Why is it almost all liberal minded people so readily accept global warming?

Question

Conservatives are much more likely to be skeptical. Nonetheless, many conservatives will not express their true feelings because of media pressure. So powerful is the media, that most will remain silent because to protest would be political suicide.

Answer 1

Since you have "no facts" to back-up your assertions, I'll follow your example.

1) Liberals are better educated

2) Liberals don't have an irrational fear that the government is evil and out to get their money

3) Liberals don't listen to Rush Limbaugh for their science information

4) Liberals actually study an issue before coming to a position on it

5) Liberals are real skeptics vs. ideologues who only pretend to be skeptics

"Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found."

Answer 2

Because Liberals want more, not less, government intrusion into the lives of their fellow citizens, and will latch on to any cause that can get them the power that they, as the "intellectual elite," know best how to wield!

Every liberal cause has to be a crisis.  The "Health Care" crisis.  The "Sub-prime Mortgage" crisis.  The "Global Warming" crisis.  Scare the masses, get them to accept your "fix," and then move on to the next "crisis."

They then use "appeals to authority" as arguments!  They paint their opponents as "blind" to what's "really happening," all the while demanding that some "higher authority" (i.e. Federal or World Government) step in and fix the problem.

Climatologists are not astrophysicists, so when they tell me the sun's variations are minimal with respect to climate, I ignore them.  Climatologists are not paleontologists, so when they tell me about long-term temperature reconstructions showing long-term stability, I ignore them.  Climatologists are not physicists, so when they tell me how "CO2" behaves in the atmosphere, why should I believe them?

Climatologists do not "predict" - so when they make predictions about the future, why do so many believe?

The current AGW Scare (and it's scare mongering - when your grant is for how MOOSE FLATULENCE affects GLOBAL WARMING you can't expect a reasonable person to take the scare seriously anymore) is all about FUNDING.  Billions and billions are being poured into research, but only to those who buy into the current AGW theme.

The more you look at what Temperature and Sea Levels and Ice Packs are doing, the more you realize these non-predicting predictors don't have a clue.

Answer 3

Liberals tend to be followers where Conservatives tend to be individualist who think for themselves.

Also liberals are drawn to emotional issues, and who can argue against saving the world for the children, even if the science is just made up?

Answer 4

and i suppose all those scientists that have been warning us are liberals? and liberals were responsible for ww 1 and 2 as well as causing bread to go stale? liberals must have then caused the black death then?

btw scientists normally don't care about "political suicide". in fact they get more prestige if they disprove others theory's.

Answer 5

The reason why people believe in global warming is because they choose not to turn a blind eye to its effects.  It's really hard to refute something when it's effects are so evident.  Shrinking ice caps, rising sea levels, abnornal weather patterns, changing sea currents, and temperature shifts all happening together at the same time is not just a coincidence.  

Yes, the media is very powerful. But then again, so are the political lobbyists and corporate interests who would suffer with tighter environmental controls.  These parties are the driving force behind anti-global warming campaigns and the major funders of politicians who have now or once refuted the idea of global warming.

P.S., The largest media conglomerate is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., a very conservative soure.

Answer 6

Liberal people like these?

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air.  We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

"I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

None of the above are particularly concerned about what the "media" thinks.  They've all got more important concerns about global warming, in their real life.

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...

Answer 7

I think you answered your own questions. Liberals believe whatever the media spoonfeeds them.

Answer 8

People learn liberal policies in college.  The same place people learn science 101.  You don't get information like that on the farm, in church, or from daddy.

Answer 9

I think liberal minded people are more likely to accept mainstream scientific judgment, because they understand that mainstream science is much better at collecting and analyzing the data in their area of proficiency than the lay person is.

Well, here's a question that's difficult to answer. Why are conservatives so skeptical, and more troubling, distrustful, of mainstream science? I think it has to do with a lifestyle and a refusal to sacrifice more than anything else.

EDIT - Soy has a logical argument that would be difficult to refute.

Answer 10

Didn't you ever learn that all the world's problem are the fault of Man?  It is even better that they can all be laid at the feet of those nasty capitalistic industrialists, who are deliberately poisoning every person in the world for the sake of making one more dollar.  They are so evil that they have even exported global warming to the other planets!  Check it here: http://blog.thevanguard.org/352/multi-pl...

Yes, global warming is occurring and mankind is partly at fault.  But if the Liberals truly believed that Man is the root of all these problems and should rank lowest in the order of creatures, why don't they all go emulate lemmings?

Answer 11

The same reason liberals generally accept the theory of evolution, a 4.5 billion year old Earth, and that the moon landings really happened. They are reasonably well grounded in science and logic, and know that the mainstream scientific opinion is the best bet. And lot of them, like me, have spent huge amounts of time studying the science involved and have concluded that there is indeed a strong case for AGW. Plus there is no alternate theory at this point that passes the laugh test. This is how science works, and it works pretty darn well.

Answer 12

Well the reason "liberals" or any sane person believes the scientific consensus is that 1) we don't have any specialized knowledge in climatology, geology, antarctic ice cores, etc to contradict in an intelligent way this conclusion 2) those who do have specialized knowledge and contradict the consensus make arguments that are quickly refuted and 3) there is an overwhelming scientific consensus supporting anthropogenic global warming....

It's not a question about not being skeptical...liberals are skeptical all the time, over a broad range of issues...But what's funny is that when "liberals" are skeptical of let's say the 9-11 commission, you call them "conspiratorialists" and paranoid....Yet when "conservatives" are being conspiratorial about a cabal of evil scientists getting together to lie about global warming, you call it being "open-minded"....How convenient.

What I find more hilarious is that "conservatives" are skeptical  of anthropogenic global warming because there theory that "greed is good" comes under attack...If Global warming is true, then we are going to have to somehow constrain unbridled capitalism, with the use of government action to foster alternatives to fossils fuels  and perhaps use government action to limit actions that may contribute to global warming...(i.e. Carbon tax)

And because the latter is intolerable, then the theory must be false...Because the conservative religion of "greed is good" is Truth.

So who is being irrational and close-minded in the face of new facts, the scientific reality?

Answer 13

I knew it would be a matter of time before I saw the "scientific fact" cudgel thrown at the OP, which is a crock right there. There are scientists who have legitimately debunked the whole "global warming" BS (which was formerly known as "The greenhouse effect", but didn't make it on the market with that name).

Liberals adore anything that is "scientific", or say they so...so long as it supports their liberal agenda.

And, the OP is correct in that conservatives tend to think more logically by being skeptical of things, especially the doomesday tales.

Liberals invent an earthly doomesday tale every decade and use it to further their environmental cause.

Kamran, spring hasn't "arrived" 2 months early. There is snow all around the country and sub-zero temperatures.

Answer 14

You are completely blind if you cannot accept scientific fact...especially over a freaking book.  Global warming is real, and hopefully you'll be one of the weaker ones I won't have to worry about.

Answer 15

Sheep always follow the leader.

Answer 16

conservatives are skeptical because if they accept it and realize that something has to be done they are going to lose money in  their precious oil and automobile industry.  as long as  they deny it exists, they are free to pollute and destroy because there isn't any "proof" that what they are doing is killing everything and everyone around them

Answer 17

Check out this myth buster...

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Mon...

Answer 18

Liberal-minded people tend to believe what the scientists are saying.

Conservative-minded people tend to believe what corporations say.

Answer 19

You're lumping two groups of people together.

There's one groups of people who turn the tv on and believe whatever a guy in a suit says.   They also believe what he insinuates: e.g., Dan Rather rarely actually said that global warming causes 'wacky weather,' but he frequently did a segment on 'what's with the wacky weather' and then segued to another segment on the latest global warming talks without a commercial break in between but also without ever actually stating that the 'wacky weather' (which usually actually wasn't even 'wacky' by any statistical measure) was caused by global warming.  He did this not because he was just staying on the weather and climate topic but because he was deliberately trying to create the impression that the 'wacky weather' was the same thing as global warming.  They do this with tax cuts and the deficit too even though revenue usually skyrockets after tax cuts go into effect.

Political liberals think the free market is bad, because it allows consumers to decide for themselves what to buy, eat, drive, where to live, etc..., and they're ready to believe anything that gives them an excuse to replace the market with a collectivist, controlled (by them of course) system.   Tell them private production and consumption causes kidney failure, acne, bad hair and caused Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction and they'll believe all of it, not because they're gullible but because they want to believe it.   They know they can't convince people that individual choice is bad for the reasons they think it's bad - they've tried and failed at that - so they look for pretexts.

Answer 20

why has spring arrived two months ahead of time? why was there no winter? (I live in Sweden, it should be cold out and snow). as the name says, "conservatives" are not very interested in any kind of change, so obviously they don´t want to believe the facts. I wonder how much proof they need? Yes, be sceptical, but don´t be an idiot!