Very interesting, and disappointing, Fred.
But, I believe it.

I've been writing about climate change on various sites for quite some time. I can tell you that, most of the time, if you post an article that cites scietific data, the reaction that you will get is one based in politics.
It's an uphill struggle just to get folks to focus on the data.

I've also written about what I would call a "Binary Worldview". This is a worldview in which a person sees virtually everything as being in either the conservative bucket or the liberal bucket. 
So, if you believe in climate change, this person will decide that you are a far left liberal who french kisses Nancy Pelosi and hates God. They cannot see that people are more complex than that, and that every issue does not neatly fit into one bucket or another.

The accelerated climate change caused by industrial activity is a scientific issue.
What, if anything can or should be done about it will involve political considerations.
But to deny the science because you don't like the politics puts the cart before the horse.

Last edited by Goose (1/30/2015 12:06 pm)

See, that is the point.  Unfortunately, the term 'global warming' has been used and been mis-interpreted by many along with confusing short term weather patterns with long term climate change.  Those who cash in the most from the use of petro-chemicals have a real interest in poo-pooing climate change and they've got wads of money to make sure the issue remains muddied.

As I said before, I'm going to side with science on this one.

I thought that they were using old cores of arctic ice to get pretty clear data on CO2 levels going way back.

And yet, we have tens of thousands of scientists studying this who have concluded that the climate is changing rapidly, and that - with great confidence - the warming is driven by human activity,

A few points. I'm afraid that I've come up short in my moderator duties, and let things drift from Fred's original topic starter. Fred posted a Scientific American article that showed:

On controversial topics such as climate change, a significant number of Americans do not use science to inform their views. Instead, they use political orientation and ideology, which are reflected in their level of education, to decide whether humans are driving planetary warming.

I think we might all agree that this is not good.

Secondly, I would ask you to look at an article in the Economy section about a Cargill executive. He doesn't spend much time agonizing about how much man's activities are contributing to a changing the climate.. He merely acknowledges that we are in a period of rapid change that is going to have consequences, and he intends for his industry to be ready for that.
Perhaps we should take a page from that argument, and start doing things rather than having the debate itself become an excuse for inaction.
 

Last edited by Goose (2/03/2015 5:51 am)