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Absolutely it's more about politics than science. What I don't understand is that why politics got so injected so fiercely into the debate. Because of all the a
by pierrefar 17y ago
Absolutely it's more about politics than science. What I don't understand is that why politics got so injected so fiercely into the debate. Because of all the anti-climate change efforts, the climate change case actually got better as scientists did what they do best: they found more evidence to settle the points of contention raised by the skeptics.
Are the skeptics listening to this new evidence objectively? All I hear from them is "Ah yes, that may be so, but...".
- fnid 17y agoPolitics got injected because a lot of money is being spent on climate change research, clean energy, carbon credits, etc. Kyoto was all politics. A lot of money stands to be made or lost on climate change issues. You think Al Gore is doing what he is doing for free?
- krschultz 17y agoIt is extremely easy to see how politics got injected into the debate. There was a move from "these are our findings" to "lets try and stop global warming". The second step requires government action. Hence, politics. If the climate change scientists had stayed in the "lets refine our findings" area then it would never be political. As soon as you say "lets get the government to do something about this", it is political. There will always be people who question why you should expand government. And it is up to the people trying to expand the government to clearly show WHY we need to. What are you expecting? Some people show up with their computer models and say LOOK, WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING, and no one would object? No one would look at it critically? If the science was so indisputable then the bill would be passed, just like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts were when they showed real science on pollutants.
- philwelch 17y agoYou have a lot more faith than I do in the scientific literacy of our political system. Before climate change became such a current issue, there was serious controversy about whether or not we should teach schoolchildren about evolution.
- randallsquared 17y agoWhat I don't understand is that why politics got so injected so fiercely into the debate. Because it was perceived as an unassailable reason for more lawmaking and regulation, which is what politicians do, even (hypothetically) politicians with the purest motives. Are the skeptics listening to this new evidence objectively? All I hear from them is "Ah yes, that may be so, but...". I think most skeptics have moved from "what global warming?" to the more defensible "there's been global warming, but less than at other times in the historical and (especially) geological past, and starting well before the 20th century CO2 output increases, so the cause is unlikely to be primarily human industry". This is a position, however, which is hard to generate soundbites for, so they've taken a massive hit in the public perception department, as it's hard to argue their position at less than essay length, and book length is better.
- youngian 17y agoI think you've made the mistake of only spending time with the intelligent skeptics. I regretfully inform you they are far from the majority.
- InclinedPlane 17y agoI don't see how you can make the claim that the "climate change case actually got better". Are you familiar with the busting of the hockey stick, for example? A lot of AGW models are utterly dependent on that piece of fiction. Yet despite it being revealed to be a fabrication based on a tiny subset of cherry picked data, nobody in the AGW community seems to care, nor have they spent the time to reformulate their models that were dependent on that data.
- duncanj 17y agoI think you've cherry-picked that belief. The discussion I have seen has convinced me that the "hockey-stick busted" thing is a red herring.