And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[SimonNZ]

What do the items I bolded have to do with climate change?

The "Green New Deal" isn't just about climate change, its also about social inequality. They don't claim to be (directly) addressing climate change in those sections. What you've highlighted is the "New Deal" part.

There have elsewhere been a variety of climate initiatives put forward addressing the climate specifically. The idea that Lefties always attach a laundry list of unrelated pet projects is patently false.

[SimonNZ]

on topic and on tangent:

Tackling the Climate Crisis Head On | Elizabeth Warren

[Karl Henning]

I'm not sure that I am particularly impressed that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is flirting with throwing his hat in the ring.

[JBS]

Neptune is one planet. Earth is one planet. There are eight planets. It's not a solar system-wide trend if 25% of the planets, all of them with completely different orbits and properties, are warming. It's about as intelligent a rebuttal as pointing out that my fridge is getting colder. As for the claim that the website Madiel linked to, doesn't properly rebut the claim, the sentence you quoted is a link.

You gave a better rebuttal of the argument than they did.

[JBS]

The "Green New Deal" isn't just about climate change, its also about social inequality. They don't claim to be (directly) addressing climate change in those sections. What you've highlighted is the "New Deal" part.

There have elsewhere been a variety of climate initiatives put forward addressing the climate specifically. The idea that Lefties always attach a laundry list of unrelated pet projects is patently false.

Remember the link you posted about the 11,000 scientists? The authors there had no qualms saying we need to impose worldwide population control, and  worldwide meat consumption control, in the name of controlling carbon emissions. But they made no reference to anything with a direct impact on carbon emissions.  Why argue the merits of your cause if you can short circuit discussion by claiming we have to do such and such to avoid destroying the Earth?

But the Green New Deal is named after the economic program that, until now, was the most intrusive and the biggest in scale, the closest approach the U.S. has ever had to a centralized command economy, in peacetime. Even leaving out the social justice wishlist attached to it in the congressional resolution, it would involve governmental micromanagement on the same scale, rule by bureaucrats and technocrats accountable to no one else.

Which is the real reason why the US Right is so full of skeptics. They saw climate change being used as a reason for imposing leftist programs, so they started to look at the science, and found it to be full of speculation and not a little bit of data manipulation, masked under an appeal to the authority (the "consensus").

[drogulus]

And the relevance to the scientific veracity? Are you trying to say that you think the science must be wrong if someone you disagree with supports it?

      That is exactly the burden of the argument. By passing a judgment on the advocates the science is judged. The rest of the argument is that we don't know about natural climate science factors because scientists are misrepresenting their state of knowledge. To say this is unconvincing is a big understatement. The only way we have of judging the state of knowledge of science is by what we learn that they report to us.

Remember the link you posted about the 11,000 scientists? The authors there had no qualms saying we need to impose worldwide population control, and  worldwide meat consumption control, in the name of controlling carbon emissions. But they made no reference to anything with a direct impact on carbon emissions.  Why argue the merits of your cause if you can short circuit discussion by claiming we have to do such and such to avoid destroying the Earth?

But the Green New Deal is named after the economic program that, until now, was the most intrusive and the biggest in scale, the closest approach the U.S. has ever had to a centralized command economy, in peacetime. Even leaving out the social justice wishlist attached to it in the congressional resolution, it would involve governmental micromanagement on the same scale, rule by bureaucrats and technocrats accountable to no one else.

Which is the real reason why the US Right is so full of skeptics. They saw climate change being used as a reason for imposing leftist programs, so they started to look at the science, and found it to be full of speculation and not a little bit of data manipulation, masked under an appeal to the authority (the "consensus").

      Yes, that's a fundamental fallacy, that the science is wrong because it will bring about a Bad Thing if it's true. I would say the bad thing the truth of the idea will bring is the predicted climate catastrophe. And yet, I don't make the same error and say that this terrible outcome renders the idea false. The desirability of the consequences does not render a proposition true or false.

[SimonNZ]

"rule by bureaucrats and technocrats accountable to no one else."

Do you even believe that as you're typing it? They're accountable to the voters: eg. Roosevelt being reelected three times.

I better step back from this. Pretty soon we'll be trading insults and I don't want to do that.

[drogulus]

Which is the real reason why the US Right is so full of skeptics. They saw climate change being used as a reason for imposing leftist programs, so they started to look at the science, and found it to be full of speculation and not a little bit of data manipulation, masked under an appeal to the authority (the "consensus").

     The right has abandoned reason and empiricism. Of course they will find what they want to be there, they have lost the ability to find anything else.

[SimonNZ]

Plus: I'd take "data full of speculation" over "suppressed data" any day.

[JBS]

I better step back from this. Pretty soon we'll be trading insults and I don't want to do that.

Feeling is mutual, so I will do so as well. (Same with regards to Madiel.)

[drogulus]

    If I could have it my way it would be the case that reducing CO2 emissions and building hundred of nuclear power plants would stabilize the situation so that it woiuldn't get much worse. I want science to tell me that is a realistic possibility if we start a massive program right now.

     I want that to be true, but no matter how much I want it, it very likely is not true. Even with the most massive conceivable effort, things are going to get far worse. The effort is necessary, and however delayed by sham reasoning it will happen. Nevertheless, there's going to be a great increase of the kind of suffering that we are seeing now, on a much larger scale.

[Madiel]

Ask yourself this: why is the Left so keen to push so many of its goals through its climate change crusade...even the goals that have nothing to do with climate change?

Ask yourself what I raised at the very start of this: why the hell is the science of climate change a political issue?

I really don't give a damn whether a denialist is right wing or left wing. But they all seem to be right wing. Which doesn't raise questions about what the left is doing, it raises questions about what the right is doing.

[greg]

Ask yourself what I raised at the very start of this: why the hell is the science of climate change a political issue?

I really don't give a damn whether a denialist is right wing or left wing. But they all seem to be right wing. Which doesn't raise questions about what the left is doing, it raises questions about what the right is doing.

Both political sides don't trust each other so much that it literally would take something seen first hand for agreement to take place.

The distrust of the people will lead to distrust of the information. Information can be manipulated in order to achieve one's own goals.

Not saying I agree with that perspective. But you'll see people on the left arguing against crime statistics and such. I think it's the same concept.

[JBS]

Ask yourself what I raised at the very start of this: why the hell is the science of climate change a political issue?

I really don't give a damn whether a denialist is right wing or left wing. But they all seem to be right wing. Which doesn't raise questions about what the left is doing, it raises questions about what the right is doing.

Short answer
It's the Left that has politicized the issue, not the Right, by demanding everyone accede to their solutions.

Long answer

I have a long answer percolating in my head, but will wait until the current bout of server trouble has passed.

[Madiel]

Short answer
It's the Left that has politicized the issue, not the Right, by demanding everyone accede to their solutions.

Long answer

I have a long answer percolating in my head, but will wait until the current bout of server trouble has passed.

The short answer is utter bullshit. In other parts of the world both right and left accept that human-caused climate change is a reality. My whole point from the very start is that this is completely different from a genuine political debate about what to do about it, which is the debate that right and left engage in in those parts of the world other than the parts, USA chief amongst them, where one side of politics has decided to attack the apolitical messenger.

So don't bother with the long answer. We are done. You have nothing of value to say on the topic. Every single time I try to talk science, you talk politics. Others have pointed this out as well. You CONSTANTLY conflate scientists with left-wing politicians / advocates as if the two classes are the same, no matter how many times other posters point out that you are doing this.

My opinion of you has seriously plummeted.

[71 dB]

The short answer is utter bullshit. In other parts of the world both right and left accept that human-caused climate change is a reality. My whole point from the very start is that this is completely different from a genuine political debate about what to do about it, which is the debate that right and left engage in in those parts of the world other than the parts, USA chief amongst them, where one side of politics has decided to attack the apolitical messenger.

So don't bother with the long answer. We are done. You have nothing of value to say on the topic. Every single time I try to talk science, you talk politics. Others have pointed this out as well. You CONSTANTLY conflate scientists with left-wing politicians / advocates as if the two classes are the same, no matter how many times other posters point out that you are doing this.

My opinion of you has seriously plummeted.

That's a good response to JBS's BS.

In Finland and I believe in many many other not so corrupt countries hardly any politician denies the scientific evidence for man made climate change. The only debate is over what should we do about it. In Finland some politicians on the populous right think Finland should do nothing and let the rest of the World deal with the mess because Finland is so small country, drop in the bucket, but that's of course not only selfish as hell, but also moronic populism. Any region of the size of Finland could refrain from climate change action using the same argument. On the left side of Finnish politics people think Finland should be the LEADING country in the World tackling climate change, being the major innovator and exporter of cutting edge green technology.

In the US the right is intellectually bankrupt. The left is the only hope to avoid total intellectual bankruptcy of the whole nation.

[JBS]

The short answer is utter bullshit. In other parts of the world both right and left accept that human-caused climate change is a reality. My whole point from the very start is that this is completely different from a genuine political debate about what to do about it, which is the debate that right and left engage in in those parts of the world other than the parts, USA chief amongst them, where one side of politics has decided to attack the apolitical messenger.

So don't bother with the long answer. We are done. You have nothing of value to say on the topic. Every single time I try to talk science, you talk politics. Others have pointed this out as well. You CONSTANTLY conflate scientists with left-wing politicians / advocates as if the two classes are the same, no matter how many times other posters point out that you are doing this.

My opinion of you has seriously plummeted.

1)When scientists advocate leftist solutions, it's very fair to conflate them with left wing politicians and advocates.  The messenger is not apolitical.

2)You are assuming that scientists as a group have a mantle of incorruptibility that immunizes them from normal human frailities. You are assuming that use of the scientific method is foolproof against groupthink, institutional biases, and all the other flaws that bedevil any organized profession. They are not.

3)Perhaps Australia and Europe are different in this, but here in the US the politicization began with the Left, not the Right.

[North Star]

And the relevance to the scientific veracity? Are you trying to say that you think the science must be wrong if someone you disagree with supports it?

1)When scientists advocate leftist solutions, it's very fair to conflate them with left wing politicians and advocates.  The messenger is not apolitical.

2)You are assuming that scientists as a group have a mantle of incorruptibility that immunizes them from normal human frailities. You are assuming that use of the scientific method is foolproof against groupthink, institutional biases, and all the other flaws that bedevil any organized profession. They are not.

3)Perhaps Australia and Europe are different in this, but here in the US the politicization began with the Left, not the Right.

Alright then.

[Madiel]

1)When scientists advocate leftist solutions, it's very fair to conflate them with left wing politicians and advocates.  The messenger is not apolitical.

You really don't get it, do you? They're not "leftist" solutions. They're solutions. To the extent that scientists ever talk about solutions at all rather than reporting data and making predictions.

The only reason they are "leftist" solutions, you fool, is because the right in America denies that there is a problem at all and so doesn't offer any solutions. Okay? The reason there aren't any "rightist" solutions in America is because the right WON'T FUCKING LISTEN TO THE SCIENCE.

You see? You're doing it again. You're starting with the political angle, seeing proposals for dealing with climate change associated with the left because that's the only side who is even in this discussion in America, and then think the proposals are inherently "leftist" for that reason.

Instead of starting with the science, noticing that the right in the USA is ignoring the science, and wondering why.

In the USA. How the fuck exactly do you believe that the science is "leftist" in the USA, when it's the same science that is present in the rest of the world and yet somehow that science isn't "leftist" elsewhere? Eh? How the blazes do you believe that the facts about climate change miraculously change their political position in certain parts of the world? What bizarre part of your brain thinks that a graph of temperature or carbon dioxide levels has a voting pattern?

Just start from first principles for once and realise that facts are supposed to shape policy instead of politics shaping facts. And don't you DARE respond by claiming that leftist politics is shaping the scientific facts.

Can you do that? No, honestly I don't think you can. Because you heard about the issue of climate change from a political angle first instead of a scientific one, you are permanently locked into thinking of it as political issue and simply cannot pull your head out of your arse long enough to understand that that is fundamentally wrong. You see a chart in a scientific paper and think "that's a Democrat chart". Somehow believing that there is a notional Republican-supporting chart out there that the scientific community is suppressing.

It's a chart. It doesn't register to vote. What Democrats or Republicans choose to do with that chart and the information it conveys is a different matter entirely. It's not the chart's fucking fault that one side of American politics spends its time arguing that the chart is fake news.

Because we are on a political thread, you are rigidly committed to analysing the issue politically when my whole point from the very beginning was that treating this as a political issue is a fundamental and critical mistake.

I wouldn't care if it wasn't for the fact that the mindset of you and people like you has the capacity to make life on this planet far more difficult than it otherwise would be. If you were drowning at sea, your first order question would be whether the right logo is on the side of the lifeboat.

[Madiel]

As to point number 2, no, I never claimed scientists are immune to these problems. But your claim is that scientists fall prey to POLITICAL groupthink, which is nonsense.

Again you have cause and effect entirely backwards. If scientists in your country now tend to vote Democrat, that is because they cannot now bring themselves to vote for a party that has made a firm commitment to scientific illiteracy.