It looks like the NH house voted to withdraw NH from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative which is bad news. RGGI’s not perfect, but as far as I can tell, it’s worked pretty well.
I’m not bothered by NH doing something libertarian, that’s what they do. I am bothered by the apparent influence of climate change skeptics/denialists/whatever-term-you-want-to-call-them.
And in the words of this guy, the aim is “not to get individual states out of RGGI, but to shut down RGGI Inc. altogether.”
Please share widely!
It’s so frustrating.
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p>First NH doesn’t use the money from the program to actually, you know, cut carbon. They waved their hands and used the money for other reasons. Now, without RGGI, they’re $18M farther in the hole.
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p>It’s not about science. It’s not about policy. It’s not about safety nor long term planning. It’s about Republicans dragging us backward to the 19th century. I was hoping that Republicans in some areas of the country [northeast, northwest] would have some freaking balance on issues like this, but not with the tea party Republicans breathing down their neck.
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p>Gah.
Forget “science”, dogma is all that matters.
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p>Today’s Republican party repudiates the “Age of Enlightenment”, and attacks the very foundations of western intellectualism since before the Reformation.
there is an over 70% majority in both houses of the legislature in NH.
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p>State Senate flipped from 10 – 14 minority to 19-5 majority for Republicans in the 2010 election a 79% majority.
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p>State House flipped from a 174 – 216 minority in the House to a 298 – 102 majority in November and after some resignations stands at a 74% majority at 296-102.
…53 of those House Republicans did not vote in favor of this terrible budget, leaving the final vote at 243-124, short of a veto-proof 2/3.
243/367 = 0.662 Which is .4% less than two thirds.
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p>There are 398 members of the house. I’m sure they can find the one necessary to get to 2/3
When the largest rally at the N.H. State House “in decades” turns out to tell the Senate to throw the House budget out, I think that means the momentum for gratuitous cruelty (and idiocy) has peaked.
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p>(Besides which, one more vote won’t get you there.)
Plus Gov. Lynch also got re-elected and I don’t recall your saying Dems should just do what they want at the federal level when they had their largest majorities in a long time in the last Congress. When Dems do something in MA you don’t like we’ll be sure to remind you how overwhelming our majority is here, even with modest GOP gains last time.
Charley asked in his promotion comment whether or not there was a veto proof majority in the NH house.
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p>I was merely answering that question with facts.
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p>Here’s his promotion comment. Emphasis mine.
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I had missed that connection on first read. It’s just that it’s not the first time you’ve mentioned the extent of GOP majorities in NH and it just struck me as rubbing it in.
Rejecting all science not only shows an astonishing level of hypocrisy on the part of legislators who in almost no case would tell all oncologists to go to &%$#, but also declares that it’s ok to destroy the environment for everyone and for all future generations.
What people are rejecting is a “sky is falling” science can do no wrong mentality from those in the Global Warming Industrial Complex. No dissenting voices shall be heard. That’s not science it is theology.
This is pretty typical, really. Conservatives are always whining about how “their voices are not being heard” and how dissension is crushed, when, if anything, the opposite is true. The loudest voices in the global warming debate have not been the authors of peer-reviewed scientific studies based upon mathematical models (which are falsifiable, and invite anyone using scientific methods to challenge them).
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p>Instead, they’ve been ideological right-wing voices from the “making sh*t up” school, who base their arguments on emotional rants against “Big Government” rather than the scientific method, and corporate groups from the “self-interested faction” school, who pour money into preventing anything that will cut into their corporate profits.
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p>But yet you claim it is the conservative voices being persecuted in this debate. Pretty typical behavior from standard modern-day conservatives.
are not really conservative at all in the traditional sense. It is far more accurate to call them right wing radicals.
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p>Traditional conservatives do not deny scientific reality. Traditional conservatives have SOME concern about the environment and they cherish American democratic values, unlike today´s Tea Partiers and their ilk.
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p>Let´s call these people what they actually are, and not insult genuine conservatives.
of climate experts agree that man-made global warming is real and will present serious problems for the future. There is no real dissent on climate change. Just you la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you people who confuse the fact that they have an opinion with having a valid or even worthwhile opinion.
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p>Your thinking is no different than that of the birthers and the truthers. You confuse your ignorance with insight, and your doubt with thought. You trade on whatever gaps you can find in science and infer that there is a conspiracy to prevent everyone from seeing that you’re actually right. If you weren’t so damaging to our country, you’d be pathetic.
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p>As David Brin points out, dissenting voices are welcome in science, but there’s a difference between dumbasses like you and your tea partying ilk. You’re not scientists, and your criticisms aren’t scientific.
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p>You guys are the reason our country is stupid.
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With all due respect to posting guidelines, attacking acceptance of global warming science as theology is beyond the pale.
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p>Those who refuse to overwhelming scientific evidence have made denial of global warming into a poor substitute for faith and have decided that they have the right to subject all of the rest of us to their faith-based simulation.
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p>Gee whiz, lets ignore all scientific evidence that green house gas emissions will destroy the environment and then see what happens! Better yet, let’s accuse those people who actually follow evidence of being in the thrall of ideology! That’s a real twofor!
This comment makes my point re:the Theology of global warming succinctly. Thanks. Should I now be burned at the stake?
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p>Have you watched the South Park Episode that deals with this. It’s quite good.
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Theology rests on faith; most of us prefer actual evidence, which overwhelmingly points to global warming, a matter on which scientists not shilling for interested parties are nearly unanimous.
Candidly, the hyper-exaggerated fear-mongering on the environmentalist side on this issue has pissed away a lot of credibility in this area. Alar on your apples! Greenpeace says Chernobyl resulted in millions of deaths! Love Canal. At some point, relying on exaggeration catches up with you, credibility -wise, and the seeming ability of the climate change evangelists to theorize how any problem, anywhere, is really the result of global warming does not help.
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p>Environmentalists complain so bitterly about skeptics seizing every cold snap as bogus “counter-evidence” yet will gladly spend every summertime heat wave as a teachable moment. Climate isn’t weather, except for Hurricane Katrina. The involvement of scientists in the political maneuvering has been similarly self-destructive, methinks.
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p>I for one, am relatively convinced that the phenomenon is (i) real; (ii) at the very least accelerated by industrialization; and (iii) not capable of being altered by any means yet proposed.
a.) Environmentalists are losers.
b.) Global warming is happening (and presumably will be catastrophic, you seem to admit)
c.) Throw up your hands.
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p>I find this to be rather unsatisfyingly open-ended.
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p>I just hope you understand that even if every enviro is a vegan, earth-biscuit non-showering smelly hippie loser, that will not avail anyone of the consequences of b.)
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p>I mean, great, but take up your case with the polar ice cap and tell it what a bunch of jerkwads we all are.
Wow, South Park. I totally stand corrected. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Matt and Trey — that would make me so uncool.
…I’ve had to re-read. Things I thought were jokes, weren’t, and things I started to take seriously, ended up making me laugh.
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p>How could this possibly be other than a very bad joke? I, for one, keep thinking we’re the fools for not being able to figure out how to convince these people to use their brains and understand how ridiculous their position is.
by cutting out the sky is falling line. Nobody knows, not even the most ardent proponent of Global Warming, climate change, or whatever the next thing to call it is, knows what the exact effects will be. The Earth has been both warmer and cooler than it is now while mammals have roamed the earth. It will not cause the end of mankind. Will it change how we live our lives, probably. The dire warning chicken little, the government must control everything stuff is mainly what upsets me if I’m being truthful.
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p>Yes there is uncertainty, but there’s also uncertainty that I’m going to come home alive tonight. So present all the possible scenarios, don’t just lead with the most dire. And try to have a meaningful discussion. That would be a start.
It’s odd debating someone being so intellectually dishonest, but the point is not that it has been warmer before. The point is that the change is proceeding at a catastrophically fast rate that threatens human society in a big way: food and water supply foremost, and threats of flooding and endemics not far behind.
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p>Sophistical answers like, “it’s been warm before,” make for good sound bites. Otherwise, one should know better.
Republicans have ceased to care about truth in any meaningful way. What is the point in debating them?
This “nobody knows” tack is a lie. Anyone with simple knowledge of chemistry, like Eabo, knows that water (above 4 deg C) expands as it gets warmer. Huge volumes of water like the ocean will expand noticeably. And anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry knows CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
More CO2 yields warmer atmosphere.
Warmer atmosphere warms the oceans.
Warmer oceans mean higher sea levels, and stronger hurricanes.
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p>Eabo buys new tires when the tread wears down on his old tires. He doesn’t drive on bald tires telling himself “nobody knows if my car will hydro-plane…”
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p>Global warming entails serious consequences and serious risks. The kind you can’t ignore with “nobody knows exactly what will happen.”
but if it does I’d be up the creek without insurance. The fact is I have to factor in the severity of a fire, not just the probability, when I buy insurance. Dealing with climate change requires the same type of risk assessment.
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p>We don’t know just how bad the effects will be, but there is a very real possibility that they will be catastrophic. It’s too late to reverse global warming in the near future, but it’s important that we think about the long-term future and preventing more damage. That can be done with energy conservation and evil green energy industrial complex, each of which has additional benefits for the health and economic welfare of our country.
Why is it morally or socially acceptable to deny global warming when qualified expert scientists almost without exception agree that we are causing global warming and global warming deniers also know that they would never employ the same denial toward oncologists?