This is for college project
In the early 1980s, it became clear that our carbon emissions were causing the Earth to warm and that it would eventually have undesirable consequences for the environment and for mankind. The fossil fuel companies realized that limiting our carbon emissions would have undesirable consequences for their profits, and they began promoting misinformation about science and funding politicians who would speak and vote against any efforts to limit carbon emissions. The fossil fuel companies adopted some of the methods and institutions the tobacco industry used denying that smoking caused health issues, and began funding those who could cast doubt upon the findings of the scientists.
It is now 30 years later and, though scientific evidence has become clear and convincing, the fossil fuel companies have stepped up their efforts at propaganda and misinformation. The workings of the Climate Change Denial Machine have been explained in an article written by Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright, published in Chapter 10 in the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. They drew up a diagram which shows how money and misinformation flows from climate Skeptics and fossil fuel companies and is disseminated to the public.
The article below has a picture of the diagram and links to the article in the Oxford handbook.
It means more false crises and lying. It means higher taxation for no real reason. It means less liberties for us peons and a more grandeur life style for the elite.
Quotes by H.L. Mencken, famous columnist: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ― and hence clamorous to be led to safety ― by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." And, "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it."
Climate Change is only a political issue. This is substantiated by the fact that there have only been political solutions, never any scientific solutions, How is raising taxes going to affect the climate?
Quote by Ottmar Edenhoffer, high level UN-IPCC official: "We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy...Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."
Because there are votes in it.
Because climate change is caused by global warming. To understand why global warming is happening you have to understand a few basics facts like; CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that without greenhouse gases the earth average temperature would be 33C colder (a giant snowball) and that we have added 40% more CO2 to the atmosphere. [1] There is not one scientist who denies these facts.
Global warming will affect our lives and the lives of our (grand)children (the rising sea levels alone will be cause for many coastal communities to have to be abandoned in the next century.) The question is should we deal with it now or leave it up to the next generations to pay for the cleanup. I for one think we should be responsible stewards of the planet and pay our own way, rather then leave it to our (grand)children
Some might think this means that deniers are unwilling to take responsibility, that is not always the case for instance a recent study has shown that climate change deniers are either extreme free marketeers or conspiracy theorists. [2] and the first four (at the time of writing) deniers on this question are perfect examples that confirm the study.
Exibit A) "Because carrying out climate change policies involves transferring money from the public to the elite through carbon taxing and trading, reducing the economy of the said country, reducing the global competitiveness of the said country, increasing the poverty of the said country."
Exibit B) "Climate alarmism advances international and domestic political agendas. "
exibit C) "What we have are people exemplified by Jesse who try to use AGW to help push their anti-capitalist agenda."
Exibit D) "greedy politicians like Algore wouldn't make his millions"
Hope this helps you to understand the issue a little more.
b/c w/o it greedy politicians like Algore wouldn't make his millions off of convincing everyone that they should care about a non-issue.
- we've had storm in the past, this is nothing new.
- Carbon emittions haven't caused that much of a dent in the Ozone layer, hence we still have one.
- we've gone through extreme climate change before. iceafe, snow-ball earth, desertification EVERYWHERE.
There's nothing to worry about. Just like Howard camping and other doomday sayers, these crackpots will stop at nothing to make a quick buck or two.
Because there's no such thing as a free lunch.
It will take effort, and some notable degree of expense, to fix the various causes of AGW. That effort will not happen spontaneously, it will happen when something drives the various actors to act. Barring occasional fortuitous circumstances that will make the right thing in peoples' selfish best interest (such as wind and solar energy becoming cheaper than coal), this pretty much requires that there be some authoritative force driving the change. Which usually means government, which means politics.
Jesse's post is informative. He links to a radical leftist site and pretends it is unbiased truth. Jesse may not have been around in the 1980s but I got my degree in geology in the 1980s and trust me, we didn't know then that CO2 emissions caused our planet to warm and we don't know now. What we have are people exemplified by Jesse who try to use AGW to help push their anti-capitalist agenda.
I cannot answer this question better than Cyclops above. Well done sir.
It remains on the political agenda because it is an important issue affecting everybody and could cause widespread natural disasters. People believe that the government could be a tool in reducing emissions and other forms of waste.
Climate alarmism advances international and domestic political agendas.
Canadian Minister of the Environment Christine Stewart:
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Maurice Strong at the U.N. Earth Climate Summit in Rio de Janeiro (1992):
“We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”
Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO) representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S Undersecretary of State for global issues at the same Rio summit:
“We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” he is now head of the UN Foundation which lobbies for hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fight so called climate change.
Richard Benedick of the U.S. State Department at the same Rio summit:
“A global warming treaty [Kyoto] must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”
Former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev on the importance of using climate alarmism to advance socialist Marxist objectives: “The threat of environmental crisis will be the international disaster key to unlock the New World Order.”
Former French President Jacques Chirac at the 2000 UN Conference on Climate Change in the Hague:
“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organization which France and the European Union would like to see established.”
Greenpeace co-founder Peter Moore:
“We do not have any scientific proof that we are the cause of the global warming that has occurred in the last 200 years…The alarmism is driving us through scare tactics to adopt energy policies that are going to create a huge amount of energy poverty among the poor people. It’s not good for people and it’s not good for the environment…In a warmer world we can produce more food.”
When asked who is responsible for promoting unwarranted climate fear and what their motives are:
“A powerful convergence of interests. Scientists seeking grant money, media seeking headlines, universities seeking huge grants from major institutions, foundations, environmental groups, politicians wanting to make it look like they are saving future generations. And all of these people have converged on this issue.”
Paul Ehrlich March 2010 Nature editorial:
“Everyone is scared s***less, but they don’t know what to do.”
Why does it remain a political issue?
This is for college project
Because carrying out climate change policies involves transferring money from the public to the elite through carbon taxing and trading, reducing the economy of the said country, reducing the global competitiveness of the said country, increasing the poverty of the said country.
