Young Conservatives Begin to Move on Climate Change
October 16, 2012
Ok, well, better late than never, I guess.
I’m trying to look on the bright side, and come up with reasons why I would need to be polite to these folks when I meet them. Perhaps a good exercise for them would be to write letter to their grandchildren explaining how long it took them to realize that Rush Limbaugh was wrong, and the National Academy of Science was right.
A certain amount of this is just pure self preservation. The polling is clear.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
October 16, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Hmm…you should decide if it’s point scoring your business (so you’ll treat them badly) or actually getting things done (in which case nobody’s past is of any interest).
However if it’s the latest polls they’re after, expect enthusiasm to wane with the first cold spell.
October 16, 2012 at 3:31 pm
I suspect the letter will more likely say “Mistakes were made…but not by me.”
H/T Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
October 16, 2012 at 6:12 pm
[…] read a skeptical article about Young Conservatives For Energy Reform (YC4ER) on Climate Denial Crock of the Week. And […]
October 16, 2012 at 6:45 pm
[…] Ok, well, better late than never, I guess. I’m trying to look on the bright side, and come up with reasons why I would need to be polite to these folks when I meet them. Perhaps a good exercise for them would be to write letter to their grandchildren explaining how long it took them to realize that Rush Limbaugh was wrong, and the National Academy of Science was right. […]
October 16, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Wow!
I can see it now. We would have acted on climate change if the Democrats hadn’t politicized it.
This is Supporting evidence for the thesis in “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality”.
I just don’t understand these people. They are still making up there on reality, ideology rules reason.
October 16, 2012 at 9:57 pm
The key to understanding why conservatives generally haven’t gotten on the climate change bandwagon is that most people don’t have much interest in science. So if the news program they watch tells them there’s “no consensus” among climate scientists about climate change, they tend to believe it. And why wouldn’t they? I certainly don’t have time to personally check every factoid I decide to believe. In other words, I think most people are just ignorant, and only a few are “culpably ignorant.”
These “Young Conservatives for Energy Reform” are telling the conservative world that they need to rethink the issue, at a time when it’s very unpopular to do so. (Just ask Bob Inglis and Jon Huntsman.) Why not focus on that?
October 16, 2012 at 10:02 pm
On the other hand, saying the Democrats have “politicized” the issue is nonsensical. Any time there has to be a discussion about how society is supposed to deal with some problem, the issue is automatically “politicized.”
October 16, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Hello Dr.Bickmore. I am happy to see you commenting here.I have recommended your video ‘How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change’
several times to conservatives who seemed to be having difficulty getting past their ideological roadblocks on climate change. Thank you for making that available.
October 16, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Oh,I forgot to include the link to the video,but here it is:
Thanks again.
October 17, 2012 at 4:07 am
Never gotten on? Or mysteriously fallen off?
It’s true that, as a general rule, diehard conservatives were far more likely to be doubtful of climate change but most of the people on the stage at the Republican debates were believers to some extent less than a decade ago.
What happened?