Can this be read in a way that as moderates leave the Rep. Party those who are left are nutburgers who don't believe in climate change?

The "reality" the global warming deniers inhabit is one that's founded on wishful thinking. It's the same "reality" you find creationists hanging out in too. And birthers, and truthers, and so on.

Beating the wrong drum...

Drum: But only a bare majority of conservatives believe it. It's Jim Inhofe's party now."

Well actually no. They answered no because it's Obama's party now. For them global warming now has nothing to do with thermometers and everything to do with this: The president of the USA is black and a democrat. That means he must be opposed 100% of the time. And that mean all solutions to problems must be vehemently denied.

Beating the right drum...

It jihad now.

Their beach houses insured by the government.

OK, the climate is changing. The real question is what should we do about it. Should we change how energy is produced and used, or should we keep on keeping on, burning greenhouse gas producing fuels at an unsustainable rate. If we want America and Americans to prosper we will move away from fossil fuels to cleaner renewable forms of energy. Those cleaner renewable types of energy are job intensive and just the ticket for the ailing economy. If we keep on keeping on, America's economy will continue to decline until we join the 2nd world.

You don't have to be a green fanatic to understand that changing from fossil fuels to non-carbon producing eco fuels is good for America in the long run.

The problem is that one of America's great political parties is being run by media types who don't really understand that the first goal of any American political party should to promote genuine American prosperity, not just the personal prosperity of the media types in charge.

"you're hurting America's future to boot"

That's a feature not a bug. I mean the whole subtext of Repub messaging is that if a brown person could possibly somehow somewhere benefit from anything that comes from job growth, healthcare, the environment, international standing, government services, etc... they are against it.

Which of course makes them Patriots...

"...a 53% majority supports a cap-and-trade proposal"

If the health care debate is any indication, this is true now, but once debate starts and Republicans claim that this will destroy the economy, and raise your taxes, without havingto provide evidence or proof,or have their claims challenged by our "liberal media" that number will decline too.

I am very cynical right now.

Our only hope is that we can convice the Dems in congress to do the right thing anyway and prove them wrong. The Republicans have been wrong before. In 1993 they said that Clinton's economic plan would destroy the economy. They were wrong. They said Bush'd economic plan would cause growth. They were wrong. They said Iraq would be easy, pay for itself and we'd be greeted as liberators. They were wrong. There are many more examples just in my lifetime.

If they are against something it's almost guaranteed to be the right thing to do.

The "Question of Global Warming" needs to be broken down in a way that "average" Americans can understand.

We're talking about a population that, for the most part, doesn't even understand the difference between climate and weather. We're trying to get people who spend more time planning for the next fantasy football season than they do for their own retirement to care about a problem that won't cause obvious consequences for decades.

So I suggest breaking down the debate this way:

Okay, assume the global warming deniers are right. So what are the consequences if we go ahead with a comprehensive plan to fight global warming anyway?

1) We're no longer dependent on Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela for oil.
2) We don't have to put up with the whims of the oil companies and pay whatever they demand for gas.
3) You will never again be stuck behind a smoke-belching bus or truck.
4) Your heating and electrical bills will be smaller.

Instead of calling for people to fight an invisible enemy, we should be calling on Americans to once again strive to become greater -- something like Kennedy's goal of sending a man to the moon:

By our nation's 250th birthday, 2026, we will not be importing a single drop of foreign oil. By 2026 we will producing only vehicles that produce zero pollution.

Of course, this presumes that Obama can be persuaded to end his supplication to big business and come up with a comprehensive energy plan instead of trying to nibble around the edges of the problem.

Steve this is just a continuation of the theme of most of yesterday's threads - the dumbing down of America. It's all related. Willful ignorance, anti-intellectualism, etc.

What is it about this country that produces generation after generation of head in the sand holy rollers who prevent our society from evolving so we can face the challenges of a new century? I actually saw something on the news not long ago where someone actually said they want America to return to the state it was in 100 years ago. This is the mentality that has kept our country from realizing it's true potential, and I for one am deathly sick and tired of it. We have to stamp this out once and for all.

The Greens have created the wrong frame. They are a bunch of Cassandras harping at us with predictions of gloom and doom. We don't need Ed Begley,Jr. and Al Gore as the faces of the green movement. Instead we need more positive spokesmen and women talking up the positive benefits of going green, like new jobs, cleaner air, better health and did I mention more jobs. We need more Rachelle Carson and less Rachel Carson.

Human pollution is destroying our planet. Period. How the ignorant Inhofes and evil Cheneys of the world can deny that is beyond me. We are pumping billions of tons of toxic crap into our air and our rivers, lakes and oceans. We are cutting down our forests and paving over our wetlands and prairies. It is morally wrong and unsustainable, but I believe it will continue until we have destroyed every living being on our Earth including ourselves.

GiggsisGod,

About 120,000 years ago Africa endured a very serious drought. The human population crashed to about 800. Those 800 learned how to adapt. They spread out of Africa to populate the world with people like you and me. A little later, the Neanderthals, bigger brained, meat eating, hunting humans, couldn't adapt as the climate changed again toward the end of the last ice age, probably because neither they nor the large animals they hunted could change fast enough to survive. The Neanderthals went extinct. In both instances the earth survived dramatic climate change. The earth will survive man made climate change, but the creatures who inhabit the new world will be different. I hope our descendants are among them, but population crashes caused by climate change are nothing new.

@GiggsisGod, you're missing the point of Friedman's article. Don't bother appealing to anyone's sense of responsibility. Aim for the greed -- one thing we know for sure, is that if all the Chinese and Indians had lifestyles even half as energy-intensive as ours, that there's not enough oil to do it. And we know that there's a lot of them, and will be for some time, and that they, too, want to live well.

So there's a truckload of money to be made by anyone who has an oil-alternative ready when demand starts to spike. Wouldn't it be nice if it turned out to be our truckload.

And I know of at least two VCs (one a good friend of good friends, the other a FOAF) who are putting their money where their mouth is, and investing in stuff that I frankly to find to be a tad speculative, but if you want to win big, you take big risks (one is investing in ultracapacitor tech, the other is investing in algae-based biofuels).

Ron Byers gives a good synopsis of human evolutionary history.

Unfortunately, the Creationists are saying, "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

And the Denyers, led by Boss Limbaugh, are saying "Fraud! Obama wants a One World government that controls your life. And takes away your guns."

And the American Male says, "Hell, you take away my Hummer 4X4, snowmobile, and leaf blower, you're robbing my manhood."

The only way to reach to these groups is to appeal their real religion: worship of the Almighty Dollar.

I remember in the 50's that Eisenhower promoted nuclear power as "too cheap to meter". Who could be against 'free' electricity?

In the 30's there were very few people against Rural Electrification. Sure, it brought some moral, societal, and family degradation, but nobody gave that much of a thought, not when you could listen to the Grand Ole Opry, read the Bible after dark, and pump water from the well.

We need a 21st Century Rural Electrification program. Wind, solar, biofuels, microwaves in space, T. Boone Pickens, and Everything Else.

Because it means Freedom, Security, and Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.

I hear what you all are saying, but I feel like the greed of the fossil fuel industry is so entrenched that they will bleed every last drop of oil(and then they'll move on to oil shale)and every ounce of coal from the planet before any real progress on clean energy will be made. That greed along with the craven hyper-partisan politics of the Palins, Inhofes, Cheneys, Hannitys, etc. will continue to hold this country and the world back. I look at the supreme difficulty in trying to get HCR passed and it is hard for me to believe that the clean energy revolution will occur in my lifetime.

This is about measuring the impact of sheer propaganda, pure and simple. The Portland protest by the "Tea Party Express" of Al Gore last week was the kickoff to a concerted campaign of smear and propaganda, now the centerpiece is the phony "Climategate" scandal that today they are braying "THE MSM ISN'T COVERING THIS, because they're all filled with LIBERAL BIAS!!!!"

The fact that even were the allegations TRUE IN SPADES (which they're not), doesn't explain the entire world scientific community's conclusion about climate change. It's a phony non-issue (using illegally obtained private communications, one hastens to add) that doesn't prove a damned thing, BUT is part of a clearly designed and concerted COORDINATED effort to create a false firestorm about global warming on the eve of the Cap and Trade debate.

So, the paid stooges of the Oil industry (remember, the Koch Brothers, who are funding the teabaggers' events, inherited and maintain their fortune on oil field services) screech in a blatantly coordinated and calculated manner that the MSM isn't covering their FAKE story!

http://www.memeorandum.com/091125/h1100

Which means, of course, that the MSM will then comment on the screaming, advancing it into "news" (to prove that they're NOT biased, and will cover ANY lie, just to show that they are "sensitive" to all points of view, because FACTS don't matter: only reader/viewership does) and it will ping around the Rightie pinball machine, racking up points as bells ring, numbers rise and in the end it's all sound and fury signifying nothing.

Nothing except a tobacco industry-style denial of factual realities that are inconvenient to the pocketbook.

It's as predictable as Pavlov's dog. Planet Wingnuttia rings its bell and the MSM drools, or, more accurately: Wingnuttia foams at the mouth, and the MSM gets its bell rung.

Except that you CAN fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, and you'd think that eventually the MSM and the public would catch on that they're being conned.

Nope. Fat chance. The polling measures how effective they are at denying science and fact; you can bet they're high-fiving it all around Hell these daze. [sic]

After all, Satan is the prince of lies.(Followed closely, evidently, by Roger Ailes.)

Ron Byers: You don't have to be a green fanatic to understand that changing from fossil fuels to non-carbon producing eco fuels is good for America in the long run.

I agree, and I have advocated lots of new energy developments. The issues here are: (a) long run, and (b) good for America. The most vocal advocates, including Henry Waxman and Barbara Boxer, want to implement policies that will retard all other American investment and economic growth (that addresses b), and they want it all done in a big hurry (that addresses a).

The real question is what should we do about it.

I agree again. If the global change is independent of CO2, about which there is much intense scientific debate, then CO2 remediation will be a total waste of time, effort and money. The cost of which will be mostly retarded development of the poor peoples of the earth (while the rich peoples remake their energy infrastructures.)

For another glimpse into the flimsiness of the evidence for AGW, check out this:

CRU computer codes

There's a story that every statistician can recognize: working hour after hour on mismanaged data sets. Different files with the same name in different directories, and no clear documentation (what are nowadays called "metadata".) Evidently, there is no clear data audit trail for (some of?) the CRU publications. Imagine if they were working for patents or FDA approvals instead of peer-reviewed publications! They'd be cooked. (Especially when all the "peers" are credulous friends instead of skeptical independents or critics.)

If the revelation was an inside job instead of a hack, and if there were to be criminal prosecution resulting in $$$ damage awards back to the government (for which a prima facie case exists in the emails), then the "whistle blower" (if in the US) might be entitled to a reward.

There are no straightforward questions on public opinion polls: everyone knows that every question relates to an agenda and has a subtext. Respondents respond to what they think the agendas and subtexts to be.

SteveT on November 25, 2009

I agree with that post but with some provisos: (a) ensuring American energy independence is a different goal from solving AGW, though some (but not all) of the tasks of achieving those goals are the same. For example, American energy independence can be achieved by gasifying and liquifying coal. (b) The cost of rapidly reducing all CO2 emissions is a reduced rate of economic growth in the whole world if the theory of AGW turns out not to be correct. (c) Technology is constantly being improved; the cost of too rapidly adopting current technology is to reduce the amount of money to invest in newer technology as it becomes available. There is a lot of value right now in waiting to see how well the CO2 sequestration technologies work: if they work well enough, then the U.S. could gasify and liquify coal without a net increase in CO2 compared to importing oil. Similarly, there is great value right now in waiting to see how well the new biofuels technologies like algae-based fuels work.

Non-hydroelectric alternative energy production in the U.S. increased by a factor of about 8 under Bush, and it is continuing to increase. The sort of urgent action urged by the global warming advocates could be more costly and less effective in the long run than persistence with the development strategies already in place.

One of the critical factors is to focus on the nomenclature - 'Climate Change' vs 'Global Warming'

Non-believers point to snow fall early in Denver, or cooler summers in the Northeast.

Climate Change provides the direction for the ongoing conversation - some places will be cooler, others hotter, some dryer, some wetter, and similar types of conditions.

Whether or not it is the cause of humans, we are looking at some critical factors - becoming less dependent on foreign oil, finding ways of not having to drill miles into the earth's crust to supply our needs, and maybe, just maybe, finding a way to keep our standard of living relatively stable without continuing the massive amounts of consumption - the increase in the consumption of products means the increase in usage of energy and water resources, which leads to, potentially, major climate change issues.

That my co-thinkers is the issue - we can debate policy and the science - what really is at stake is the societal implications.

Well, MatthewRMarler is posting his usual slavish regurgitation of scripted, corporate-sponsored lies.

Nothing new there. A reliable Ditto-Head reliably spouting the talking points spoon-fed to him by the phony-baloney so-called "conservative" propaganda machine.

Ron Byers, I think that your comments are myopically focused on the prospects for human survival and adaptation.

The Earth is currently experiencing the sixth great mass extinction of species that we know about from the fossil record. Species are going extinct at something like 200 times the background rate. Previous such extinctions resulted from natural causes, e.g. asteroid impacts or massive volcanic eruptions. This one is a direct result of human activities. Global warming is already increasing this anthropogenically-forced, extreme rate of extinction, and will continue to do so.

We are not merely talking about extreme, prolonged, continent-wide mega-droughts, and the loss of ice-fed fresh water supplies leading to the deaths of billions of humans from mass starvation.

We are talking about a systemic convulsion of the Earth's biosphere in response to anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change. The acidification of the oceans and the destruction of the oceanic food chain. The collapse of forests into savannahs and deserts. And on and on.

We are on track to match the worst mass extinctions in the history of life on Earth -- in which well over ninety percent of all the Earth's life was destroyed.

That's what is at stake. Not just the survival of human civilization or even of the human species, but the potential destruction of most life on Earth, a catastrophe from which the biosphere will require many millennia to recover, if it indeed ever returns to anything resembling the rich, diverse, complex biosphere in which humans evolved.