COLD ON WARMING: DEM VOTERS DON'T REALLY CARE

NY Post ^ | July 14, 2006

[presidio9]

EVERYBODY knows Republicans don't care about global warming. But here's some surprising news: Neither do Democrats. That's the finding of a poll out this week from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a survey of more than 1,500 U.S. adults last month. Pew found a huge partisan gap in how Americans perceive whether global warming exists and whether it's caused by humans, with Democrats tending to think it's real and man-made, and Republicans less convinced.

Yet, when asked to rate a selection of 19 national issues by importance, that gap looks less significant: Republicans ranked global warming 19th out of the 19 issues; Democrats ranked it 13th out of 19.

That there's a gap between the parties on the science of global warming isn't terribly surprising, though the size of the gap might be. Fully 81 percent of Democrats, versus 58 percent of Republicans, believe there is "solid evidence" that the Earth is getting warmer. And more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans (54 percent vs. 24 percent) believe "human activity" is to blame.

But if Democrats are so convinced global warming is real, and that modern industrial society is to blame, shouldn't it rank somewhere in - I don't know - their top five? After all, the Left's chief global-warming chin-stroker, Al Gore, makes a pretty dire series of predictions in his new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." As recounted on his Web site, climatecrisis.net:

* Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years - to 300,000 people a year.

* Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.

* Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.

* Droughts and wildfires will

[Puppage]

EVERYBODY knows Republicans don't care about global warming

Or, unicorns and the Easter Bunny

[satchmodog9]

I caught that as well. I would care about it if it were real or we were causing it. We aren't so I won't.

[untrained skeptic]

It's worth noting that the person taking the lead on this is the same idiot that made gun control a major part of his presidential platform.

Reality doesn't really matter to Gore and much of the democratic leadership.

It appears to matter a bit more to a significant number of democratic voters.

[sergeantdave]

Global warming is the 21st century version of Salem MA, with hysterical little girls crying "Witch! Witch!"

The latest hysteria has a "scientist" warning that global warming is responsible for forest fires.

It won’t be long now before people spontaneously combust while strolling down the street.

[spintreebob]

re: "Republicans don't care about global warming"

On the contrary, the guilt ridden heirs to the fortunes of Republicans, heirs who live in Mark Kirk's district on Chicago's North Shore and in similar districts... they are the ones who care ... and it is their money, not their votes, that the environmentalists want.

Ideology and truth do not drive the environmental movement.

FOLLOW THE MONEY.

[Ditter]

Woo Hoo! You are sure right about that! I had a cup of coppachino after lunch and when I crossed the scorching parking lot and got into my even hotter SUV, I suffered a meltdown right there. Gotta watch that global warming!

[sandbar]

That's because most people, democrat or republican actually have a smidgeon of common sense to realize that the Earth's climate has changed and fluctuated over the years and where there is now a drought, there will be a flood in later years. And vice versa.

What they mean, is that they are shocked that the masses aren't as stupid as they thought.

[Brit1]

I hear from prominent astronomers that both our nearest planetary neighbours, Venus and Mars are warming up at a faster rate than the Earth.

[brownsfan]

"But if Democrats are so convinced global warming is real, and that modern industrial society is to blame, shouldn't it rank somewhere in - I don't know - their top five? "

No, not when you consider who you're dealing with. Those on the left tend to be self-centered navel gazers. So, the left is convinced global warming is real, but until it affects them, it's not a big issue. Yep, it's consistent with what I've seen.

I believe we are in a warming cycle. And human activity might even be speeding it. But I don't think there's anything we can do, and I think the cycle will continue.

In the 70s, we were told of the coming ice age. And how our environment would be so polluted that by 2000, we'd all be wearing hazmat suits. In fact, I live by a river, the Cuyahoga, that was pronounced dead in the 70s. Never coming back they said.

Today, the environment is better than it was in the 70s, no ice age, and the Cuyahoga, while not crystal clear, is much better. Just yesterday I saw some turtles swimming in it, ducks, geese, and even a beaver swimming around.

Good call by the "environMENTAL scientists" of the 70s. I doubt they're much better today.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks, I will be sending this to the local publisher/editor of our local fishwrap. Most of the time they try to be fairly balanced.

They have gone ape over Gore's movie, and have had front page bs about Global Warming. With the exception of the rabid enviralists and DUers, their global warming stuff has to be turning off people.

[presidio9]

Let me know what happens. BTW Gramps, it was rude of me not to ping you into THIS THREAD

[metmom]

It won’t be long now before people spontaneously combust while strolling down the street.

Gee, I thought that was happening in the 80's when we were supposed to be in the middle of the ice age. We got quite a laugh out of that at work.

[wayoverontheright]

"But if Democrats are so convinced global warming is real, and that modern industrial society is to blame, shouldn't it rank somewhere in - I don't know - their top five? "

This poll indicates that even democrats know that the warming hysteria is nothing more than a convenient ruse. It enables them to battle the real bugaboo-capitalism. Global warming is simply a sub-strategy of the overall class warfare the Democratic party's ideology centers around.

[finnman69]

Sea levels could rise by 20 feet....or not.

GLOBAL WARMING PRIMER
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/climchng.html
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/historical_CO2.htm
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

These two figures show former temperatures with major periods of glaciation labeled. The dashed lines are the present global average temperature of about 15° C (59° F). Thus the solid curves show small changes from this average; note that the temperature drops only about 5° C during a glaciation. This has occurred about every 100,000 years, with smaller wiggles in between. That is, there has been a 100,000 year glaciation cycle for the past million years or so, and there may be shorter cycles as well.

The most recent glaciation, 20,000 years ago, is called the Laurentide, and Earth is still recovering from it. This map from the The Illinois State Museum exhibit on ice ages shows the extent of that ice.

The most recent small drop in average temperature caused the Little Ice Age of 1500-1700 AD, which history describes. Mountain glaciers advanced in Europe and rivers like the Thames in England froze solid, which doesn't happen now.

Click image for animation

The growth of the ice sheets began about 120,000 years ago as ice built up on the continents in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Canada and Europe. The largest extent of these ice sheets occurred 18,000 years ago. At that time the largest ice sheets were between 3.5 and 4 km thick. In North America the largest ice sheet was the Laurentide Ice Sheet centered on Hudson Bay with other sheets centered on Greenland and in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. As these ice sheets expanded they grew together, covering Baffin Bay and eventually the Great Lakes and New England. In northwestern Europe the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet began to grow and expand south to cover what is now Norway and Sweden and north to cover the exposed continental shelf. Over time the ice sheet grew to cover Finland and the United Kingdom. This ice sheet extended east to the Ural Mountains where it met the Siberian Ice Sheet. Before the last ice age ice sheets already existed on Antarctica and on Greenland.

Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective - understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly "catastrophically high." Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years. Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that's a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current 'guesstimations' of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol's irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?

[VRWCtaz]

"EVERYBODY knows Republicans don't care about global warming."

I think the writer may have been trying for a little sarcasm. Everybody knows the Dims are the world's only hope after all.

[Puppage]

Everybody knows the Dims are the world's only hope after all

That's because they're smarter, more caring, & dog gonnit, they just KNOW what's best.

[VRWCtaz]

I'm convinced Global Warming (Praise be unto the Profit Gore)is a Y3K result of second hand smoke and we must take action now for the children's sake!

[Paradox]

I am actually impressed. 54% of Republicans think there is solid evidence of warming, so we dont all have our heads in the sand. I also find the 24% believing its caused by man pretty good, it reflects a higher amount of scepticism by Republicans.

I am a believer in both, though I dont subscribe to the gloom and doom view of things. I still think the issue would be a GREAT trojan horse by which conservatives could get a whole host of conservative issues passed and implemented. But that would require us to think out of our little box...