What do you think of the GOP's 2008 stance on global warming?

Question

In researching Sarah Palin's position on global warming (unlike McCain, she doesn't believe that humans are causing it), I came upon this:

Palin’s quote about global warming not being manmade is also at odds with the freshly approved GOP platform for 2008. That language -- adopted by the party this week -- marks the first time the Republican Party’s policy document addresses climate change.

"The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere," the document reads. "Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/palin-global-wa.html

Not exactly an earth-shattering statement, but at least it's the first time that the GOP platform is directly mentioning man-made global warming.

What do you think of this stance? Step in the right direction? Still way too far behind the times? Pandering?

Answer 1

Thanks for the spam but there's nothing that anyone can do about global warming.  It's a natural occurrence and even God himself couldn't do anything about it.  It's happened before and it's going to happen again i just know I'm going to be dead long before it gets too bad.

Democrats don't have a plan any more than that idiot Gore's and that is most stupid.  Liberals will fall for anything and Al gore isn't one for the smart department.  He's proven that many times over.

Answer 2

"Behind the times" - - - - I seek accuracy rather than to keep up with trends.    The statement is true and verifiable - all other things being equal, CO2 does trap some heat.    That statement doesn't automatically mean humans caused the late 20th century warming or that that warming will resume in the 21st century - and it shouldn't because those would be WAGs.

    

Answer 3

Political pandering--- anythings fair in love and politics!

However I do agree that we must break our oil dependence using a multitude of alternative and conventional energy production methods-- nothing should be off the table-- strictly for economic reasons.

Answer 4

Gases produced by combustion is only a small part of global warming.  There is the increase ing carbon particles in the atmosphere that results from burning hydrocarbons.

Answer 5

at this point, they have only 1 objective.

to get elected.

while it appears that their position is not tenable, what they need to do is determine how many votes will be gained and lost by the position they take on this, and other issues.

clearly many have views on the subject.

each of us would like to have them adopt our views, since we all know that we're right.

(ah, correct that is, not conservative, whatever that means lately.)

on the other hand, they have issues that they'd like to promote.

in order to do that, they have to get elected.

in order to do that, they have to convince 51% of us to vote for 'em.

(yeah, i know it's not a direct vote, let's not split hairs.)

in order to do that, they have to promote positions that the undecided voters in the middle will like.

since they have such an uphill fight this time, they're going to have to get somewhat more "creative" in their presentation.

(isn't "creative" a nice word.  means whatever you want it to.)

so global warming is just one issue that's up for grabs in trying to recover from the mess that republicans are in at the moment.

Answer 6

I suspect the republican party is just as duplicitous on GW as the democrats are on religion. They say what they need to say. I was totally taken in by  McCain's passion for addressing GW . Now it seems clear it is a sham. Everything about his VP pick is just pure politics.

Putting.Country.Last

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/th...

Answer 7

I think we need to break our addiction to foreign oil and we need to use all of our possible energies. If that means oil, then so be it. We're not going to continue to be held hostage by foreign oil just because some environmentalist want to implement what amounts to nothing but feel good policies. Because, even if you agree with the theory of AGW, it is obvious that implementing something like carbon trading or the Kyoto protocol would amount to a lot of economic disturbance for a negligible drop in CO2.

Answer 8

Seems like the GOP (GWB43) had a 2000 stance on global warming, which was discarded soon after the election.  

Answer 9

I find nothing at all wrong with the GOP statement you cited. Anyone who can read knows that CO2 will block certain wavelengths of infrared radiation, will keeps most of hat inside the atmosphere to cause warming. We don't know to what extent this causes warming since there are so many variables in the Earth's climate it's essential a chaotic system that nobody can predict. Once those bandwidths are saturated, no further heating will result no matter how much additional CO2 you add, a fact that is curiously absent from any IPCC report I've ever read, or from any public debate about CO2 and AGW.

So, CO2 will cause warming but we don't know how much. But we do know from ice core data that CO2 levels have been almost 20 times higher than today with global temp being only 8C warmer than now. It will take a very long time for humans to increase CO2 to that level and by the time we could the petroleum would all be long gone. Why the hysteria and demands that we either buy carbon offsets, enriching a certain former vice president among others or stop using fossil fuels? And why do the same people sue to stop the distribution of wind power in California and shut down solar plants in Nevada? What might the real agenda be?

I don't know but I don't trust politicians and the IPCC reports are all 'managed' by politicians, no matter what the initial scientific input was. The most curious fact of all is that nobody has put together a comprehensive questionnaire for climate scientists to actually survey their opinion on AGW. Since that wouldn't be difficult to do I have to conclude that the AGW advocates wouldn't like the results of such a survey. Instead, scientists find more grant money for research that proves AGW is real so it's not surprising that most research does reflect that. And people here merely post lists of groups that believe in AGW, no doubt they'll add the GOP to that list but that is not what the platform says and I doubt most scientists with the IPCC actually agree with the conclusions and predictions in the reports the IPCC publishes.

Answer 10

Step in the WRONG direction....the GOP is pandering to the moonbats, nothing more.  I disagree with Mccain on GW and immigration however sadly he is a better choice OVERALL than Obama and will get my vote.