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On July 14 an unusual video popped up on YouTube in which well-recognized Republicans outline the danger of climate change. (Still fewer than 1000 hits.) The video was posted by The Partnership for Responsible Growth.
Today (July 20), The Guardian carries an article explaining that the Partnership for Responsible Growth and other groups have launched campaigns to urge Republicans and Rupert Murdoch's media empire to accept climate change.
Conservative and free-market groups have staged a rearguard effort to get the Republican party to accept the dangers of climate change, criticizing climate denialism within the GOP and Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
Climate change, and other environmental concerns, are unlikely to receive much, if any, attention during the Republican convention in Cleveland this week. This is despite a slew of temperature records being broken -- June was the 14th consecutive month of record heat around the world -- and extreme examples of Arctic ice decline and drought and wildfires in the US west.
But the Republican gathering has been targeted by conservative voices calling for climate science to be accepted and for national parks to be preserved, rather than opened up for drilling and other development.
A group called the Partnership for Responsible Growth has launched a TV advertisement campaign aimed squarely at conservatives, reminding them of previous Republican acceptance of climate science. The ad, which will run on Fox News throughout the GOP convention in Cleveland this week, shows clips of presidents George W Bush and George HW Bush, as well as former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, outlining the dangers of climate change.
[...] The Partnership for Responsible Growth calls itself a free-market group that supports putting a price on carbon. Its advisory council includes Ted Roosevelt IV, managing director of investment banking at Barclays Capital, former oil executive William Nitze and retired rear admiral David Titley.
[Continues...]
The official Republican platform explicitly rejects the idea of a "carbon tax" and commits the party to withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord, which was signed by 195 nations in December. The platform also opposes the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions and rejects the idea that species including gray wolves and sage grouse should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Nan Hayworth, a former Republican congresswoman and head of the GOP-aligned ConservAmerica group, said many Republicans still don't accept mainstream climate science.
"The default position should really be that even if you are skeptical about the climate change, let's minimize our carbon footprint and our pollution anyway," she said.
Speaking about the problems of getting the Republican politicians to bend on climate issues, she says:
Hayworth said she will continue to battle against the "headwinds" within the party, but insisted that many Republicans care about the environment, only to be stymied by a polarized political system.
"My former colleagues understand the importance of protecting the environment, but one of the problems is the political opposition from environmental groups and the left is so extreme in some cases, even when they try to move towards environmental points of view they get no credit for it politically," she said. "You can't be too far behind or ahead of your district."
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday July 22 2016, @12:09AM
Well you're obviously not a loon, and I'm not the religious type you keep thinking of. The industries in the US still pollute, and they try very hard to get rid of all the environmental regulations. They actively subvert and delay progress for profit. You are still viewing things through a business perspective of cost and profit. Money is a human construct, wholly artificial. The planet is quite real, is being trashed by us, and you are using ridiculous arguments just to try and win your point.
The fact that you really think reusable containers would be more environmentally polluting is just amazing. Then you add sterilization? You don't sterilize disposable containers, they go in the landfill. Some small fraction can be recycled. Human health benefit to using disposable packaging... I don't think you're a shill but that line of reasoning is sure suspicious.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 22 2016, @04:22PM
The industries in the US still pollute, and they try very hard to get rid of all the environmental regulations. They actively subvert and delay progress for profit.
So what? I notice their "trying very hard" hasn't amounted to much. Those environmental regulations are still there.
And I doubt anyone is advocating that we do something destructive to prevent a business from making a buck. I'm not going to burn a forest down just so an evil lumber company can't cut them down instead.
You are still viewing things through a business perspective of cost and profit.
I believe we call that projection. I never did that. Meanwhile you've been ranting for the past few posts about businesses and profits. I think we see here who really is viewing things through an imaginary "business perspective". I do bring an economics sensibility, but that's only natural. One can't speak of these things rationally without introducing economics.
The fact that you really think reusable containers would be more environmentally polluting is just amazing.
How often do reusable containers actually get reused? They consume more resources than disposable containers. And I belief here the dirty secret is that they routinely don't get reused often enough to justify their use. If a reusable container gets reused zero times before it is thrown away, then well, that's not an improvement. And I think for a lot of uses (shopping bags, water bottles, takeout food containers, etc) one is more likely to see zero uses than enough uses for the item to break even in the environmental department before it is thrown away.
Further, people then have to store and keep track of that crap. There has to be infrastructure in place for containers that go back to the producer, etc.
Then there's the matter of exaggerating the benefits of the reuse. A particularly notorious example is baby diapers. Washing cloth diapers (which often are also less capable at the job than the disposable diapers) takes considerable energy to clean and creates a considerable waste stream of sewage. While diapers that go in landfills don't go anywhere. But back in the 80s, the disposable diaper was spun as a vile evil, wasting much more resources. They just chose to ignore the resources used by the other choice.
Then there is the public health issue. If, for example, soup cans are being recycled, then that's a potential path for pathogens to get into new food that doesn't exist with cans made from scratch. And some cellular organisms are very resistant to the usual tools of sterilization. That's why hospitals, for a key example, use disposable equipment so much. Reusable diapers are another example of a sanitation problem.
Money is a human construct, wholly artificial.
I think this is your religion talking again. Money isn't about money. It's about representing things we value. Wholly artificially representing what we value with money doesn't change that we value things, some more than others.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday July 22 2016, @07:38PM
You lack perspective and only view your immediate surroundings and timeline.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 22 2016, @09:39PM
You lack perspective and only view your immediate surroundings and timeline.
And you are projecting. I find it interesting how often advice is best followed by the one who gives it. Besides my "immediate surroundings and timeline" and my "perspective" are apparently more ample than yours. I've actually run into things that don't go like the narrative.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday July 23 2016, @04:36AM
Do you find a mirror in my words?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 23 2016, @01:30PM
Disposable containers in particular have some powerful environmental advantages which are routinely ignored. First, since they are disposable, they don't need to be cleaned or stored after use. A key problem with environmentalist thought in this area is that the cost of human time and effort is heavily discounted while the cost of incredibly cheap materials is grossly exaggerated. In the real world though, a plastic bag is not worth five minutes of my time even counting the trivial additional cost of landfill storage of that bag.
Now let's look at your complaints about the business point of view. For example, the point of regulation and the rest of the law is not to make sure businesses or anyone else (you for example) have the right outlook or motives. It's to prevent or punish harmful behavior. Similarly, while businesses have the ability to subvert law or scientific inquiry, they are far from unique in this power. Environmental groups and government agencies, to name a couple of notable examples in the climate change debate also have this power. I think it foolish to obsess over business motives and the like while ignoring other powerful players with similar capabilities (and IMHO actual history of distorting law and scientific inquiry to their own ends).
And your lecturing about profit and money is quite clueless. The artificiality of money in no way diminishes its immense utility. And profit is a demonstration that a human activity generates more than it consumes (which is a thing we should strive for in all our endeavors where we care about the outcome).
As I noted in the very beginning, I find it telling that all these advocates for climate change mitigation can't provide evidence (and often can't coherently argue at all) that doing this mitigation effort is better than doing nothing at all. There is a powerful negative feedback of increasing poverty increasing environmental harms such as pollution and habitat destruction as well as being the primary contributor to overpopulation (poor people are more fertile than wealthy people). And as I noted earlier in the thread, climate change mitigation efforts have shown a history of being both costly and ineffective. As a result, I give very short shrift to people who try to tell me what to think when they clearly don't have a clue about what they're talking about.
And ultimately, that's why your argument has been pointless. You don't understand the matter well enough to even understand my argument much less convince me of anything. Abstract assertion is pointless when it is not hard to find real world counterexamples.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:42PM
It just became obvious to me that we were just repeating our points. In my opinion you believe facts which I believe are false, and vice versa. You keep insinuating that I have a cult-like religious belief system going on because that's what you've come to believe after seeing repeated stories about environmental nut jobs. So I abandoned the discussion and pointed out that in my opinion you are mirroring the same traits you accuse me of. We believe different things and to possibly sort this out would be a day long ordeal for each of us to find relevant studies and facts.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 23 2016, @08:46PM
1) Confidence not backed by evidence. There's your tornado analogy:
When I read comments like khallow's and yours I can't quite fathom your logic. It is like watching someone sitting on their porch while a tornado is coming, and their reasoning is "well, you can't say for sure that its gonna pass through here" when all the trackiers shows the tornado to be heading directly for you...
Before that paragraph, you were complaining that it was unfair that straw men were demanding a precise date for the next tipping point. You didn't know when the next tipping point would be, but you had a vague feeling it was Real Soon Now.
Here's another example:
The planet is quite real, is being trashed by us, and you are using ridiculous arguments just to try and win your point.
2) Thinking in absolute terms. Coal power is heavily polluting. Eat less meat. Disposable containers are bad.
3) I want to bring once again your attention to the above quote about "I can't quite fathom your logic". Elsewhere you don't have this problem and repeatedly tell other people what they're thinking or what life experiences they have. In your previous post, you wrote:
You keep insinuating that I have a cult-like religious belief system going on because that's what you've come to believe after seeing repeated stories about environmental nut jobs.
or earlier:
You are still viewing things through a business perspective of cost and profit.
4) Disagreement is due to a failing on the part of other parties.
You lack perspective and only view your immediate surroundings and timeline.
or
and pointed out that in my opinion you are mirroring the same traits you accuse me of.
or
and as for short sighted obsessiveness that is the main problem I see with those who blanket deny/push back against climate change.
5) Not really trying to persuade anyone. You make statements and then more statements. There is no evidence of listening which is key, if you're actually trying to persuade someone (say a reader passing by). It's basic rhetoric that you should adapt your argument to what you hear in response. Not merely say stuff.
Originally I was going to complain that you were dropping the discussion like it never happened (which is a notorious closing behavior that some evangelical Christians do when a conversion attempt fails badly), but you did fight the good fight there. So you exhibit some non-cult-like behavior.
We believe different things and to possibly sort this out would be a day long ordeal for each of us to find relevant studies and facts.
Sorry, I think it'd take longer than that. I've been asked before what it would take to convince me that urgent action is required on global warming, ocean acidification, etc and the answer is "decades". It requires evidence that can't be fabricated and the only source I think that qualifies is the future. I have independent ability to evaluate large changes in global climate. And I don't trust the adversarial advocacy that a lot of researchers and policy makers have here or the control they have over ownership and interpretation of paleoclimate data.
A key problem for me is that advocacy for the global warming theory is a blatant case of marketing. There's too much evidence that even scientists will say what it takes to close the sale. For example, the "hockey stick" came out when there was a crisis due to the possibility that past warming may have been greater than the present (and not due to human activity of course, such as the Medieval Warm Period, which would indicate among other things that variation of solar output and natural climate dynamics were understated). The hockey stick portray that past warming as being a local affair, using some deeply flawed statistical techniques to do so. Then when the statistical flaws showed up, new studies immediately sprung which supposedly didn't have those statistical flaws, but came up with the same, desired outcome - a fairly flat temperature curve for the past couple thousand years. Right.
Similar gimmicks happened when the need to show the urgency of global warming. This was twofold. First, it had to be shown that global warming caused harm now. Extreme weather proved to be ideal, not only providing such a rhetorical demonstration, but also allowing the media to talk about any weird weather of the day as if it were caused by climate change. Second, it had to be shown that permanent harm could happen, if action wasn't taken. Thus, tipping points are the other major factor in portraying the need for urgency. An assertion that could be true right now, but couldn't be falsified for decades is an ideal propaganda tool for scaring the masses.
A final gimmick I want to point out is the recurring tactic of exaggerating the harm of global warming (oh dear, you might have to move some time in the next century!) while downplaying the costs of mitigation strategies (Germany has doubled the cost of its electricity while trying to fight global warming, but I'm sure if enough of us drink the kool aid, that won't happen for us).
I portray this conspiracy theory-style, but it could just be an organic process like water flowing downhill with mostly earnest advocates cutting a few ethical corners in order to save the world and a variety of businesses (including some surprising ones like big oil companies) jumping on the band wagon for profit.
My view is that climate change has all the hallmarks of being a scam whether intentional or not. I'm sure it exists and there may well be some significant near future harm happening. But the effects and harm have been routinely and frequently exaggerated. It is to the point that I can tell when listening to certain sorts of stories (eg, the recent story [soylentnews.org] about almost all of the Great Barrier Reef dying, which turned out to be a ludicrous exaggeration [theaustralian.com.au]) that they are bogus.
Given the lack of demonstration for the need for urgency, I'm just going to wait and see. I think that's most reasonable approach given the mess presently.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:02PM
And there's the rub. My opinion comes from the majority of scientific studies, yours comes from studies backed by the energy industry. As I said, we have different beliefs. None of the studies can guarantee the outcomes, so we're left to pick and choose. The urgency has been stated by the majority of scientists studying these problems, the lack of urgency is promoted by the energy industry. It is clear which side of the debate is "conspiracy style", and in my opinion you just lack the perspective to understand why the urgency is needed now and not when the changes impact your daily life.
PS: It's not about you having to move unless you live in a low elevation coastal area. In fact, some areas will actually benefit from climate change.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:11AM
yours comes from studies backed by the energy industry
What studies? It is notable how absent the energy industry is from this discussion.
The urgency has been stated by the majority of scientists studying these problems
And those scientists have a large conflict of interest where their funding is dependent on how pressing they can make climate change appear to be.
But we don't need to speak of such vague things when we can simply note that there is no smoking gun research out there. If there really was research that definitely showed humanity was deeply threatened by human-caused climate change, we would see it broadcast far and wide, such as the Cook et al "97% consensus" paper was broadcast in 2013. There is an enormous propaganda apparatus just waiting for the right research. The fact that it's still bloviating about consensus and other fallacies rather than hard evidence is a strong indication to me that the issue is overblown.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:23AM
As I said we have different opinions. I've outlined my position and you've outlined yours, time to move on.
~Tilting at windmills~