If they were really true believers they would stop using any sort of energy or products based on "fossil fuels".
That would eliminate about 99.9% of everything they touch, use, eat or consume, rely on or ride in.
Posted on 12/27/2015 5:18:38 PM PST by Libloather
The Republican Party is divided over whether to attack the science of climate change when opposing liberal policies.
Many of the most vocal Republicans say they have significant problems with the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is the main cause. The skeptics include presidential hopefuls Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Capitol Hill chairmen Sen. Jim Inhofe (Okla.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (Texas).
But others in the GOP aren't interested in litigating the science. They say it's more important - and far easier - to show that Democratic climate proposals would be disastrous to the economy and kill jobs.
The split comes as more and more voters, particularly young people and minorities, say in opinion polls that they believe climate change is real and want action to fight it.
Democrats have lined up firmly behind that view, with President Obama set to implement carbon dioxide limits for power plants that amount to the most significant action yet by the federal government to fight climate change.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said that since science underpins climate change policies, it's important to examine it in detail.
"We know that there's an ideological obsession to advance on this global warming agenda," said Sessions.
"Good policy should reflect the best science that we have. But a lot of the predictions that were confidently made have not occurred," he said, pointing to predictions of temperature increases and storm activity that he said did not pan out.
Inhofe, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, brought national attention to his crusade against climate science when he threw a snowball on the Senate floor during on a cold February day to mock alarmist climate conclusions.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who was presiding over the Senate's debate, as he removed the snowball from a plastic bag.
"It's a snowball. And it's just from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable."
Comedians, Obama, greens, Democrats and others still bring up Inhofe's "snowball moment" to mock the Republican Party's "denial" of climate change.
Many of the party's presidential hopefuls have aligned with climate skeptics, including Cruz, Carson and real estate mogul Donald Trump.
"I am not a believer," Trump said in a radio interview. "I believe there's change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down, and it goes up again."
At a hearing Cruz chaired in December on climate science, he repeatedly railed against climate change "alarmists" and said the Earth has not warmed in 18 years.
But Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the only other Republican to speak, only asked questions about the cost of Obama's climate policies.
Daines declined to directly attack Cruz, but said after the hearing that his constituents' top problem with Obama's policies are their impact on the economy.
"Montanans are most concerned about these regulations from the EPA and what effect it's going to have on their pocketbooks and their everyday lives," the freshman senator said. "That's where the conversation's going back home."
It's a line that has been taken repeatedly by other Republicans, and not just those who lean toward the center.
"What we in Congress ought to focus on is the economic impact of the president's plan," said Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). "We know that his regulations on energy sources have cost the American consumer hard-earned dollars, and it's costs the country jobs."
Freshman Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who leads a loose coalition of 11 House Republicans who say they believe that humans are changing the climate, went even further.
He said efforts like Cruz's climate denial hearing and Smith's investigation into climate research at a federal agency are a waste of time.
"I think it's a likely a poor investment," he said. "We should instead invest resources and time into coming up with conservative, market-driven solutions for the challenges posed by climate change."
Mike McKenna, a Republican energy industry consultant, said most Republicans don't want to concede the science on climate change, because they fear it will inevitably lead to policies that make fossil fuels more expensive.
"If you concede that the other side is right on the characterization of the problem, then you're done," McKenna said. "If you concede the frame, you're toast."
McKenna said climate change is extremely low on voters' lists of priorities, so it can do little to hurt Republicans if they fight the science.
Ford O'Connell, a GOP strategist, said rejecting climate science can be a dangerous game for Republicans, depending on their goals.
"In Congress, because you know your district, if you want to stay all-out skeptical, that's fine," he said. "But if you're in a swing district, or if you're running for president, you're far better off talking about it in terms of its relationship to jobs and the economy."
O'Connell said Democrats are nearly certain to make climate an issue in the presidential race, something the GOP nominee will have to be prepared for.
"The only person who's going to really have to in any way plausibly be concerned about solutions is whoever the Republican nominee is, because that's something that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats want to make an issue," he said.
Democrats and environmentalists, for their part, say they are hopeful the GOP will eventually come around on the issue.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said he'd welcome debate about conservative ways to fight global warming.
"It's not mandatory that everyone takes the Democratic position on climate, but it's becoming a test of whether or not you're a serious politician if you're going to simply ignore that the problem exists," he said.
Schatz said he sees the GOP moving away from skepticism.
"There are many members who realize that it's a loser for them in terms of being on the right side of history and on the right side of the voters," he said. "Members are moving from outright denial to merely being critical of the solution set that's being put forward by this president. And that gives us space to negotiate."
Note that the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitutions silence about things like global warming means that such issues are automatically and unquely state power issues.
In fact, a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibiting from appropriationg taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
”Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” - Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So the only thing proven about global warming is that it is one of the best excuses to win unconstitutional federal funding with no accountability.
And when patriots elect Trump, or whatever conservative they elect as president, they need to also elect a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support the new president.
Also consider that such a Congress would probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.
If they were really true believers they would stop using any sort of energy or products based on "fossil fuels".
That would eliminate about 99.9% of everything they touch, use, eat or consume, rely on or ride in.
Republicans do not attack anything but Conservatives.
I deny the hoax, but if you try to deny me buying fossil fuels, what kind of government are you practicing?
Hi Wendle,
I just stood up, did you see me?
Why don’t you just go back to Mr. Ed?
Average composition of the atmosphere up to an altitude of 25 km.
Gas Name |
Chemical Formula |
Percent Volume |
Nitrogen |
N2 |
78.08% |
Oxygen |
O2 |
20.95% |
*Water |
H2O |
0 to 4% |
Argon |
Ar |
0.93% |
*Carbon Dioxide |
CO2 |
0.0360% |
Neon |
Ne |
0.0018% |
Helium |
He |
0.0005% |
*Methane |
CH4 |
0.00017% |
Hydrogen |
H2 |
0.00005% |
*Nitrous Oxide |
N2O |
0.00003% |
*Ozone |
O3 |
0.000004% |
* variable gases
Water is also a Green House Gas.
The percentage of Water in the atmosphere is commonly given the working average of 1%.
So the greenhouse gas ‘water’ is 28 times more abundant in the atmosphere and we are worried about carbon dioxide?
Also commonly ignored in the discussion in the press of Global Warming is the fact that the solubility of carbon dioxide in the ocean falls as the ocean temperature rises. So it is it is far more likely that rising CO2 levels are more an artifact of rising global temperatures than vice versa.
The science is clear. Global warming is a hoax and a fraud.
The same kind of government which denies everyone electricity from coal burning power plants. Maybe I didn't go far enough. Not only should you not purchase the earth-choking fossil fuel, you should also be forced to purchase a certain type of vehicle so that the planet can be saved even quicker. That is the goal of the hoax deniers - yes?
Pretty simple to stand for environmentally sound policies while doubting climate change. People make them out to be indistinguishable but they’re not the same. By making the same claim you get to say a doubter is for poisoned lakes and pollution.
Where does Trump stand on this ????? He has dodged the question. Rubio? others are global warmist I think.
Climate sure has changed this year. Unless there is a very different late winter early spring, this will be the shortest mid-Atlantic winter I will have seen in 54 years.
Normally you get wiser with age, but they do not have to wait for long; it looks like a new cold period will start about 2030:
Scientists have studied the evolution of the solar magnetic field and the number of sunspots on the Sun's surface. The amplitude and the spatial configuration of the magnetic field of our star are changing over the years. Every 11 years the number of sunspots decreases sharply. Every 90 years this reduction (when it coincides with the 11-year cycle) reduces the number of spots by about a half. A 300-400 year lows reduce their numbers almost to zero. Best known minimum is the Maunder minimum, which lasted roughly from 1645 to 1715. During this period, there were about 50 sunspots instead of the usual 40 000-50 000.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/lmsu-wew120115.php
Original article: Heartbeat of the Sun from Principal Component Analysis and prediction of solar activity on a millenium timescale
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15689
Partisan Media Shills Alert!
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