Driftless wrote: ↑
Keating wrote: ↑
It's a pity any discussion about climate change policy inevitable degrades into whether it's human's fault and actually happening. One can agree it's happening and is human's fault and still disagree about the best course of action.
Right. Multiple questions seem to get conflated: Is the climate warming? What is the cause? What can be done? What should be done? etc. The extremes drive the discourse. Maybe that is the future of politics brought to us by social media.
I agree completely. There is a very low quality of debate regarding the climate topic. The left and the right stick to their emotion and faith based arguments.
The blue church on the left worships the sanctity of a natural world without the effects of man. Anything man does to change the natural world is evil
The Christian faith on the right thinks god would never allow the whole planet to be damaged by man. Anything governments do to force change in order to protect the environment is an over-reach and steps on their liberty.
So... in most of the media we only hear that either the earth will be destroyed by man or than the climate is not changing at all. Really annoying.
I personally feel like we will not be able to do much to significantly lower CO2. We can add more nuclear power and burn more natural gas and add more wind and solar power. I have no problem with this. I even support some government incentives for making this change. I normally hate government intervention in markets, but I also support sensible government intervention for creating an overall economic good.
I really hate the idea that the US has to "show leadership" and self impose CO2 limits. I am not in favor of giving countries like China even more imbalanced economic power. They are already eating our lunch and I am not happy to let them continue eating our lunch while our economy is hampered. This is why I didn't like the Paris accord. My understanding is that the left lost the election in Australia in part due to their climate change agenda. Good.
I love how the climate scientists drop the bomb that says "If we don't change in 12 years the earth will be permanently affected" (or words to this effect). Well... hell... of course this is true. This is like a non-statement. Every day we don't make a change the earth is affected. Every thing people do (or don't do) affects the future climate. This is just a way for scientists to make a scary claim that they cannot be responsible for. It is just a vague and obvious claim that allows politicians to create fear. And... of course... climate scientists want us to be afraid. They think the only way they can "save the earth" is to cause everyone to panic. And remember... these scientist are the priests of the blue church. They believe that anything humans do that changes the planet is evil. They think people are a virus.... a kind of evil force... that is a destroyer. If you doubt this, just listen to them speak. Everything they think is framed are the idea that people are an evil force on the planet.