Limbaugh. Still a global warming skeptic.If you can stomach it, Rush Limbaugh has a couple of transcripts for Friday, both challenging the global warming consensus. It's real nut-case stuff.
First,
Global Warming is a Religion, which trivializes the methods of science, talks about Rush's faith (and claims that there is a 'faith' component to the work of scientists), cites
Michael Crichton on his assertion that environmentalism = religion, and links to a garbage website, the
American Thinker.
Second,
Poor Polar Bears Are the Latest Scare, an attack on the picture used (!) at the New York Times for their
story about the international Science Panel.
The point of this post is not to encourage you to read Limbaugh or the other people he cites. That would be a complete waste of time (do we really need to have, yet again, another debate about empiricism, induction, and inference?). But it
is instructive to see that Limbaugh, a good proxy for much of right-wing thought, has
not changed his position even in the face of significant consensus on global warming - which even the White House is acknowledging.
So Limbaugh and company will, over time, be seen as bizarre, detached from reality, and closed minded. Essentially stupid. And that's good for the nation and the world.
UPDATE: As Anonymous writes in comments,
"These guys are going to go straight from "it's not happening" to "it's a sign from the book of revelations" without pausing for a breath."
Well, sort of. Actually Limbaugh mixes up Christian faith and charges of environmentalism as a crypto-religion throughout the transcript. Specifically, he claims that those who warn about global warming are engaging in their own non-biblical apocalyptic scenario. Here is some of Rush from the first
link (above) :
To the environmentalist wackos, the global warming crowd, the apocalypse, the end days are: "Global warming! We've got ten years! We're doomed!"
And establishing a fallback position, Limbaugh celebrates global warming should it happen (dispite his skepticism). Haven't we all forgotten about the advantages of growing oranges in Scotland?
Where are all the stories about all the good that will happen from global warming, the parts of the world that will be fertile, for agricultural and other things that aren't now, and that once used to be, such as Scotland. You used to be able to grow crops in a lot of Scotland, can't now. Where are these stories?
One bright spot, from Limbaugh is this:
... I will argue with ... those of you out there who get caught up in this as a political issue, I will argue. I will try to change your mind about it within the context and the framework of liberalism versus conservatism.
If global warming turns out to be real, does that mean conservatism is discredited? Can we get that in writing?
posted by Quiddity at 2/02/2007 11:59:00 PM
These guys are going to go straight from "it's not happening" to "it's a sign from the book of revelations" without pausing for a breath.
“we scientists are too often ignored or misunderstood.” ...
Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe in The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Unfortuately, I think we are divided into three groups: the scientists and those who understand science, those who do not understand science but appreciate it for the benefits to humanity that it can produce, and those who find science threatening.
I believe language is part of the problem. Over time the meaning of words changes and one important word whose meaning has changed is "theory". Unfortunately, scientist still use its original meaning while colloquially it has become a substitute for the word "hypothesis."
I think science should adjust in this manner. Science is all about having ideas (change from hypotheses) and testing those ideas. The new ideas after holding up to testing help in the formation of models (change from theories) of how nature works.
In a nutshell; what scientists do is have ideas and then test those ideas for validity.
At any point an idea is proven false it is discarded and the standard model is readjusted to incorporate the new reality.
This is so far from any notion of religious belief, I can't possibly see how anyone can possibly make the arguement that science is a religion.
I wish Rush was as marginal as you think. However 43% of Republicans (with a college education!)do not believe global warming is a problem.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=303
And these people vote. And their Senators will prevent action on something they do not see as a problem, especially as Exxon tells them it will be more expensive to act on it than not.
Intergalactic Battalion of Smoking Missiles!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/28/124518/163
I wish Rush was as marginal as you think. However 43% of Republicans (with a college education!)do not believe global warming is a problem.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=303
And these people vote. And their Senators will prevent action on something they do not see as a problem, especially as Exxon tells them it will be more expensive to act on it than not:
Intergalactic Battalion of Smoking Missiles!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/28/124518/163
> If global warming turns out to be real, does that mean conservatism is discredited?
No, it means rationalism failed.
