At first I thought the headline read “Scientists proves conservatism and belief in climate change ARE incompatible,†and I thought to myself this was going to be an interesting read. Then I noticed the actual title and my response is, "Duh."
Climate change threads are always 'interesting'. Healthcare discussions, too. Politics and religion are often tame in comparison.
I have met Kerry Emanuel via email. A very interesting fellow. His website summarizing model predictions of tropical storms is much more informative than the National Hurricane Center. It comes as a surprise to learn so few scientist identify themselves as politically Republican. Would have thought the proportions to be much closer. Perhaps I know a relatively old subset
Scientists are looking for answers, a large subset of Republicans are convinced that they have the answers. That eliminates a large subset of Republicans from being scientists.
I don't see it as a surprise at all. My uncle is a well cited geneticist and used to be more Republican leaning. All the cuts in research funding within the last 8 years has made him sound more and more like a flaming liberal Also, when you consider that the mainstream also follows the talking heads: I've noticed many conservative talking heads are adamantly anti-science. IMO, all this has to change for us to have better development (stem cell research is a good example of how much ROI there would be if it wasn't a "political" issue from the ill-informed).
Come on people. Lots of stereotypes in here. Plus many of you seemingly hardcore liberals are confusing conservatism with neo-conservatism. Is it possible to believe in fiscal conservatism, but social and environmental progressiveness? Because I do.
Is that where the vast army of Republican engineers come from? There are plenty of libertarian and other persuasions within the engineering ranks too.
The earth has warmed and cooled throughout history. The real question is the amount of impact humans actually have on the cycle.
Science is a nonbelief system and must be based on evidence. Science disproves things. We only accept what we cannot disprove and we keep testing. Science does not accept things on faith. Climate change is based on measured and testable evidence. We have cored the ice (Greenland, Antarctica, tropical mountains) from the surface down to bed rock, sampled sediment in the ocean, lakes, rivers and streams, examined the contents of buried soils and sampled rocks. Our understanding of global climate change is always subject to further observation and testing. No one should "believe" in climate change.
Fiscal conservatism I can relate to; voting for a republican is hard to imagine of a thinking person.
