The party of ignorance.

Memnoch

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/14/republicans-senate-election-climate-sceptics

Okay, so only one Republican senator actually accepts the scientific consensus on climate change valid and actionable. Brilliant.

I'd love to know how many of them believe evolution is just a theory with no greater or lesser validity than the ideas espoused in the Bible.

*Smacks forehead repeatedly with hand.

Overheal

I can't follow you there. Global Warming is not as of yet conclusive and while I accept it, I have to concede it's still controversial and even debatable what with all this hear say of people being paid off to submit the correct scientific conclusions, etc.

If a political party wants to include a global warming stance in their platform I dont see the problem.

Memnoch

Oh my.

Overheal

?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

european dogma > american dogma

mgmt

Memnoch wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/14/republicans-senate-election-climate-sceptics

Okay, so only one Republican senator actually accepts the scientific consensus on climate change valid and actionable. Brilliant.

I'd love to know how many of them believe evolution is just a theory with no greater or lesser validity than the ideas espoused in the Bible.

*Smacks forehead repeatedly with hand.

Climate change is real, AGW is not.

Its scary the way the left are using this climate change scam to implement their authoritarian policies.

oscarBravo

mgmt wrote: »

Climate change is real, AGW is not.

I guess you sure showed all them scientists with their stupid science.

Manach

I'd accept that global warning is real because of scientific proof and very likely to effect the human biosphere. It would also be a good policy to provide incoming elected officials with a science 101 primer so as they'd have some understanding of the issues, AFAIK politicians with a scientific background are scare. But I'd also agree with mgmt's point how other politicians are using this to enforce their own stances, such as how the Green party did in Ireland.

mgmt

oscarBravo wrote: »

I guess you sure showed all them scientists with their stupid science.

Are you talking about the scientists at the UK Met Office who are trying to be at the cutting edge of this scam. Yet, they cannot predict using their models what the weather will be like at christmas or at summer. Tesco don't even trust them and the BBC are thinking of getting rid of them.

But who cares, lets all jump on the bandwagon and get climate justice (socialism) for all.

oscarBravo

mgmt wrote: »

Are you talking about the scientists at the UK Met Office who are trying to be at the cutting edge of this scam. Yet, they cannot predict using their models what the weather will be like at christmas or at summer.

No, I'm not talking about weather science, I'm talking about climate science.

You do realise, don't you, that there's a difference between weather and climate?

Overheal

Alls I knows is this isn't exactly gravity, or conservation of momentum. There's still a lot of unknowns and while theres a lot of evidence to support it there's not enough to say it definitively. More pointedly, is it enough to want to install such things as Cap and Trade, when these things tackle air pollution (and probable factors of warming) but in turn do nothing to target other forms of pollution. Just google West Virginia Water Pollution; a fine product of Clean Coal Technology (my ass).

Republicans shouldn't pat themselves on the back for blocking Cap and trade or anything though or opposing any of these other Global-Warming platformed ideas and agendas. Not too many years ago under GWB they had Clean Water Acts amended (read: stripped of all of their effectiveness) because too many companies with documented ties to washington were violating the acts in too many places. So you know - rather than make them responsible, just remove the responsibility. Thats 'fuel' efficiency right?

http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500318591/

virmilitaris

Overheal wrote: »

Alls I knows is this isn't exactly gravity, or conservation of momentum. There's still a lot of unknowns and while theres a lot of evidence to support it there's not enough to say it definitively.

I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand this.

Science has no agenda, science has no reason to push any view. Individual scientists might but science does not. The peer-review process guarantees this.

This is a similar situation to Evolution in that the 'controversy' is not within the scientific community but in the public arena of politics.

Now I know that the evidence behind Evolution is much greater than the evidence behind climate change but this doesn't change the fact that in the scientific community there isn't any substantial controversy.

Climate Change is real, it is a (scientific) fact. The same as gravity is a (scientific) fact, the same way evolution is a (scientific) fact.*

*Please note I'm not talking about the theories of Evolution etc but the facts of Evolution etc.

Human contribution to climate change is also a (scientific) fact.

What isn't yet agreed upon is how much humans have contributed and continue to contribute to global warming.

There isn't a single international or national scientific body which rejects it. The last one to accept it was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2007.

Rejecting global warming and mankinds contribution to it is politically motivated nonsense.

Overheal

virmilitaris wrote: »

Science has no agenda, science has no reason to push any view. Individual scientists might but science does not. The peer-review process guarantees this.

Kind of like the Swine Flu? Yes, the strain was real, but they blew the gravity of the situation wildly out of proportion. So one can't say a small group of scientists can't distort a situation.

Climate Change is real, it is a (scientific) fact. The same as gravity is a (scientific) fact, the same way evolution is a (scientific) fact.

Being a fact does not necessarily mean the situation merits a staggering amount of gravity.. again, it's being politicized and blown wildly out of proportion.

oscarBravo

Overheal wrote: »

Kind of like the Swine Flu?

From what I can see, that website supports the view that vaccination causes autism; a position that has been utterly discredited (not that it ever had any supporting evidence to start with, other than a scam of the same sort they are claiming to be outing in that article). I'd like to see a more independent and, dare I say it, peer reviewed source of information.

Yes, the strain was real, but they blew the gravity of the situation wildly out of proportion. So one can't say a small group of scientists can't distort a situation.

They can certainly try, but - again - that's where peer review comes in.

What we definitely don't need is people who are utterly unqualified to talk about a situation loudly proclaiming one side of the story. An pet example for me: someone on the radio last week comparing Ireland's financial situation to the Y2K problem, which he claimed was a myth. This is a widely-held view: there were no major problems at Y2K, therefore all the warnings in advance were just scaremongering.

Um, no. The hype in the press about planes falling out of the sky were scaremongering, but the reality was that millions of man-hours went into fixing the very real problems that existed. Some of us weren't hyping the Y2K problem; we were fixing it. We succeeded so well that we basically managed to convince people there wasn't a problem to begin with.

I don't know how apt the comparison with H1N1 is, but it's awfully easy to claim that there was no need for mass vaccination, and point to the lack of a pandemic as evidence for that claim. The problem is, it skips the possibility that the lack of a pandemic may well have been - at least in part - because of the mass vaccination.

Being a fact does not necessarily mean the situation merits a staggering amount of gravity.. again, it's being politicized and blown wildly out of proportion.

Science doesn't politicise things. Science says what is, and politicians decide what to do with it. Some hype it, some pretend it's not true. The truth is somewhere in between.

Overheal

oscarBravo wrote: »

From what I can see, that website supports the view that vaccination causes autism; a position that has been utterly discredited (not that it ever had any supporting evidence to start with, other than a scam of the same sort they are claiming to be outing in that article). I'd like to see a more independent and, dare I say it, peer reviewed source of information. They can certainly try, but - again - that's where peer review comes in.

Bravo, did you honestly just deflect to something about Autism and an Ad Hominem attack on the source I found on google? Why don't you look up WHO Swine Flu Scandal for yourself. The Original Investigation was carried out by the British Medical Journal.

What we definitely don't need is people who are utterly unqualified to talk about a situation loudly proclaiming one side of the story. An pet example for me: someone on the radio last week comparing Ireland's financial situation to the Y2K problem, which he claimed was a myth. This is a widely-held view: there were no major problems at Y2K, therefore all the warnings in advance were just scaremongering.

And yet thats all we have. Im not even talking about Al Gore, he just recited what we all learned in Geography 10 years ago. It's just when you're a Fmr. VP and you release it on DVD, suddenly Americans everywhere fear for the end times. On the other hand, you also have these Blohards like Hannity who have no clue what's going on but like to think they do..

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/09/hannity-snowstorms-gore/

Um, no. The hype in the press about planes falling out of the sky were scaremongering, but the reality was that millions of man-hours went into fixing the very real problems that existed. Some of us weren't hyping the Y2K problem; we were fixing it. We succeeded so well that we basically managed to convince people there wasn't a problem to begin with.

I don't know how apt the comparison with H1N1 is, but it's awfully easy to claim that there was no need for mass vaccination, and point to the lack of a pandemic as evidence for that claim. The problem is, it skips the possibility that the lack of a pandemic may well have been - at least in part - because of the mass vaccination. Science doesn't politicise things. Science says what is, and politicians decide what to do with it. Some hype it, some pretend it's not true. The truth is somewhere in between.

The difference though even between Y2K, H1N1, and Global Warming is that the first two were never politicized to the same degree. Again, it's just unfortunate it was a Fmr. VP that sparked it off in a big way. And still again, later, with Cap and Trade, "Clean Coal", all that crap. Throw in foreign oil, foreign wars, and the issue has all the traction it needs. I'm not blaming science but Politician's are hyping this to kingdom come, and a lot of them are turning a big profit by doing so.

oscarBravo

Overheal wrote: »

Bravo, did you honestly just deflect to something about Autism and an Ad Hominem attack on the source I found on google? Why don't you look up WHO Swine Flu Scandal for yourself. The Original Investigation was carried out by the British Medical Journal.

The source isn't credible. I don't doubt that the BMJ exposed some less-than-ethical goings-on, but I equally don't doubt that the website you linked presented a balanced view of their investigation. I'll explore the BMJ's findings at my leisure, but my point was that the source you linked is guilty of the same breathless hyping of the facts that you are being critical of.

They are trying to claim that the unethical behaviour of some at the WHO is proof that there was no danger from H1N1. Similarly, there are those who will claim that questionable practices by some climate scientists prove that AGM is a myth. They're both wrong, and both for the same reason: they're ignoring the science.

For the rest: yes, there's politicking. But there's also a problem, and the fact that some people are hyping the problem for their own political or commercial gain doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, or that it's a problem that we can ignore.

virmilitaris

Overheal wrote: »

Kind of like the Swine Flu? Yes, the strain was real, but they blew the gravity of the situation wildly out of proportion.

Well first of all I doubt the credibility of that website. There seems to be a lot of 'natural health' articles there bordering on ignoring modern medicine. I found an article proposing 'prayer' as useful to ones health. :pac:

But nevertheless, let's pretend it's reliable for a moment. If a group of scientists did indeed blow the situation out of proportion then they would have been corrected quite swiftly by another group of scientists who would climb the ladder whilst the others would be disgraced (if they lied) and likely it would be the end of their careers.

That's the way science works. Any one scientist or group of scientists or even an entire countries population of scientists can make assertion A. If assertion A is incorrect then they will be swiftly corrected. That's a great way to make your name in science, prove someone else was wrong.

So one can't say a small group of scientists can't distort a situation.

They can for a very short time distort the general publics perception of a situation through use of the media yes. But that is not science and it is not part of the peer-review process.

Being a fact does not necessarily mean the situation merits a staggering amount of gravity.. again, it's being politicized and blown wildly out of proportion.

Well that depends on what you mean. Outside of the USA there isn't even any real public controversy regarding the subject. I'm aware that politically in the states it has come down to a democrats vs republicans issue. And you might be quite right, maybe the democrats are blowing it out of proportion.

But the facts are still the facts. The Earth is warming and human activity is contributing to it.

I don't know (or care) what the democrats or republicans claim about it. I know what the scientific community know about it.

And whatever the democrats are claiming about it, if they say its happening and we are contributing to it then those two points are correct.

Maybe you could explain the situation ? What are they claiming ?

virmilitaris

oscarBravo wrote: »

Um, no. The hype in the press about planes falling out of the sky were scaremongering, but the reality was that millions of man-hours went into fixing the very real problems that existed. Some of us weren't hyping the Y2K problem; we were fixing it. We succeeded so well that we basically managed to convince people there wasn't a problem to begin with.

Uummm yeah I'm gonna need those TPS reports :pac:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDTrDqxUQNw&feature=related

Jonny7

mgmt wrote: »

Climate change is real, AGW is not.

Its scary the way the left are using this climate change scam to implement their authoritarian policies.

We are polluting our atmosphere, destroying the environment, making a hole in the ozone, etc, etc. I'm not an eco-type person but I have common sense, its pretty obvious.

People who have researched and studied this have come to the conclusion that this may be linked to climate change. They have a pretty strong theory.

If they are completely wrong, there is no harm done, only the fact that we may have polluted the world a little less than we usually do.

If they are right, then its a pretty big thing.


Dude, its not a communist plot, neither is the theory of gravity.

The problem is that the Republicans seem to be on a crusade about this, which to most people with common sense in ANY country is utterly ridiculous. Try to imagine your frustration if the other party started crusading about 911 being an inside job, or that the Earth is 6000 years old, or that to call a teddy bear Mohammed is punishable by death... you get the picture.

Its the lowest form of getting votes.

skregs

Jonny7 wrote: »

The problem is that the Republicans seem to be on a crusade about this

The problem is that stupid people believe them. What next, smoking doesn't cause cancer unless you can actually see the cancer in the cigarettes?
Nice try, medicinal science!

Overheal

The problem is that the Republicans seem to be on a crusade about this, which to most people with common sense in ANY country is utterly ridiculous.

I think its fairly obvious though. Like everything else in politics they see everyone across the aisle as an opponent - an enemy, with an agenda. They don't like the Democrats being unified on any issue. They respond with oppossing force. Like the healthcare bill and all of the Horse Pill analogies that came with it.

While I am sure the Democrats will win on this issue, the Republicans will use it as another electoral battlefield.

Memnoch

The republicans aren't against this because it's an electoral issue or because the Dems are in favour but because it is against the SHORT TERM interests of their big donors, i.e. the kind of mega corporations that would be affected by stricter pollution laws in the event of global warming being recognised for what it is politically as it already has been scientifically.

The analogy to smoking is quite apt.

The thing that repeatedly confounds me about the republican base is how they are once again convinced to act against something that would benefit them. It's like they have no concept that the role of government SHOULD be to provide balance so that the less well placed are not taken advantage of.

Yet on every single issue the republicans take strong pro-business stances and yet their base claims that it's the democrats that are elitists and in bed with "special interests" (Which I'm sure they are but the charge is hypocritical in the least).