GOP congressman: Republican Party has become too extreme, incapable of governing

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Remember when the Koch Brothers and bunch of other climate skeptics funded the only credible source of denial (Richard Mueller) who then proceeded to confirm the worst fears of climatologists with the caveat that his findings predicted worse results than their climate models? The consensus is unanimous: anthropogenic global warming is real and is already creating severe problems. On top of the huge droughts that have been afflicting us over the past few years, southern Russia has consistently had precipitation problems and India is facing problems with their monsoon (as predicted).

You can try to wiggle your way out of this issue all you want because the results seem far-fetched and damaging to your ideology but the verdict is in: global warming isn't going away. If we put this issue off for another decade, the damage will be done and the positive feedback loop will run away from us. Minute amounts of methane trapped in the permafrost of the arctic circle are already beginning to be released, over ten years ahead of schedule.

Torie is ignoring the models and the findings:

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Climate change is an empirical issue, not an ideological one. Aside from his little "ideological" dig, TheDeadFlagBlues made his points well, but ignored the issue of the rapidly increasing Indian and Chinese carbon footprint that will continue. So the experiment we are undergoing will continue, and with more CO2 in the mix, not less. There is no escape from that. The case involving public policy regarding the issue of climate change, needs to revolve around the marginal utility of throwing trillions and trillions at the issue. In the end, what change can be expected that makes that "investment" worth it? 

This is why climate change is the most difficult public policy issue that has ever confronted the post-war consensus: it requires global cooperation at a nearly impossible level (the tragedy of the commons will sink all of us in the end), progresses at a snail's pace as far as the public is concerned so it will be a secondary issue until it's too late and it's tailor-made to exacerbate class conflict when discussed in the public sphere (reductions in carbon output hit the working class hard in their pocket book while they're also the most likely to be skeptical of the existence of global warming). I think we're doomed no matter what actions we strive to take.

At the same time, I'm disturbed by crass lies uttered by countless Republican politicians that claim that global warming doesn't exist. It's the most shocking example of the GOP's existence as a band of uneducated zealots who are unfit to govern. No mature conservative party acts in this manner.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm not responding to Bob per se but I've noticed that all climate change deniers say that the main contributor behind increase carbon emissions are natural factors. No serious climatologists has agreed with this assertion: it's 100% clear that humans are responsible for the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's so obvious that you don't even need to look at the data to understand imo (although by all means, you should). Get real.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Remember when the Koch Brothers and bunch of other climate skeptics funded the only credible source of denial (Richard Mueller) who then proceeded to confirm the worst fears of climatologists with the caveat that his findings predicted worse results than their climate models? The consensus is unanimous: anthropogenic global warming is real and is already creating severe problems. On top of the huge droughts that have been afflicting us over the past few years, southern Russia has consistently had precipitation problems and India is facing problems with their monsoon (as predicted).

You can try to wiggle your way out of this issue all you want because the results seem far-fetched and damaging to your ideology but the verdict is in: global warming isn't going away. If we put this issue off for another decade, the damage will be done and the positive feedback loop will run away from us. Minute amounts of methane trapped in the permafrost of the arctic circle are already beginning to be released, over ten years ahead of schedule.

Torie is ignoring the models and the findings:

A couple of points about the graph above. First, the temperatures before 1850 are wild-ass guesses, and the black line is merely kinda the center of a series of wild-ass guesses. The next fifty years aren't particularly well documented either. Only the twentieth century is well documented. Since the temperature trend of the twentieth century is pretty uniform, it is fairly easy to "model." That doesn't prove the validity of the model since the model is based on past data points. The validity of the model is tested by its predictive value going forward. The reality is that in the last few years the model has broken down. Temperature increases predicted by the model simply have not occurred.

Uh, no they are not "wild-ass" guesses. There is a very secure methodology that is based around a variety of factors: tree rings, ice cores, glacial areas etc. You don't know what you're talking about.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I think Hanna is a genuine moderate.