Why the right goes nuclear over global warming

[babylonsister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-chait25mar25,0,3748551.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Why the right goes nuclear over global warming
Jonathan Chait

Most of the heat is generated by a small number of hard-core ideologues.
March 25, 2007

LAST YEAR, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and House members: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?" Of the respondents, 23% said yes, 77% said no. In the year since that poll, of course, global warming has seized a massive amount of public attention. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study, with input from 2,000 scientists worldwide, finding that the certainty on man-made global warming had risen to 90%.

So, the magazine asked the question again last month. The results? Only 13% of Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved. As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are actually getting more skeptical. Al Gore's recent congressional testimony on the subject, and the chilly reception he received from GOP members, suggest the discouraging conclusion that skepticism on global warming is hardening into party dogma. Like the notion that tax cuts are always good or that President Bush is a brave war leader, it's something you almost have to believe if you're an elected Republican.

How did it get this way? The easy answer is that Republicans are just tools of the energy industry. It's certainly true that many of them are. Leading global warming skeptic Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), for instance, was the subject of a fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The bottom line is that his relationship to the energy industry is as puppet relates to hand.

But the financial relationship doesn't quite explain the entirety of GOP skepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over the last year, even as Republicans have stiffened theirs.

The truth is more complicated — and more depressing: A small number of hard-core ideologues (some, but not all, industry shills) have led the thinking for the whole conservative movement.

Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.

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[booley]

1. This fits.

From what we have observed, Conservatives by and large have authoritarian tendencies.

Authoritarians take thier orders from the 'elite". And they dont' tolerate dissent, especialy from thier own side.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. Industry shills gin up propaganda and pseudo-skepticism

While their Religious Right cronies convince fundamentalists that scientists are trying to thwart the will of God. It also plays into Lakoff's theories about framing. Conservatives view things from an individual perspective, so efforts to regulate emissions and pollutants are seen as infringing upon businesses and the free market. Liberals see the larger, systemic picture - how individual acts of pollution contribute to a potential global catastrophe. It's going to be tough to persuade American conservatives about the very real danger of global warming because it just doesn't fit with their religious and philosophical views. I know from my own conversations with them that it's much easier to get them to see the need for alternative energy in order to end our dependence on foreign oil. Those gas prices are hurting them now. But global warming -if they're willing to acknowledge it at all - is this far off, nebulous thing that they figure God or technology will take care of.

[Turbineguy]

3. They have a way out.

God will do one of his miracles and save the world. To them the question is moot. In the meantime being on the oil company payroll doesn't hurt either.

Believing is seeing.

[heidler1]

4. Who consumes the biggest share of the worlds energy? The USA

at least on a per capita basis. Who in the USA consumes the most energy? The people with very large houses, private planes, people with Yachts, and so on. These people tend to be Wealthy Republicans and their life style is in for a big hit.

[classysassy]

5. Senator

Foghorn,sez show me the money$$$$$$ and i'll say anything you tell me to say.