climate partisanship
George Will isn’t the only conservative partisan using global warming as a wedge issue. Both sides of the debate, to some degree, have used climate change theory to their political advantage. Al Gore has made a fortune and a great deal more fame off the subject–plenty of cash to pay for his carbon-emitting 10,000 square foot home (or his 2400 square foot second home). That’s neither here nor there, however. I pick on Gore primarily because he advocates carbon credits, and cap and trade, systems to combat global warming that are entirely too capitalistic and not proven to be at all effective. Strict tax penalties for companies that break carbon limits, and conversely generous tax breaks for those who adopt low-emission technology are a much surer way to combat industrial polution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The global warming debate has taken on such a banal quality that if it weren’t such an important issue, it would hardly be worth discussing anymore. Personally, I think science is a slow business. It takes a long time to prove anything beyond the shadow of a doubt. I don’t think we’ve shored up enough data to definitively prove that carbon emissions lead to global warming. Then again, I don’t think we’ve disproved it either, and I prefer to err on the side of caution. One would think that this would be the mainstream skeptic’s position. It’s a conservative position to both be doubtful and cautious. Then again, modern conservatism places little value in either caution or conservation, so it’s no surprise that George Will and the rest of the partisans on the Right use global warming as a wardrum rather than approach it with serious inquiry and concern.
Essentially, global warming has become just another talking point in a long and growing list of talking points that the conservative movement uses to keep apostates out of their fold (shrinking that big tent) and to berate liberals with, rather than viewing warming as both a real cause for worry, and as an opportunity to demonstrate honest governance. Apparently obstructionism and denial are better tactics.
Zachary Roth tears Will’s arguments to shreds here, and Bradford Plumer gets a few shots in here. Conservatives should be reading these pieces and paying heed to the vast consensus on global warming. Even if there are some holes in the larger argument, that’s still no excuse to ignore what very well may be the global crisis of the coming century. Conservatives ought to be conserving things, and the environment should be at the top of the list–even above rugged individulaism and the “right” to low taxes.
Your criticism of Will, et. al. is that they’re dishonest hacks.
Your criticism of Gore is that he sells DVDs.
Hardly is this a moral equivalence to be “on the other hand”ed.Report
I think Gore uses dishonest tactics as well, actually, which also happen to help him sell DVD’s. Like purchasing carbon credits from a firm he is part owner of…or like the very notion of carbon credits, the new green version of indulgences and equally absurd…Report
If you think that “Science” has proven anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, may I suggest the works of Charles Fort?
Most conscientious scientists would tell you that “good enough, until something better comes along” is the best standard they can manage.Report
Well, exactly Patrick. The point I’m making is that regardless of any doubt about say, the cause of climate change, or the methods we should take, a healthy dose of concern would do us all good. It certainly can’t hurt to cut back on emissions can it, except possibly financially, and isn’t that worth the cost in the long run? Isn’t the outcome should the skeptics be wrong a far worse one than the other way around?Report
Except possibly financially? Interesting choice of words in this economy.
The worst possible outcome, should the skeptics prove wrong (and I am not one of them) is that the earth becomes a greenhouse hell similar to Venus, unable to support life. But what are the odds of that happening, and when will it happen? Balanced against that, we have the certainty of more legacy manufacturing industries going bankrupt, and taking Freddie’s beloved, but uneducated, workers with them. While India and China ramp up CO2 emissions to exceed the pace of any reduction in our emissions.
Now the Venusian analogy (which I recognize you’re not using, but I’ve seen it elsewhere), or tidal waves hitting Manhattan, seem most unlikely, but they’re theoretically possible. Nonetheless, advocates for green energy etc. do their cause a disservice, indeed play into the hands of skeptics, when they speak of unlikely worst case scenarios. Better, I think, to take the model of Bjorn Lomborg, a non-skeptic who has concluded that the costs of radical environmental reform outweigh the benefits, but who treats the cost issues and the opposition seriously, and discuss why the benefits outweigh the costs.
I find it difficult to take millenarians of any stripe seriously, unless they’re speaking of the planet’s ultimate fate, in which case they should advocate for asteroid-based missile defense, more space telescopes, and space migration.
Add in advocacy for genetic engineering and pharmacological intelligence increase, and you have Robert Anton Wilson.Report
Sorry, that should have been “missile-based asteroid defense.” Although the idea of asteroid-based missile defense does appeal to my inner geek.Report
The worst possible outcome, should the skeptics prove wrong (and I am not one of them) is that the earth becomes a greenhouse hell similar to Venus, unable to support life. But what are the odds of that happening, and when will it happen?
I don’t think any serious scientist believes that runaway global warming is even remotely possible; there is positive feedback with warmer temps leading to more water vapor (which is a GG) but other effects shut down the warming as the planet’s radiative wavelengths change.
There are a lot of potentially disastrous results of global warming, though, and good chunk of them do appear to be reasonably feasible. There’s plenty of uncertainty, and some positive effects are also possible, but the sheer number of somewhat-likely-and-disastrous possible outcomes makes a pretty strong case for pro-action.
I do think a lot of the proposed solutions are inelegant and not attractive from an economic standpoint. Which, and this dovetails with your space geekery, is why I favor building a giant space parasol to shield the earth from some adjustable percent of solar radiation. Some of the other engineering-based solutions to global warming are pretty cool too.Report
Gores film An Inconvenient Truth is full of lies. Not exaggerations. Not errors.
Lies!
Al Gore air brushed out the little ice age and the medieval warming periods from his graphs in AIT. We wouldn’t want people knowing that the earth was two degrees celsius warmer than it is now during the medieval warming period. Somehow man survived without the use of central cooling. Gore left off the little ice age because he wouldn’t want to demonstrate that the warming trend he talks about began at the end of an ice age.
He also stated that sea lever would rise by 20 feet by the end of the century. Even the UN IPCC (harldy conservative on this issue) estimates only 4 to 36 inches.
Gore also suggested that the Aral Sea has dried up because of global warming. In actuality it has been drained for the irrigation of cotton crops.
Gore claims that for the first time ever, a significant number of polar bears had drowned. First of all, they can swim around fifty miles. Secondly, the researchers at one of America’s most respected think tanks the Competitive Enterprise Institute tracked down the study Gore was quoting and found that only four polar bears had drowned during severe storm conditions.
Furthermore, he quotes a quickly debunked paper suggesting there is a 100% consenus among scientists that athropogenic global warming is real. Here are a few scientists who must have missed the memo:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/GlobalWarming.html
It is worth noting that a UK Court ruled that AIT contained many errors and should not be shown in public schools without a warning about the errors.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth
I find it interesting that Al Gore talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk. He jets around the world in his private plane. He rides around in gas guzzling limousines, and has a compound so wasteful of energy that it needs its own power grid. His houseboat more than likely isn’t that energy efficient either.
I suppose conserving energy and fighting global warming is for the little people. Let the peasants drive the small dangerous energy efficient cars, I’ll drive what I want.
Al Gore was worth about $2 Million Dollars when leaving office and is worth over $100 Million now. He’s laughing all the way to the global warming bank. It’s a pity some are too gullible to see it. As one of my favorite SNL characters might have said “global warming has been bery bery good to him.”
By the way, the flat earthers were the ones who refused to debate. “The debates over, we have a consensus.” Sound familiar? If anyone is a flat earther, it’s Al Gore.
Everyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth should view The Great Global Warming Swindle in order to get a more balanced view of the true state of the science on this issue.
You may view it by visiting:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/Videos.html
It is the first video listed.
Happy Viewing,
Dash RIPROCK IIIReport