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Climate Contrarians Seek Leadership of House Science Committee
An article at Ars examines three members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are seeking chairmanship of its Committee on Space, Science, and Technology. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said in an interview, "My analysis is that in the global warming debate, we won. There were a lot of scientists who were just going along with the flow on the idea that mankind was causing a change in the world's climate. I think that after 10 years of debate, we can show that that there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have come over to being skeptics, and I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming." James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has a similar record of opposing climate change, as does Lamar Smith (R-TX). Relatedly, Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer, has posted an article highlighting how U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has declined to answer a question about how old the Earth is, calling it "one of the great mysteries."
It's interesting to see how fragmented the anti-science people are.
That 23% of people who express doubt, are actually a bunch of different doubters. People who think it's not happening and lah-lah-lah (fingers in ears).
People who believe it IS happening but its natural.
People who believe it's man-made , but there's nothing we can do about it.
If you watch Fox (it's the only US news I see on my cable), they can't keep their story consistent between which of these they are. I suspect all they really care about is that you use fossil fuels as wastefully as possible at as high a price as possible. Whenever energy efficiency comes up, they're all screaming 'unAmerican' as if anyone would be against doing the same thing for less money!?
But it does show that you don't actually have 77%-23%, you have a more fragmented 77%-10%-10%-2%
Senator Barack Obama in 2008:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/rubio_and_obama_and_the_age_of_earth_politicians_hedge_about_whether_universe.html
These guys are politicians. Part of being a politician is to not annoy anyone who might vote for you, unless you have a really good reason. Privately, both Rubio and Obama might well believe the science is settled and that the literal word of the Bible is just wrong... but why would they say so? Why not just give a non-answer that annoys the fewest number of people?
So, is it stupid and wrong when Rubio does it, but okay when Obama does it? If you have that kind of double standard, then shame on you.
Hi. Nice to meet you, Dana. I go by the name Sarten X, often represented with a hyphen.
When The global warming concerns were first being voiced, I was skeptical. Surely humans' influence couldn't be that severe? Then I started learning. I learned about how CO2 traps heat. I learned how human CO2 production has been increasing exponentially. I learned how small shifts in ocean temperatures put far more moisture into the air, producing more severe storms.
I learned too much to doubt. Even if half my knowledge turns out to be wrong, the other half still leads to the same conclusion: Our society is royally screwed because of global warming, and we're making it worse every day.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that we've been terribly mistaken in our analysis. I hope the solar system drifts into a previously-unknown dust cloud, and the greenhouse gasses save us. Hope, though, will not explain to my great-grandchildren why they can't leave the tunnels during storm season.
At this point, I am still skeptical of many of the claims. A world covered in poison ivy by 2015? I doubt that. The east coast of the United States submerged in a decade? Probably not. Regardless of what preposterous scare-tactic forecasts are made, there is still too much evidence for me to ignore. Though the outcome is uncertain, the trend is clear. We, as the current dominant species on this planet, should do what we can to reduce the approaching threat of a warming planet. We should strive to make our pollution as harmless as we can, and keep our industrial processes as flexible as we can to allow future change if similar problems are discovered. We should have been more cautious in our designs over the past century, and we may not even have another century to live if we do not change our ways now.
I am Sarten X. I was a skeptic of global warming, and I now support the efforts to fight it.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Rock and minerals are mosly recycled by our active planet. The oldest rock is 4.03 billion years old (gniess from NW Canada), and oldest mineral is 4.3 billion years (zircon crystals from west australia). But neither tells us the age of the Earth. That is done by assumption from meteorites and moon rocks.....true age of Earth is honestly a mystery.
Actually there's a reason for most of the rock being not much over 4 billion years old. I think it was around 4.5 billion years that Earth was impacted by a body that was maybe as big as Mars. It's what caused the Moon to form. Most of the surface went back to being molten for a few hundred million years so the oldest rock was after that impact. In truth it's hard to give an exact date because it cooled for so many years that it's hard to given a specific date when you can call it a planet. The material collected and solidified over hundreds of millions of years then it was still hot for hundreds of millions of years and once it became liveable there was the impact event. There's even a debate if life evolved twice on earth both before and after the impact.
Yes, scientific grants clearly dwarf the money the oil companies have.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49399132@N00/6941179877/
See if you can follow along.
I was impressed when John Huntsman (R) plainly said "I believe in evolution and I trust scientists on global warming."
It's sad you have to make sure you say that so people don't mistake you as the typically wrong thinking (in this aspect and much more) republicans.
He's a Mormon but he also created Dream Theater day in Utah when governor and is the ambassador to China. Funny thing is if he had been made VP you would alinate the far right but gain so much at the middle. Instead their strategy was to alienate not just a political spectrun but 47% of Americans which includes a large part of Republicans. Maybe they just didn't want to vote after that.
Funny thing, Paul Ryan maintained he loved Rage Against the Machine and it was funny how Tom Morello called him out and basically told him he was a hateful ass they didn't want as a fan. Bitch slapped by your favorite band, and a guy with a Harvard education.