Are you a climate change denier?

by Idéfix Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:43 am

If so, here is an article that will help you understand how you came to acquire that belief.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html

The Republican Party’s fast journey from debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist is a story of big political money, Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation.

“Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who worked for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.”

“In some ways,” he added, “it’s become yet another of the long list of litmus test issues that determine whether or not you’re a good Republican.”

In other words, Republican leaders don't believe this denial nonsense, but they have to act like they do or else the Kochs will cut them off and support their primary opponents. They don't believe it but they put on an act, and you are just gullible enough to believe it!

'The Turning Point'

It was called the “No Climate Tax” pledge, drafted by a new group called Americans for Prosperity that was funded by the Koch brothers. Its single sentence read: “I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, was the first member of Congress to sign it in July 2008.

The effort picked up steam the next year after the House of Representatives passed what is known as cap-and-trade legislation, a concept invented by conservative Reagan-era economists.

Cap-and-trade, like private health insurance exchanges backed by an individual mandate, was a Republican solution to a problem that Democrats wanted to solve. When Republicans would not accept the proposals from Democrats (carbon tax and Medicare-for-all respectively) Democrats said, "fine, let's do your solution because we really really care about solving the problem." In other words, Democrats under Obama called the longstanding GOP bluff on both issues. And the GOP promptly abandoned their own ideas and moved to deny the problem altogether.

The Republican party platform in 2008 said that common sense requires action to reduce carbon emissions through technology and market-based solutions. The 2012 platform took the opposite view, opposing any and all cap-and-trade legislation. What happened between 2008 and 2012? The scientific consensus only got stronger, but the Republican commitment to action got weaker. Why? Because the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United in 2010 allowed the Kochs to spend unlimited amounts of money and insist that GOP lawmakers oppose cap-and-trade or else. The Times article above does not cover the change in the GOP platform between 2008 and 2012. Washington Post reported on it back in 2012.

Summary: You have been had.

by Guest Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:04 am

anyone who voted for trump after ample statements like this is inherently a climate denier.

Are you a climate change denier?

Are you a climate change denier?

Re: Are you a climate change denier?