-vaxxers lean left than right, but it’s close). And while AGW is opposed mostly by the right (because they don’t trust the left’s prescriptions for it, I’d say), opposition to fracking, which has proved to be perhaps the biggest contributer to GHG emissions reduction, has come mostly from the left. > > And while more the right opposed using infant stem cells, more on the left oppose animal testing in science. The left is far more anti-GMO than the right, and is more anti-nuclear. Those two things alone could do more damage than all the anti-science foolishness on the right. Uh, I did check a lot on previous discussions, and again: It is worst than the nuclear thing that I pointed out, when polls show more than 60% of Americans against new nuclear plants, last time I checked the numbers for people against GMOs are on the 70%s and higher. Again, since just about 25% of Americans are described as liberals, there is indeed a big mess of conservatives that also fall for ignorance. On a previous discussion I even found how some anti-GMO sites are proud of having conservatives favoring them. BTW I do support GMO advances but: when advances on that issue show a lack of progress, many right wing sources use that delay to blame the extreme left as if they are behemoths or powerful forces against progress when many times they barely are interfering with the industry. > **[Genetically modified Golden Rice falls short on lifesaving promises - The...](https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden-rice-falls-short-lifesaving-promises/)** > > Heralded on the cover of Time magazine in 2000 as a genetically modified (GMO) crop with the potential to save millions of lives in the Third World, Golden Rice is still years away from field introduction and even then, may fall short of lofty health... > [@](#): > > Genetically modified Golden Rice falls short on lifesaving promises > > GMO activists not to blame for scientific challenges slowing introduction, study finds > [@](#): > > GMO proponents often claim that environmental groups such as Greenpeace should be blamed for slowing the introduction of Golden Rice and thus, prolonging the misery of poor people who suffer from Vitamin A deficiencies. > > In a recent article in the journal Agriculture & Human Values, Stone and co-author Dominic Glover, a rice researcher at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex, find little evidence that anti-GMO activists are to blame for Golden Rice’s unfulfilled promises. ---
**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:** [August 24, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/253 "2018-08-24T21:51:04Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Nothing you quoted contradicts anything I said. Uh, you cited that: > [@Sam Stone](#): > > But it might be worth it if it seriously improved Gernany’s power grid or reduced its Greenhouse gas output. But did it? Not really. > > Germany’s energy use and emissions likely to rise yet again in 2017 Actually, it did not rise on the **actual** 2017. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/254 "2018-08-24T21:55:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I will give you creationism, although it’s by no means a ‘right wing’ phenomenon. Plenty of Democrats are also creationist. Plenty of Republicans are anti-nuke. I’d start with Dauphin County, PA, which was reliably Republican prior to the mid 2000s, but had [some very good reasons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident) to be wary of nuclear power. But I broadly agree with you on this one, **Sam** , but it’s no longer the fringe left that are driving the conversation. NIMBYism has played a huge role in it as well–not to mention incidents like Fukushima Daiichi. Where once three quarters of Republicans supported nuclear power, it’s now down to half. That’s definitely due to fear–marketed in years past by the greenies, sure, but now wholly owned by the 24-hour news cycle and lack of any passionate counter-branding. I feel the mission should be not to decry the “liberals” who oppose nuke plant development–that ship has sailed and that mixed-metaphor dog will no longer hunt–but to passionately and clearly communicate the need for clean nuclear as part of a systemic program of safe, clean energy generation. That is, as _part_ of a holistic revamp away from dirty energy, alongside wind, solar, hydro, wave, and geo. Nuclear power is not likely to be our sole savior. But if we ditch the right-left nonsense, we can work to make it part of the solution. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/255 "2018-08-24T21:58:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In comparison, the U.S’s GHG emissions have gone down from 5.7Gt in 2000 to 5.1 Gt in 2015 - 10.53% decrease. In the meantime, Germany’s went from 1.043 Gt in 2000 to .902Gt - a 13.2% decrease. That’s a hell of a lot of expense and effort for a very minor difference. > > And yet, we’re told that the answer to global warming is to attempt globally what Germany, Ontario, California, Australia and others have not managed to do locally to any degree that has any effect at all on global warming. It’s insane. Let’s get a few things straight here. US emissions have dropped because the US has been pursuing fossil fuels and fracking like there’s no tomorrow and by happy coincidence that’s created a cheap supply of natural gas. And that’s driven a cost-motivated switch of some former coal plants to gas, which is much cleaner but still a fossil fuel. It wasn’t a result of any sensible policy initiatives. Germany made the terrible strategic mistake of abandoning nuclear and moving back to coal following the Fukushima events. And why would following the lead of Ontario be problematic? Putting aside the recently elected conservative wingnut, Ontario in general has been moving rapidly to renewable clean energy in ways that the rest of the world would do well to follow. The majority of its electric power is nuclear. Much of the rest is hydro. The last of the coal-fired power plants was demolished several years ago culminating a decades-long program to get rid of the dangerous polluting behemoths. They were not converted, they were dynamited and bulldozed. There is now zero coal being burned for power. There have been major wind farm initiatives. There are smaller solar power initiatives. I see no problem with this picture – there’s been lots of mismanagement in Ontario Power Generation and elsewhere, but the strategic direction seems right to me. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/256 "2018-08-24T22:00:25Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Nuclear power is not likely to be our sole savior. But if we ditch the right-left nonsense, we can work to make it part of the solution. But to achieve a solution, we first need to have a broad consensus that there’s actually a problem that needs solving. The resolute, deep-pocketed, anti-science conservative resistance to understanding and acknowledging the problem of climate change is a far greater barrier in that regard than liberal resistance to nuclear power. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/257 "2018-08-24T22:01:06Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 😕 Citation needed. Where are you getting the idea that “the left” supports the position that “there is absolutely no difference between men and women” or anything else that contradicts evolutionary biology? This seems like an absurd strawman. [Washington Post - Liberals Deny Science Too](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/28/liberals-deny-science-too/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.67520ad47fda) > [@](#): > > The new study, by University of Texas-Brownville sociologist Mark Horowitz and two colleagues, surveyed 155 academic sociologists. 56.7 percent of the sample was liberal, another 28.6 percent was identified as radical, and only 4.8 percent were conservative. Horowitz, who describes himself as a politically radical, social-justice oriented researcher, said he wanted to probe their views of the possible evolutionary underpinnings of various human behaviors. “I wanted to get at the really ideological blank slate view, it’s sort of a preemptive assumption that everything is taught, everything is learned,” he explained. > > Sure enough, the study found that these liberal academics showed a pretty high level of resistance to evolutionary explanations for phenomena ranging from sexual jealousy to male promiscuity. The article goes on to say that on certain subjects, the academics are willing to admist to evolutionary infuences. But when it comes to gender differences… > [@](#): > > Yet the study also found that these scholars were less willing to consider evolutionary explanations for other aspects of human behavior, especially those relating to male-female differences. Less than 50 percent considered it plausible that that “feelings of sexual jealousy have a significant evolutionary biological component,” for instance, and just 36.4 percent considered it plausible that men "have a greater tendency towards promiscuity than women due to an evolved reproductive strategy.” While it is hard to be absolutely definitive on either of these issues (we weren’t there to observe evolution happen), evolutionary psychologists have certainly argued in published studies that people exhibit jealousy in sexual relationships in order to ensure reproductive fidelity and preserve the resources that come from a partner, and that men are more promiscuous because they are not constrained in how often they can attempt to reproduce. Here’s the original (gated) paper referenced in the article: [Whither the Blank Slate? A Report on the Reception of Evolutionary Biological Ideas among Sociological Theorists](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02732173.2014.947451?journalCode=usls20) Here’s the abstract: > [@](#): > > Sociologists have drawn considerable criticism over the years for their failure to integrate evolutionary biological principles in their work. Critics such as Stephen Pinker have popularized the notion that sociologists adhere dogmatically to a “blank slate” or cultural determinist view of the human mind and social behavior. This report assesses whether sociologists indeed ascribe to such a blank slate view. Drawing from a survey of 155 sociological theorists, we find the field about evenly divided over the applicability of evolutionary reasoning to a range of human tendencies. Although there are signs of a shift toward greater openness to evolutionary biological ideas, sociologists are least receptive to evolutionary accounts of human sex differences. Echoing earlier research, we find political identity to be a significant predictor of sociologists’ receptiveness. We close by cautioning our colleagues against sociological reductionism and we speculate about the blank slate’s political-psychological appeal to liberal-minded social scientists. This rejection of biology is even stronger in the various ‘studies’ faculties. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory is important to the left because they use it to claim that all the imbalances and wealth differences and power structures around us are socially constructed and can never have anything to do with innate differences between people, unless those differences come from differences in class or access to education. To the radical genderless left, the difference between men and women’s thinking and predilections can be traced back to how boys and girls are raised, and have nothing to with sexual dimorphism inherent in our species. This is, to say the least, not an evidence-based belief. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/258 "2018-08-24T22:12:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory is important to the left because they use it to claim that all the imbalances and wealth differences and power structures around us are socially constructed and can never have anything to do with innate differences between people, unless those differences come from differences in class or access to education. To the radical genderless left, the difference between men and women’s thinking and predilections can be traced back to how boys and girls are raised, and have nothing to with sexual dimorphism inherent in our species. This is, to say the least, not an evidence-based belief. :rolleyes: Your cites all seem to be talking about hypotheses of evolutionary **psychology** , not facts of evolutionary biology. And it is a ridiculous exaggeration to describe even the most extreme positions of the so-called “radical genderless left” as equivalent to the claim that “there is absolutely no difference between men and women”. So yup, absurd strawman sighting confirmed. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion of conservative anti-science obstructionism on climate change. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/259 "2018-08-24T23:15:02Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But to achieve a solution, we first need to have a broad consensus that there’s actually a problem that needs solving. The resolute, deep-pocketed, anti-science conservative resistance to understanding and acknowledging the problem of climate change is a far greater barrier in that regard than liberal resistance to nuclear power. Wholly endorsed. +1. “Like.” QFT. And all those other things. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713/260 "2018-08-24T23:44:10Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > [Washington Post - Liberals Deny Science Too](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/28/liberals-deny-science-too/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.67520ad47fda) > The article goes on to say that on certain subjects, the academics are willing to admist to evolutionary infuences. But when it comes to gender differences… > > Here’s the original (gated) paper referenced in the article: > > [Whither the Blank Slate? A Report on the Reception of Evolutionary Biological Ideas among Sociological Theorists](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02732173.2014.947451?journalCode=usls20) > > This rejection of biology is even stronger in the various ‘studies’ faculties. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory is important to the left because they use it to claim that all the imbalances and wealth differences and power structures around us are socially constructed and can never have anything to do with innate differences between people, unless those differences come from differences in class or access to education. To the radical genderless left, the difference between men and women’s thinking and predilections can be traced back to how boys and girls are raised, and have nothing to with sexual dimorphism inherent in our species. This is, to say the least, not an evidence-based belief. I’ve seen criticism of evolutionary psychology as being a lot of just so stories. In any case, it is far from settled science at this point. And disbelief in evolutionary psychology is far from disbelief in evolution, which is anti-science. Now given the number of creationists in the US, I’m sure you are right that there are lots of Democrat creationists. But the example you were given were not random Republicans, but Republicans running for President - credibly enough to be included in debates. How many Democrats running for President (since Williams Jennings Bryan, at least) are creationists? Lots of anti-science positions are non-sectarian - like anti-vax, for instance. We need to look at the position of leaders. Trump, not Clinton, is an anti-vaxxer - in the “oh let’s not do what it is medically advised in terms of schedule” at least. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-so-strongly-oppose-the-idea-of-climate-change/819713.md?page=14)