RollingThunder
Gold Member
- Mar 22, 2010
- 4,818
- 522
- 155
A new study sheds some light on just why so many rightwingnuts reject the very clear and urgent warnings from virtually the entire world scientific community on the dangers to our world, our civilization, our populations, the Earth's biosphere and future generations from anthropogenic global warming and its associated climate changes. It turns out that they don't care about destroying the world because they have some wacko superstitions that the world is ending soon anyway so why bother when there is still so much profit to be made from selling and burning fossil fuels. The fact that crazies like this are in positions of power in our government is a very bad sign for the future of America and for our ability to lead the world in the struggle to drastically reduce mankind's carbon emissions and mitigate the damage to the planet that we are causing.
Belief in biblical end-times stifling climate change action in U.S.: study
RawStory
By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
(excerpts)
The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date. Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change. The fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them, Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly. The study, based on data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, uncovered that belief in the Second Coming of Jesus reduced the probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent when controlling for a number of demographic and cultural factors. When the effects of party affiliation, political ideology, and media distrust were removed from the analysis, the belief in the Second Coming increased this effect by almost 20 percent.
It stands to reason that most nonbelievers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised, Barker and Bearce explained. That very sentiment has been expressed by federal legislators. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) said in 2010 that he opposed action on climate change because the Earth will end only when God declares it to be over. He is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. Though the two researchers cautioned their study was not intended to predict future policy outcomes, they said their study suggested it was unlikely the United States would take action on climate change while so many Americans, particularly Republicans, believed in the coming end-times. That is, because of institutions such as the Electoral College, the winner-take-all representation mechanism, and the Senate filibuster, as well as the geographic distribution of partisanship to modern partisan polarization, minority interests often successfully block majority preferences, Barker and Bearce wrote. Thus, even if the median voter supports policies designed to slow global warming, legislation to effect such change could find itself dead on arrival if the median Republican voter strongly resists public policy environmentalism at least in part because of end-times beliefs.
Copyright © 2004-2013 Raw Story Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Belief in biblical end-times stifling climate change action in U.S.: study
RawStory
By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
(excerpts)
The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date. Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change. The fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them, Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly. The study, based on data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, uncovered that belief in the Second Coming of Jesus reduced the probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent when controlling for a number of demographic and cultural factors. When the effects of party affiliation, political ideology, and media distrust were removed from the analysis, the belief in the Second Coming increased this effect by almost 20 percent.
It stands to reason that most nonbelievers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised, Barker and Bearce explained. That very sentiment has been expressed by federal legislators. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) said in 2010 that he opposed action on climate change because the Earth will end only when God declares it to be over. He is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. Though the two researchers cautioned their study was not intended to predict future policy outcomes, they said their study suggested it was unlikely the United States would take action on climate change while so many Americans, particularly Republicans, believed in the coming end-times. That is, because of institutions such as the Electoral College, the winner-take-all representation mechanism, and the Senate filibuster, as well as the geographic distribution of partisanship to modern partisan polarization, minority interests often successfully block majority preferences, Barker and Bearce wrote. Thus, even if the median voter supports policies designed to slow global warming, legislation to effect such change could find itself dead on arrival if the median Republican voter strongly resists public policy environmentalism at least in part because of end-times beliefs.
Copyright © 2004-2013 Raw Story Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
This is what Hansen believes...Remember the US and Europe were putting a lot of shit into the Atmosphere in the 40s, 50s, 60's. Well, that's partly to explain for that cooling.
One solar cycle isn't going to cause what we're seeing today...Now a string of them; maybe! I don't see it yet.
