They object to the word 'mankind,' preferring 'humankind.'

Obviously!

Wow. I thought the global warming response was stupid, but unsurprising. You can "almost forgive them" for believing you and I want people to die to score political points? You're more generous, or something, than I.

The key phrase there is "the primary cause." Change that to "a contributing factor" and you'd have seen those numbers change.

They just shouldn't be in charge of anything.Funny how they will drain the U.S. Bank on fighting terror But anything else that might kill Americans just isn't worth the time.

26% response for 8 very simple, unstrenous questions that hardly cover the range.

Wonder what a really revealing poll would have uncovered.

Why are there two "No" responses under question 4, one showing 100 percent of responses and the other ninety?

And yes, I agree that their response to question 2 is frankly unhinged. However, note that the question was specifically about members of Congress, not "you and me." But that just makes it more delusional since Congressional Democrats have been far more cautious than the "nutroots."

The other question that shows definitely signs of delusion is the one about Bush's foreign policy: 56% give him an "A or B?" The mind boggles.

Another interesting response is that a sizable majority strongly believe that Hillary will be the strongest challenger to the Republican candidate in 2008.

Neither result surprises me. The American right wing is the single greatest example of the concept of "Groupthink" in the history of the human race. For people whose ideology spouts so much nonsense about freedom and individual responsibility, it's like they have a Hive Mind.

But not one single person in the survey thinks humans are the primary cause of global warming? Not one?

For good reason. Some scientists have persuavely argued humans are NOT the primary cause of global warming. This is explained in Conservapedia.

Link
"There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming." Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasnt a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earths distance history.. ""

And even of these people, only 56% think that Bush deserves an A or a B on foreign policy!

By the way, the graphic grab is screwed up: I'm seeing a stray

No (56) -- 90%

that goes with the previous question.

Your weakness, and ours, is having a broad perspective, and thinking "gee, we impute nasty motives onto conservatives sometimes." It's true. But conservatives don't waste time returning the favor. They are busy being completely unhinged, and while we're considering out shared humanity and failings, they are putting a freaking noose around our necks. Sad but true. We've got to get togher.

Oh please, your grrlfriend Althouse participates in all this crap. Why didn't she like Kerry? Or any of the current candidates? Why is she pro-Giuliani? Because she thinks Dems can't keep us safe.

Look at her nasty smear of Pelosi and the Jet and her refusal to acknowledge facts that demonstrate Althouse's version of events was just plain wrong.

Her commenters are out of LGF and constantly mistate facts and she does nothing to correct them.

Here is one example of what her typical commenter thinks of as an alternative news source and how they got the stories correct

reality check: "Linking to other websites does not an alternative news source make."

Whether or not it's journalism it's certainly an alternative news source. Take the Swiftboat Veterans scandal: this pretty much destroyed the Kerry campaign, but it couldn't have happened without news promulgated by blogs.

Recall that blogs were new and the MSM was riding high. This was at a time when Kerry's popularity was rising, Bush's poll numbers were about as low as they are now, and the media was in complete control of the news cycle. Evan Thomas of Newsweek confidently promised mainstream media support was worth an extra 15 points to Kerry, which at that time would've made him untouchable.

Around that time the Swiftboat Vets appeared, and of course the press ignored them ... until the Congressional Record, researched by bloggers, proved the Vets were right about the "Christmas in Cambodia" scandal. The lightning bolt was Glenn Reynolds' digital picture of the relevant pages of the Congressional Record posted on his blog.

If the right-wing fact-checking machine isn't an alternative media they are at the very least newsmakers.
Since the Swift Boat scandal blogs have been riding point on one important story after another. College campus speech codes, violent peace protesters, Duke Lacrosse, the new anti-Semitism of the left, Ward Churchill, Bellesailles' made-up anti-gun research, the real Cindy Sheehan, Muslim cartoon riots, and one astroturfing scandal after another from "perennial man on the street" Greg Packer to the sinister sophistication of the Pew Charitable Trust campaign finance reform lobby.

There is no reason for your grrlfriend Althouse to be shocked by this news. In fact, I am almost certain she is using this report to get an increase in her advertising rates.

Why is this such a surprise. These are the same people who think the earth is flat, I mean, 6000 years old.

They are fundamentally detached from reality.

When they adopted an ideological rather than fact based reality, it was just a matter of time until they dove-off the freakin deep-end!

More results from the poll:

One in three gave Bush an "A" in foreign policy, almost 70% gave him a passing grade, and nine in ten believe that evil unicorns are responsible for so many of them not having any girlfriends.

I would have LOVED to see the answer to the question: "Do you believe we found WMD's in Iraq?" Who wants to bet that over 80% would respond in the affirmative despite our own search teams saying otherwise.

As Kevin said: "unhinged."

Via Ann Althouse, who apparently belongs to the loony bin crowd more closely than me...

Fixed it for you.

Seriously, Kevin, why do you pay any attention at all to what Althouse has to say? What gives?

HA HA HA! Thanks Al for siting Conservapedaphelia. I had the pleasure of reading their entry on Unicorns last week. You should seriously check that out. They aren't quite sure if it is some kinda funny dinosaur or what, but know that they exist because of bilbical references, and are sure that they survived the Flood.

I wonder how many warming cycles their climate source thinks happened. If there is an 800 year CO2 lag and creation is 6000 years old, not a lot of room for a lot of cycles.

yep. Unhinged.

I'm sure we lefties impute lots of pernicious motives to conservatives too.

Yes, but in our case the facts provide evidence of the truth of such pernicious motives. In their case, not so much.

Really, this tendency towards false equivalence is becoming quite maddening. There aren't always two sides to every story.

Most of these people are authoritarians, not conservatives. They have allegiance to whatever their leaders say or whatever their orthodoxy establishes. If the orthodox says markets never fail, externalities don’t matter, and capitalism always produces prosperity any evidence to the contrary is wrong. End of story. The scientists are just another corrupt faction trying to bring down the cherished truth.

Some of them are amoral social dominants. The only thing that concerns them is power (often taking the form of a little cash). They don’t give a damn if the planet is warming and if people suffer as a consequence. They will get their power even if it drives the whole of civilization over the cliff. It is all survival of the fittest and as the fittest they survive. The rest are suckers.

It gets interesting when the authoritarians are led by the amoral Machiavellians. The Machiavellians don’t care for the orthodoxies for it is they that make them. They know the sheep and position themselves as the champions of the cause and get the power they desire.

"see us lose in Iraq"
Wow....a loaded, totally ambiguous question:
1) What would constitute winning? What would constitute "losing"? Winning: coming home bedecked with all those flowers Feith told us they would shower us with, with boxes of Middle Eastern pastries pressed on us by the grateful, liberated citizens of Iraq? Ummmm...probably not. Ummm...getting out 90% of our people alive, leaving untold amounts of material, to say nothing of the Emerald City behind. Yeah.
Losing: Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhhh....doing a last ditch retreat to Basra and losing half of people, tanks, helicopter, some time around 2012, having expended 6 trillion dollars and 10,000 lives.
2) Define "us": Is this our nation....or just the poor benighted conservatives, so unfairly assaulted and battered by reality ('It's UNFAIR, we had the best and the brightest and the most doctrinnaire, how dare the world deal us snake-eyes). IN the case of us=the nation, does everybody get a vote on determining what contitutes victory so we can declare it and get the Hell out? In the case of us=neo-conservatives, I'm perfectly happy letting them continue the fight...paid out of their own personal pockets and fought with their own and their own childrens' bodies.

Whew! Did these people ever attend public school? One weekend on the playground would have straightened them out and saved everybody a mort of grief...........

I'm sorry, but I don't ever remember signing up to waste untold lives and treasure on this unbounded (that is having no bounds) lunacy. We DO need some definitions here. Or perhaps the right would like to own up to being devotees of Kali and Shiva?

Amen, Bellumregio. Stefan too.

how about this: the righties want to lose the war so they can blame the lefties for the loss and thereby score politically? the war was all a rovian scam. hmmm. come to think about it, that makes about as much sense as the reasons the administration put forth.

What is the other 90%? I can't seem to load the source site.

Anyhow... If CO2 sometimes follows Temperature, but Temperature always CO2... Then it logically follows that if CO2 increases, Tepurature will - but that Tempurature can also be raised by other things.

Nowhere in the Earth's history has CO2 raised without being coincided by Temperature raising. Also, CO2 has never been at the rate it is now, while Temperature has been higher.

...And we can prove CO2 increases Temperature retention in the lab. That's a fact, you know, the weak observables that science stitches together.

The war?

The war that wasn't winable - look, we've 'won' the war already. Anything else... What's winning?

The Right has started a war without a 'win' solution. They've executed the war in a way that couldn't win. And now they're blaming us for not winning the war!

'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?'

Sheesh.

Reading Robert Altemeyer:
The right-wing authoritarian's image of themselves as the good people leaves no room for believing they are cold-blooded, ruthless, immoral manipulators after power at almost any cost. So social dominators might incite authoritarian followers to commit a hate crime, but the dominators and followers probably launch the attack for different reasons: the dominator out of meanness, as an act of intimidation and control; the follower out of fear and self-righteousness in the name of authority.

…This is now called the “lethal union� in this field of research. When social dominators are in the driver’s seat, and right-wing authoritarians stand at their beck and call, unethical things appear much more likely to happen. True, sufficiently skilled social dominators served by dedicated followers can make the trains run on time. But you have to worry about what the trains may be hauling when dominators call the shots and high RWAs do the shooting. The trains may be loaded with people crammed into boxcars heading for death camps.

As though this site suffers from a dearth of unhinged lefty commentary.

As Colbert has noted, "the facts themselves have a liberal bias." The conservative blogger response is simply a reasonable reaction to those biased facts.

Check: The second 'No' is from the prior question:

3) Do you believe that the wall on the border will ever actually be completed?

Yes (6) -- 10%
No (56) -- 90%

Well, six are clearly nuts. First I had to think 'what wall?' then I remember they wanted a wall on our border. Nevermind it's open wilderness. As if there aren't animals that migrate across is... As if it isn't two thousand miles of rough country... As if...

Anyhow, that's Kevin's booboo.

Oh, yes, the Democratic Party in Washington would just love to see something happen in Iraq that would be perceived as a success.

That's why they're working full-time to sabotage it, but trying not to leave any of their own fingerprints on it.

If all the polls say that America would cheer anyone who stopped this war right now, what are they so afraid of?

The indignant protests here over something everybody can see with their own eyes makes it even funnier.

I would have LOVED to see the answer to the question: "Do you believe we found WMD's in Iraq?" Who wants to bet that over 80% would respond in the affirmative despite our own search teams saying otherwise.

I'd like to have seen a few other questions, too. As a follow-up on "Do you think the surge should go forward?" (97% yes), "Do you think that the surge will actually work?" As a general science question, "Do you think that there are any scientific alternatives to evolution?" As a comparative political question, "Among all the Presidents, where do you rank George W. Bush?"

I'm with Gregory. Ann Althouse is a tiresome combination of viciousness and unswayable complacency, and I won't be clicking any links that take me to her site. And I am surprised by those results -- much as I despise, say, John Boehner, I don't think he intends to do evil. I guess I am not adequately unhinged.

Kevin,
You have to admit at least 16% still haven't surrendered their brain, though, on the global warming issue I guess it reveals some weaknesses of home schooling.
Oh well, can't win em all.

Advocating for war is a pernicious behavior. Advocating for peace is not.

The previous paragraph in the conservapedia to the one quoted reads "It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .[4]. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him."

Nope, no bias there...

It's obvious to everyone who isn't groping around with a white cane and a German Shepard that Repigs love the war but hate the soldiers. Little yellow magnets from communist china do not a patriot make.

They are strictly from the "I'll give him 6 more months to stop beating me" school, and the "sound bite" heroes they choose to lead them are prefect masters.

Was this poll conducted in Utah? George W. Bush's approval rating is still well above 50% there.

For my money, here's the most consequential poll result:

1) Do you think the surge should go forward?

Yes (61) -- 97%
No (2) -- 3%

Why so? Because it means that the wingnuts, who will effectively control who becomes the Republican Presidential nominee, are more wedded to their delusions than to the clear and powerful sentiment of the American people.

They can kiss the 2008 Presidency goodbye.

For context, I would like to see the answers to the following questions:

1) Do you think that the moon landings were faked?

2) Do you believe that extraterrestrial beings are visiting the earth?

3) Do you believe in Bigfoot?

4) Should Bigfoot initiate a preventive attack against the Yeti?

5) Do you believe that Elvis is alive and working Kino in Vegas?

6) Did you see him at the gas station last week?

7) Is your spouse your cousin or your sibling?

8) Would you like the orderly to empty your colostomy bag?

"Oh, yes, the Democratic Party in Washington would just love to see something happen in Iraq that would be perceived as a success."

Your sarcasm might be slightly more successful, monkeysuncle, if you could point to one yourself.
"...to see something happen", indeed.

A belief that the majority of congressional Democrats wish for a US defeat in Iraq is a perfectly rational conclusion based on what Democrats have said about that conflict. Is Dennis Kucinich in favor of victory? Maxine Waters? Wm. Jefferson? John Kerry? Kerry was against our victory in Vietnam and he was a hero there, or so he tells us. Dick Durbin? He's the one who called US troops in Iraq Nazis. Nancy? Diane? Hillary? Barbara? These clownettes want us to withdraw- a withdrawal is a defeat. The only question they are debating is when.

a withdrawal is a defeat.

This is the attitude which insures that wingnuts will continue to outbreed normals.

a withdrawal is a defeat.

Absolute lunacy. That implies that every time the United States has an "exit strategy" for a military engagement, it is saying that the US will be defeated.

True authoritarian minds are plagued with the Dolchstosslegende or the “stab-in-the-back legend�. They are constitutionally incapable of believing that leaders who champion their most sacred nationalist values are nothing more than foolish amoral men of ambition. To avoid consideration of ill-founded nationalist ambitions (more power for the nation) they must find the enemy within the nation who is the true source of failure. Often the man afraid of sacrifice and glory, the coward, is also he who questions the righteous leader. This is what allows authoritarians to walk from blinkered triumph to blinkered triumph without reflection or reform.

(It's no surprise Kevin has no source for this amazing stat. He just made it up.)

...Because 99.9% of peer-reviewed climate papers in the last two decades say so?

Who shall we attribute? Which, more like. Where's the attribution that this is false? If it's false, it should be easily provable.

Like evolution: There's more biologists named steve that believe in evolution than any scientists that don't.

*sigh*

Shorter Frequency Kenneth: I don't personally know of any climate scientists, so they don't exist.

Hey M:

Democrats want to preserve American interests. Hence they want to find a way out of Iraq, since being in Iraq has increased terrorism, is destroying our military, draining our economy and destabilizing the world, as most Americans agree. Bush and his team are the ARCHTICECHTS OF DEFEAT. They gave nuclear weapons to North Korea, radically empowered Iran, and bogged our military down in a civil war that is the result of their pre-emptive war based on faulty intelligence and lies. You know basic math putz? A negative times a negative equals a postivite right? Well, guess what withdrawing from defeat is? It might not be victory, but it isn't defeat. You are sick. Really. Withdrawal is defeat? You are an impotent storm trooper, and an enemy of the American People.

These people are mere provocateurs. They have no point of view. Their only purpose is to get their base riled up. If you have spent much time with three year olds, you know this is about them simply wanting attention.

In our society, liberalism has won. We, together with the rest of the developed world, live in a liberal society. Their inferiority complexes cause them to react to the fact that they are, in fact, trivialized, excluded from the discussion. We have no interest in their outdated and rejected ideas. So they throw these stink-bombs, and surprise, surprise!

oh good lawd is FK an idiot

Oh, yes, the Democratic Party in Washington would just love to see something happen in Iraq that would be perceived as a success.

Exactly. They'd like, for one thing, to see US forces get out of Iraq, which right now the majority of the US public would see as a success.

Hey FK,

You are a Satanist. How can ice ages have ended before before Creation?

The Right has started a war without a 'win' solution. They've executed the war in a way that couldn't win. And now they're blaming us for not winning the war!
Posted by: Crissa on March 2, 2007 at 3:09 PM | PERMALINK

Don't be silly.

Their "win" solution is:
"Having a way to call Liberals unpatriotic."

For conservatives, this war has been a huge win. It got Bush elected just long enough to completely loot the treasury. Now that we're tapped out, they'll move on and lay low for a few election cycles. Just like with VietNam, they'll be back.

It's amazing how many wingnuts become "experts" based solely on 5 minutes of Googling and their favorite hate radio frother's most recent diatribe.

FK;
Sorry - but I don't buy that coming from someone who believes the earth is only 6000 years old. Go argue that point on LGF.

Yes - there are cycles. And there are also changes that are not cyclical in nature. There are climate change events related to volcanism, solar output, meteor strikes, atmospheric changes, change in axial orientation, etc. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than "cycles".

You mean most right-wing bloggers are crazier than a shithouse rat?? Well, I never would have believed it!

I like how FK keeps emphasizing that *all* the ice ages have ended, as if the alternative were for a couple or more them to still be occurring.

I'm not sure how views about global warming came to be so politicised.

On this side of the Atlantic, even the Conservative parties think Global Warming is a threat.

In fact, the first major world leader to speak out on global warming, and to kick off the process that led to Kyoto, was none other than:

Margaret Thatcher

hardly the liberal paragon.

I'm not sure how views about global warming came to be so politicised [in the US].

In the US it's all about religion, which is politicized. Eg, global warming deniers are pretty much coincident with evolution deniers.

Global warming is being politicized by the Corporatists who would lose part of their top heavy profit margin if they needed to comply with any clean air regulations.

It isn't politics, it's greed. They just pour their talking points into the right wing knee-jerk cheerleaders empty little heads and the sock puppets dutifully rah-rah to their heart's content.

There have been four major Ice Ages.

That's more of an "at least", but sure.

That means glaciers have had four major advances and retreats in the earth's history.

True.

Since all the Ice Ages ended tens of thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution

By the definition under which there are four known major ice ages, the most recent one began 40 million years ago and is still going on today—large ice sheets still exist in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

You are conflating two different uses of the term "ice age" to say that there are four known ice ages and to say that they all ended in the past; what ended well before the industrial revolution (or, indeed, the rise of civilization) was the most recent glacial period in the present ice age.

Glacial periods and the interglacial periods between them during an ice age (that we know of) are generally on the order of tens to in the neighborhood of 100,000 years long; the major ice ages have been in the range from several tens to a few hundreds of millions of years long. Recent glacial periods are sometimes referred to as "ice ages", and that's not entirely wrong, however, to refer to them that way when referring also to the 4 established major ice ages is equivocation.

The general belief seems to be that, absent the effects of anthropogenic global warming, the present interglacial period (a relatively warm period during an ice age) would probably last on the order of a few tens of thousands of years (its already ~10,000 years into) before returning to a period of glaciation, but that the present, largely anthropogenic, warming trend might instead end the present ice age in a period more on the order of a single century.

In the US it's all about religion, which is politicized. Eg, global warming deniers are pretty much coincident with evolution deniers.

Its not religion which has been politicized but politics which has had religion wrapped around it: the denial, in both cases, is fundamentally entirely about preserving economic and political power, manipulation through religion is simply a convenient means.

Why is it 'hubris' (and therefore a sin) to propose that humans are capable of changing a planet?

Are we not capable of flattening mountains? Raising cities? Orbital travel?

One day soon I predict that that the wingnuts will acknowledge that human activity is causing global warming. The only problem will be that they'll lay the blame on pigmentation. There will be a wondrous array of charts and graphs over at the Corner showing a direct link between swarthiness and a rise in temperatures. The solution naturally, will be to eradicate swarthiness.

cmdicely - still waiting for you to explain how all the climate changes - including the major ice ages - are "primarily caused by mankind" as all of Kevin Drum's imaginary climatologists believe.

Still waiting for you to show where Kevin said anything about anyone believing that “all the climate changes - including the major ice ages -- are 'primarily caused by mankind'”

I do see Kevin saying that virtually all climate scientist believe what the question asked about: that human activity is the primary cause of global warming (that is, the existing, present warming trend), not "all the climate changes" and especially not "the major ice ages".

Once you show me where Kevin has made the claim you ascribe to him, we can begin discussing whether that claim would be justified. Best as I can tell, now, though, its just something you made up as a distraction.

Ah, Kevin.

These bloggers are absolutely right, Kevin. It is us that are laughing at you people.

It is the height of arrogance to belive that humans can actually influence the climate. And impossible to prove.

And even if it was true, there is nothing we can do about it.

It is the height of arrogance to belive that humans can actually influence the climate. And impossible to prove.

It's quite possible to prove how atmospheric CO2 contributes to warming.

It's quite possible to prove how humans contribute to atmospheric CO2.

And even if it was true, there is nothing we can do about it.

If particular human activities that are conscious, voluntary behaviors contribute to global warming (which it is a rather well established scientific fact), then clearly humans can easily do something about it by changing the activity.

Whether we have the will to is another question.

egbert;
Prove it.
Park your car in your garage, close the door, start the engine, and listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio for a couple hours or so. Get back to us on whether we can influence the environment.

Better still, ask the fine folks on Easter Island. I'm sure the guy who cut down the last tree thought the same as you.

egbert wrote: "It is the height of arrogance to belive that humans can actually influence the climate. And impossible to prove."

It is easy to prove that you are an ignorant dumbass dittohead. You just proved it.

So I checked out the Conservapedia entry on unicorns. Insane. It says they are mentioned in the Bible, which is unimpeachable, de facto evidence that they existed. Completely insane. I considered exploring some other entries to see if they were any better, but decided it was safer to just back out quietly.

Anyway, the next time someone cites it I'll just snicker and move on to the next post.

Conservapedia is hilarious. The front page complains that Conservapedia was started because Wikipedia is anti-American and anti-Christian. (Of course they don't have any problem using Wikipedia's software, but when have wingnuts ever created anything on their own?)

And what constitutes anti-American and anti-Christian? Well, there are only 6 rules for posting on Conservapedia, two of which are:

4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis.

5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.

Well, that's it folks. If you write "that colour was not used in 500 BCE" you are an anti-American anti-Christian scoundrel.

Ok, I poked a little further. I was curious what a pro-Christian entry under the topic of chemistry would look like. For one entry I found as a source:

Wile, Dr. Jay L. Exploring Creation With Chemistry. Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. 1998.

Wow. How strange that such people are even able to breath unaided.

Okay, I broke down and viewed the unicorn entry in Consevapedia. Wow. I check out Conservapedia from time to time just to see how crazy these people (and Al, apparently) really are. I think most liberals could injest a bucket of pure LSD and maintain a firmer grip on reality. If you want a good laugh, check out the dinosaur entry. Apparently, Noah had them on the Ark. Must have been crowded.

Worst. MonkeyBoner. Post. Ever.

Shit.

I'm paying these flying monkey to troll and what do I get?

Illiteracy!
Another monkeyboner post covered dumb with ape shit.

Fuck.
Where's my shotgun?
I'm gonna shoot me a primate....

I need a bucket of LSD just to begin to reconcile the christofacist trogledite unicorn peddling anti-intellectual right wing subverters of the constitution and killers of christ that are among us.

Seriously. They are the evil eye in the heart of Fouclault's Panopticon. And the mark of the cross, and the flag, and $ is in the pupil of the eye. Fascists who champion Jesus and really feel the smoothness of their righteousness, the redemption of certainty. God. The Calvanists of yore would shred these posers a new asshole. So certain of God. So wrapped in the blood of the lamb. So certain of the call to kill. Widely. Indiscriminately. To do unto others in detention facilities and prisons the unthinkdable, unseeingly or with glee. To accumulate wealth, covet, idol, all crucifying Jesus again and again with hate and violence and ignorance and inhumanity.

These people are anethma to Christ, who if anything is the beating heart of knowing love.

I'm riding my Unicorn into the sunset.

Mars Bitches~

I am nonplussed that the obvious nickname for conservapedia:

Wackypaedia.

Kevin,

I think it is a very interesting question why the global warming stuff splits left/right. Here are my two guesses:

1. This simply shows that the global warming evidence is not that good. One would usually assume that a true fact with good evidence would not correlate so well with political persuasion. Man made global warming looks like it has some evidence, but not much. Think about it, in a UN report whose goal was to convince people of the danger of man-made global warming the writers had to project 73 years into the future ( 2080 ) to come up with any disastrous problems. Let's look at that logically. Does anyone in their right mind think that scientists living in 1934 had any idea about what the worst problems were of today? Please remember that knowledge and technology are increasing not decreasing. What sense does it make to make any prediction about the weather in 2080?

2. People have a need to find deep meaning in their lives. They need to think something in their lives is transcendant. Much of the committed right already has a religion or a ideology like libertarianism that gives them meaning. The left tends to grab onto the latest "scientific" portent of global doom ( global cooling, resource depletion, overpopulation .... ). Thus people on the left are much more susceptible tos these disaster scares.

The fact that the global warming thing correlates so well with political persuasion should cause some of you on the left to doubt this, but you will probably just conclude that your smarter than the people who disagree with you, as you usually do.

Dr. John D. Hansen
PhD. Ionsopheric Physics
UCLA 1990

Trex - I would have LOVED to see the answer to the question: "Do you believe we found WMD's in Iraq?" Who wants to bet that over 80% would respond in the affirmative despite our own search teams saying otherwise.

Again you have to word the question carefully.

1. Did we find WMD's in Iraq? YES!
2. Did we find large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq? NO!

Technically those who answered YES to such a sloppily worded question would be correct.

Its not religion which has been politicized but politics which has had religion wrapped around it: the denial, in both cases, is fundamentally entirely about preserving economic and political power, manipulation through religion is simply a convenient means.

But this is a two edged sword. Many liberals use the hammer of global warming to propose solutions that are leftist in their nature. I find invariably that the proposed solutions to global warming almost always come up being anti-American capitalism. This is clearly the use of the religion of doomsday science to manipulate and control.

Perhaps their would be less debate if the advocates did not always come up with solutions which seem to be attacks on the economic prosperity that benefits this nation. I personally believe, that if global warming is true, the best bet to defeat it is a strong enough economy to do the technological innovation that will lead us to viable energy solutions. Not the feel good solutions of the left which end up tearing down the very economic engine that could be their salvation.

And of course 3 months ago 97% would have supported the statement "I agree with Bush that Iraq is going well and we don't need any more troops there."

Dr. Hansen- I would take issue with your assertion that WMDs were found in Iraq. Yes, we found some old sarin gas canisters from the Iran-Iraq war. But you are certainly educated enough to know that sarin is a very unstable chemical and would have degraded by now. By the UN definition, the chemicals that remain in those canisters, while hazardous, would not constitute weapons of mass destruction. There were also some stockpiles of yelowcake that had previously been found and tagged, but yellowcake is an ore and cannot really be 'found' if they were already documented. Perhaps you have other information, but nothing I saw in the news would fit the description of 'WMD' that had not been previously documented. Unless you want to count items that were once WMDs.

As for your explanation of the right-left split on global warming, there are other issues in science that have a similar split. There are almost no young earth creationists on the left. The assertion that the earth is only 6,000 years old is held primarily by conservatives. The same holds true for creation theory. It used to hold true for the geocentric model of the the solar system (and still does for some). As you will find in Conservapedia, the belief in the existence of unicorns (past and present) is soley held by conservatives. As is the belief that coal beds are formed in decades, not millenia. None these right-left splits can be attributed to a lack of evidence. The splits can, however, be attributed to conservatives having a willful refusal to reassess their beliefs on the basis of readily available and very credible evidence. Perhaps it is true that liberals are too quick to jump on the latest scientific fad. But you must admit that many conservatives cling to absurdly out-of-date theories long past there scientific acceptance.

Doc Hansen:
"1. This simply shows that the global warming evidence is not that good. One would usually assume that a true fact with good evidence would not correlate so well with political persuasion.

And indeed, this would be a good argument if it applied to relevant experts in the field. If the world's climate scientists were split on AGW along political lines, that definitely would suggest that something odd was going on. John knows this isn't the case: this split only applies to the general public. Fostert beat me to it (by a couple of hours) but yes, perhaps the best equivalent is evolutionary biology (where the scientific evidence is even more robust, by a good bit). Acceptance among the non-theocon right is higher than AGW, but there's still quite a substantial split. There's a recent survey - I'll try to dig it up - in which it turned out, iirc, that you didn't match the level of evolution acceptance among high-school-grad liberals until you got to conservatives with graduate degrees.

Now, when we're talking about those of us in the general population, who may have only a popular (or nonexistent) grasp of the underlying research, it makes sense that ideology does come into play. Of course nobody on the right is at all interested in "portents of global doom" (*cough* Left Behind *cough*) . . . - let's be fair: on both sides people's worldview/ideological commitments (not lack of same) make them likely to accept various ideas. It is indeed true that there's been, over the last few decades, a strand of 'man-made disaster!' preoccupations among the left. (Can't imagine why!) I'm sure that helps a bit, but really, I think that for many of us the biggest ideological commitment is to science and expertise - we're the reality-based community. We also don't have certain ideological blinders (what hubris to think that we could damage God's creation; blind free-market worship, etc.).

"What sense does it make to make any prediction about the weather in 2080?"
Climate, John, not weather. Unlike some of the trolls who have been scurrying around lately, I'm sure you know the difference.

"Perhaps their would be less debate if the advocates did not always come up with solutions which seem to be attacks on the economic prosperity that benefits this nation"

Here Amanda (de Pandagon) is really dead on:

"[The Gore pseudoscandal] just goes to show how badly it fucks people up when religion and politics get intertwined. This also shows the profound difference between the right and the left’s version of when government interference is justified.

After years of being fed a steady diet of propaganda that says that everything from regulation on polluters to diplomacy is some sort of strike against freedom while also being asked to support a series of pointless laws meant to restrict pot smoking and birth control, wingnuts have grown accustomed to believing that the only legitimate government restraints on liberties are those that strike at behaviors that are suspect only because they bring pleasure to the unwashed masses. As such, they view the necessary restrictions on carbon use as some sort of moral crusade against sins they personally like to indulge and so they grasp at the “hypocrite� slander, as if that meant something.

The thing is, global warming isn’t a punishment enacted on us by a vengeful god for disobeying his dictates. . . . Making environmentalism a modern day version of puritanical abstention doesn’t do much to actually help the planet. Carbon taxes would make a difference. "

Indeed, there's quite a strain of 'thought' in some places on the Right along the lines that global warming is a self-inflicted/intentional hoax to get rid of capitalism and progress - sometimes specifically aimed at the US. Batshit Insane Coulter even had a piece at Townhall.com this week where she seemed to be saying that it was an evil plan to destroy the economy and starve millions of people to death (including 299 million Americans), because a) liberals hate people, and b) then they could finally enjoy their solar-paneled mansions in peace, without all those tacky NASCAR-lovin' middle-class folks around. (The punchline was that the fiendishly clever liberals were simultaneously too stupid to realize what would happen to their lifestyle with no maids, no farmers, no . . .)

Of course folks like Gore (and politicians left and right in other countries) are pushing dull moderate technocratic market-based approaches to fighting global warming that rely on creating incentives to nudge a strong economy towards technological innovations, etc. But John here will never - can never - see that. Oh well. {Sigh}.

Can somebody ask these folks their definition of winning in Iraq? I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you'd be hard pressed to find an answer that actually made sense.

dr. hansen's position is clearly based upon some sort of rigid ideology and unfettered by actual science. the fact that he has a degree in some unrelated field only makes his illiteracy with respect to the global warming literature that much more surprising.

at any rate, people's superstitions should be tolerated, as long as they keep it separate from actual science and policy. I expect this fool to try and defend creationism in science classrooms as well.

there's always a minority of wingnut scintists, since one can only lead the wingnut to knowledge, but not make him drink.

…The fact that the global warming thing correlates so well with political persuasion should cause some of you on the left to doubt this… John Hansen at 2:33 AM |

1. Did we find WMD's in Iraq? YES! 2. Did we find large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq? NO! John Hansen at 2:41 AM

… propose solutions that are leftist in their nature…John Hansen at 2:51 AM

Okay, I see where the other "no" came from, but am I the only person who was amused by the apparent claim that 190% of all people believe global warming is not caused by human activity?

Many liberals use the hammer of global warming to propose solutions that are leftist in their nature.

Examples?

I find invariably that the proposed solutions to global warming almost always come up being anti-American capitalism.

That you "always find" that, I would suggest, says more about your distorted perspective than anything else. Certainly, any solution will require changes from the status quo way of doing things, and certainly those that benefit most from the status quo in this country will paint any such change as being "anti-American", but you don't have to uncritically accept such self-serving propaganda.

This is clearly the use of the religion of doomsday science to manipulate and control.

Science is not religion, even when the predictions that naturally flow from may be apocalypic. So, even if your previous vague, unsupported claim were true, this attempt to abuse the language to paint an equivalency would be misguided.

Perhaps their would be less debate if the advocates did not always come up with solutions which seem to be attacks on the economic prosperity that benefits this nation.

Any proposal which increases the weight placed on long-term diffuse costs is going to, all other things being equal, reduce short-term performance measured by means which discount those long-term costs.

Now, there may be inefficiencies in the current system, even viewed from a short-term perspective, which a policy with such a long-term focus might incidentally happen to eliminate that would offset or reverse that short-term effect, but there is no systematic reason to anticipate that such is necessarily available, or, if it is, that it is the best option from a long-term perspective. Therefore, one ought to expect that short-term aggregate prosperity will take a hit (particularly if the present system is well-optimized for it as the US system is) when changing to system with a longer-term focus.

I personally believe, that if global warming is true, the best bet to defeat it is a strong enough economy to do the technological innovation that will lead us to viable energy solutions.

That's because you are engaging in magical thinking centered around the premise that all you need is a strong economy and solutions will magically appear by themselves without any systematic effort. You, of course, provide no reason to believe that simply having a "strong" (in whatever sense you mean that) economy will, without more directed policies, actually "defeat" global warming.

Not the feel good solutions of the left which end up tearing down the very economic engine that could be their salvation.

Examples? Is investment in cellulosic ethanol a "feel good" solution"? Are emissions limits a "feel good" solution"? Carbon taxes? Cap and trade regimes?

All I see from you and your ideological allies is vague handwaving, unsupported generalizations, and unsubstantiated claims that doing nothing directed at the problem is a plan for success, despite the fact that we've been doing that since the industrial revolution, which is how the problem came about.

Even though about 99% of climate scientists say we are?

I find that statement pretty delusional. Has Kevin been following this issue at all?

It is indeed true that there's been, over the last few decades, a strand of 'man-made disaster!' preoccupations among the left. (Can't imagine why!) I'm sure that helps a bit, but really, I think that for many of us the biggest ideological commitment is to science and expertise - we're the reality-based community.

Oh, so I get it. You were, as a community, just as committed to "science and expertise" as in the last few decades when as a youngster I was told by scientists on the left that a new ice age was imminent, that fossil fuels were going to run out by the year 2000, that overpopulation was going to quickly swamp our ability to produce food, yada, yada, yada...

But that was the old, ignorant left who did not quite get their science correct. The new left never ever buys doomsday predictions on scant evidence, everything is on the up and up because you guys are so much smarter now.

Right... didn't you ever read the story of the boy who cried wolf.

I find the biggest problem with most people who consider themselves going on "science and expertise" is the inability to take into account the inherent non-linearity of the world around us. They draw straight lines on a piece of graph paper and come up with predictions based on current trends.

Linear thinking such as this is usually good for a relatively short while. Where the "science and expertise" of the left fails is that it does not reallize that over any appreciable time the non-linear effects will completely swamp those linear short term trends which are currently observed.

Much of what passes for global warming science is specifically a farce because it takes short range data and applies trends for very long time periods. Then it holds many social norms constant and ends up with unusual catastrophic results.

I don't have a problem with the charts of atmospheric content of CO2, mean temperature, etc. what I have a problem with is the ridiculous predictions of 100,000,000 people not getting enough water by 2080 ( lead conclusion of the UN climatology report ) or 4,000,000,000 dollars of real estate losses due to encroaching sea shores. This is the sound of people who do not have any real problems to report so they greatly expand the time scale so that their small sociological effect of today is extrapolated to a disaster by some time very distant in the future.

This may convince the people who do not have a good grounding in true science, but it is not quite good enough evidence for me as of yet. As a matter of fact, by lack of good arguments it convinces me that the opposite viewpoint has a greater chance of being correct.