The Republican Thread

[BigSqwert]

Al Gore is clearly exploiting global warming for monetary gain. So please don't come into this thread and try to bulls*** like he's some scientist saving the world.

Who called Al Gore a scientist?

[StrangeSox]

Who called Al Gore a scientist?

troll'd

[Cknolls]

Every last one of these subhuman deviants should either fry or be in solitary for the rest of their lives.

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/08/texas....dex.html?hpt=T2

[Jenksismyhero]

I see a problem with people who are immune to learning new facts and critically examining something.

 

Why don't you agree with anthropological global warming? Most everything I've seen you post on it amounts to "AL GORE MONEY HOAX!", not any amount of healthy skepticism or questioning. What are your intellectual reasons for questioning it? Why are you throwing out a good amount of scientific studies and conclusions to reject it?

 

Why do most people reject it? Because they see it as part of environmentalism, which is seen a liberal p**** plot to ruin everything and cost jobs. They're not rejecting it on an intellectual basis. They've no interest in actually understanding the models, the projections, the criticisms and the responses. It's entirely political and emotional. It is anti-science and anti-intellectual.

 

I don't think Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Hannity and the millions of people who follow them have any real interest in climate science. They look at the issue purely from an ideological viewpoint.

 

I don't disagree with anthropological global warming, please point to where I have said that. My question, which I don't know the answer to, is the extent of it. Are we the only cause of the warming? Is it part of a general trend? I'm SKEPTICAL. I'm not a denier, I'm just not convinced. Sue me. I don't want the government to jump into yet another facet of my life and require me to spend more money when I don't believe the issue has been fully decided yet. Again, what a TERRIBLE position to hold. And my beef is when Al Gore makes a puff piece scaring liberals into believing the world was going to produce multiple Katrina hurricanes EVERY YEAR (hasn't happened yet, shocker) and that millions would die. And I rarely if ever play the Al Gore Hoax. Again that was to feed your unfounded fear of some vast conspiracy. You seem to think this small minority of conservatives are hell bent on what, removing science from our lives? Pushing their beliefs on everyone? I don't even know.

 

And MOST people DON'T reject it. MOST people agree that something is going on. And that environmental thing is such bulls***. It's not 1960 anymore. In the last decade or so there's been a huge shift to understanding that what we do with our waste, our power plants, our everything takes it's toll. And most people have accepted change in their lives.

 

And you're right, most don't reject it on an intellectual basis. But since when do you have to be an expert on any given topic to have an opinion? I take it you deferred to the knowledge and experience of a guy like Cheney when he was pushing for the Iraq invasion? Oh right, you were sitting on the internet reading some reports about how what he said might not be the case and then you formed an opinion. Sounds familiar.

 

[Y2HH]

I don't disagree with anthropological global warming, please point to where I have said that. My question, which I don't know the answer to, is the extent of it. Are we the only cause of the warming? Is it part of a general trend? I'm SKEPTICAL. I'm not a denier, I'm just not convinced. Sue me. I don't want the government to jump into yet another facet of my life and require me to spend more money when I don't believe the issue has been fully decided yet. Again, what a TERRIBLE position to hold. And my beef is when Al Gore makes a puff piece scaring liberals into believing the world was going to produce multiple Katrina hurricanes EVERY YEAR (hasn't happened yet, shocker) and that millions would die. And I rarely if ever play the Al Gore Hoax. Again that was to feed your unfounded fear of some vast conspiracy. You seem to think this small minority of conservatives are hell bent on what, removing science from our lives? Pushing their beliefs on everyone? I don't even know.

 

And MOST people DON'T reject it. MOST people agree that something is going on. And that environmental thing is such bulls***. It's not 1960 anymore. In the last decade or so there's been a huge shift to understanding that what we do with our waste, our power plants, our everything takes it's toll. And most people have accepted change in their lives.

 

And you're right, most don't reject it on an intellectual basis. But since when do you have to be an expert on any given topic to have an opinion? I take it you deferred to the knowledge and experience of a guy like Cheney when he was pushing for the Iraq invasion? Oh right, you were sitting on the internet reading some reports about how what he said might not be the case and then you formed an opinion. Sounds familiar.

 

I agree with the general idea of this, too. Global warming exists, always has, just as the Earth goes through periods of cooling. Anyone outright denying that the Earth is currently on a warming trend is just being ignorant for one reason or another. That said, these cycles have been shown to happen both before and after human involvement...so color me skeptical as to how much we've contributed to this current warming trend. To clarify, do I believe that humans contributed to some extent? I'd say yes, but not to the extent others are trying to lay blame on us for. I think in some cases, our egos can outdo our actual abilities...and this is one of those cases as far as I'm concerned.

 

And no, I don't care if people agree with my opinion on this or not...that's why it's an opinion.

Edited March 9, 2011 by Y2HH

[BigSqwert]

And no, I don't care if people agree with my opinion on this or not...that's why it's an opinion.

You have terrible opinions.

[StrangeSox]

I don't disagree with anthropological global warming, please point to where I have said that.

 

This isn't about your personal beliefs. You keep conflating that.

 

My question, which I don't know the answer to, is the extent of it. Are we the only cause of the warming? Is it part of a general trend? I'm SKEPTICAL. I'm not a denier, I'm just not convinced. Sue me. I don't want the government to jump into yet another facet of my life and require me to spend more money when I don't believe the issue has been fully decided yet. Again, what a TERRIBLE position to hold.

 

But you don't base that opinion on knowledge of the situation. You don't believe the issue has been fully decided based on what, exactly? Why do you deny that there's strong evidence for humans being a rather large component of recent GW, which is something an overwhelming majority of anyone in relevant fields supports?

 

And my beef is when Al Gore makes a puff piece scaring liberals into believing the world was going to produce multiple Katrina hurricanes EVERY YEAR (hasn't happened yet, shocker) and that millions would die.

 

Al Gore is an irrelevant punching bag for the right. Nothing he says means a damn thing. I've never even seen his slide show movie.

 

You seem to think this small minority of conservatives are hell bent on what, removing science from our lives? Pushing their beliefs on everyone? I don't even know.

 

There's a sizable majority of conservatives hell bent on denying any science that goes against their ideology. That includes the foundations for modern biology as well as pretty much all of climate science.

 

And MOST people DON'T reject it. MOST people agree that something is going on. And that environmental thing is such bulls***. It's not 1960 anymore. In the last decade or so there's been a huge shift to understanding that what we do with our waste, our power plants, our everything takes it's toll. And most people have accepted change in their lives.

 

You may be speaking for yourself, but you are definitely not speaking for the majority of conservatives. A strong majority of conservatives deny that humans have any contribution to global warming. A large percentage denies that there even is warming. Only something like half of all Americans accept AGW.

 

And you're right, most don't reject it on an intellectual basis. But since when do you have to be an expert on any given topic to have an opinion?

 

You don't. But if you want to be counted as a "healthy skeptic" or "someone with a valid, informed opinion," you should be informed of at least the basics.

 

I take it you deferred to the knowledge and experience of a guy like Cheney when he was pushing for the Iraq invasion? Oh right, you were sitting on the internet reading some reports about how what he said might not be the case and then you formed an opinion. Sounds familiar.

 

Nope, I was sitting on the internet reading many reports showing exactly why they were FOS, fabricating and distorting data, lying to the American public and why there was no reason to invade. I get the benefit of being completely correct about that one.

Edited March 9, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Jenksismyhero]

You have terrible opinions.

 

Are you ever going to contribute to these discussions? Or are you just going to play the role of Jon Stewart trying to be funny but really just annoying everyone? Seriously, why even write this? Aren't you the one b****ing about trolls in the Dem thread?

[Y2HH]

You have terrible opinions.

 

At least my opinions are better than your opinions...

 

BTW, still winning.

Edited March 9, 2011 by Y2HH

[BigSqwert]

Are you ever going to contribute to these discussions? Or are you just going to play the role of Jon Stewart trying to be funny but really just annoying everyone? Seriously, why even write this? Aren't you the one b****ing about trolls in the Dem thread?

 

I happen to be friends with Y2HH. I'm not trolling him.

 

And always winning.

Edited March 9, 2011 by BigSqwert

[StrangeSox]

trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls...

[BigSqwert]

i keep seeing Watson lurking in here. Has he been banned from posting in this thread?

[Y2HH]

I happen to be friends with Y2HH. I'm not trolling him.

 

And always winning.

 

Last I checked you were NOT a member of Team Sheen, but Anti-Sheen...therefore you have never been winning, and will never win.

[BigSqwert]

Last I checked you were NOT a member of Team Sheen, but Anti-Sheen...therefore you have never been winning, and will never win.

[StrangeSox]

This thread is now winning.

[Balta1701]

There's one problem built in to the argument you guys are making on climate change, and there's a reason why we'd classify that as anti-scientific talk.

 

You're accepting some portion of the science...the fact that climate has changed in the past. Then you're using that as a motivation to ask "is it part of a general trend".

 

The thing you're missing is...this is a question that has been asked thousands of times in study after study over the past few decades. That's the science part...when you see a trend, you attempt to explain that trend. You're not asking a question that hasn't been addressed. In order to be able to continue asking that question....you have to ignore all the work that has been done which says "holy **** no".

[Balta1701]

i keep seeing Watson lurking in here. Has he been banned from posting in this thread?

I'm actually at the Lunar and PLanetary Science conference, so my posting has been a mite sparse.

[Jenksismyhero]

This isn't about your personal beliefs. You keep conflating that.

 

Why don't you agree with anthropological global warming? Most everything I've seen you post on it amounts to "AL GORE MONEY HOAX!", not any amount of healthy skepticism or questioning.

 

You asked what my opinion was, I gave it to you.

 

But you don't base that opinion on knowledge of the situation. You don't believe the issue has been fully decided based on what, exactly? Why do you deny that there's strong evidence for humans being a rather large component of recent GW, which is something an overwhelming majority of anyone in relevant fields supports?

 

How do you know what I've read and what I haven't read? You don't. You're assuming. And it's not been fully decided because I have yet to find a report entitled "HUMANS CAUSE EVERY BIT OF GLOBAL WARMING." Maybe it's out there, but I haven't seen it. I've seen people report that humans have played a significant part, but other people disagree with that. Since there's not a consensus, I don't believe the issue has been decided (of course your reply will be, well only the crap scientists disagree. I'm sure that's up for debate as well).

 

Al Gore is an irrelevant punching bag for the right. Nothing he says means a damn thing. I've never even seen his slide show movie.

 

We agree on something! Success!

 

 

There's a sizable majority of conservatives hell bent on denying any science that goes against their ideology. That includes the foundations for modern geology as well as pretty much all of climate science.

 

So far you've produced what, 4, maybe 5 proposed legislative changes in conservative states (which again i'd argue aren't even that bad). That's hardly a "sizable majority."

 

You may be speaking for yourself, but you are definitely not speaking for the majority of conservatives. A strong majority of conservatives deny that humans have any contribution to global warming. A large percentage denies that there even is warming. Only something like half of all Americans accept AGW.

 

If it's half then that's either every single conservative (clearly not true) or that also includes some democrats and independents. So clearly it's not a right-only belief.

 

[BigSqwert]

I'm actually at the Lunar and PLanetary Science conference, so my posting has been a mite sparse.

Elitist!

[Jenksismyhero]

There's one problem built in to the argument you guys are making on climate change, and there's a reason why we'd classify that as anti-scientific talk.

 

You're accepting some portion of the science...the fact that climate has changed in the past. Then you're using that as a motivation to ask "is it part of a general trend".

 

The thing you're missing is...this is a question that has been asked thousands of times in study after study over the past few decades. That's the science part...when you see a trend, you attempt to explain that trend. You're not asking a question that hasn't been addressed. In order to be able to continue asking that question....you have to ignore all the work that has been done which says "holy **** no".

 

But the question isn't "is the earth warming." It's "is the earth going to continue to rise to the point where we kill ourselves because of what we've caused." That's not accepting science for one purpose and discounting it for another.

[Balta1701]

But the question isn't "is the earth warming." It's "is the earth going to continue to rise to the point where we kill ourselves because of what we've caused." That's not accepting science for one purpose and discounting it for another.

Yes, it is...because when a change happens, like a sudden shift in climate...if you accept the principles of inductive reasoning/science, you accept that there must be a mechanism by which it happened, and that mechanism can be understood with sufficient data. You're not allowed to just hypothesize that a change is a natural trend that just happens unless you can explain why the trends happen.

 

Give you an example. We have evidence that we've gone through ~7 cycles of glacials/interglacials over the past 800,000 years. The step you guys are getting is accepting that, but not going farther. The next step in the science was to figure out how that happens...changes in the Earth's orbital parameters enhanced by atmospheric (CO2) feedbacks. We can finish the next step, and then make predictions about how things happen when we do large-scale experiments (like increasing atmospheric CO2 massively) on our own.

[StrangeSox]

How do you know what I've read and what I haven't read? You don't. You're assuming. And it's not been fully decided because I have yet to find a report entitled "HUMANS CAUSE EVERY BIT OF GLOBAL WARMING." Maybe it's out there, but I haven't seen it. I've seen people report that humans have played a significant part, but other people disagree with that. Since there's not a consensus, I don't believe the issue has been decided (of course your reply will be, well only the crap scientists disagree. I'm sure that's up for debate as well).

 

No, I'll direct you to the study out of UIC a year or two ago by Doran that showed just how strong the consensus is. This is back to the "teach the controversy" crap rhetoric of the creationist movement. There really isn't that much of a controversy in the field. There are disagreements and arguments and fights, but not really about whether we need to do something about AGW and fast.

 

 

 

 

 

So far you've produced what, 4, maybe 5 proposed legislative changes in conservative states (which again i'd argue aren't even that bad). That's hardly a "sizable majority."

 

I produced 4 changes within the past year that I got off of the first page of Panda's Thumb. And they're terrible, and they're anti-science. The lawmakers are supported by their conservative constituency. Creationist bills come up just about every year in several states across the country. Complete rejection of global warming as a "hoax" is strong among conservatives at both a state and national level.

 

Levels of support for evolution are lowest among conservatives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_supp...n#United_States

 

Levels of support for AGW are lowest among conservatives:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/282/global-war...s-and-solutions

 

If it's half then that's either every single conservative (clearly not true) or that also includes some democrats and independents. So clearly it's not a right-only belief.

 

Well, American politics are center-right. That means there's some conservative democrats. That puts those on the left in a decided minority. It's certainly not a liberal position to reject a large and growing body of climate science.

Edited March 9, 2011 by StrangeSox

[mr_genius]

i keep seeing Watson lurking in here. Has he been banned from posting in this thread?

 

i chipped one if his warlock fangs with violent torpedoes launches. he lives with the trolls now.

[Y2HH]

Yes, it is...because when a change happens, like a sudden shift in climate...if you accept the principles of inductive reasoning/science, you accept that there must be a mechanism by which it happened, and that mechanism can be understood with sufficient data. You're not allowed to just hypothesize that a change is a natural trend that just happens unless you can explain why the trends happen.

 

Give you an example. We have evidence that we've gone through ~7 cycles of glacials/interglacials over the past 800,000 years. The step you guys are getting is accepting that, but not going farther. The next step in the science was to figure out how that happens...changes in the Earth's orbital parameters enhanced by atmospheric (CO2) feedbacks. We can finish the next step, and then make predictions about how things happen when we do large-scale experiments (like increasing atmospheric CO2 massively) on our own.

 

I'm not even dismissing the fact that humans contribute, I just don't believe we contribute as much as many alarmists want us to believe/accept.

[Balta1701]

I'm not even dismissing the fact that humans contribute, I just don't believe we contribute as much as many alarmists want us to believe/accept.

The question in reply is...can you back that up with evidence?