How Republicans Learned To Reject Climate Change

THis cold weather has led many to believe the AGW has stopped. Many also now believe that AGW was just a natural cycle.

However.............

People tend to think short-term. If something doesn't impact them immediately, they deny its existence. Also, people don't think  globally. If something don't impact them directly, they deny its existence.


I believe these are a few reasons why AGW skepticism has increased recently. 

Sources: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/201002_coldsnap/

Edited by QTgogreen - 3/29/10 at 2:44pm

John McCain is the best example of this.  He co-authored a carbon cap and trade bill just a few years ago.  When he chose Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, his campaign forced her to basically reverse her global warming denial position and state that we need to address climate change (but I believe she waffled, saying the cause of the climate change didn't matter, not that it was anthropogenic).  Now McCain vehemently opposes any carbon regulation.  And coincidentally I'm sure, he has a teabagger running against him in this year's primary election.

Tim Pawlenty is another, summarized here:

Quote:

Dec. 2006: Pawlenty lays out an ambitious clean energy program for Minnesotans to reduce their use of fossil fuels 15 percent by 2015. Cutting greenhouse gases, Pawlenty said, would “be good for the environment, good for rural economies, good for national security and good for consumers.” He also calls for a regional cap and trade program.
 

May 2007: Pawlenty signs the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, requiring the state to reduce its emissions 15 percent by 2015 and 80 percent in 2050. At the signing ceremony, Pawlenty said Minnesota was “kicking-starting the future” by “tackling greenhouse gas emissions.”
 

Oct. 2007: Pawlenty declares that the climate change issue is “one of the most important of our time.” He also brushes off “some flak” from right-wingers who doubt climate change science.
 

Sept. 2008: During the election, Pawlenty backs away from his own cap and trade program, says such a system would “wreck the economy.” He then tells hate radio personality Glenn Beck (a climate change denier) that human activity only contributes “half a percent” to climate change.
 

Nov. 2009: Pawlenty backs away from acknowledging that any human activity is the cause of climate change.

Problem is that the extreme right-wing has taken hold of the Republican Party.  GOP politicians know they can't win primary elections without getting support from the teabaggers, so they've shifted far to the right.  And global warming denial is an extreme right-wing position, because unfortunately the extremists tend to be anti-science, and certainly anti-government and anti-regulation.

Fox News has contributed a lot to the Republican transition on this issue.  During the heavy snowstorms this winter, they ran many stories talking about how the storms disproved "Al Gore's global warming theory".  The likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh constantly call global warming a hoax/fraud/etc.

Our only hope is that Republicans are becoming so extreme that they'll lose elections.  This November they'll certainly gain some seats in Congress, but there's a good chance in 2012 they'll get crushed.  If they continue to move to the right, the economy continues to recover, people see health care reform was a good idea (no death panels!), etc., they may see the consequences of moving too far to the right in 2012.  In which case we may see some serious action on climate change after that point.  One can only hope.

The article mentions Schwarzenegger, who has been one of the few Republican politicians with a consistent global warming realist position, but who's at the end of his term.

Meg Whitman will be the Republican candidate seeking to replace him, and isn't as bad as most, but worse than Schwarzenegger.  She wants to suspend AB 32 (the state's carbon regulation bill) for a year, calling it "a threat of significant economic harm" even though it's supported by many businesses in the state, including the one she used to be CEO of - eBay.  150 businesses including eBay wrote


But at least she doesn't seem to be a global warming denier.  Jerry Brown - the California Democrats' gubernatorial candidate - is a very strong proponent of fighting global warming.  As the state's attourney general,


So hopefully he wins in November.  They're basically tied in the polls right now, with Brown previously leading but Whitman currently leading because she's been running a ton of television ads.
Edited by dana1981 - 3/29/10 at 1:12pm

Yeah apparently he even convinced them to bring Hummers to the market to begin with, which I didn't know.  But he has converted his.


Interesting story about how he distanced himself from Hummer as his image became more 'green'.