Mike Huckabee v. scientific facts

blacbird said:

On CO2 emissions, Mike Huckabee represents the core position of the Republican Party about as clearly as it can be stated:

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/huckabees-hot-air-on-volcanoes/

caw

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Well, I see that this is Huckabee's position. Do you have any links to show it is also the core position of the Republican party?

What are the chances that statements like this have nothing to do with voters and everything to do with not pissing off the Koch brothers and their "we'll spend a billion dollars" pledges? I would actually be curious to see how republicans voters feel about the issue. I know that in the past climate denial has been big, but I also feel like that had been shifting in the right direction.

Roger J Carlson said:

Well, I see that this is Huckabee's position. Do you have any links to show it is also the core position of the Republican party?

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Maybe the 2012 Republican Platform would be the place to look. AAAS.org (Science Mag) has an article on the platform and its relationship to science.

Climate change does a disappearing act.While the 2008 platform spent nearly two pages on "addressing climate change responsibly" and "reducing demand for fossil fuels" in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, the topics are barely mentioned in the current version. Also gone is the 2008 platform's proposal for a government-sponsored "Climate Prize," which would award millions of dollars to “scientists who solve the challenges of climate change.”

Instead, the 2012 version emphasizes "taking advantage of all our American God-given resources" and the need to encourage greater domestic oil, gas, and coal development. The party opposes "any and all cap and trade legislation" that would create a system of tradable pollution permits designed to reduce industrial emissions of warming gases such as carbon dioxide. And it calls on Congress "to take quick action to prohibit the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations that will harm the nation's economy and threaten millions of jobs over the next quarter century." The platform also criticizes the President Barack Obama's Administration for issuing a National Security Strategy that "elevates 'climate change' to the level of a 'severe threat' equivalent to foreign aggression. The word 'climate,' in fact, appears in the current President's strategy more often than Al Qaeda, nuclear proliferation, radical Islam, or weapons of mass destruction."

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http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/08/republican-party-platform-has-lot-say-about-science

blacbird said:

If you can find one of the Big 17, or the leaders in both houses of congress, or any of the major Republican-supporting political commentators, who doesn't disparage the concept of human-generated CO2 emissions contributing in a major way to the documented century+-long rise in atmospheric carbon, please let us all know who that is.

caw

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Well, we usually ask people who make assertions provide corroboration, don't we? How in the world am I supposed to show that they haven't said something?

Still, candidates are not the only measure of the core position of a party:

Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds

[An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future.

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A National Survey of Republicans and Republican-*‐Leaning Independents on Energy and Climate Change

However, Republican voters are actually split in their views about climate change. A look at public opinion among Republicans over the past few years finds a more complex – and divided – Republican electorate.

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Conservative Republicans Alone on Global Warming's Timing

BoF said:

Maybe then 2012 Republican Platform would be the place to look. AAAS.org (Science Mag) has an article on the platform and its relationship to science.


http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/08/republican-party-platform-has-lot-say-about-science

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Thanks.

Roger J Carlson said:

Well, we usually ask people who make assertions provide corroboration, don't we? How in the world am I supposed to show that they haven't said something?

Still, candidates are not the only measure of the core position of a party:

Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds


A National Survey of Republicans and Republican-*‐Leaning Independents on Energy and Climate Change


Conservative Republicans Alone on Global Warming's Timing

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And yet, they keep voting for people who disagree with them?

You think polls are the proof? I think Republican voting records speak for themselves.

I disagree with democrats on abortion, but I vote for them because of several other issues. I don't think voting for a candidate means you agree with everything they say.

kaitie said:

I disagree with democrats on abortion, but I vote for them because of several other issues. I don't think voting for a candidate means you agree with everything they say.

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This, which is so often willfully ignored these days.

There are thousands of positions on hundreds of issues. Each person ranks those positions and issues based on their own scale of subjective value. And to manage those hundreds of issues, they get a choice between a corporate-sponsored, empire-loving candidate in a red tie, or a corporate-sponsored, empire-loving candidate in a blue tie. And if someone's scale doesn't level out the same way as the "correct" scale, they get mocked for it.

Are we to assume that everyone who votes for a Democrat is a fan of crony crapitolism and ever-expanding empire?

It's divisive bullshit, but it keeps the same few thousand people in control year after year after year after year.

Where's that definition of insanity when we need it?

Myrealana said:

And yet, they keep voting for people who disagree with them?

You think polls are the proof? I think Republican voting records speak for themselves.

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Proof? No. But then, I didn't make the original assertion. What I provided are counter examples.

kaitie said:

I disagree with democrats on abortion, but I vote for them because of several other issues. I don't think voting for a candidate means you agree with everything they say.

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Depending on how you define what democrats and republicans believe on abortion, I disagree with both, but I have voted for one or the other in all these many years.

I think a bigger issue is that there is a lack of conscious thought for many people with regards to who they vote for. Even people I know why try to be informed often have no idea as to the other sides of the issues.

I was talking to my SO yesterday about the fact that there is some pretty blatant hypocrisy in terms of the standard party line in both parties, but how this is so rarely addressed. I'm not saying that you can't think that in one instance government intrusion is allowable, but that in others it isn't, but it seems that most people just don't recognize that they are backing two complete different philosophies in different circumstances. An example would be saying that it's fundamentally wrong to have gun control because it goes against the constitution, and the constitution is the be all and end all of our legislation, while then saying that we need to have an amendment to the constitution to prevent gay people from getting married.

In my mind, if you believe both those things, then there is a conflict going on, and you should be able to explain why you feel that in one instance, one thing is right, but in the other, it's wrong. Many people I know not only couldn't answer that, but don't recognize the conflict in the first place.

Politicizing issues has just caused this to happen more and more, and I feel that we need to be encouraging people to think about why they vote for someone, or why they feel a particular way about an issue, and moreover to have actual fact-based reasons behind why they have those opinions. Maybe then we could have real, valid conversations rather than politicians who just say whatever they think sounds good on the surface.

ETA: I got like no sleep last night, so I'm hoping this actually makes sense.

Too often we have people vote because of the party, not the issues. And most can't even tell you what their 'candidate' stands for. As for CC, I always question it as every should.

Given the polarization of the parties on almost every issue, it's pretty hard today to vote the issues without voting the party. I can't think of a single major Republican politician who I agree with on much of anything.

AJMarks said:

Too often we have people vote because of the party, not the issues. And most can't even tell you what their 'candidate' stands for. As for CC, I always question it as every should.

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I still question gravity, personally.