{"id":19527,"date":"2011-04-25T06:14:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T12:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19527"},"modified":"2011-04-25T06:18:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T12:18:48","slug":"arguing-with-fundamentalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19527","title":{"rendered":"Arguing With Fundamentalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “progressive” belief that human activity is, by itself, warming the planet is on par with the fundamentalist Christian belief that the early is 6,000-odd years old; the evidence is decidedly shaky, but it’s hard to argue with them about it, due to their tendency to call you ugly names when you disagree.<\/p>\n

Fred Hiatt of the WaPo<\/em> – published in the Strib<\/em>, naturally – asks “How does one have discourse with deniers?<\/a>”<\/p>\n

The answer for normal people is “civilly”.<\/p>\n

The climate-change denialism is a newer part of the catechism.<\/p>\n

Just a few years ago, leading Republicans — John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty among them — not only accepted global warming as real but supported some kind of market-based mechanism to raise the cost of burning fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

Now polls show declining numbers of Republicans believing in climate change, and a minority of those believing humans are at fault, so the candidates are scrambling to disavow their past positions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Call it “growing in office”.<\/p>\n

Palin, who as Alaska governor supported efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, in 2009 wrote in the Washington Post, “But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes.”<\/p>\n

Pawlenty similarly acknowledged on “Meet the Press” last year that “the climate is changing,” but added that “the more interesting question is how much of that is man-made versus natural causes.”<\/p>\n

When I asked last week how Pawlenty would answer that “interesting question,” his spokesman responded by e-mail: “We don’t know the cause of climate change.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, we don’t go to politicians for answers to complex scientific questions.<\/p>\n

Any more than you should go to agenda-driven journalists:<\/p>\n

Climate science is complex, and much remains to be learned. But if you asked 1,000 scientists, 998 of them would say that climate change is real and that human activity — the burning of oil, gas and coal — is a significant contributor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea that “two out of a thousand scientists” “deny” global warming in the same sense that “evolution is just a theory, meaning it’s not real!”.<\/p>\n

It’s just those pesky agnostics, to Hiatt:<\/p>\n

As the polls on climate change shift, he talks about green jobs and energy independence instead of global warming, as if there’s nothing out there but pain-free, win-win solutions.<\/p>\n

To say that Republican irresponsibility makes it more difficult for Democrats to speak honestly is not an excuse. But it is a partial explanation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you change a few words, it’s a bit like reading Jimmy Swaggart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “progressive” belief that human activity is, by itself, warming the planet is on par with the fundamentalist Christian belief that the early is 6,000-odd years old; the evidence is decidedly shaky, but it’s hard to argue with them about it, due to their tendency to call you ugly names when you disagree. Fred Hiatt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-warmingcoolingchange"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19527"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19538,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19527\/revisions\/19538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}