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Comment Re:crazy (Score 1) 735

I don't mean to speak for the parent poster, but here's my 2 cents:

"Tell me who benefits from "bigger government" as a completely abstract concept." - Government employees, government funded researchers, politicians, and the businesses they write earmarks for, etc. Pretty simple really...

"possibility that atmospheric composition affects planetary cooling rates." - We can acknowledge this without accepting with 100% certainty that current models that statistically fit old data can accurately predict future temperatures. We can also disagree about the potential effects, and politically what to do about it.

"How do you come to the conclusion that the government is bribing scientists?" - They're funding most of them. Not bribes per se, but grants flow to those the government approves of.

I believe most of the scientists (and most of the believers or "shills") are not part of a conspiracy, or getting paid by the government to create propaganda. But they are "jumping straight to" the "easy conclusion" that because the Earth has warmed for a couple decades, "it's all humans fault, and we need to tax somebody right now to avoid Armageddon".

Comment Re:crazy (Score 1) 735

Conservatives are not what you say they are - I like to think of us as practical libertarians

We want less government, but not anarchy.
We want lower taxes, but everyone to pay their fair share (e.g. flat tax)
We want people to live moral lives, but we don't want a powerful state to force them to do so.
We want government to be as local and accountable as possible, with the federal government much smaller.

Fascists are Communists are both Totalitarian Statists. Only the rhetoric is different. Fascists are nationalist and say they don't own the businesses, while Communists are populist and say "the people" own the businesses, but in both cases the state controls everything.

Conservatives want a small state, exactly the opposite of your fallacious cry of "fascists!"

Comment Re:Wrong Questions (Score 1) 735

Does it mean millions dead?
Are you a fortune teller? How do you know?
I for one can outrun a sea level rise of 3mm / year.
And don't give me crap about hurricanes and flooding. As long as people want to live right on the ocean, they will be killed by bad weather no matter where the shoreline is, or what the temperature is.
And you're missing the point - which is that it could be exactly the opposite, perhaps millions more could be fed if the tundra became arable land.
The economic part is not to be dismissed either. The richer someplace is, the better off the poor are. Just look at the poor in the US with TVs and cars vs. Ethiopia. If we have global taxes and environmental regulations depressing the world economy, that means billions are worse off (and maybe dead, but I won't be as arrogant as you to assert that as definitive).

Comment Wrong Questions (Score 4, Insightful) 735

They're going about it the wrong way.
You don't want people asking themselves why they care whether the Unabomber believed in AGW.

You want them asking the right questions:
1. Is the planet warming?
2. If yes, by a significant amount?
3. If yes, is it human caused?
4. If yes, by a significant amount? (say >=30%)
5. If yes, can we reverse it?
6. If yes, should we reverse it?
7. If yes, do the risks of not reversing it outweigh:

- taxing your breath
- crippling the world economy
- billions of people poorer, governments richer
- any and all other power grabs and loss of freedom that result

8. If yes, what are the chances we'll make it worse by trying to fix it?

There is a lot of doubt added for each of 1-6 (especially if you're a good scientist/engineer with healthy skepticism), enough that there's not good reason for any politician to even look at #7.
Only 1-5 are actually science/engineering. The rest are political questions.
Anti-AGW people like myself just like to point out that there is uncertainty in 1-6, and even if there wasn't, the answer to #7 is most certainly "NO".
And for #8, here I cite the Aral Sea, the tire reef, solyndra, and the recent article about wind turbines causing warming as examples of wonderful government environmental "successes".

P.S. If you're taking 1-6 as truth with zero doubt, you've got a religion.

Comment Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397

"For whatever the reason(and we both fully well know the reason)" - I hope you don't mean racism, I hope you mean that we have a Marxist for a president.

And I hope your denigration of "extremist" "nutcases" isn't aimed at the Tea Party, because they tend to be rational, hardworking taxpayers that just want some fiscal sanity. (Ever been to one of the rallies?)

Your main thrust against the "far right" and Ron Paul seems to be the idea that they want to eliminate all regulations. I know of no one who wants to do that. The recent rhetoric during primary season etc. about reducing regulations is in reaction to the administration's extending federal power and bureaucracy (via regulations) that strangles businesses and taxpayers. One example (to bring it back to climate) is the EPA labeling CO2 a pollutant. Another would be them blocking the Keystone pipeline.
In short, the conservative position is not "Rape the Earth - have at it!"

Comment Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397

It's not a logical fallacy if it's definitional, e.g. "All vegetarians don't eat steak" --> "I'm a steak-eating vegetarian" means you're using the word "vegetarian" wrong.
I say if there's to be any meaning and definition behind party affiliation, good/true Republicans are for less taxes, less government.
Though I take your point and agree, there are a lot of bad politicians calling themselves Republicans that love to spend and grow government power, e.g. W

"After all, what kind of person runs for office with the idea of reducing his or her power?" - The founding fathers, and any and all other people that share their philosophy of limited government... I don't want to mar the point but Ron Paul comes to mind.

Comment Re:No one sees... (Score 0) 397

I was trying to get strikethrough format and clicked the wrong button. (do you know how to do strikethrough?)

I meant to use your own phrasing:
Democrats benefit from spending because it gives them money to send to people, and those dollars often go to the special interests, who then return the favor by giving enormous kickbacks, er, donations to the Jackass Party. And at the same time, they get to gain the clear electoral advantage that comes with a government-dependent subclass, ensuring that they get to keep their nice, cushy jobs.

Comment Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397

I'm not denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I'm not saying humans don't produce CO2.
I'm only pointing out, you can't call something science unless you follow this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Elements_of_scientific_method
And that so far of those steps we've done 1-3. Long term predictions require long term tests.
It's not science until predictions are validated, and tests are repeated.

Republicans benefit from cutting spending because it gives them an excuse to cut taxes, and those tax cuts go to the 1%, who then return the favor by giving enormous kickbacks, er, donations to the GOP. And at the same time, they get to gain the clear electoral advantage that comes with cutting taxes, ensuring that they get to keep their nice, cushy jobs.

Comment Re:No one sees... (Score 1, Insightful) 397

"truth is true whether you believe it or not."
how true.

you seem like you already have your mind made up, but I'll give it a shot:

"All of the science" so far has been collecting data and making models that fit that data. Until you get a couple decades more data and find one of the model's predictions were right, all you've got is the hypothesis of warming - no scientific method, no objective truth.

Higher taxes + more bureaucracy = bigger government = more power. How do you not see how this helps them? Good Republicans are for smaller, less powerful government.

Comment Re:Last bastion (Score 1) 963

Ok. It's still just an estimate, not falsifiable, no real scientific rigor.

"the less you know about how bad the risk is the more you want to do things to avoid it"
I disagree. I don't believe in ghosts, but this is the first thing that popped into my head:
There's a risk a poltergeist will show up at my house.
This could be bad, he could be scary and destructive.
Or, it could be good, I can turn my house into a tourist attraction and become rich.
Lets assume I think I know how to prevent poltergeists from showing up.
Do I do it?
What if the way to prevent them from coming is to lop off part of my house? Is it worth it?
What if I lop off part of my house, and the ghost comes anyways?
Or what if it succeeds in thwarting ghosts, but the other half of my house falls down because of what I did?

They're legitimate questions. It's more like cost/benefit analysis, not pure (detrimental) risk management.

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