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I think the conservatives don’t disagree that climate change is real, they disagree that humans are responsible. To them it’s things like El Niño or solar activity.
And they're wrong according to virtually every person who actually studies the climate for a living, so they might as well pretend it's made up.
And it's stupid anyway. You might be able to deny human-caused climate change, but you can't deny smog and pollution. Greener energy sources mean less smog and pollution. Why isn't that a good thing to them?
It's a fundamental lack of understanding of math and science.
There's a video going around conservative circles talking about how CO2 only makes up .04 percent of the atmosphere, and therefore even if it were doubled it would be less than 1/1000th of the atmosphere, so it's not worth worrying about.
I tried to explain to my father that that's exactly why we're able to have such an impact. They don't understand that we're able to make a much larger relative impact on CO2 versus Nitrogen and Oxygen and therefore a larger impact on global temperatures.
No, there are a lot of conservatives that think it’s entirely made up
Symptoms of climate change are getting harder and harder to ignore. The goalposts are moving slowly, not towards any kind of constructive action mind you. Soon they'll get to "Of course it's man-made, but there's nothing we can do".
My dad switched from saying it isn't real to saying he'll be dead soon so he won't have to experience it.
Jokes on him: it's happening faster than he thought. He's getting to experience it anyway.
My dad switched from saying it isn’t real to saying he’ll be dead soon so he won’t have to experience it.
Ask him if he cares about the world that his kids and grand-kids will have to live in, or is he just a selfish asshole.
I did ask that, and it took the conversation to a bizarre place.
When I asked if he cared what happened to his kids or grandkids, he asked if I believed in God.
I said no, and asked what that had to do with anything. He said, if I believed in God, I'd go to heaven.
So, that's his suggestion: suffer through a miserable, doomed existence, and then go to heaven when you die.
Things that I found interesting from that:
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He pretends to be a Christian, but he is filled with hate and just wants to pick fights with everyone. I think he doesn't actually know anything about what being Christian is, other than if you're not, you burn in hell for all eternity.
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My mom, whose beliefs generally align fairly closely with his, does not want to cause trouble, unlike him. So, while he immediately tries to start shit, she'll avoid topics that will result in argument. She will certainly avoid asking questions if she doesn't want to hear the answer. So, she visibly cringed when he asked if I believed in God, because she knew what was coming next.
Lots of teenagers dramatically accuse their parents of being fascists, but in my case, he's the real thing. He's not quite a Nazi, but if they came to power in the U.S. he'd be goose-stepping along with them. He idolizes Nazi Germany, but pretty much considers modern Nazis to be pathetic losers.
In the strange, twisted world of child/parent relationships, I'm stuck. I know what he is, but he's also my father. I'm twisted up. I know he loves me, and I love him, but I hate what he is if that makes any sense.
My wife and my kids can't stand him, but everything I have and most of what they have comes from him. He knows that I disagree with him about almost everything he cares about, but if I go to him for help, he'll help without question and without strings attached.
He wasn't always this bad. He had been better for years, but then as he has declined physically and can't pretend he's young anymore, he became more miserable, and I think he wants everyone else to be miserable too.
That's a pretty frightening belief. Earth is just some bus stop your soul sits at waiting for heaven, so why take care of it and why fret about all the suffering that takes place on it.
For all we know, death may be total end of your soul/consciousness/whatever and Earth may be the only place with complex life in the universe. And we're trashing it.
The best thing we can do with parents like that is don't even bother to out them in a home. Let them work themselves to death or die on the streets. They get what they earn.
Not sure how you can idolize Nazi Germany without being a Nazi. As for the rest, any good faith attempt in debate will be met with skepticism at best. The Rights propaganda machine is too strong.
There's this myth in the modern day that there were somehow "noble Nazis" like Rommel who only cared about making their country great and giving it their all. They take the "Hitler turned Germany from a bankrupt country to a world power in 10 years" perspective, look at all of the fancy gadgets and buildings the Nazis made and their fancy Nazi uniforms, and they think it somewhat excuses the atrocities they committed.
There are too many people out there who think it's possible to learn from Nazi Germany's example and make America great again without all of the "bad Nazi stuff" that led to their downfall, without seeing any of the parallels to their stances on LGBTQ+ people, racial and religious minorities, foreign policy, workers rights, etc.
If there had been another significant Islamic terrorist attack in the early part of Trump's administration, I honestly believe he would have pushed for Muslim concentration camps considering his early campaign promises about banning them from the US. Having a minority scapegoat to blame for America's problems would have inspired more MAGA sycophants without losing the Jewish vote.
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First person that uses that argument with me, I'm going to tell them, in no uncertain terms, to stop voting since the same argument applies.
I guess they're smarter than all of NASA! That's amazing! What're they doing working in <whatever they do> when they could be straightening out the so-called scientists? /s
They legitimately do think they know more than NASA. At least your average conservative voter. Conservative politicians probably believe at least some of the science but deny it to keep getting voters. Conservative voters think climate change isn't real because it still snows in winter and people who have studied climate their entire lives are just part of a conspiracy to take away their trucks.
Yep. Personal experience with these types is that they will use the excuse of NASA being funded by the government to discredit it.
"They're all stupid liberals just spreading (Obama/Pelosi/Clinton/Biden/Soros) propaganda so they don't lose their funding, just like the schools," is what I imagine my in-laws would say.
It's actually a spectrum of disavowal of responsibility:
- It's not happening.
- Even if it is happening, it's not our fault.
- Even if it is our fault, there is nothing we can do.
- Even if there is something we can do, it's too late to do anything.
It's just that the first stage (denialism) is starting to become untenable.
- Even if it isn't too late to do something it's the others that should do it
- Even if we are the ones that should do something, it's down to everyone individually so no job for the politicians
- Even if it is down to the state, sorry it's too expensive.
Ah yes, the standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis. The tactic does not get old.
THANK YOU! I was trying to remember where my brain dug this up from and I couldn't pinpoint it.
- Bernard Woolley : What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
- Bernard Woolley : What's that?
- Sir Richard Wharton : Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
- Sir Richard Wharton : In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
- Sir Richard Wharton : In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
The major oil companies acknowledged climate change is a major threat and they are primarily responsible for it decades ago