Conservatives and climate change (a poll)

[Anonymous]

Climate change deniers are on the wrong side of history. And younger generations know it. This will affect elections.

67% of Gen Z and 71% of Millennials believe that the climate should be a top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The climate is always changing and on a much longer time scale than humans have been around to impact. Educate yourself on the Milankovitch cycles - https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/#:~:text=These%20cyclical%20orbital%20movements%2C%20which,and%20south%20of%20the%20equator)

You heard it here first summer 2023 temperatures for most if not all of the US will be the lowest on record.

The problem with your theory is that Milankovich cycles are a series of periodicities from roughly 90,000 to 400,000 years in length.

The carbon climate change problem is much, much faster than that, it began just 150 years ago, with the advent of the industrial age when we began digging and burning countless millions of tons of coal representing hundreds of millions of years worth of compressed, concentrated and accumulated fossil biomass.

Many different teams of scientists have modeled the contribution and impact of Milankovich cycles along with all of the other known contributors to climate change. Milankovich cycles DO NOT contribute any meaningful change to climate over the span of the last 150 years. Instead, again and again and again, the models and data all point to anthropogenic pollutants as a major contributor.

If you start with a model that says CO2 causes lots of warming, then yes the impact of Milankovitch cycles will be small. The sensitivity of the earth's temperature to CO2 levels is not well known, and the scientists' generally agreed upon range as seen in IPCC reports hasn't changed in about 40 years, from before there were IPCC reports. 1.5C-4.5C for doubling of CO2 levels. They narrowed it a bit recently, on both ends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I) I consider myself a (small c) conservative, and climate change is real and we need to do something. I think it needs to be local, national and international. I find it ridiculous that the GOP has turned its back on conservation.

+1000. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other laws intended to conserve and protect our environment and reduce pollution were passed with strong Republican backing, and the EPA was founded by a Republican President. But since then, the GOP has abandoned its values and principles. I was a Republican for 20 years but they became too radical and far right for me and sold out on too many of the values I hold dear.

These laws would not have passed if they knew the way anti-capitalist liberals would use the laws to enact regulations beyond what was intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:B? I think if we can have normal temps followed by an ice age then swing back to normal temps naturally, then things can swing the other way as well. I'm not convinced it's man made.

Yes they can swing the other way, but the idea that higher levels of CO2 will cause warming is pretty solid. It just might not be as much warming as scientists say, as they build certain assumptions into models about positive feedback from the warming caused by CO2, when the feedback could even be negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't get conservative skepticism that efforts to curtail climate change are useful/fruitful.

Look at what international efforts have done for air quality (which is drastically better than twenty years ago despite the recent attention on Canada's fires). Just google some charts. Or look at international efforts and the impact on ozone depletion.

Yes, sh*t can be done.

The efforts on ozone depletion exempted most countries, including China and India. If you did that with CO2, nothing would happen as Europe and US are about 30% of emissions, and scientists are calling for about a 90% cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The climate is always changing and on a much longer time scale than humans have been around to impact. Educate yourself on the Milankovitch cycles - https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/#:~:text=These%20cyclical%20orbital%20movements%2C%20which,and%20south%20of%20the%20equator)

You heard it here first summer 2023 temperatures for most if not all of the US will be the lowest on record.

I think it’s so adorable that conservatives always think it’s some ground breaking news that the earth’s climate has AlWaYs ChAnGeD. It wasn’t habitable by humans for much of that time.

And for you, dear sweet summer child. It’s just a cartoon so perhaps you’ll grasp its implications: https://xkcd.com/1732/

This is really well done. Thank you, PP.

Can a conservative comment on this?

I'll bite. The first thing that struck me is the smoothing. They are operating on larger time scales in the early part, so any jumps will be averaged out more, while recent temperatures with the solid black line is better known. They notes say they are using Shakun and Marcott. I don't recognize Shakun, but I remember there was a lot of objection to the methods used by Marcott at the time of publication. Search site:climateaudit.org Marcott and Shakun's name comes up in the results. You can look at that if you want to review more technical details. However, generally I think you get similar results in almost every reconstruction, but a little wavier with certain parts approaching modern temperatures, instead of a smooth growth.
People argue the Holocene was either a warmer time period or about the same temperature as now, as well as some other time periods, that are erased in this cartoon.

It says Medieval Warm Period was regional and not enough to affect global temperatures. This is disputed, and there is evidence of this warm period in many places.
There is rumors of an e-mail went out among IPCC from I think Jonathan Overpeck,'We have to erase the Medieval Warm Period.' There was a chart of global temperatures that appeared in an earlier IPCC report by Lamb that was inconvenient for the narrative, leading people to the conclusion that maybe this is just natural warming.
A counterargument that is used, is that if it were warmer in Medieval Times, that just makes global warming more of a problem, as it means temperatures are even more sensitive to forcing changes than scientists generally conclude.

Another detail is that most of the warming shown at the end is predicted, not actual. It has been 7 years since that chart, so maybe there would be a little more, but three or four of those color blocks would not appear on the actual temperature line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Climate change deniers are on the wrong side of history. And younger generations know it. This will affect elections.

67% of Gen Z and 71% of Millennials believe that the climate should be a top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/

This applied to other generations as well, then they got wiser. When I was in school, they fed us propaganda that skyscrapers would be underwater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anyone who thinks any of those things, OP. Granted, I don't know many American conservatives, but my conservative family in Europe, who votes for right-wing politicians, knows climate change is real, and takes action every day to mitigate it. Every day on the TV it's talked about seriously, with all sorts of ideas individuals can implement to do their part. Local governments are at the forefront of this fight, because they're dealing with wildfires and evacuations, bans on filling swimming pools, and even in some places a total moratorium on new construction because there's not enough water to support more residents, and, a ban on agricultural watering, which is a huge deal and will change what type of crops farmers grow (and what type of animal herds they choose to invest in). As a child growing up in Europe, we were taught about climate change in grade school, and read books explaining it. It's not a political controversy in any of the European countries I've lived in.

You don’t know any American right wingers? What delightful and peaceful bubble do you live in? Also how did you wander onto an American site and not understand that cons here absolutely believe the way OP implies?

I am conservative and none of the listed in OP is applicable to me or my family. I think you and OP getting your idea of conservatives from the media and don't know any of them in real life.

I think OP left out one:
"Climate change is/is not real, BUT don't you dare ban my gas stove, my internal combustion automobile, or ruin the economy." Doesn't matter what is happening to the climate.

PP I'm surprised, are you saying the conservatives you know do believe climate change is real, that the US must take action, commit to international climate agreements? What do the ones you know think? I'm from an area that was reliably democratic for decades, became a blue dog dem area starting in the 90s, went full tea party and then Trump in the last 15 years. I know those people. They do not believe in climate change, they do not want anything to happen that will disrupt how they live, and they totally don't want foreign governments having anything to say in what we do.

Ethanol is about Iowa and ArchesDanielsMidland. No the liberal thing is to use food as biofuel. Chopping down and sending to Europe to fill their renewable energy mandates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think OP left out one:
"Climate change is/is not real, BUT don't you dare ban my gas stove, my internal combustion automobile, or ruin the economy." Doesn't matter what is happening to the climate.

I thought liberals were claiming it was a Fox News myth that the government and liberals were in favor of banning gas stoves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All hail the experts! I can't wait to shiver in my dark hovel and wait for my daily rations of crickets.

They consider SnowPiercer a goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I) I consider myself a (small c) conservative, and climate change is real and we need to do something. I think it needs to be local, national and international. I find it ridiculous that the GOP has turned its back on conservation.

+1000. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other laws intended to conserve and protect our environment and reduce pollution were passed with strong Republican backing, and the EPA was founded by a Republican President. But since then, the GOP has abandoned its values and principles. I was a Republican for 20 years but they became too radical and far right for me and sold out on too many of the values I hold dear.

These laws would not have passed if they knew the way anti-capitalist liberals would use the laws to enact regulations beyond what was intended.

Blah blah blah blah …. too late, you lost, the laws now stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The climate is always changing and on a much longer time scale than humans have been around to impact. Educate yourself on the Milankovitch cycles - https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/#:~:text=These%20cyclical%20orbital%20movements%2C%20which,and%20south%20of%20the%20equator)

You heard it here first summer 2023 temperatures for most if not all of the US will be the lowest on record.

I think it’s so adorable that conservatives always think it’s some ground breaking news that the earth’s climate has AlWaYs ChAnGeD. It wasn’t habitable by humans for much of that time.

And for you, dear sweet summer child. It’s just a cartoon so perhaps you’ll grasp its implications: https://xkcd.com/1732/

This is really well done. Thank you, PP.

Can a conservative comment on this?

I'll bite. The first thing that struck me is the smoothing. They are operating on larger time scales in the early part, so any jumps will be averaged out more, while recent temperatures with the solid black line is better known. They notes say they are using Shakun and Marcott. I don't recognize Shakun, but I remember there was a lot of objection to the methods used by Marcott at the time of publication. Search site:climateaudit.org Marcott and Shakun's name comes up in the results. You can look at that if you want to review more technical details. However, generally I think you get similar results in almost every reconstruction, but a little wavier with certain parts approaching modern temperatures, instead of a smooth growth.
People argue the Holocene was either a warmer time period or about the same temperature as now, as well as some other time periods, that are erased in this cartoon.

It says Medieval Warm Period was regional and not enough to affect global temperatures. This is disputed, and there is evidence of this warm period in many places.
There is rumors of an e-mail went out among IPCC from I think Jonathan Overpeck,'We have to erase the Medieval Warm Period.' There was a chart of global temperatures that appeared in an earlier IPCC report by Lamb that was inconvenient for the narrative, leading people to the conclusion that maybe this is just natural warming.
A counterargument that is used, is that if it were warmer in Medieval Times, that just makes global warming more of a problem, as it means temperatures are even more sensitive to forcing changes than scientists generally conclude.

Another detail is that most of the warming shown at the end is predicted, not actual. It has been 7 years since that chart, so maybe there would be a little more, but three or four of those color blocks would not appear on the actual temperature line.

This is probably the best link to Marcott objections. It's not clear if the cartoonists used Marcott for the last portion of the chart, but if they did the whole cartoon is fatally flawed given the update by Marcott where they said the 20th century portion is not statistically robust.
https://climateaudit.org/2013/03/31/the-marcott-filibuster/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP... For those conservatives on this thread why say "no, we don't believe in any of those narratives that the OP posted and neither do my conservative friends, we believe it's real and that something should be done about it" then my question to you would be "okay then why do you keep electing politicians who peddle those narratives, why do you keep supporting conservative media that peddles those narratives?"

we don’t

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
H. Don't talk to me about climate change or the environment until every politician and elite like Bill Gates stops using private jets and lives according to what environmentalists want.

Interesting you bring up Bill Gates. He would agree with some of the positions you state I think.
He has said in the past that it is foolish to pursue small initiatives to combat global warming if the problem calls for a big solution.

He was looking at some plankton in the ocean that could either reflect sunlight or eat CO2 or something like that, along with developing cleaner energy.
He was against going after smaller 10-30% cuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Climate change deniers are on the wrong side of history. And younger generations know it. This will affect elections.

67% of Gen Z and 71% of Millennials believe that the climate should be a top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/

Yes they will have to move polling stations to high ground as a result of global warming.

Those in college now and just graduating are learning the lessons of high inflation, uncontrollable crime in the cities and a failure to protect the border. They will join the older and wiser Americans in voting for moderate and conservative candidates in 24. The pendulum has swung too far and is headed back to the center right.