Would conservatives be more willing to accept climate change if it could easily be solved without government involvement

Yes. The scientists depend on the government to fund their "research" and also fund their paychecks. They are forced to be overly fanatic about any change or else funding will stop and they will have to find a real job.

A lot of other scientists point out that we are in between ice ages and changes like these have have going on for 100s of millions of years.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old and we have been keeping records for less than 200 years of it. How these scientists claim to know that the tiny change in temperatures that has occurred in the last 30 years is all due to man is beyond me.

I wonder if all of those extreme droughts and tornadoes in the early 1900s were attributed to man-made climate change. Humans are also to blame for dinosaurs going extinct.

You do realize that a day will come when man will be extinct, the sun will eventually "die," and the planet earth shall perish as well.

True Story.

I'm sure these facts scare the poop out of nut jobs like you, but those are the facts.

Nothing last forever.

Energetic wrote:

What I'm suggesting is that conservatives' scientific opinions are biased by their opinions on the role of government.

And liberals' scientific opinions aren't?

By the way, science is evidence based, not opinion based, that's why the fictitious 90% consensus is irrelevant.

I'm conservative as they come and I have fully embraced global warming. I so hope it is real and happens. Especially this time of the year when it's -20 in the mornings, I just think "wouldn't it be a nice to have the temp be 10-20 degrees warmer". There is always hope- Here's to global warming and it's hastening!

you're only half right - the conservative opposition to admitting human-caused climate change isn't just that it implies strong gov't regulation is needed. That is part of it.

Most of it comes from a deep seated need for the 'market' to take care of problems. That is the heart of conservave thought. All problems will be taken care of by the invisible hand.

so admitting that the 'market' has caused a problem that the gov't is needed to fix is heresy - it just doesnt' fit the master governor thought pattern.

some honest conservatives say something like 'look, let's say temps do rise and water rises. we will figure out a solution - let's not spend a trillion now without knowing exactly what the problems will be. wait til the manifest themeselves and then solve them.

and that's not 100% crazy

Conservatives do accept climate change, EVERY F'ING ONE OF US. So your premise is false, but don't let that stop you from repeating it. The leftist progs had to change their terminology when their predictions for catastrophic "global warming" didn't happen. So give us our freaking language back you Orwellian douche, climate change happens, evidence that mankind has a material and/or catastrophic effect on global climate? Not so much.

Sorry I didn't respond to your entire post, when your premise is false, I can't stomach reading the rest.

WWRD wrote:

Conservatives do accept climate change, EVERY F'ING ONE OF US. So your premise is false, but don't let that stop you from repeating it. The leftist progs had to change their terminology when their predictions for catastrophic "global warming" didn't happen. So give us our freaking language back you Orwellian douche, climate change happens, evidence that mankind has a material and/or catastrophic effect on global climate? Not so much.

Sorry I didn't respond to your entire post, when your premise is false, I can't stomach reading the rest.

your post is satire, right?

you are trolling, but what's a unreal about their jobs?

Energetic wrote:

Let's imagine an alternate reality where 10 years ago there was a massive breakthrough in fusion technology in which power plants could cheaply, safely, and cleanly be made small enough to power an individual car, or large enough to power a country. The whole world would be quickly adopting this technology, but would still be dealing with the problems associated with decades of emitting greenhouse gases. Yet, the problem would be significantly mitigated with a private enterprise solution and would not need any government interference to eventually solve it.

What I'm suggesting is that conservatives' scientific opinions are biased by their opinions on the role of government. There is absolutely no reason why this should be a partisan issue. Science is science and should not be impacted by whether or not you believe taxes are bad.

My feet are cold, how do we speed up the warming process?

Yup.

Look into the CFC issue for a similar analogy. That was "solvable" but by action more palatable to the private sector - just replacing one chemical with another.

Conservative politicians would be okay with no government involvement as long as their corporate donors could make good money--i.e., government grants--fixing the climate.

You liberals kept claiming that 2014 was warmest on record when instead there was a 62% chance that it was not. Even if it was on record only means since 1880. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. The liberal lying and other crap getting old.

Blowing Rock Master! wrote:

And liberals' scientific opinions aren't?

By the way, science is evidence based, not opinion based, that's why the fictitious 90% consensus is irrelevant.

I think there should be disagreement, but it shouldn't be along party lines. Most liberals don't actually want climate change to be a thing. Everyone hopes that it isn't actually happening, because the consequences are likely going to be horrible. But the evidence, as best as we can tell, is that it is. If we lived in a world where people weren't biased by our other opinions, we would judge the evidence independent of everything else. So the proportion of liberals and conservatives who believe and disbelieve in climate change should be almost the same.

We accept climate change, it is called weather. It doesn't need fixing.

WWRD wrote:

Conservatives do accept climate change, EVERY F'ING ONE OF US. So your premise is false, but don't let that stop you from repeating it. The leftist progs had to change their terminology when their predictions for catastrophic "global warming" didn't happen.

It was Global Cooling, which was the fear being pushed when I was growing up, before it was Global Warming, before it was Climate Change, which allows for anything that happens to be a source of fear and profit.

Polly P wrote:

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.

Yes, and for the vast majority of time the climatic conditions on Earth were not conducive to our current first world human lifestyle. The point of climate change isn't that we are turning the world into something that has never existed, it's that the change will force us to live differently. Why it appears to be man-made is that the rate of change is anomalously large. Sure, there have been larger swings in global temperature in the past, but those have typically taken hundreds or thousands of years, not tens.

If we really want to just let "the market" sort things out, it certainly could. But in that case, there will be winners and losers, and many people don't realize that they will be losers (and when that day comes, you can be sure that they will blame the government for not protecting them).

agip wrote:

you're only half right - the conservative opposition to admitting human-caused climate change isn't just that it implies strong gov't regulation is needed. That is part of it.

Most of it comes from a deep seated need for the 'market' to take care of problems. That is the heart of conservave thought. All problems will be taken care of by the invisible hand.

so admitting that the 'market' has caused a problem that the gov't is needed to fix is heresy - it just doesnt' fit the master governor thought pattern.

some honest conservatives say something like 'look, let's say temps do rise and water rises. we will figure out a solution - let's not spend a trillion now without knowing exactly what the problems will be. wait til the manifest themeselves and then solve them.

and that's not 100% crazy

I am conservative on fiscal/economic issues and I have no interest in letting the market "solve" all our problems. The market does some things very well and other things not so well but in general I'd rather have policies that are market-driven than are politically-driven or socially-driven.

If you acknowledge it, global warming (and all resource-depletion issues) occur because of two fundamental issues: we have too many people for this planet to handle given our current level of technology - and of particular concern are the high-cost, low-value ones.

So you have two levers to play with: population and technology. Population can be controlled by: draconian policy (China's One Child, eugenics), pandemic, war, or allow market-incentives to exist (reduce child tax credits/welfare).

Advances in technology are the other option: nuclear power, water desalination, infrastructure design. This is where government can help organize commercial focus and be part of the market solution if done properly! When unemployment reached 10% a few years ago, the state could have enacted all sorts of market-ish solutions (I suggested putting a solar panel on every willing housing in america) but instead we got, wait for it, Cash-for-clunkers so that Obama could record a gain on his government's stock investment in GM (this was the greatest insider trading scheme of all time and it happen in slow motion and on the front pages of the newspaper) and Quantitative Easing which has solidified the bifurcation of socio-economics in america (and as of Thursday, Europe in the near future).

When liberals recommend things like Cap-and-Trade, they are completely missing the fundamental issues that I've outlined. Cap-and-Trade does nothing to address population or technology; all it does is insert the state into yet another facet of american business and life. Thus, the State grows - another department gets created - taxes get increased - costs go up - and we're no where closer to any kind of solution.

And as alluded to by a previous poster - the climate of this planet has gone incredibly higher and incredibly lower in the past and will in the future. If we get another couple degrees higher so that some kid in India doesn't have to wash her clothes in a polluted river or a family in China gets to have incandescent lighting so that they can read after the sun goes down, I'll make that trade.

By the way, Al Gore is now reportedly worth $200 million and is widely considered a global elite. If in 20 years my favorite beach hasn't become a sandbar, then Al Gore will have been one of the greatest swindler of the first decade of the century behind the likes of Bernard Madoff, Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, and Marion Jones.

20 years is too short a time horizon. and that's the problem - only government can look ahead 100 years and make plans.

Gore a swindler? jeez. he disseminated information meant to help the planet. that makes him a swindler?

What does that make all the republicans who design legislation to profit their corporate donors? What is worse than a swindler? thief? traitor? I dunno - you supply the word.

of course I don't agree that cash for klunkers was an insider trading scam. please. Why say that instead of what it clearly was? A bid to get people buying cars again and boost the economy. I have no idea why you think there was an elaborate profit motive rather than simply a wish to get the gigantic auto industry moving again so thousands of jobs would be saved/made.

otherwise, I generally agree that climate change in a small way will probably not be a catastrophe. Unless you live in bangladesh or miami or some place that will be inundated. then it will certainly suck.

big on you to admit the gov't can do some good for the economy. huge. The tea party would run someone against you if you were a congressman and said that tho.