My focus on the striking partisan differences in perceptions about the urgency and science of global warming has generated serious buzz at the NY Daily News, the Huffington Post, and elsewhere across the Web. For many insiders I talk to here in DC, they are stunned by the poll numbers. Indeed, there's a false impression that the record amounts of media attention, the latest IPCC report, and Gore's movie have all put to rest any serious public resistance to the idea that human activities might be contributing to the Earth's warming.
Poll numbers aren't the only indicator that a "two Americas" of global warming perceptions persists. Just show up at any of the many debates going on about global warming between College Dems and Republicans at campuses across the country. Consider this report from the American Eagle, the daily newspaper here at American University. Or this recent story from the daily newspaper at the University of Washington. In these debates, the student Dems argue that human-created carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming and that the problem is urgent. Student Republicans argue that there is still no scientific consensus on the issue.
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Well, it's apparent to me that my son is doomed to live on a fucked-up planet. Sorry son, the moron majority chose to bury their heads in the sand as Earth burned. You're welcome.
I can talk to Republicans about taxes. Welfare. Free speech. Jesus. But I really can't take this anymore. Once each side has their own facts, it just makes me want to quit. *sigh*.
This is the efficacy of the anti-global warming denialist enterprise. They've been very effective at using right-wing ideological institutions to disseminate anti-global warming talking points. These are then memorized by the partisan followers, and voila, mass resistance to science by people who no nothing about the real debate. Each individual statement is absurd, and an expert could probably take them apart, but the poor College Dems were probably overwhelmed.
A perfect example of an effective denialism campaign in action.
What is even more surprising to me is that some conservatives I've spoken actually think that global warming might be a good thing with economic benefits for some countries (i.e. agriculture moving north into Canada). Indeed, one meteorologist I spoke to suggested that we somehow try to control global warming and that it might not be such a bad thing after all, and while such ideas aren't necessarily at the forefront of the debate I am surprised by how often they are used in defense of man-made ecological change.
Here is something to chew on: AGE OF THE EARTH: IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL WARMING DISPUTE (capitalization in the original).
It is just as bad as it sounds. It unites Young Earth Creationism with Global Warming Denialism in one big steaming heap of feces.
I'm not a Republican, but I personally think the scaremongering about global warming is blown out of proportion. It was significantly warmer during the High Middle Ages than it is today.
Since when did republicans start throwing caution to the wind. Eventually we're gonna have to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. Why not now? Even if global warming isn't athropogenic, why such resistance to trying to fix it?
No, it was not warmer during the Middle Ages:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html
"The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect."