Global Warming 'Skepticism' or Willful Ignorance?

In 2009, Pew put out what should have been a wake up call for anyone confused by the politicization of science. In a study of the scientific community, Pew found that a whopping 6% of all scientists were Republican. And no serious person wondered why. Republicans had been anti-science for years; from evolution to global warming to Reagan's missile defense fantasy, conservatives have most always gotten reality dead wrong. For years, it was the argument of many on the right that there should no federal funding for HIV/AIDS research. Why? Because there has never been a "cure" found for a virus. This "we ought to just give up before we even start" attitude wasn't just proven wrong in the long run (AIDS isn't cured, but is not a treatable disease and not a death sentence), but it was deeply unscientific. At a certain point in history, there was no cure for rabies -- to name one of literally thousands of diseases. If we followed the right's line of thinking, no disease in history would ever have been cured, because no one would even have tried. "It's never been done, therefore it's impossible" is what passes for logic among conservatives, not scientists.

But there's still that 6% of scientists who are Republican. There seems to be one main difference between your average Republican and your Republican scientist -- a scientist is, by definition, willing to change their mind. For the rest of the GOP hive-mind, sticking to an argument long after it's been proven wrong is considered a good thing. And so it is that when a conservative scientist changes his mind, it's a case of giving in to reality's liberal bias.

Richard Muller, New York Times:

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

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Global Warming: Which Future Do You Choose?

How urgent is global warming? This urgent, according to NASA scientist physicist and climatologist James E. Hansen:

Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

Given that scenario, the statement "civilization would be at risk" seems an understatement. A better way to put it might be, "Civilization will be struggling to maintain itself -- if we're really, really lucky."

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Republicans Repeal the Existence of Climate Change

Global warming is just some crap scientists made up to get that sweet, sweet grant money, right? Never mind that this money goes to the research, not the scientists themselves, so researchers would have nothing to gain here; it's obvious (to Republicans, at least) that scientists are pulling a hoax to get grant money, which allows them to spend their days researching something that doesn't exist. I guess because it's fun.

Well, the gravy train stops here. The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday voted climate change out of existence. Problem solved. Add it to the other huge problems facing our nation that the GOP is working hard to solve, like the microscopic fraction of federal money spent on NPR or making sure the words "In God We Trust" are plastered over every blank square inch of America. You know, all that important "fiddling while Rome burns" stuff.

Sean Pool, ClimateProgress:

House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee demonstrated their commitment to science denial yesterday by unanimously voting down three separate amendments offered by Democrats to reaffirm basic facts about climate science. They then unanimously voted to pass the Upton-Inhofe bill to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific endangerment finding on greenhouse pollution.

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