High-profile global warming skeptic changes position

Just a matter of time I guess. Hope it's IN TIME and we have overestimated some climate forcings.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jan 21 2007, 08:16 PM) [snapback]378854[/snapback]</div>

Normally I don't like thumbing my nose at someone but that guy deserves it!

 

So, the lefties protested the (then) upcoming war on Iraq and now the majority of the world agrees. The lefties saw hybrids as the wave of the future and now even the stodgiest automakers are falling into line. The lefties see the religious right and neocons as out of sync and more and more the population as a whole is coming around. The lefties saw clear cutting as environmentally harmful and now we have laws supporting that position. The lefties saw global warming as a worldwide disaster and even tho the largest companies funded all sorts of studies to disprove the facts, now they are coming around.

The lefties still see corporate abuse, national single payer health care, social security fund raiding, nuclear waste storage, shrinking middle class, discrepancies between highest paid and lowest paid as a problem, money influencing politics, ...oh, you get it, all as serious concerns which need to be addressed. Why oh why are the righties so slow to acknowledge what is so obvious? Sooner or later they will buckle under, why not now?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jan 22 2007, 08:22 AM) [snapback]378978[/snapback]</div>

Should we take a look at the left's record? Starting with Vietnam (which the right opposed) and the left's icon - JFK - got us into? Or JFK's Bay of Pigs? Or Carter's record in office. Gee, that was a wonderful time to be an American (stagflation, Iran, Russians attack Afghanistan, 21% interest rates)! Try that against Reagan's position on the Cold War / knocking off the USSR. Reaganomics that moved us out of Carter's stagflation into the strongest, longest lasting economic growth mode the country has ever seen? How about Clinton's debacle in Somalia? The left's opposition to welfare reform that Clinton was forced to embrace due to a landslide mid-term election loss to the right (even most lefties now wide acknowledged welfare reform as huge success). Hillary's national health care debacle? Etc.

The list can go on - face it - both the left or the right have had their share of successes and failures as any fair-minded, educated person would acknowledge.

So I wouldn't - in that oh so typical lefty smug (and frankly, offensive) manner - assume the left is so superior to the right.

BTW - just to correct the record, the hybrid wasn't invented by a bunch of lefties - it was contrived by a mean, evil corporation making evil - yes - that evil word - PROFITS! And if you check the Priuschat poll you will see plenty of conservatives embracing it and buying it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Jan 21 2007, 05:48 PM) [snapback]378821[/snapback]</div>

Who is Frank Luntz? He is not a scientist or qualified person of merit relative to climate change so his views on the topic are pretty much meaningless anyway.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 23 2007, 01:36 AM) [snapback]379397[/snapback]</div>

Leftists? Got a cite for anyone who said they were leftists? What's wrong with profits? I'm happy with companies making profits, as long as it's done fairly. It's when they use their monopoly position to drive suppliers and employees into the ground that I have a problem with them.

Why does anyone that doesn't support Bush and the complete corporate control of the state automatically get labelled as some sort of 1950's caricature of a communist? It's sooooo boring after a while. At least put some creativity into it. Thanks!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 23 2007, 06:17 AM) [snapback]379455[/snapback]</div>

Beryl, repeat after me "It's all CLINTON'S fault"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 22 2007, 10:36 PM) [snapback]379397[/snapback]</div>

Two things have driven me over the edge of 'smugness' (I wasn't born or raised that way).

Eight long years of republicans attacking Bill Clinton wasting time and millions of dollars of MY money playing 'gotchya' (and not succeeding), then having the audacity to hope we as a nation would simply overlook the waste of money and missed opportunities

and six even longer years of ...junior... and all the damage he has done to our country, while they offer nothing in return.

Don't appreciate my smugness? I'm not exactly fond of it either, but have found no other way to register my disapproval of wasted time, wasted money wasted opportunities and wasted lives over the last 14 (and counting) years. It's my way of registering outright disgust. Wanna shut me up (please!) Change the negativeness, and lowered expectations which the repubs have ingrained on our society. Feel helpless to change society? Join with others who are at least trying. Wanna egg me and my ilk on? Keep up the BS.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jan 23 2007, 11:02 AM) [snapback]379505[/snapback]</div>

That's so boring, too. But the Clenis is all powerful, so perhaps there is something to that, after all, my rightwing relatives and coworkers are obsessed with it even now, nearly seven years since he's been President.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jan 23 2007, 08:15 AM) [snapback]379516[/snapback]</div>

I just don't appreciate the tone and the suggestion that the left is somehow superior to the right. Facts just don't bear that out. Like I said, there are plenty of successes and failures on each side of the aisle and plenty of instances where one side could accuse the other of "ingraining negativeness on our society". After all, it is your choice whether you want to be bitter and unhappy, not that of some national political party.

And BTW, it's folks with an attitude that "the right did this" or "the left did that" that are causing the true rift in this country (not the "negativeness/lowered expectations of the Republicans"). Do I have my own bias - sure. But I also recognize that there are plenty of very intelligent people with whom I don't see eye to eye with in regard to many issues - and many of them I am very proud to call friends.

So no, I don't want to "shut you up" or "egg you on" - just consider that the vast majority of conservatives or others with whom you disagree don't deserve the bitterness, loathing and hate you apparently harbor.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Jan 23 2007, 06:04 AM) [snapback]379451[/snapback]</div>

No, I worship (among other things) freedom.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 23 2007, 06:17 AM) [snapback]379455[/snapback]</div>

I don't recall using the word communist and Marin John was the one who implied that somehow the left was responsible for the Prius. However, I will say I was stretching my example to make a point that again, there are plenty of good and bad people on either side of the aisle. My running assumption is that most of them are good though and not intent on ruining the country we all share. Just trying to make it better in the best way they know how.

Re: profits, I agree with you as you say, as long as there is a free market (i.e., no monopoly power or collusion).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Jan 26 2007, 11:53 AM) [snapback]381287[/snapback]</div>

Wow Mizra - I guess I must have really gotten you started! Look - first, I really don't follow your train of thought - you're kind of all over the map here. But I'm not saying I disagree with everything you say above. But really, when you throw out a statement that says that Reagan was all about money, don't you think that is about as ridiculous as what you are claiming my freedom statement is? Was Reagan perfect, no. Can I understand how people might have strong opinions against many of his policies? Sure. Was he all about money? Hmm. Then I guess Clinton was just all about sex, right? Come on Mizra - that's really a shallow perception of things, IMHO. I do respect you - I don't always agree with you - but to make a statement like that and then criticize me because I make a statement about Freedom seems a bit of a double standard.

Anyway, cheers Mizra! Glad to see we both love this country (not that we both wouldn't want to change a lot of things about it, albeit probably different things).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Jan 26 2007, 07:16 PM) [snapback]381493[/snapback]</div>

Hey Mizra - no problem - no offense taken here. And I admit to pulling your chain every now and then! In fact I've been meaning to apologize for a retort to a post you had a while back (can't remember the topic, but after I posted it I felt I was unnecessarily impolite). Anyway, I usually try to keep it all in good spirits, even though we may not agree on everything since as you say, we probably agree on a lot. I could use a slice of humble pie myself now and then. So feel free to reel me in now and then!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Jan 21 2007, 05:48 PM) [snapback]378821[/snapback]</div>

What I have read in his statement is that he is conceding that the weather is changing and the indications are towards the warmer side, about 1.5 degrees F in the last century. The other statement I find interesting is that humans are having an affect upon it but NOT that humans are the cause of it, a position I hold myself. These events happening just after California slowly and painfully pulls itself out of the worst cold snaps in it's history. Which comes shortly after the warmest year on record. Go figure.

Wildkow

p.s. YMMV, I await further conclusive evidence that humans are the cause of Global Warming and that drastic changes leading to economic burdens upon the USA almost entirely are necessary. In addition the impact on the worlds poor from the rabid environmentalist and their closed minded pursuit of Human caused Global Warming, borders on the cruel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jp2BuhT27w&eurl=

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Jan 26 2007, 09:54 PM) [snapback]381551[/snapback]</div>

How are "rabid environmentalists" being cruel to the worlds poor?