Probably significantly because of Al Gore. If a prominent conservative promoted it instead, attitudes would probably be a bit different. But Al Gore = Enemy not to be trusted.
Why aren’t they out back splitting cordwood, then? I mean, fuel oil and natural gas are just too easy, and coal isn’t much better.
Hypocrites?
People on welfare voting to eliminate welfare …
I think a lot of it has to do with the libertarian streak running through modern conservatism. They dislike the idea of government regulation and climate change solutions almost always seem to come with government regulation. It’s made even worse because climate change is frequently addressed by large international bodies which means it’s not even ‘their’ government doing the regulating, but rather a group of unelected bureaucrats that aren’t even advancing the US’s best interests.
I think the fact that these international bodies have generally done a less than ideal job also has something to do with it. Kyoto basically said that wealthy countries had to cut emissions, but China didn’t. That might make sense in a completely neutral world especially looking at per capita carbon use, but if you’re telling Jim Bob that he has to cut down on his carbon footprint, but the people that he perceives as taking his good paying factory job don’t, then you’re asking a lot. Rather than simply saying “Yes, I know that global warming exists and this is the only tool that is attempting to address it and I reject it.” It’s much less cognitive dissonance to say, “Yeah, I reject it and global warming is probably a hoax anyway.”
That’s renewable 
Really? Im glad you agree that climate change is debatable. The political discourse surrounding the issue suggests many do not, like our moderator buddy I was responding to. A few decades is rather short in terms of scientific inquiry.
I think the general idea expressed by most posters in this thread is more or less true, but needs to be tempered somewhat. As does the notion that “the facts speak for themselves - the debate is over”, which is incomplete at best.
“Climate change” is a broad subject that’s covered in a couple of words, but encompasses many aspects, some of which are more definitively known and settled than others. Off the top of my head I would list:
[ul]
[li]In the Earth warming?[/li][li]Are human activities a factor?[/li][li]To what extent are human activities a factor?[/li][li]How accurately can we predict what’s likely to happen going forward?[/li][li]What will be the effect of various proposals to counter this phenomenon?[/li][/ul]
In general, I believe the above list goes from more certain to less certain. IOW, you can consider the debate settled in terms of whether human activities contributed to global warming but have a lot less confidence of the models used to predict future changes, and then be even more skeptical of whether this or that proposal would have a significant positive impact.
[It’s also for this reason that it’s important - if you value understanding and accuracy - to pay attention to what people mean when they say things like “climate change is a hoax”.]
In any event, the point is that while there seems to be an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that climate change is real and has been produced at least in part by human activities, that does not mean that there’s no room for debate as to whether such-and-such proposal to counter it will be productive enough to outweigh the potential economic harm.
And here’s where different liberal vs. conservative attitudes about business - and particularly Big Business - come into play. Posters in this thread - mostly liberals, of course - described the conservative attitudes a bit colorfully, but the general idea that conservatives tend to be more supportive of big corporations in the face of government attempts to regulate them is accurate. Conversely, liberals tend to view Big Corporations as evil, and are very quick to endorse whatever proposed regulation purports to limit the harm they’re alleged to be doing on any given issue.
So if there’s room for disagreement as to the extent to which concerns about climate change should drive actual policy, conservatives and liberals will tend to fall out on opposite sides of the issue. And once there’s disagreements about policy it’s inevitable that there will be disagreements about science, since people are strongly disposed to believe a set of facts which support their positions on the broader issue. (E.g. someone who believes that police brutality is rampant and that stronger controls on police are necessary will also be more likely to believe that a given incident - and especially a well-publicized incident used as a rallying point - is representative of that.)
You’ll find the opposite - IMO - in the case of the DAPL pipeline protests, where the factual and scientific claims of liberals were on very shaky ground, but which were aligned with their (pro-environment, anti-Big Business) predispositions.
Debating the fact that the climate is changing due to human activity in negative ways is both outside the scope of this thread and akin to debating the fact that vaccines don’t cause autism.
It may be that you don’t understand how science works. The reason why we’re so certain about climate change is precisely because of all of the debate. Nobody ever takes anything for granted in science. There are generally-accepted ideas (what we call theories), but scientists are continually coming up with new sorts of experiments and observations and measurements and analyses to test those theories. And in the case of climate change, every single time any scientist has ever done that, the result of the new research has always been that yes, the Earth is warming, yes, it’s because of human activity, yes, it’s already having catastrophic results, and yes, it will continue to have even more catastrophic results unless we do something about it.
If someone came up with a new experiment or measurement or whatever, and it said “no” to any of those questions, then scientists would pay attention. And they would also immediately start looking for flaws in the new research, because one result that goes against thousands is more likely to be mistaken. But if they couldn’t find those flaws, then those unexpected results would form the basis for more new experiments and measurements, and eventually, the big picture would change to accommodate the new results.
But if someone just says “No, all of the scientific results to date are wrong because my orthodontist says otherwise, and besides it’s all a conspiracy by the big renewable energy companies to kill America”, then all of the scientists will just laugh at them, and say “No, you’re wrong”.
I agree with everything you said, yet it did not address my claims. My claim was that the issue is debatable, you agreed. My other claim was that a few decades was short for scientific inquiry. It is, and you presumably disagree, but nothing you said explains why.
Which is why I am not debating that fact. Thanks for your input though.
There will never be a genuine debate. Climate change deniers don’t want to look at the hard data. They don’t want to discuss those pesky “facts”. You even have conservatives in Texas and elsewhere trying (and succeeding) to remove climate change references in school textbooks and limit what science teachers can teach on the subject.
Yes, oil companies are big-money donors to conservative politicians. But ordinary people would pay a lot more in energy costs if fossil fuel laws that derive from the premise of climate change are passed. And ordinary conservative voters don’t like paying more when they don’t see the benefit to themselves of the extra out-of-pocket.
Is there any traction these days in remarking that the Blessed Margaret Thatcher got it, even if they don’t?
And my attention has recently been drawn tothis news item from 1912 (admittedly from New Zealand, which I assume is a country beyond the Trumpian pale)
Time is an odd metric for accepting scientific fact. For example, general relativity was first postulated in 1905. By 1940, it was well-accepted enough to be the basis of the Manhattan project. Another example: the electron was discovered in 1897, which paved the way for the first computer in 1946. Both were a matter of only “a few decades.”
Besides, theories on climate change are older than you might think. The earliest idea that man can affect weather on earth dates back to 287 BCE. If you’re looking for more modern science, the first calculations of carbon dioxide in the air were done in 1896. There were some missteps after that, including looking to sunspots as the cause, but most of that debate was settled by the 1960s. Consensus (in the academic world, anyway) was about 1980. Here we are, almost forty years after academic consensus, and the political debate rages on.
“A few decades” might be the measurement of time since you or people in your circle have heard the theory. But that doesn’t reflect the total amount of time spent on this particular line of inquiry.
Among the ones I follow for information on this issue, yes, there is traction:
[QUOTE]Recently, the Heartland Institute, a hotbed of Climate Contrarianism, posted a billboard near a Chicago freeway. The Billboard suggested that those who accept mainstream science in regard to climate change, are like Ted Kaczinsky, the Unabomber. Heartland promised to follow up with similar billboards featuring Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden, and Charles Manson. When a scathing barrage of internet protests and parodies went viral, Heartland was forced to withdraw the billboard, and post a defense on its website. Even then, they continued to maintain that “the most prominent advocates of global warming are not scientists, they are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”
[/QUOTE]
Yep, outfits like Heartland did toss Maggie under the bus…
The short video does point out at past leaders in politics, science and technology (including conservatives) that realized that the issue was/is very serious. Including Margaret Thatcher.
Is climate change denial an issue with conservatives in other nations?
I know with creationism, the US is pretty much an outlier among western nations. Conservatives here believe in it, while most other people believe in evolution. But in other western countries it seems even conservatives believe in evolution.
Is there something unique about American conservatives on the issue of climate change, or do they have the same doubts on a wide scale in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc?
Or, God will just make more of whatever natural resource we use up. :rolleyes:
I think conservatives have a problem with Global Climate Change much the same they have with other sciencey topics, mainly due to the influence of the Evangelical wing of the GOP. GCC falls under an arc that includes evolution, stem cell research, studies of gun violence, biological reasons for people’s sexuality, female reproductive rights, etc. All these topics uncomfortably rely on science and facts and lean toward lefty solutions, and where science and faith may come into conflict. Why should they trust some egghead who studies these things for a living when their own political and spiritual leaders tell them everything they need to know without having to rub a couple of brain cells together too hard?