Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!

'Cause conservatives think the world works on hope and wishes.

From the New York Times:

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

Trump's EPA will no longer be permitted to report on the long term effects of the current climate crisis.

In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously. Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions.

So once again the Republicans show contempt for highly trained people who actually know what they're talking about.

“What we have here is a pretty blatant attempt to politicize the science — to push the science in a direction that’s consistent with their politics,” said Philip B. Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center, who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the government’s most recent National Climate Assessment. “It reminds me of the Soviet Union.”

And just to show what kind of nuts Republicans want in charge of the discussion:

“The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” said the physicist, William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council as the president’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies.

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Potential not-so-bad news from the Guardian:

Florida appoints first chief science officer to take on climate crisis

The state of Florida has appointed a science officer whose job is to examine and explain the science that will be necessary to confront the problems facing Florida from the climate crisis.

A column by Jeet Heer in this week's The Nation:

After the El Paso Massacre, the Choice Is Green Socialism or Eco-Fascism

(Title changed from the print edition)

Heer quotes the manifesto of the El Paso shooter to show how at least one strand of white nationalism uses environmental concerns to fuel its extremism:

"The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations," the alleged El Paso shooter argues. "So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable."

Heer points out that the economic scarcity that is coming with the current climate crisis is giving civilization a choice:

a socialist inspired path where the nation's resources are marshaled to produce an infrastructure that will mitigate the environmental ravages while maintaining a livable quality of life for everyone,

or an ugly, violent future where dominant groups impoverish less powerful groups to horder resources to protect their ever diminishing quality of life while nations engage in endless wars to grab each other's resources.

That's a flat out lie. You are trying to spread doubt about the existence of human caused climate change.

Quite likely he doesn't see the difference. It's a classic Appeal to Consequences.
"I don't like the government regulating stuff (except, maybe, which bathrooms people are forced to use). Therefore, anything that might require government action cannot possibly be true."

The problem is that contemporary US conservatives are now so driven by emotion and so committed to thinking that policy can be based on hope and belief rather than reality that I doubt they can recognize this is a fallacy.

Science isn't specifically referred to in the constitution, so it's subject to the political process, just like everything else that isn't referred to in the constitution.

Does anybody else remember when conservatives claimed to be in favor of limited government?

Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo.

So the government is MORE LIMITED if we let the scientific community by-pass the constitution and join with big government advocates and take away as many of our freedoms and as much of our money as it wants?

The scientific community isn't an organization that has any ability to set policy and collect taxes. It consists of individual researchers working at individual independent institutions to investigate and understand how the world works using methods that have been developed over the last 500 years and shown to be remarkably effective in increasing our knowledge about the physical world.

It belongs to our elected and appointed officials to set policy and decide how to fund those policies. One would hope that the policies are informed by the best information provided by the scientific community. It is the obligation of the politicians to also take into account the legal, ethical, and social issues in setting policies, but they should be forthright about it.

If politicians feel that water shortages, agricultural failures and mass starvation, mass extinctions, and ever severe pandemics are things they're comfortable allowing to happen, they should just say that instead of trying to blame the messengers for pointing out these things are going to happen.

If politicians feel that their ideology does not allow regulations on businesses no matter how dangerous their activities are, they should be honest about it and not deny when the evidence shows those activities are indisputably dangerous.

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And you get 3 approval dots?

Oh, ok, I'll give you an approval dot. Happy now?

Edited by Chiroptera, : Typos.

...then that means that SOME humans (the ones who not only have to provide their own healthcare, but also healthcare for others) are BORN INTO BONDAGE.

In case anyone didn't get marc's joke, I'll remind people that about a year ago marc was writing apologetics for the Southern slave owners' secession from the US and the "heroes" who fought for them:

Message 1528 and following.

And also equally informed by human history, past examples of corruption, and the tendencies that factions can have for starting with a conclusion, then working backwards, upside down, however they have to work to arrive at the desired conclusion.

But that's pretty much the description of you guys. You guys start with the conclusion - that free markets are the solution to all problems - and the evaluate everything in terms of this conclusion. Global climate change is such an immense danger that it requires government intervention to address it, therefore it cannot possibly be true since the sanctity of free markets cannot be contradicted. It also doesn't help that you are apparently extremely uncomfortable with making any adjustments to your lifestyle. Basically, your entire argument is an appeal to consequences.

And this is what leads you to the sciencey-sounding propaganda sites that promote exaggerated, ridiculous consequences of taking necessary action while dismissing real science as part of some conspiracy of corrupt elites who hate American values and want to turn the US into another Venezuela.

Putting aside that you continue to show a profound lack of knowledge of US history, I have to say you seem pretty blasé about the entire concept of people owning other people as property and working them like livestock.