You're viewing a single thread.
I think the conservatives don’t disagree that climate change is real, they disagree that humans are responsible. To them it’s things like El Niño or solar activity.
And they're wrong according to virtually every person who actually studies the climate for a living, so they might as well pretend it's made up.
And it's stupid anyway. You might be able to deny human-caused climate change, but you can't deny smog and pollution. Greener energy sources mean less smog and pollution. Why isn't that a good thing to them?
It's a fundamental lack of understanding of math and science.
There's a video going around conservative circles talking about how CO2 only makes up .04 percent of the atmosphere, and therefore even if it were doubled it would be less than 1/1000th of the atmosphere, so it's not worth worrying about.
I tried to explain to my father that that's exactly why we're able to have such an impact. They don't understand that we're able to make a much larger relative impact on CO2 versus Nitrogen and Oxygen and therefore a larger impact on global temperatures.
It's actually a spectrum of disavowal of responsibility:
- It's not happening.
- Even if it is happening, it's not our fault.
- Even if it is our fault, there is nothing we can do.
- Even if there is something we can do, it's too late to do anything.
It's just that the first stage (denialism) is starting to become untenable.
- Even if it isn't too late to do something it's the others that should do it
- Even if we are the ones that should do something, it's down to everyone individually so no job for the politicians
- Even if it is down to the state, sorry it's too expensive.
Ah yes, the standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis. The tactic does not get old.
THANK YOU! I was trying to remember where my brain dug this up from and I couldn't pinpoint it.
- Bernard Woolley : What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
- Bernard Woolley : What's that?
- Sir Richard Wharton : Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
- Sir Richard Wharton : In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
- Sir Richard Wharton : In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
The major oil companies acknowledged climate change is a major threat and they are primarily responsible for it decades ago