Why Conservative White Males Are More Likely to Be Climate Skeptics

[w1z4rd]

By that definition if I wish to limit climate change then I'm a conservative ??

No

 

[Cicero]

I don't doubt that the climate is changing. Heck, I can even tell that it has changed in my lifetime alone. What I doubt is the reasons that most people cite for the climate change.

this

And also, I just dont care.

 

[killadoob]

Ghoti here is a snippet for you.

The recent rise in global temperature is too large to be caused solely by recent changes in solar luminosity, but a link has been found between solar cycles, global climate and events like El Nino,[24] and a study shows that heat caused by El Nino has a relation to civil wars.

Ghoti don't you think it's kinda odd that the hottest 10 years on record all have come during this cycle.

the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper atmosphere.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
Interesting that the very thing that gives us warmth that cannot be the very thing giving us more warmth according to you.

Observations have shown correlations between the length of the solar cycle and observed (or proxy-calculated) atmospheric temperature on the earth.

The most well-documented connection between solar activity and climate change is the Maunder Minimum, during which cold weather prevailed in Europe.[26] Research suggests a new 90-year Maunder minimum would result in a reduction of global average temperatures of about 0.3°C, which would not be enough to offset the ongoing and forecasted average global temperature increase due to global warming.[27]

Daniel J. Hancock and Douglas N. Yarger found "statistically significant relationships between the double [~21 year] sunspot cycle and the 'January thaw' phenomenon along the East Coast and between the double sunspot cycle and 'drought' (June temperature and precipitation) in the Midwest."[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#Little_Ice_Age

That is interesting, less sun spots cooler temps, so in theory more sun spots hotter temps. I am not sure what is so unbelievable about that.

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters has not been proven; however, lower earth temperatures have been observed during low sunspot activity......

So low sun spot activity means the cooling of the earth, high sun spot activity means?

 

[w1z4rd]

Ghoti here is a snippet for you.

The recent rise in global temperature is too large to be caused solely by recent changes in solar luminosity, but a link has been found between solar cycles, global climate and events like El Nino,[24] and a study shows that heat caused by El Nino has a relation to civil wars.

Ghoti don't you think it's kinda odd that the hottest 10 years on record all have come during this cycle.

the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper atmosphere.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
Interesting that the very thing that gives us warmth that cannot be the very thing giving us more warmth according to you.

Not according to me, according to NASA.

Solar irradiance

It's reasonable to assume that changes in the sun's energy output would cause the climate to change, since the sun is the fundamental source of energy that drives our climate system.

Indeed, studies show that solar variability has played a role in past climate changes. For example, a decrease in solar activity is thought to have triggered the Little Ice Age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the Alps.

But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun:

Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly.
If the warming were caused by a more active sun, then scientists would expect to see warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere. That's because greenhouse gasses are trapping heat in the lower atmosphere.
Climate models that include solar irradiance changes can’t reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.

http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

 

[ozoned]

That's nice, in 10 to 15 years time, when the data record is long enough to confirm / disprove the climate theories,
we'll be able to compare this study with the climate outcome, and determine which of the two ideological
groups is smarter.

Yay, something to look forward to when I'm retired.

 

[Pitbull]

That's nice, in 10 to 15 years time, when the data record is long enough to confirm / disprove the climate theories,
we'll be able to compare this study with the climate outcome, and determine which of the two ideological
groups is smarter.

Yay, something to look forward to when I'm retired.

There are records dating back thousands of years based on ice samples. No need to wait

 

[Nicodeamus]

Thats what a dictionary was invented for

"con·serv·a·tive   [kuhn-sur-vuh-tiv] Show IPA
adjective
1.
disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change."
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservative

So if I want to preserve the idea of freedom and liberty then I'm conservative? Conservatism in America is trying to conserve liberty, which is liberalism. Their liberals are more socialist-liberals it is very confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
You get 10 billion different types of conservatism, which is very strange since this study had to study all of them so that it could come to a complete conclusion, or maybe it had selective bias sampling!

 

[w1z4rd]

So if I want to preserve the idea of freedom and liberty then I'm conservative? Conservatism in America is trying to conserve liberty, which is liberalism. Their liberals are more socialist-liberals it is very confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
You get 10 billion different types of conservatism, which is very strange since this study had to study all of them so that it could come to a complete conclusion.

Yeah amazing stuff. Almost magical, perhaps space aliens?

 

[Nicodeamus]

Yeah amazing stuff. Almost magical, perhaps space aliens?

Do you want to conserve space aliens? You're taking this go green approach to far

I like this one though

Green conservatism

Green conservatism is a term used to refer to conservatives who have incorporated green concerns into their ideology.[37] One of the first uses of the term green conservatism was by former United States Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in a debate on environmental issues with John Kerry.[38][39] Around this time, the green conservative movement was sometimes referred to as the crunchy con movement, a term popularized by National Review magazine and the writings of Rod Dreher.[40] The group Republicans for Environmental Protection seeks to strengthen the Republican Party's stance on environmental issues, and supports efforts to conserve natural resources and protect human and environmental health.

The Conservative Party in the United Kingdom under David Cameron has embraced a green agenda:[citation needed], including a tax on workplace car parking spaces, a halt to airport growth, a tax on 'gas-guzzling' 4x4s and restrictions on car advertising. The measures were suggested by The Quality of Life Policy Group, which was set up by Cameron to help fight climate change[citation needed].

 

[Zyzzyva]

Ja know, one day ghoti will be older and wiser and he will drift away from all his campaigning.

 

[Nicodeamus]

Ja know, one day ghoti will be older and wiser and he will drift away from all his campaigning.

Look anyone in this day and age who denies that climate change is real is just plain ignorant, the issue is how do we deal with it. I personally don't like the ideas of governments making it a political game and ****ing it up in the process.

 

[Apache]

So if I want to preserve the idea of freedom and liberty then I'm conservative? Conservatism in America is trying to conserve liberty, which is liberalism. Their liberals are more socialist-liberals it is very confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
You get 10 billion different types of conservatism, which is very strange since this study had to study all of them so that it could come to a complete conclusion, or maybe it had selective bias sampling!

The more the US moves away from traditional conservatism, the more messed up the US gets.

 

[Thugscub]

Fallen asleep.

 

[copacetic]

Sad really, oh well we cant help everyone, some just like to be sheeple. One day when he see's the real reason for all this climate change advanced/accelerated/propagated/caused by man for the BS it is, he might meet us and apologize for his misguided/misled beliefs, then again I doubt it ! Some people are just meant to be slaves to corporate dictators.

Yes, because it is in the best interests of industrialist dictators to get people to believe in man-made global warming..

Wait, huh?

 

[WilD_CaT]

How to be a real sceptic
Filed under:

Climate Science

— gavin @ 19 December 2005

Scepticism is often discussed in connection with climate change, although the concept is often abused. I therefore thought it might be interesting to go back and see what the epitome of 20th Century sceptics, Bertrand Russell, had to say on the subject. This is extracted from the Introduction to his ‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928):

I wish to propose for the reader’s favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

First of all, I wish to guard myself against being thought to take up an extreme position. … [Pyrrho] maintained that we never know enough to be sure that one course of action is wiser than another. In his youth, … he saw his teacher with his head stuck in a ditch, unable to get out. After contemplating him for some time, he walked on, maintaining that there was no sufficient ground for thinking that he would do any good by pulling the old man out. … Now I do not advocate such heroic scepticism as that. I am prepared to admit the ordinary beliefs of common sense, in practice if not in theory. I am prepared to admit any well-established result of science, not as certainly true, but as sufficiently probable to afford a basis for rational action.
….
There are matters about which those who have investigated them are agreed. There are other matters about which experts are not agreed. Even when experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. …. Nevertheless, the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

So does this provide any clarity? Russell clearly doesn’t support an extreme where everything must be continually doubted and nothing can ever be known. As he later suggests, that kind of position would make it philosophically troubling to ever get out of bed in the morning. This extreme attitude does however rear up in climate discussions where an interesting debate on the impacts of human-related increases of greenhouse gases on, say, the atmospheric circulation, often becomes bogged down in how do we know that GHGs are increasing at all, whether they are affected by human activity, and how it’s all down to the sun anyway. Since all of these things have been discussed ad nauseum here, here and elsewhere, that kind of ‘scepticism’ (more accurately described as contrarianism, or ‘la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you’-ism) serves only to waste time. Since working scientists are all busy people, this is usually why we tend to cease communication with such contrarians very quickly.

If we relax the above-mentioned constraint requiring ‘all experts’ to agree (something never achieved in practice) to ‘the overwhelming majority of experts’, we can substitute in the IPCC for ‘experts’ in the quote. It’s important to note that Russell does not claim that if all experts are agreed, then one must agree with them, but solely that being certain of the opposite opinion in such circumstances is not wise. It is implied by his opening statement then that having ‘all experts’ agree something is reasonable grounds for supposing something to be true. Similarly, if the IPCC concludes that something is highly uncertain (such as the magnitude of changes in aerosol indirect effects), then there are no good grounds for assuming otherwise.

Can someone be productively sceptical? Of course. Firstly, one needs to be aware that scepticism about whether a particular point has been made convincingly is not the same as assuming that the converse must therefore true. Sometimes scientists just don’t use the best arguments they could (particularly if they are a little out of their field of expertise) and these points can, and should, be challenged. One example would be the use of an incorrect ‘correlation implies causation’ argument. For instance, the strong correlation of CO2 and temperature in the Antarctic ice core records does not in and of itself imply that CO2 has a radiative impact on climate. However, additional analyses that look at the factors controlling temperature during the ice ages give strong grounds for believing that CO2 does play an important role. Therefore while the use of the correlation argument alone is wrong, the converse of the conclusion is not necessarily true.

Secondly, it helps to have done the homework. It is highly unlikely (though not impossible) that the sceptical point in question has not already been raised in the literature and at meetings. If a particular point has been argued to death previously and people have moved on (either because it was resolved, moot or simply from boredom), there is little point bringing it up again unless there is something new to talk about. Obviously, a good summary of how the point was dealt with can be educational though. Arguments about whether the current CO2 rise is caused by human activity fall clearly into this category.

Thirdly, scepticism has to be applied uniformly. Absolute credence in one obscure publication while distrusting mountains of ‘mainstream’ papers is a sure sign of cherry picking data to support an agenda, not clear-thinking scepticism. Not all papers get the peer review they deserve (or require) and the literature has many examples of dubious logic and unsupported interpretation. Sometimes this becomes very clear (for instance, the Soon and Baliunas saga at Climate Research), and sometimes it goes uncommented upon. But what about Galileo? Wasn’t he an obscure scientist persecuted by an entrenched mainstream? Yes, but Galileo is celebrated today because he was correct, not because he was persecuted. If an idea is right, it will be supported by additional evidence and will lead to successful predictions – at which point it will likely be accepted. The ‘Galileo’ defence (and its corollary the ‘establishment conspiracy’) are usually a sign that the additional evidence and the successful predictions are lacking.

Finally, it should be understood that constructive scepticism is a mainstay of the scientific method. The goal of science is to come closer to a comprehensive picture of how the real world works, with scepticism essential to toughening up scientific ideas, though alone, it is insufficient to move understanding forward. It isn’t essential that every true sceptic have an alternative theory ready to go, but they should bear in mind that our picture of how the world works, though incomplete, rests on many different foundations. If it sometimes seems that the scientific consensus is resistant to new ideas, it is because that consensus has already been tested in many ways and yet still stands.

Much of what passes for ‘debate’ on climate change in the popular media, is often framed as the ‘scientific consensus’ vs. the ‘sceptics’. A close examination of these arguments (for instance, as outlined in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial) doesn’t reveal much that could be described as true scepticism since they often use the fallacious reasoning that we discuss above. However, since scepticism has a (justifiably) long and noble tradition in science, the framing device is quite powerful (despite the lack of connection with any actual scepticism). As with the intelligent design controversy, agenda-driven opposition has often managed to cloak its contrarianism with the mantle of scepticism. So, while many contrarians pay lip service to the legacy of Russell (or even Pyrrho), forgive me if I remain a little sceptical…

 

[w1z4rd]

Look anyone in this day and age who denies that climate change is real is just plain ignorant, the issue is how do we deal with it. I personally don't like the ideas of governments making it a political game and ****ing it up in the process.

I agree 100%

 

[Alan]

I agree 100000000000000%