# Why the conservative anger over climate change **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845 "2015-10-16T20:47:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/61 "2015-10-17T19:58:03Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > You never saw the LA basin in the old days, did you? No one did…just a big lake of brown goop. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/62 "2015-10-17T20:00:33Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > The worst part of it is that once there are significant effects from climate change, the religious are just going to say it’s God’s wrath on the liberals who allowed the decay of society. There won’t be any way to ever get through to these kinds of people. Thing is there will never be significant effects from it, at least not over the course of any one generation. Whatever and however much its effects may or may not be, they will occur so gradually as to be impossible to definitively identify their cause (or get the public to accept it). And by that time we will have moved on to whatever next doomsday ecological disaster is ‘right on the horizon’. Most likely being the need for a fossil fuel replacement, but not because of climate change, simply because of economics… ---
**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:** [October 17, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/63 "2015-10-17T20:46:39Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Thing is there will never be significant effects from it, at least not over the course of any one generation. It is no wonder because the right wing infosphere is not telling you all what is going on. > **[Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss](https://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss)** > > Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change. > [@](#): > > 95 percent of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking. That’s outside Antarctica. 95 percent of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking, and that’s because the precipitation patterns and the temperature patterns are changing. There is no significant scientific dispute about that. It’s been observed, it’s measured, it’s bomb-proof information. And the great irony and tragedy of our time is that a lot of the general public thinks that science is still arguing about that. Science is not arguing about that. In these images we see ice from enormous glaciers, ice sheets that are hundreds of thousands of years old breaking up into chunks, and chunk by chunk by chunk, iceberg by iceberg, turning into global sea level rise. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Whatever and however much its effects may or may not be, they will occur so gradually as to be impossible to definitively identify their cause (or get the public to accept it). And by that time we will have moved on to whatever next doomsday ecological disaster is ‘right on the horizon’. Most likely being the need for a fossil fuel replacement, but not because of climate change, simply because of economics… Again, the right wing media is misleading you, there is no way to go around that. > [@](#): > > Tobacco is a great metaphor because we know those are lies that executives told when they claimed that that they did “believe” that nicotine is not addictive. > > You know something is up when we start to see a lot of those deniers are the same people [now denying human induced climate change] and a lot of the arguments are the same arguments. It makes it a little easier to notice we were being lied to about. > > The book by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conley show that the strategy from the very beginning is to undermine the idea of scientific consensus and one things they discovered in their own market research was that if you can persuade people that there’s no scientific consensus then people will think that it would be premature to act. Though it’s a very very powerful strategy that we know works and this is why you hear them saying is a kind of mantra: “there’s no consensus, the science is not settled you know we have experts who don’t agree, there’s still a lot of uncertainty there’s considerable uncertainty” you know you hear this phrase “considerable uncertainty” repeated over and over again since historian Naomi Oreskes authored a high-profile paper detailing the overwhelming scientific consensus and human-caused climate change. > **[Stopping the Spin Cycle: 'Merchants of Doubt' Debunks Deceit](https://www.documentary.org/column/stopping-spin-cycle-merchants-doubt-debunks-deceit)** > > Robert Kenner's stylish new documentary, Merchants of Doubt, is many things: an exposé of climate change debunkers; a clinical analysis of how cigarette companies hid the truth of their cancer-producing product for decades; and a searing indictment... > [@](#): > > "\*\*I spoke to a guy who was the Winston Man—you know there was the Marlboro Man; there was the Winston Man—and he said that while he was on the set during the commercial he asked the producers, ‘Do you guys smoke?’ and they said ‘No, we don’t smoke; that’s for stupid people, poor people, black people—we wouldn’t smoke.’ You know, it’s just amazing—the total disdain for the public and yet the pride in their own success. Like Peter Sparber, the guy who got the fire department to back him to put poisonous chemicals in furniture and who said, ‘If you can do tobacco, you can do anything.’ > > “So you get a glimpse into a successful playbook, and that playbook then got taken on by multiple industries, and a lot of the very same people went on to go from one industry to another,” Kenner continues. “These were very successful, very highly paid, very skillful practitioners of this bizarre form of public relations that is out there to confuse the public to keep selling a product while avoiding any form of inconvenient science. We know about tobacco, so it’s a great benchmark—to see that many people have come from tobacco and gone into other industries, using the very same tactics.” > > Why do they do it? Kenner profiles Fred Singer and Fred Seitz, two aging scientists who are pro-cigarette company veterans of the tobacco wars and now are fighting against the official acceptance of climate change. “I think there’s a sense that part of what drives them is a fear of governmental regulations,”\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/64 "2015-10-17T21:06:00Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Thing is there will never be significant effects from it, at least not over the course of any one generation. Whatever and however much its effects may or may not be, they will occur so gradually as to be impossible to definitively identify their cause (or get the public to accept it). And by that time we will have moved on to whatever next doomsday ecological disaster is ‘right on the horizon’. Most likely being the need for a fossil fuel replacement, but not because of climate change, simply because of economics… On what factual basis do you make this broad assertion? Stranger ---
**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:** [October 17, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/65 "2015-10-17T22:56:25Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Anti-vaxxers. Not all liberals but I think the overwhelming majority are. A few are religious nuts. My daughter lives in ultra-liberal Park Slope, Brooklyn and the percentage of kids who have not been vaccinated is quite high. She makes damn sure her son has all his vaccinations. Kind of a mix of crystal gazing types and religious types and suspicious of government types with the first of these being liberal. But in liberal California we just passed a very strong vaccine requirement, and the anti-vaxxers couldn’t get enough signatures to put a repeal measure on the ballot. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/66 "2015-10-17T23:09:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Kind of a mix of crystal gazing types and religious types and suspicious of government types with the first of these being liberal. But in liberal California we just passed a very strong vaccine requirement, and the anti-vaxxers couldn’t get enough signatures to put a repeal measure on the ballot. Interestingly on the primaries in the USA the politicians that are supporting anti-vaxxer positions are all conservative, One idea I have is that specially in places like Orange County in California the anti-vaxxers are wealthy and conservative so it was a group that could not be ignored. It is not a coincidence that one of the latest viral outbreaks did take place in Orange County. It is very interesting to me because polling shows that there are a good number of people from the left that do follow the woo woo but very few of them pop up in important political positions. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2015, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/67 "2015-10-17T23:23:15Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Add to the above a new reason to be angry: the fact that some scientists are attempting to use RICO to stifle free speech. > > [Letter To President Obama: Investigate Deniers Under RICO | ScienceBlogs](http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/09/19/letter-to-president-obama-investigate-deniers-under-rico/) If conservatives are angry for that they only show that they are not paying attention. Or they do and they also reach for the demagoguery and tell their followers that this is an issue about free speech, when in reality it is not. > [@](#): > > We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress. One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change. The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peerreviewed academic research (Brulle, 2013) and in recent books including: Doubt is their Product (Michaels, 2008), Climate Cover-Up (Hoggan & Littlemore, 2009), Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes & Conway, 2010), The Climate War (Pooley, 2010), and in The Climate Deception Dossiers (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015). We strongly endorse Senator Whitehouse’s call for a RICO investigation. Nowhere it is mentioned that the targets are the ones making the trash like scientists like Willie Soon or Fred Singer. Or makers of blogs like WUWT, but they do love to misrepresent who is the target of the scientists and researchers making that letter, it is the corporations and groups that are deceiving the public and financing professional misleaders. > **[We don't want a RICO investigation sez WUWT. What are they afraid of?](https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/we-dont-want-rico-investigation-sez.html)** > > Global warming & climate change. Eavesdropping on climate science deniers, their weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy theories. > [@](#): > > I’m not from the USA and am by no means an expert in law, let alone US law. However to claim that the RICO Act, which was signed into law by Richard Nixon and adopted by 33 states, is akin to Nazi domination in pre-War Germany seems to me to be a little over the top. > > Also, for people at WUWT to think that dumb deniers like them would be prosecuted under the Act is incredibly naive. I mean it looks to me that it’s people like them that the Act was designed to protect. Most of them are the ones being hoodwinked. They are the victims. Anthony Watts isn’t a victim. He’s a stooge. He’s one of the low level lackeys who embarked on his crusade against science for ideological reasons as far as I can make out. Funded organisations, like the Heartland Institute use him and people like him as freeby public relations arms. > > I gather that the RICO Act was used to prosecute people who deliberately hid the facts about tobacco. The Heartland Institute allegedly had strong links to the pro-tobacco lobby. I came across this comment by A Physicist at Judith Curry’s blog. The comment included a comment that Anthony Watts deleted from his blog, which was speculating that this letter from Edward J Markey to the Heartland Institute was in preparation for a RICO investigation into Heartland Institute, when it emerged that they were funding a deliberate campaign aimed at subverting education in climate science. > > Will the RICO Act ever be used to investigate funded campaigns to spread disinformation about climate science? I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. Not this year. Not next year. Maybe in the early 2020s. > > A lot of cyberspace this past few days has been devoted to fake sceptics and contrarians arguing that free speech means people are free to defame, libel and slander and try to ruin the reputation of climate scientists. I take it from the WUWT reaction to Naomi Oreske’s short comment that these same people think that free speech also gives organisations the right to manufacture propaganda designed to mislead the general public about climate science. > > Science deniers live in a very strange world. Not the one I want to live in. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/68 "2015-10-18T09:24:30Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > On what factual basis do you make this broad assertion? > > Stranger Because what they’re trying to do is predict the weather over the next couple of years, decades, even centuries. And we can only do that with moderate accuracy for maybe a week, tops. It isn’t merely the immense number of variables in terms of human effects on it, but the even larger number of unknown and impossible to accurately model variables that determine the long term climate itself. We know that the climate has gone thru cycles of heating and cooling on its own over eons, and we can’t even say for sure why & how that was. But it’s very easy for left-wing politicians and academia to tell their fans that it’s obviously because, “Eaaaarth Maaaaaan Baaaaaaaad\*!!\*” Something else that I find ludicrous. If you live in a developed first world society, from the moment you get up in the morning you are contributing to global warming. From the clothes you put on (how they were made, transported, regularly cleaned) to the energy to heat & light your house, to the coffee you make (again, grown, harvested overseas, transported thousands of miles) to the food you eat, to the two-cars your family uses to go to work, to the huge amounts of resources that the place you work at uses regardless of what it even does (industrial plant or small office) to the heated, lit, air conditioned and well furnished schools you send your kids to, all of this, every bit of it is (supposedly) significantly contributing to climate change. So to paraphrase comedian George Carlin “Do you really think a couple of fucking aluminum cans and plastic bags are going to make any difference?!” If anyone does believe all this and seriously wants to do something about it, it would involve them giving up 80% or more of the modern, first-world societal norms. That ain’t gonna happen. And I just don’t kid myself that it even should. ---
**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:** [October 18, 2015, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/69 "2015-10-18T09:44:32Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Because what they’re trying to do is predict the weather over the next couple of years, decades, even centuries. And we can only do that with moderate accuracy for maybe a week, tops. It isn’t merely the immense number of variables in terms of human effects on it, but the even larger number of unknown and impossible to accurately model variables that determine the long term climate itself. We know that the climate has gone thru cycles of heating and cooling on its own over eons, and we can’t even say for sure why & how that was. Weather is not climate. > **[The difference between weather and climate](https://skepticalscience.com/weather-forecasts-vs-climate-models-predictions-intermediate.htm)** > > \Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change.\ > [@](#): > > Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > But it’s very easy for left-wing politicians and academia to tell their fans that it’s obviously because, “Eaaaarth Maaaaaan Baaaaaaaad\*!!\*” That was very ignorant, that is not what academia is basing their research, and it is clear that you are only wilfully avoiding what James Balog reported about the observed cap ice loss. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Something else that I find ludicrous. If you live in a developed first world society, from the moment you get up in the morning you are contributing to global warming. From the clothes you put on (how they were made, transported, regularly cleaned) to the energy to heat & light your house, to the coffee you make (again, grown, harvested overseas, transported thousands of miles) to the food you eat, to the two-cars your family uses to go to work, to the huge amounts of resources that the place you work at uses regardless of what it even does (industrial plant or small office) to the heated, lit, air conditioned and well furnished schools you send your kids to, all of this, every bit of it is (supposedly) significantly contributing to climate change. > > So to paraphrase comedian George Carlin “Do you really think a couple of fucking aluminum cans and plastic bags are going to make any difference?!” If anyone does believe all this and seriously wants to do something about it, it would involve them giving up 80% or more of the modern, first-world societal norms. That ain’t gonna happen. And I just don’t kid myself that it even should. And that is why the bulk of the solution has to come from industry and government regulation. With then the ones getting up in their houses paying just a bit more for our modern civilization. What you are going about here is a very old straw man. What you keep forgetting is that the costs of not making changes now will make the issue become more expensive to deal later. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/70 "2015-10-18T10:09:27Z")
A lot of it might be that Saint Ronald Reagan dismissed the notion of global warming. Contradicting him would be like contradicting Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/71 "2015-10-18T17:05:12Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Because what they’re trying to do is predict the weather over the next couple of years, decades, even centuries. And we can only do that with moderate accuracy for maybe a week, tops. It isn’t merely the immense number of variables in terms of human effects on it, but the even larger number of unknown and impossible to accurately model variables that determine the long term climate itself. We know that the climate has gone thru cycles of heating and cooling on its own over eons, and we can’t even say for sure why & how that was. > > But it’s very easy for left-wing politicians and academia to tell their fans that it’s obviously because, “Eaaaarth Maaaaaan Baaaaaaaad\*!!\*” Global climate circulation models used in evaluating global climate trends over decades are completely distinct from meteorological models used for regional weather prediction over a period of a couple of weeks. The solution methods, inputs, granularity, and methods for correlation are so radically different there is very little comparison between the two types of models. Your characterization of the people you disagree with checks of another box on the standard list of standard climate change skeptic: demonize your opponents (who are apparently all “left-wing politicians and academia” because nobody else accepts the hazards of climate change) to make them look radicalized and irrational. The Heartland Institute gives you a standing ovation. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Something else that I find ludicrous. If you live in a developed first world society, from the moment you get up in the morning you are contributing to global warming. From the clothes you put on (how they were made, transported, regularly cleaned) to the energy to heat & light your house, to the coffee you make (again, grown, harvested overseas, transported thousands of miles) to the food you eat, to the two-cars your family uses to go to work, to the huge amounts of resources that the place you work at uses regardless of what it even does (industrial plant or small office) to the heated, lit, air conditioned and well furnished schools you send your kids to, all of this, every bit of it is (supposedly) significantly contributing to climate change. > > So to paraphrase comedian George Carlin “Do you really think a couple of fucking aluminum cans and plastic bags are going to make any difference?!” If anyone does believe all this and seriously wants to do something about it, it would involve them giving up 80% or more of the modern, first-world societal norms. That ain’t gonna happen. And I just don’t kid myself that it even should. And now we get to the, “It might be real but there is nothing I can do about it, so let’s just let whatever happen and God will sort it out.” The counter to that is that there is plenty that can be done about the waste and pollution that contributes to excess carbon dioxide being released at both an institutional and social level. We can seek greater energy efficacy through improved power generation and distribution processes, increased development of renewable energy resources, incentives and changes to building codes to encourage construction of zero net energy buildings, technical development and infrastructure for alternative low carbon or net zero carbon fuels, et cetera. In fact, we’ve been doing this since the oil and energy crises of the 'Seventies, in such a quietly insidious fashion that even the most avowed self-proclaimed climate skeptic and power hog can’t help but buy energy efficient appliances, cleaner burning automobiles, and some portion of renewable energy from their electrical utilities. Somehow nearly all of Europe seems to be able to maintain an industrial society with heat and light, coffee, schools, cars, et cetera, on less than half of the per capita energy consumption and net carbon production as the US, and (with the exception of Greece) they haven’t fallen into chaos and cannibalism yet. There is notion that all of the readily available energy, and the cheap oil and coal that drives it is, if not exactly a God-given right of Americans, at least a yield of the free market that shines its smiling face and benefice upon America. In fact, that petroleum and energy prices are so low is due to the very government intervention and subsidies that self-proclaimed “conservatives” love to be seen hating except where it benefits them, in the form of tax credits and incentives to energy producers, in the lowest user taxes on gasoline and diesel of any industrialized nation save for Mexico, and of course, political and military intervention in regions where “strategic” access to petroleum is threatened to the tune of uncountable trillion of dollars. In fact, none of this is a “right” or unending cornucopia of energy supplies, and the smart thing to do from a security and futures perspective even if you aren’t concerned about global climate change would be to support the development of sustainable domestic energy resources that don’t require digging progressively more deeply into the ground, hydraulically beating at oil shale, or blasting the the tops off of mountains. Frankly, you seem to be operating from a deep lack of information on the topic and assuming that everyone else does to, with only pasted in arguments from [the standard list of climate skeptic arguments](https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php), nearly all of which have been concocted by the same “merchants of doubt” whose expertise in agnotology convinced generations of people that tobacco wasn’t harmful, that margarine and trans are more healthy than butter, and that that chlorofluorocarbons weren’t responsible for the nonexistent erosion of the ozone layer that we don’t actually need anyway. If you are going to remain a skeptic, at least do yourself the favor of becoming actually educated rather than reiterating claims you’ve heard from pundits that are misleading, counterfactual, or just flat out wrong. > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > A lot of it might be that Saint Ronald Reagan dismissed the notion of global warming. Contradicting him would be like contradicting Jesus. Well, he was clearly so right about missile defense; why should we doubt him on this topic? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/72 "2015-10-18T18:11:10Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Because what they’re trying to do is predict the weather over the next couple of years, decades, even centuries. And we can only do that with moderate accuracy for maybe a week, tops. True. It’s very difficult to forecast the weather more than ten days or so out. But I guarantee it’s going to be quite a bit colder in about three months. That’s the difference between \*weather \*and _climate_, and the fact that you can’t seem to realize the difference kind of makes me wonder why you’re bothering to try to argue. ---
**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:** [October 18, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/73 "2015-10-18T19:21:32Z")
**Siam Sam** and **Stranger On A Train** are correct about how blind the current Republicans in power are. ([What it is important to note is that many Republicans that are moderate or that want to do something about the issue are not aware of how out of tune their current congress critters are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPgZfhnCAdI)). But there is a nit, that anyhow makes the current Republican leadership to look more foolish so here it goes: Saint Reagan actually did follow the science (and so did Bush father and British conservative Margaret Thatcher), the current Republican leaders and denier groups out there do not want that item to be well known. (Courtesy of Little Green Footballs, that also was a very conservative blog until their main writers noted how insane the Republicans in congress were getting) > **[Thatcher, Reagan and Bush Senior Supported Global Warming Action](https://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/228997_Thatcher_Reagan_and_Bush_Senio)** > > As Republicans try to re-write their history and pretend that Global Warming is some sort of liberal hoax, it is important to remember that the GOP was not always the party of anti-science hacks (well at least not completely). The ... > [@](#): > > As Republicans try to re-write their history and pretend that Global Warming is some sort of liberal hoax, it is important to remember that the GOP was not always the party of anti-science hacks (well at least not completely). The next time you hear some Republican claim to be a conservative, ask them why they hate Reagan, Thatcher and Bush senior. Of course, I am pointing to the blinding hypocrisy of the GOP on this. But worse, I am pointing to the fact that even in the 80’s it was clear even to conservatives, that there was a problem. That problem has only gotten worse in the last 30 years. > > It is also important to remember that the first serious reports on Global Warming to an American president from the National Academy went to President Johnson in 1965! > > … > > Ronald Reagan issued this statement in his letter to the speaker of the house from Jan 1989, just after he left office: > > presidency.ucsb.edu > > > [@](#): > > > > To continue the significant progress we have made in cleaning up the environment, I recommend a $153 million increase for the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory, research and enforcement programs. I also recommend an increase of $315 million for the Superfund hazardous waste clean-up program in order to maintain the program’s momentum and support a stronger enforcement role. > > > > ``` > > Because changes in the earth’s natural systems can have tremendous economic and social effects, global climate change is becoming a critical concern. Our ability to understand and predict these changes is currently limited, and a better understanding is essential for developing policies. The budget proposes a coordinated and effective Federal research program on global change. This budget is accompanied by a report by the Committee on Earth Sciences that describes this program and its strategy. > > > > ``` > > **Of course, cap and trade started as a Reagan initiative to end acid rain. McCain and Palin ran on it, as ” a sound conservative, free market solution” (it does have the lineage of Reagan and was implemented by Bush Senior). Then their corporate masters told them not to believe it anymore.** > > [smithsonianmag.com](http://smithsonianmag.com) > > > [@](#): > > > > The problem in the 1980s was that American power plants were sending up vast clouds of sulfur dioxide, which was falling back to earth in the form of acid rain, damaging lakes, forests and buildings across eastern Canada and the United States…The basic premise of cap-and-trade is that government doesn’t tell polluters how to clean up their act. Instead, it simply imposes a cap on emissions. Each company starts the year with a certain number of tons allowed—a so-called right to pollute…But global warming had also registered as front-page news for the first time that sweltering summer of 1988; according to Krupp, EDF and the Bush White House both felt from the start that emissions trading would ultimately be the best way to address this much larger challenge. > > President Bush Sr. signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed at preventing further global warming in 1992. > > Here is no lesser light than Margaret Thatcher talking about AGW. She says things that are no different than Al Gore! I think we will let her say it in her own words, this is from her address to the UN in 1989. > > [guardian.co.uk](http://guardian.co.uk) > > > [@](#): > > > > AN EARLY ALARM > > > > ``` > > “While the conventional, political dangers - the threat of global annihilation, the fact of regional war - appear to be receding, we have all recently become aware of another insidious danger. It is as menacing in its way as those more accustomed perils with which international diplomacy has concerned itself for centuries. It is the prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to earth itself. > > > > What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate - all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. > > > > The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world’s climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all. That prospect is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable in its implications to the discovery of how to split the atom. Indeed, its results could be even more far-reaching. > > > > The evidence is there. The damage is being done. What do we, the international community, do about it? > > > > In some areas, the action required is primarily for individual nations or groups of nations to take. But the problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay. We have to look forward not backward, and we shall only succeed in dealing with the problems through a vast international, co-operative effort. > > > > The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not. > > > > The work ahead will be long and exacting. We should embark on it hopeful of success, not fearful of failure. Darwin’s voyages were among the high-points of scientific discovery. They were undertaken at a time when men and women felt growing confidence that we could not only understand the natural world but we could master it, too. Today, we have learned rather more humility and respect for the balance of nature. But another of the beliefs of Darwin’s era should help to see us through - the belief in reason and the scientific method. > > > > Reason is humanity’s special gift. It allows us to understand the structure of the nucleus. It enables us to explore the heavens. It helps us to conquer disease. Now we must use our reason to find a way in which we can live with nature, and not dominate nature. > > > > We need our reason to teach us today that we are not - that we must not try to be - the lords of all we survey. > > > > ``` > > Ms. Thatcher would have made a terrible Dominionist, now wouldn’t she? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/74 "2015-10-19T05:57:05Z")
The main problem is that the “remedies” for AGW are all intended to: -make the government larger and more expensive -enrich a new class of "Green " con men (like Al Gore) -accelerate the loss of US manufacturing jobs to the 3rd world. Taker Al Gore’s “carbon credits”-this is a huge subsidy/tax that will be paid by citizens of the USA, and will be used to destroy the American economy. Meanwhile, the people who decide how much carbon dioxide we are allowed to create, become billionaires. Now, Al Gore has huge mansions, travels by private jet, and probably has the carbon footprint of a small town…but he’s trying to save us. Right!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/75 "2015-10-19T09:00:54Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I see it exactly the opposite! America has an opportunity to be the world leader in saving the planet, and it’s the rear-guard who are sabotaging this superb chance to exercise power and influence. Leaders don’t save the planet unless it’s under attack from aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/76 "2015-10-19T09:08:56Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > And now we get to the, “It might be real but there is nothing I can do about it, so let’s just let whatever happen and God will sort it out.” Which also seems to be a popular conservative reaction to economic issues. Big business and the global market may not be the working man’s best buddy, but anyone who wants to fuck with them is disturbing natural laws and is an idiot or worse. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/77 "2015-10-19T09:49:07Z")
To the OP. I also found the way you asked it to be rude but if it helps, I tend to look at climate change with a mixture of scientific realism and skepticism. Realism in the sense that YES, it is happening. However, #1 Living in the midwest where we used to have terrible winters of blizzards and subzero temperatures - is this so bad? #2. Looking at North America it is in a kind of Y-shape meaning warming could open up alot of land in Canada that right now is tundra so why not? #3. Warming and cooling has been a part of the Earths cycles for centuries. And skepticism - could this be due to some areas where humans have no control such as sunspots? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/78 "2015-10-19T09:49:34Z")
> [@inedible\_knapsack](#): > > I’ve asked a couple of family members why it bothers them so much that there could be a such thing, but the answers I get just aren’t logical. Usually it’s something along the lines of “it’s just a scheme to get a bunch of scientists rich” (which I counter with the fact that oil and coal are pretty good schemes for getting rich, and they’re paying A LOT for those without questioning) and “God is in control” (which, again, doesn’t really make sense; biblically, I see no reason to believe God wouldn’t allow us to heat up the earth). I think for many it really is about wanting to believe that “God is in control” (and also on their side). They don’t want to contemplate living in a world where a human activity we have accepted as normal and everyday can destroy their economy and their habitat. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/79 "2015-10-19T12:26:11Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The main problem is that the “remedies” for AGW are all intended to: > -make the government larger and more expensive > -enrich a new class of "Green " con men (like Al Gore) > -accelerate the loss of US manufacturing jobs to the 3rd world. > Taker Al Gore’s “carbon credits”-this is a huge subsidy/tax that will be paid by citizens of the USA, and will be used to destroy the American economy. Meanwhile, the people who decide how much carbon dioxide we are allowed to create, become billionaires. > Now, Al Gore has huge mansions, travels by private jet, and probably has the carbon footprint of a small town…but he’s trying to save us. > Right!:smack: I can’t help but notice that most of your problem with AGW solutions is that you just don’t like Al Gore. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845/80 "2015-10-19T13:04:30Z")
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark] What is a good liberal equivalent? [/QUOTE] I think nuclear power is an example more relevant to global warming than others. ISTM that the scientific consensus is at least as strong that global warming is really happening and is caused by human activity as it is that solar power is not a viable, wide-scale solution to the issue. Nuclear power, however, is much more likely to be practical. If liberals were interested in actually solving the problem, they could work with conservatives (who are broadly in favor of nuclear power) to implement a practical solution. But they tend to push solar and other forms of energy instead. Witness Obama spending hundreds of millions on Solyndra, which failed, and shutting down Yucca Mountain. Liberals seem to want to pour money into looking for a technological solution to the impracticalities of solar (and try to hide the costs by pretending that subsidies don’t cost anything). Which is not very different from conservatives simply saying “we will come up with a technological solution” to global warming overall. So liberals are handling the issue as badly as possible. People in general are bad at dealing with long-term problems. So the approach seems to be [ul][li]Name-calling[/li][li]Assume the worst case scenario is what we need to prepare for[/li][li]Propose a solution that costs a lot, and won’t work[/li][li]More name-calling for any form of cost-benefit analysis that doesn’t say “we need to convert to solar and damn the cost”[/ul]China is going to continue to build a lot of solar installations. They are also going to build a lot of coal-fired installations, and change the subject when the subject is brought up. [/li] If the scientific consensus is that the risks of global warming are real and significant, then the risks of nuclear power are also real and less significant. If we need a solution now, then nuclear power is the only practical solution now. If liberals would rather just yell at the other side, have at it, but don’t expect to be patted on the back for being realistic about risk. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-conservative-anger-over-climate-change/734845.md?page=5)