Not hate mail

Wow. What a contrast. It seems anger can make fuckwits of us all; I know I've been guilty on more than one occasion.
The strength of the good blogs (Back Pages was an exemplar) is that they encourage dialogue between people with diametrically opposed viewpoints. Y'all come back y'hear?

Tim,

I want to thank you for posting this gentleman's reply, and I want to commend him for his apology. The way some of the right-wing press works is to convince people so thoroughly of certain things, like global warming, that it is hard to be convinced that they are just selling a pack of lies. I am heartened to know that this individual has enough pride to not only apologize, but to do some research of his own. It is harder to actually get off ones butt and get to the crux of the matter in the face of massive disinformation, than to simply throw out an apology.

It's always nice to see a display of polite discourse across the ideological divides.

As zoot says, sometimes anger makes dickheads of us all.

As I've said several times here already, the characterization of global warming as left-right divide is misleading and ignores the numerous public figures on the right who support action to address the problem.

I've never thought that coming from the right or left causes the problems, but the inability of the extremes to think outside their viewpoints, see the other sides point of view or be critical of their own thinking.

Some people can see the error of their ways but others just keep digging their holes.

Is it like maths or music you have the ability or don't?

Or that seeminly intelligent highly trained individuals with Ph'D's and Sci Hons can staunchly defend the creation science argument -that is happening over at Margo K's blog-or be GW sceptics when mainstream science is against them.

Is it truly only the moderates that can change their minds or admit to error?

Hats off to your letter writter I hope to see more of your posts in the future, maybe now we could move onto solutions and get past the denial (BS)of the sceptics.

One thing you have done for me is to prove I ought to stay in my own paddock and not veer off into unknown pastures as it seems I don't really have that much to offer.

No - that's not it. Go ahead and veer off. The trick is keeping an open mind - getting smart rather than angry.

There's hope for humanity yet - I just need to remember that before I launch into somebody on the web.

Well in the US it seems that it IS a clear right-left divide. We have a govt. dominated by the right, and the discourse on health and environmental issues is decidedly non-scientific, and if there are those on the right supporting sound environmental, climate and public health policies, they are very quiet. Given the dishonesty of the powers that be here in America, and many on the right, even those that privately support science, seem to give the policies in place a free hand.

CK,

Even in the US you have people like John McCain, George Pataki. Michael Bloomberg and Arnold Schartzenegger willing to go against the party line.

That doesn't probe they're right, it should however give pause to the people who dismiss all diagreement with the Bish administration's position as ideologically driven.

As well as adding my voice to the chorus of those impressed by the above gentleman's civility, I'd be interested in reading a post or two from Tim about how laypersons might go about informing themselves without simply ceding to expert voices i.e. making sense of the data and so forth. I realise this is a big ask, but since Tim seems pretty adept working outside his main field, he doubtless has usefull advice for those looking to acquire some of the same skills. Anyway, think about it.

I cannot agree with anyone who claims that Arnold Schwarzenegger is anything other than right-wing. What exactly has he done that gives him this reputation? Nothing or substance, really. It is said for him that he is for women's rights, he wishes to "work with" the Democrats, etc. Apart from a few early maneuvers to gain him some credibility as a "moderate" (which was nothing but a smokescreen). His agenda is now clear, and his agenda is far from popular. Attacking unions for political organizing/donations while taking money from corporations in great amounts who are doing the same isn't exactly honest or popular. It's also no different from the party line. Now that it's clear what he's up to, Arnold's agenda has gotten him even worse poll ratings than the White House.

I never saud Schwartzenegger WASN'T right-wing. In fact I used him as an example of a right-winger who disagrees with the Bush policy on the specific issue of climate change.

Did everyone commenting read (and understand) the post? CK?

The problem is there is no penalty for lying and indeed confusion is the friend of partisans. In such an environment everything is an opinion.

Now, what I would say is that the advantage of dealing with informed people is that you can at least agree on the underlying facts of the situation.

Guns and climate are interestingly different in this regard.

Tim Lambert on guns is a good example. He has shown (after reviewing the data) that as far as increased crime goes the data shows that it is roughly a push. Contrast this with the extremes. Contrast the few things he says about policy in this area with the wild extrapolations from the non facts on both sides. In this case the facts lie in the middle and the arguments rage on the extremes with both sides trying to twist the facts in their direction.

Now consider climate. The facts, the consensus among experts on the data if you will, say that there is a clear and increasing human effect on climate. There are again two extremes which go well beyond the data, but clearly the data is on the side of increasing human effects. This has driven climate policy all over the world except in Australia and the US. Hmm.

Which post? I'm not interested in the prior post of the person apologizing but I'm sure interested in a post which purports to prove climate change.

No one has a monopoly on making mistakes...

Sometimes good bloggers do bad things and other times bad bloggers do good things ...

Tim, you are teaching us a great lesson in communication and hearty blogging. Ta