Why don't conservatives care about climate change and the future?
25 Feb 2017
This is part 10 in a series of 35 questions. It is based on a series of questions answered by John Hawkins for Townhall.com: here, and here.
10a. Why don’t conservatives seem to give a damn about climate change?
10b. Why are conservatives so into climate denial when their future is also at stake?
There seem to be a few different reasons that people deny climate change. John Hawkins summed it up nicely:
“Put simply, we’re dubious of the evidence that says it’s occurring and believe much of it is driven by government grants, as opposed to real science. Moreover, many of the plans to fix it seem incredibly expensive, inconvenient or unworkable. Personally, I think we should certainly keep investigating global warming, but it would take much stronger scientific evidence to convince me that it was a problem we need to make major changes to address.”
I agree with him completely, but I have more to add regarding my personal view.
Science says that there have been at least five major ice ages1. The basic assumption is that in order for an ice age to occur, significant global cooling has to take place. In order to separate them, significant global warming has to take place.
Science also says that humans didn’t show up until the end of the last ice age and the earth has been on a warming trend ever since.
What can we learn based on these two pieces of scientific evidence?
First, we can say that the climate has been changing for millions of years and there’s no evidence that it has stopped.
Second, there were no humans around for the first four periods of global warming, therefore, they were not man made. I suspect that if you figure out what caused the first three, you’ll figure out what’s causing this one. Hint: it isn’t man. I’m not saying we haven’t contributed; I’m just saying we didn’t cause it.
Third, since we didn’t cause it, we aren’t going to stop it. Whatever process God put in place is going to keep going this time, just like it did the first four times. There’s no sense in putting trillions of dollars into programs that are only going to succeed in destroying economies, and hurting the poor. Ever hear of Green Energy Poverty?
This conservative thinks it would be much cheaper and more fruitful to work towards adaptation instead. I know, I know. You’re worried about how climate change is going to affect future generations of polar bears. I have an answer for that, too. It’s called a zoo.
- Eldredge, Sandy and Biek, Bob (2010). “Ice Ages–What Are They And What Causes Them?.” Survey Notes, vol. 42, no. 3. September 2010. Utah Geological Survey. Accessed: 29 Dec 2016. ↩
Tagged: climate conservatives liberals zoo
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