Why do the AGW alarmist always give political arguments?

Question

Why do the AGW alarmist always give political arguments?

Answer 1

The vast majority of the politically motivated arguments that I have seen here are those of skeptics.

Saying things like that environmentalists are communists or are advocating a world govt or socialism are just not based in fact or reality.

They are environmentalists because they are concerned.  And they tend not to vote Republican because that party hasn't shown the political will to do anything about environmenatl problems.  That's not politicalizing, it is a fact.

I'm not trying to polarize the issue, it already is.

Republicans seem more interested in protecting the interests of the oil companies and others who have the vested interest in not changing.  Why else would they have not approved the recent energy bill proposal to extend the tax credits for alternative energy?

  Oil companies get about $80 billion a year in subsidies paid by your tax dollars.

The proposal was to take $21 billion of that and put it toward the alt energy tax credits.  That would represent about 1% of oil company profits.  Exxon just reported over $40 billion in profits for 2007.

How can anyone justify any subsidies for these hugely profitable companies.  Especially when you have a constructive use for the money that would actually do some good.   Bush was going to veto it, but didn't have to because 40 Republican senators stripped it from the energy bill.  So they are obvioiusly more concerned with oil company profits than with the environment.  What other plausable explanation could there be?

  If you are concerned about the environment ,you vote for those who will do something about it. It's that simple.

That has absolutely nothing to do with communism, socialism, world govt. or any of that nonsense.  That's just what right wing extremists are ranting about and confusing you with.  That's the only political motivation I see.

I sometimes listen to Air America a liberal talk radio show.  I don't even like the more extremist ranters on that show, and I'm a liberal.  Ed Shultz  the main host of that show is very reasonable and moderate.  The right wing talk show hosts are no such thing. They are extremists.  They are ideologues.  I am not. Nor are most environmentalists.  We are alarmed at what is happening to the earth because it is true.  With or without global warming. Some of you don't seem to understand that we are already threatening the survival of every ecosysem on earth, without global warming.  And the solutions are the same.

Answer 2

because the money involved has made it a political problem.

Answer 3

You mean like this?

This is science and what counts is the data.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report....

summarized at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report...

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/a...

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

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

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know...  Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point.  You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.a...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Answer 4

That's funny, I haven't seen you put forth any argument whatsoever! To show that I'm not like you by a longshot, I will post information from scientific organizations...

Answer 5

one example being this one?

Answer 6

It is because the environmental movement has been hijacked by the left who care more about politics than the environment.  Have you noticed during rallies they chant anti-capitalist slogans?  

Here is some facts about the granddaddy of all environmental groups, Greenpeace:

An expose of Greenpeace's fundraising practices  carried out in 2003 by Public Interest Watch (PIW), a nonprofit watchdog group, led to a report disclosing that Greenpeace uses its Greenpeace Fund, a tax-exempt entity debarred from engaging in political advocacy and lobbying by the IRS tax code, to illegally direct funds to Greenpeace Inc., a tax-exempt organization permitted to engage in lobbying and advocacy but not to accept tax-deductible funds. PIW calculated that in 2000, $4.25 million was provided by the Greenpeace Fund in this way.

Taking issue with Greenpeace's anti-biotech stance, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore left the organization and  now laments that the group has become "dominated by leftwingers and extremists who disregard science in the pursuit of environmental purity."

According to a December 20, 2005 New York Times report, "the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between [Greenpeace] members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front." [...]

Moore broke with his comrades during this period, and has emerged as an articulate critic of his former brainchild. Referring to Greenpeace’s “eco-extremism” in March 2000, he described the group in Oregon Wheat magazine as “Anti-human”; “antitechnology and anti-science”; “Anti-organization” and “pro-anarchy”; “anti-trade”; “anti-free-enterprise”; “anti-democratic”; and “basically anti-civilization.”

Writing in Canada’s National Post in October 2001, Patrick Moore offered the following critique: “I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates…. Clearly, my former Greenpeace colleagues are either not reading the morning paper or simply don't care about the truth.”

Answer 7

And moral arguments too. It is because 99% of the poeple have no science knowledge and all they can do is repeat what the political activists have told them.

Answer 8

I'm not an expert, but here's my 2 cents.

Why? Because we live in an economy. And our choices are narrowed to what our global market offers. And what our global market offers is greatly influenced by oligopolies. And oligopolies, out of all businesses, are bred for a purpose: at any cost, make profit. Because making profit fuels power.

And to keep power you either innovate or cheat. And cheating means distorting the free market, first by influencing laws and policies through lobbies, then by making sure the market is blind to certain operations. The ones pertaining to the true life-cycle costs of creating, building and then disposing of a product, especially of the "clean-up", i.e. pollution-related health costs. And those costs are now affecting our economies in a global way.

And when you have a global problem, you need a global solution. And the best solutions to a problem come from tackling its root cause. And since the root cause is shackled global markets, you need to remove those shackles. And that means reducing oligopolies. And since oligopolies will never willingly accept those costs unless forced to, since that would level the playing field and remove their greatest advantage, some force outside of the business world must intervene to remove those unfair business advantages, to force a freer market.

And that force cannot be coming from anywhere else than people. And people have assembled sometimes freely, sometimes not in larger and larger groups historically, until we have now democratic societies. And in democratic societies we elect people to represent us. And those people are supposed to protect our common interests as citizens, in a process codified by laws. And the way to take part, as citizens, in this process is to use "political arguments". And that means informing our elected representatives on whether we think our society should, in our opinion, do something or not.

What they do after that is debatable. After all the essence of democracy is about citizens having healthy, respectful but critical debates...

Answer 9

Because the scientific arguments don't hold up.

Answer 10

Maybe they care about our planet.  It needs to change politically, for many this issue is just to difficult to understand therefore, it must be all B.S. Luckily the majority of our elected officials believe global warming is happening.

Answer 11

Because they are politicians who know nothing else, even those who pretend to be scientists

Answer 12

Well, to the extent that they *do*, that's a good question, because the evidence is in the science.  But I'm afraid the science only *supports* global warming, Bob... AND that humans worsen it.  

I'm not recommending panic, but I see quite the opposite bias from what you see -- it's the head-in-the-sand (or elsewhere) crowd which gives political arguments, suggesting it's all a conspiracy.  If there is a conspiracy, I think it's one of apathy to learn, and/or oil company profits... NOT one of political origin.

I really can't top Bob's great answer, and will just add some other comments.

First I suggest that everyone stop using the abbreviation 'AGW' as there are people who don't know that means anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming -- perhaps even the questioner, though I'm not suggesting that.  But many of those who can't be bothered to read the science probably don't even know what the A stands for.

There is little debate among educated people (and certainly none in the science community) as to whether global warming and other climate change is at least *taking place.*  Yet there are plenty of misinformation spreaders at forums like this where the educated and the uneducated meet.  Whether their motives are political or based in ignorance (and often both) there are many people chiming in that global climate change is not even occurring.  Those people are not helping the world.  I'd go so far as to say they're adding to the situation which puts us, our children and their children at potentially great risk.

This was all understandable twenty years ago, when the information and even the study was much less solidified.  But even if that were still the case, wouldn't it make sense to err on the side of caution?!  What is lost by taking steps to improve the environment??  I'll tell you what -- oil company profits (among others).  For those who truly believe it's all a hoax or an exaggeration, the economic impact naturally seems like the big focus.  For those who've looked at the science, our planet's SURVIVAL is the focus, and kinda trumps the economy issue, don't you think?

Having said that, environmental science *has* come a long way since the 70s, and there IS a SCIENTIFIC consensus of ever-growing proportions.  Most, and perhaps all, of the links Bob (the answerer) gave are good, credible ones which support that statement.  Look, I personally don't *know* any more than any of you do.  But I have great faith in science.  I don't place individual scientists above human foibles such as greed or politics, but the peer-reviewed science *community* -- internationally -- differs with the 'don't worry/do nothing' crowd.  For what's even *potentially* at stake, I'll side with science EVERY TIME.

But as with other issues for which KNOWLEDGE exists -- that evolution is real, and that astrology is bunk, to name two -- people will go on crying "debate" and keeping fairytales alive for any of various reasons.  

It is out of my passion to educate these people (since I obviously stand little chance of being chosen by you for your best answer) that I'm driven to write.  You'll notice that often the ones who don't believe the evidence and can't be bothered to learn are the ones with the one-line answers, such as Sappy Johnson gave, or 'evans_michael_ya', or 'campbelp2002' (who uses the oft-quoted 99% 'statistic' without any evidence, and who cites lack of science knowledge as his defense, not realizing that is precisely what haunts HIM).

Answer 13

sappy johnston's answer is a good one

Answer 14

Because we elect leaders to analyse and solve problems or is it really just a popularity contest and it doesnt matter who is in power anyway. Only Good Leadership can cut to the facts, and give incentives to stear the masses in the right direction. Unfortunateley the truth is that the solution probably will require a slow down of western economies and unless all nations agree to work together it aint gonna happen. So the next thing is to confuse the masses about what may or may not happen (or keep then confused) . After all theres still a lot of  money to be made from any remaining oil.

Conclusion - The reason why GW relates to politics is because in my view it is caused by how we live and consume our materials. Only people at the top in politics and the public eye can initiate incentives to make changes.

Answer 15

Who "always gives political arguments?"  It's not like the outcome is going to affect only one party's members or the other's.

All U.S. presidential candidates from both major political parties agree that global warming is happening and something must be done about it.  

As a conservative who wants to see the U.S. face the issue, it bothers me that some people assume that only liberals can embrace scientific process and intelligently follow the scientific data.  It's also annoying that some people make the absurd claim that U.S. action can only be undertaken on the U.N.'s terms (with silly claims of socialist / communist plots, etc).  The U.S. will only be cornered into an unfavorable response if we fail to design our own.  Surely we won't be that stupid.

In my opinion, factual references to political parties are not only fair game but are critically important, since choosing the right leaders is probably the most important thing we can do to affect our impact on global warming for the next few years.

Answer 16

Would you understand a scientific argument if they gave one?

It seems like trying to present scientific theory goes nowhere, there are still skeptics here who argue the increase in atmospheric CO2 isn't anthropogenic in origin.  In the face of that massive scientific ignorance, why even bother to present a credible scientific argument?  Put another way, if I had a sick pig, I wouldn't take time to explain to it why I was jabbing it with a needle.  The pig won't understand, it just wastes time, and it's going to get stuck no matter what.  

I liked the answer that liked Sappy Johnson's answer.

Answer 17

Because the true goals are political in nature:  Spreading socialism, which must always be achieved by trick or force.