Jed L over at DailyKos mentioned something that I've been aware of for a while now. And it's this - every time we experience anything resembling a cold spell here in the United States, the conservative anti-science movement springs to life with a flurry (pun intended) of stories that reiterate how this proves that global warming is pure bullshit, likely crafted by corporation-hating liberals and anti-progress hippies.They repeat this every chance they get, until it starts to gain a foothold in the popular imagination. Eventually, people start to dispute the overwhelming scientific evidence that artificially increased CO2 levels are directly tied to warmer average global temperatures.
Of course, whenever we hit a warm spell (like right now), you don't hear a peep from the anti-science crowd. From the article:
Remember just a few days ago when the entireThe thing that I have trouble understanding is WHY in hell would anyone want to dispute the enormous volume of scientific evidence on global warming and play Russian Roulette with the environment simply to avoid some "inconvenient truths", as Al Gore might say? The downside of continuing to ignore the reality of global warming (an out of control environment leading to possible total devastation) outweighs any minor upside (more profits for corporations because they can continue to dump all the CO2 into the atmosphere they want). Click on the link to read the entire article.Flat Earth SocietyConservative Establishment was gleefully cheering on the "heavy" snow to hit Las Vegas and other unlikely parts of the country?
You know how each and every last one of them prattled forth about how this wintertime snowfall proved that global warming was a hoax?
Well, you don't hear much from any them now that a rash of high temperatures is sweeping the country from the midwest to the southeast and threatening to unleash widespread flooding, do you?
15 comments:
Global warming? I do so love it. I cant afford winters in Florida. This is as good as it gets. I'm watching Pats at Snow capped Buffalo? Looks more like Florida hot winds skewing the goal posts. I,m wondering how Gostkowski will kick through that diagonal goal post. Aww, sh-t. They shoulda left it alone! J.C. Sr.
Speaking of Florida, I'm hoping the Jets send the Dolphins back there with an "L"...my wife's a Pats fan. Me, I like the Giants. The last Super Bowl was fun at my house!
You miss the incredible level of hypocrisy.
Gore's home is less "green" than Bush's ranch home.
Kennedy fighting wind energy off Cape Cod.
The whole bunch of them wringing their hands over this, while continuing to zip about on private jets.
No one is "pro" pollution; but those that seem the loudest as it regards global warming seem the least likely to make any changes that might impact their own lives at all.
I love how the GOP always equates Al Gore with global warming, as if discrediting Gore will obviously stand as absolute proof that global warming is a sham. That's like saying because John Edwards is a lying cheating two-timer, there's no such thing as poverty in America!
I'm not going to get into a big discussion of Gore's energy use here, except to say that he is using less than he was because of improvements to his estate, and he spends extra to get renewable energy rather than relying on cheaper fossil fuel sources. How much fuel does it take to bring Bush and his cronies to Crawford and back nineteen times a year for his vacations at his prop ranch, anyway?
Stop with the phony Drudge Report attacks. Tell me how the environment ISN'T being damaged by unrestrained CO2 release instead. And why isn't the GOP concerned about it?
>>Stop with the phony Drudge Report attacks. Tell me how the environment ISN'T being damaged by unrestrained
Drudge isn't even in my bookmarks; he's wrong as often as he's right and like Limbaugh, he's too much for me to take.
Further no one here is claiming that global warming might not be a problem.
Somewhat over-stated I suspect, but that doesn't make it false.
But consider this.
The hypocrisy of it all.
Face it, Kennedy and the Cape Cod windmills takes the cake.
The fact that the left has decided that the environment is somehow "their" issue is a total load of crap.
Now consider:
The EPA was signed into existence by Nixon while Joe Coors held him in a hammerlock.
Coors was horrified of pollution as one might expect seeing as his family's brewery was doing nicely thanks to "Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water".
Joe and his brother Bill Coors previously (1959) had been the force behind the invention of the aluminum can, now the most recycled product on the face of the earth. I remember that as my own dad had a hand in it and kept bringing home odd looking aluminum objects that hadn't worked out well.
I believe the original concept came from the 3rd Coors brother, Adolph who was kidnapped and murdered prior to seeing the whole thing come to fruition.
Outdoor sportsman, more normally Republican voters than not, support such things as Ducks Unlimited
Ethanol is a bogus fix and you can google that one yourself.
In fact there's only one proven method by which we can solve both our need for energy and do so without any global warming; nuclear power and lot's of it.
The sooner we're all heating our homes with electricity, and driving electric cars the better.
The real problem with nuclear power is of course an invention.
That is the spent fuel rods that should logically be stored onsite forever but Carter made that impossible.
Moving the waste product is dangerous, so's storing it - so leaving it where it was used makes sense.
A simple stroke of the pen could correct that; along with care in selecting stable (not prone to earthquakes) sites.
Further, mini nuclear plants, available within 5 years or so will render most other arguments moot.
>>there's no such thing as poverty in America!
Mostly imposed by our own government.
IE: A woman seeking employment as a CNA (change bedpans all day) needs to take a test that costs her several hundred dollars. Often she'll opt for something like food, or heat instead.
Why do we charge 100's to the poorest of our poor when they seek to better themselves?
Want to see poor?
Spend a week in the UK, rent a car so you can get off the tourist track and go get lost for a while; I was shocked.
There in a well socialized country no-less, their poor make ours look like PowerBall winners.
This is the time of the year when I consider cheering on global warming:
(1) I'd buy less oil for heat; and
(2) As my house is 35 feet above sea level, once the polar caps melt, I'll have shorefront property.
Might as well start working on that backyard dock....
The bottom line: whether you ascribe global warming to a natural shift or to human activities (or, for that matter, to moose farts), the inescapable fact remains that the planet is trending warmer, and our habits aren't helping. The first is immutable fact, based on observations made over the last 125 years (in a few cases using the same instruments). The second is is inescapable, due to thermodynamics. We can argue whether humanity's damage is large or miniscule (how many of you have shrugged off a glancing blow on your Escalade, saying, "It's just a scratch; it won't make the car run any worse").
Whether our contribution to global warming is great or is minute, the simple fact remains that WE ARE NOT WORKING TO SLOW OR STOP THIS TREND.
Or perhaps the conservatives' plan is to simply bemoan the unfairness of nature?
>>Or perhaps the conservatives' plan
There you go again.
Some of us actual conservatives (as opposed to "social conservatives") aren't going to let you off the hook with that guff.
The fact is the Dems fought the institution of the EPA itself and have only recently decided that the environment was good for them politically.
Mostly because they tend to fill the bureaucracies that give businesses a hard time and big fines too-often for trivia.
(Showing up at a junkyard less than 30 feet from a superfund site and trying to hang the whole thing on the junkyard owner for example - never mind the chemical fingerprint pointed to the muncipality itself.)
Um...there YOU go again!
Unlike many, I am aware that the labels "conservative" and "progressive" are distinct from Party labels; and I use the former to denote a mindset...NOT necessarily a political ideology.
That being said, there do seem to be a preponderance of eco-ostriches in the Republican Party (though - as ACR rightly points out, they don't have a monopoly).
I'll trade ya my Joe Lieberman for your Olympia Snow.
Kennedy's cake is still alive but the frosting that would have topped it is dead in the water. The developers who would have built that wind farm off the Southern coast of Long Island gave up on fighting the rich and powerful beachfront (nimbys) owners.
Nuclear power is good. I like it. Especially in your back yard which is it's biggest problem. It cost ten times more to P.R. a plant into a neibhorhood than it does to build it. Forty years later the damned thing has just about cooked itself out and then what do you do with it? Here's a little clue. Cnet/energy/ posted a blog of interest. Quinnipiac University will hire MARIAH POWER to install 42 of it's silent windspire turbines for their campus at a cost of $4000-5000 each. They hope to get 84,000 kilowatt hours per year from them. They are not the last word in power but wind in any form seems to be the quickest and cheapest right now. I can imagine a million of these lined along our interstates from here to hell, er California and back.
P.S., A.C.R. Can't we all just get along? Just a little? J.C. Sr.
Additionally, I've calculated that by adding solar panels and installing a ground thermal unit, I could heat & cool my home without cost & without using any fossil fuels on all but the most extreme temperatures. However, I can't afford the $80,000 these steps would take.
(PS - Because of the size and position of my roof, half the time I'd be contributing to the grid)
Bob Symmes - Is that after the financial help that the State of Connecticut would contribute? If you ever did accomplish your dream you would become a mini nuclear plant that A.C.R. writes about. Without scaring the hell out of you neibhors! J.C. Sr.
Bob Symmes said:
I'll trade ya my Joe Lieberman for your Olympia Snow
I like them both.
....a mini nuclear plant....
Looks like this.
That's not science fiction or something; it'll be on the market and should change everything as it regards electric power as we know it.
This will buy us the time to come up with something even more bizarre, like satellite based solar collectors beaming power to enormous solar dishes placed in remote areas (to avoid air traffic).
Massive quanities of cheap energy that can easily be placed pretty much anywhere.
Think of the ramifications!
Power a series of desalination plants, making entire regions of Africa fit for agriculture for the 1st time in a 1000 years or more.
The virtual end of carbon based global warming.
Loads and loads of cheap energy would allow mankind to put our efforts elsewhere.
Every child on the planet will be educated and enjoy decent medical care.
Just add up what you spend a year on energy in total, cut that number by 75% and how much more could have done for your own family, yourself, and the various charities and causes that you would like to support better.
Our grandchildren will drive on highways with built in heat; we would never have to plow our roads again.
This was fiction, but something along the same lines will probably show up before too long.
JC - The quote includes the state assistance, but is slightly misleading, as it also includes a new roof (though I suspect in the real world the majority of homeowners would face this situation).
I would prefer this solution to the "mini-nucuelur" plant espoused by ACR.
Bob Symmes - Keep shopping around. Thin film roof tiles isa comin'. They may solve your new roof problem along with solar power. And ACR. You betcha! If we can circle the Earth with solar panel assist, why not beam some of it down to us.J.C. Sr.
Post a Comment