What is the political motivation for Global Warming?

Question

I've noticed they've changed it to "global climate crisis." So many scientists (including the inventor of doppler and the head of Meteorology at MIT) have strongly denonunced Al Gore's claims.....why is this never reported....what is the media's interest in being one sided with the alarmists on this?

Other examples......Rain forest destruction, Heterosexual Aids epedemic, Global Freezing in 1971...

By the way Al Gore said on TV the other day that the amount of people who no longer believe in Man Made global warming is about the same as people who don't believe we landed on the moon....last time I checked those stats were 5% and 65% respectively.....who does he think he's fooling and why didn't 60 minutes challenge him...why won't Al Gore take one offer for a debate with scientists....is everyone blind or so motivated by a socialist pipe dream that they don't care.

Answer 1

Its amazing how only people who state what you believe are considered "respected people".      So you don't bother scrutinizing what Gore or any of the other thousands of scientists are saying because you don't consider them respectable.    Good way of proving your correct without bothering to look at any evidence from the other side.      

Enough of that global freezing c**p; that was stated by a handful of unrespected scientists in the '70's.

Answer 2

1)  Distraction from real issues

2)  Source of government revenue through taxation

3)  Source of government expansion and intrusion

4)  Leverage against other nations

5)  Source of votes from the masses

Answer 3

As far as the media is concerned, it fits into their tried and proven formula for getting viewers.  90% of their material is bad news, the other 10% fills in the spaces.  What story could be worse than evil corporations destroying the Earth for their own selfish ends.  People watch that because it's shocking.

The media won't report scepticism about AGW because it doesn't attract viewers.

Answer 4

When untra-conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson volunteer to be in Al Gore's public service announcements, you know that we have an unusual issue with absolutely no political division:

"Some advertisements will feature bipartisan pairs, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton with Pat Robertson and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with former GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_o...

You're really close on the tiny number of people who believe climate change isn't happening:

"Seventy-one percent say that global warming is probably happening, 6 percent believe it is probably not happening..."

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/conten...

That's an interesting correllation that the same percentage of people don't believe that the Apollo landings happened.  Apparently about 5% of people are unable to grasp science and would rather believe in a government plot.  Thank goodness the United States is a republic and not a direct democracy (where people like that could actually have some say in how the country is run).

Here's the consensus:

"The consensus was quantified in a Science study by Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Dec. 2004) in which she surveyed 928 scientific journal articles that matched the search [global climate change] at the ISI Web of Science. Of these, according to Oreskes, 75% agreed with the consensus view (either implicitly or explicitly), 25% took no stand one way or the other, and none rejected the consensus."

http://norvig.com/oreskes.html

So where are all of those peer-reviewed skeptical science papers that you believe exist?  Oh yeah, the conspiracy... riiiiight...

Clearly there is no substantive disagreement in the science, although a media debate is being proposed by this type of player:

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2007/11...

He has gotten Fox News to air his junk science:

At Fox News, a Pundit for Hire

http://www.freepress.net/news/print.php?...

"Objective viewers long ago realized that Fox News has a political agenda. But, when a pundit promotes this agenda while on the take from corporations that benefit from it, then Fox News has gone one disturbing step further"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mill...

Don't worry that your position has no scientific grounding.  Irrational denial is a perfectly normal psychological reaction to overwhelming threats:

"In order to be a normal functional being, you must deny death. Healthy denial allows you to keep going. It's when it interferes with survival that it seems to cause a problem. What we call denial is often really suppression, which is “the conscious or semiconscious decision to avoid attending to the conflict” (Davidhizar, Poole, Giger, & Henderson, 1998)."

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ae5/csk11...

Hopefully the 6% stuck in denial will snap out of it soon enough to take prudent steps to protect their assets and prepare for skyrocketing food prices.

Food News

http://www.climatechangenews.org/nFood.h...

Answer 5

TAX TAX TAX...

Answer 6

Typical DENIER/skeptic post

"They" said [first false statement] and "they" were wrong, so how can we believe "them" when "they" say {second false statement]?

And then the Al Gore priapism.  Don't forget the MWP!

Answer 7

GW is a science issue foremost. Then it became a political issue mostly because the right wing hates Al Gore and because they fear government interference on buisness practices. Their response was to exaggerate everything out of proportion like they always do -"Al Gore is in it for the money" , "this is a worldwide socialist plot" etc....

But independent of the politics, the scientific community has built a very strong agreement on the basic idea- mankind is the primary cause of GW by CO2.  There are a handful of real skeptics. And they seem to be decreasing.

As for what the general populace believes, I'm not really interested. Almost half of American's don't believe in evolution and pretty much the same group of people believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

If someone doesn't believe that mankind is the major culprit for GW, they had better have a really good reason why. It is profound arrogance to think that such a large number of scientists and organizations throughout the world are lying or profit motivated or in on a huge conspiracy. The simpleton arguments made by most pseudoskeptics on this forum are embarrassingly naive.

Answer 8

Just like everything else-money, power and control. If so few doubt Gore's claims than why would he launch a 300 million dollar environmental propaganda campaign?

His scam engine is losing steam, that's why.

Answer 9

And I suppose you can back up all your claims for us.

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positi...

http://www.geosociety.org/positions/inde...

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library...

http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm

I didn't think so. You're nothing but a propagandist.

greengawin - I think you are a little confused. You provided the claims, you have the responsibility to prove them. It's called burden of proof and it rests with those making the claim.

Answer 10

so strange that two people can live in the same world and see such different things.....

everything you say in your little rant is innacurate.



'global warming' has no 'motivation', it is a scientific phenomenum. peoples reactions to the evidence for it have been very political, the main motive of the dissenters like you seems to be greed and selfishness.

you are 'locked in' to your consumer lifestyles and your corporate hierarchies, and any data that threaten the 'world order' and your privileged place in it have to be suppressed by fair means or foul.

BSc Tech, yank. and 20 years 'researching this stuff', and practicing low impact living.

and you?

as for your privilege, try living on a dollar a day, like nearly half  of the population (of the world, do try to think beyond your own front door).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/docume...

Answer 11

I believe the correct term is global climate change.  More specifically global climate change brought about by human-made influence that could be catastrophic - though it's been dumbed down for some reason to simply "global warming."

No one denies that human beings have an impact on the earth.

If you can't accept anthropogenic induced global climate change please at least consider that we as humans pump a considerable amount of toxic air pollutants into the air because we are addicted to fossil fuel combustion and other "necessary" industrial activities.

If the "global warming" thing leads to a reduction of our propensity for poisoning ourselves... isn't this a good thing?

Do you take a c**p in your living room and just leave it there?

Answer 12

Firstly the issue of consensus. Rarely has a stronger consensus existed on a complex scientific issue. In a 2005 (I think) analysis of papers on global warming published in Science and Nature (the world's two most respected scientific journals as measured by impact ratings) not a single one of the 1400 or so papers the researchers found on the subject of the origins of global warming provided any evidence to dispute its human origins*. Which either means that scientists denying GW have no interest in publishing their work in the places where it will be most widely read or that the quality of their research did not meet the exacting standards necessary to make it in to these journals.

Secondly, as to whether its a political issue - I should hope so. In fact I think we should all hope so...if even the mildest predictions of the IPCC of around a 1.5 celsius temperature rise by the end of the century prove correct the world will be in for a pretty rough ride (through reduction of crop yields in areas marginal for agriculture, increased starvation risk and associated political instability, increased frequency of severe weather events, migration from confilict areas etc). As a selfish person it seems to make sense to vote for politicians that will safeguard my long term future now by investing in sustainable technologies or finding ways to reduce emissions rather than waiting for 50 years for the really serious effects to kick in at which point any remedial action will have to be far more severe and far more painful!

Answer 13

Well obviosly if the inventor of doppler and the head of meteorology at MIT says something then it must be because I mean he is the head of meteorology at MIT.

Listen let's be realistic when ever people say stuff you have to wander what the monetary motivator is because it all revolves around money friend. Al Gore is in it because in the long run he is earning something for his global mindfulness he is not doing it for free.

Question neverything! the mediaputs out!

Answer 14

There's gobs and gobs of money being funneled to big corporations.  At one time this was called corporate welfare, now it's called compassion for the Earth.

There's the

'Wind Energy Production Tax Credits',

There is significant federal funding for DOE R&D programs,

Congress is being lobbied to provide federal incentives to encourage the immediate deployment of currently available technologies to improve the efficiency of the existing coal-based generation fleet,

The US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) that does the lobbying for a national and measurable cap & trade system on carbon emissions

Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) are being awarded for corporations to manage federal buildings.

and the phase out the conventional light bulbs

These are basicaly money transfers from the people to multi billion, multi-national corporations.

[Edit] Huh?  These are multi billion dollar programs that are going to last many years.  What congress, which president is going to say that we have enough wind turbines?

Every electric company from Beijing to Berlin is sucking the teat of the American Taxpayer.