Should Republican leaders continue to deny that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and continue to oppose more action by the federal government to substantially address this problem?
For the first time in its 160-year history, the Republican Party did not do a new platform for the presidential election – they simply kept the same platform that they created in 2016. But a lot has changed over the past four years particularly as it relates to anthropogenic climate change. The Hill, which is a conservative periodical, thinks this will create problems for the GOP mainly because it will alienate so many in the younger generations who are more concerned about climate change than the Boomers are.
One of the most interesting things that has occurred relates to Exxon. Of particular interest was the testimony of two former Exxon scientists to a Congressional committee on Oct 21, 2019. Four decades ago, these two guys did research on greenhouse gas emissions and concluded that CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase from 380 ppm in 1980 to 415 PPM by 2020. (CO2 had stayed steady at under 280 ppm for 800,000 years up until the start of the Industrial Revolution.) The 415 ppm prediction was larger than most other environmental scientists at the time. Based on NOAA’s tracking of CO2 levels, they nailed it. The two scientists also warned of the dire consequences such an increase would cause. Instead of sounding the alarm, Exxon joined with Koch Industries and other fossil fuel industries in hiring other less reputable scientists to put out disinformation denying what they knew to be true. Recently, Exxon has changed its tune. It now recognizes that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and they are investing in addressing the problem. They are in favor of rejoining the Paris Accords. Over the past four years, every reputable scientific organization related to climate science has said – the climate is changing due to human activity, this has already caused significant problems and unless humans reverse the greenhouse gas trajectory, there will be very serious consequences for future generations. This is a summary of the reports that NASA compiled.
So, there is no longer any valid question about the science – the major fossil fuel companies have stopped hiring crackpot people with science degrees to obfuscate for them. Be that as it may, the Trump Administration has been hard at work rolling back many major policies restricting greenhouse gas emissions.
The question is, should the Republican Party, led by President Trump, continue to take the position that the US government should remain disengaged from addressing anthropogenic climate change at a national and international level and continue to reverse environmental policies implemented by former administrations?
Point 1: Yes President Trump and other Republican leaders should continue to deny that human activity is significantly causing climate change and the US federal government should not do more than it is doing and it definitely should not enter into international agreements like the Paris Accords.
Regardless of how many climate scientists and science organizations say that human activity is having a significant impact on climate change, a lot of Republicans refuse to believe it. Of the seven different conservative posters on my FB page, five do not believe that human activity is contributing much if anything to climate change. The Pew Research Center recently released a survey it did in 2019 entitled “Public Views on Climate and Energy”.
Only 14% of conservative Republicans and 35% of “moderate/liberal Republicans” (a diminishing breed) believe that human activity contributes a great deal to climate change. Another 30% say that it contributes some but almost half believe it does not contribute much or anything at all. So, my conservative FB friends have company in their beliefs among fellow Republicans – though it seems my friends are on the very far right end of the spectrum. Clearly, then, if Republican leaders want to simply reflect the views of their constituents, they would be foolish to admit that the climate scientists are right and to go along with any government action to address climate change. There were a number of justifications given by my conservative FB friends for disbelieving the findings of NASA, NOAA, the IPCC, etc.
Tom Weaver referred to the Medieval Warm Period – around 1,000 AD as proof that there were periods when earth was warmer long before the Industrial Revolution indicating that fossil fuels were not a factor.
David Weller believes that the US has reduced emissions below any other country. He has observed that there are a number of cities such as Jakarta that are more polluted than any US city. Also, he says that there are still lots of scientists out there who can be found who will say that all the climate scientists working for governments, universities and science organizations are wrong.
Bill Pitre has several justifications. First, he found a source that contradicts NOAA’s findings on the amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. So he does not accept that it was steady at under 300 ppm for hundreds of thousands of years until recently. His source tells him CO2 has been on a steady rise long before man had any impact. As for methane, it leaks out of the ground and he is unaware of any studies showing what additional part man plays. He does not think that beyond limiting fluorocarbons, which we have already done, there is much else man can do.
Dan Runkle says the energy source comes from the Sun. There are alot of variables that vary the surface absorption, like rotational nutation, seasonal inclination, etc. The fact that you’re ignoring the biggest source of the Earth’s radiant energy, and claiming it’s been put to bed as laughable.
Thomas Brown and Bonnie Potter make one of the strongest justifications for not believing the climate scientists. Scientists have been wrong many times in the past, so why believe them now? Thomas goes on to say that “I acknowledge that the climate is changing… of that there can be no doubt… I will even go as far as to acknowledge that man made influences are ‘part’ of what is happening. But, to infer or directly assign responsibility for what climate change is occurring this day and age to nothing but man made influences is small minded, it’s political chicanery and quite simply wrong. So… you’ll have to make a distinction in order to bring me along with your inquiry. Acknowledge that not all, or even a majority of the changes we are witnessing are directly attributable to man made influences or leave me out.”
Chad Fournet concurs with Thomas that anthropogenic climate change is happening. Chad also believes that the US is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. He says that the US makes up such a small part of the world population that it will be pointless for us to do anything unless all the other countries participate and make sacrifices as well. He sees the US as having the most to lose. What he particularly objects to is treating climate change as a single agenda. If all countries are going to participate and make sacrifices, then we should address intellectual property theft as well. He does not believe other countries are as interested in climate change as they are in weakening America. Another point is that he does not think it appropriate to measure greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis. It is not our fault that India and China have nearly 5 times as many people as we do.
Counterpoint 1: Republican leaders, who aren’t stupid and certainly realize that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, should help educate their base as to its reality and work with Democrats as well as leaders in other nations to counter this existential threat.
Most of the pro-Trump FB friends who addressed the current topic on my FB page do not believe that global warming is occurring or if it is, that human activity is causing it. And that is pretty much in line with the views of conservative Republicans in Pew Research survey done in 2019 on US public views on the topic.
Tom Weaver made the point that since northern Europe was nearly 2 degrees warmer around 1,000 AD, this disproves the theory that the earth’s temperature is affected by an increase in fossil emissions by man. Tom is correct about the higher temperatures then – they enabled the Vikings to conquer places that ordinarily would have been protected by icy waterways. But there are other reasons given for this that are not relevant now. Also, it was not a world-wide phenomenon – mostly in the north Atlantic region.
Some of these responders believe that climate science is so complex that it is not possible for them or me or anyone else to grasp it or say anything definitive about it. I think they are selling themselves short. Let’s walk through this together.
Importance of greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere.
We know that at the earth’s distance from the sun, we receive about 1,360 watts per square meter of energy. And so does the moon. We know that about 70% of this energy gets absorbed and 30% is reflected back. If you plug in the numbers, the temperature of the earth should average about 0 degrees Fahrenheit. But as we know, it is a whole lot warmer than that. And the reason is there are three main gases in the atmosphere that prevent much of that 30% of reflected energy from escaping. These are water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane. As a result of having these three gases in our atmosphere, our average temperature is about 60 degrees warmer than it would be otherwise and the temperature is much more stable from night to day. The moon, lacking our atmosphere, experiences daily temperature ranges from less than -200 degrees F at night up to 250 F in the day. So these three gases make a huge difference in our global temperatures. This is a simple explanation of global warming by Forbes.
Change in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Climate scientists claim that since the advent of the Industrial Revolution (circa 1750), there has been a significant change in the levels of methane and CO2. NASA says that CO2 levels have increased by 47% during the past the 150 years Climate scientists say the current levels are 50% higher than what it was for the past 800,000 years. Right!? So how can they claim to know what CO2 levels were 150 years ago, much less 800K years ago? Well here is an article by the Trump Administration’s National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) addressing this topic. They use ice cores. And I think you can be pretty confident the info is accurate or Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, would not allow NOAA to promulgate something that so contradicts Trump Administration policies.
To summarize – CO2 and CH4 (methane) are two very important gases that God put in the earth’s atmosphere to regulate the temperature of the earth. They act like blankets to keep the earth much warmer and stable than it otherwise would be. God set the CO2 level at 280 ppm and that is where it was for nearly one million years. And then suddenly, in the past 150 years, it has steadily increased and is now at 415 ppm. Meanwhile, CH4 has increased by 250%. If you substantially increase the thickness of two of the three blankets that keep the heat in, you don’t have to be overly bright to understand that this will cause the temperature of the earth to increase.
How to explain why the amount of CO2 in atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm to 415 ppm in the past two centuries?
To increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by one part per million requires a net addition of about 8 billion tons (8 gigatons) of CO2. So, during the past two centuries, there has been a release into the earth’s atmosphere of about 1 million billion tons more CO2 than the earth could absorb. Clearly something major has happened over the past two centuries that has had a huge impact on the amount of carbon greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. What do you think it might be? Well nearly all climate scientists agree that it is the huge increase in the use of fossil fuels by humans. Seems logical to me. However as the surveys show, conservative Republicans are unable or unwilling to connect those dots.
Dr. David Crisp, a climate scientist with NASA stated in Oct 2019 that “One could say that because the atmosphere is so thin, the activity of 7.7 billion humans can actually make significant changes to the entire system,” he added. “The composition of Earth’s atmosphere has most certainly been altered. Half of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the last 300 years has occurred since 1980, and one quarter of it since 2000. Methane concentrations have increased 2.5 times since the start of the Industrial Age, with almost all of that occurring since 1980. So changes are coming faster, and they’re becoming more significant.”
While there are clearly a lot of Trump supporters who have chosen to deny that anthropogenic climate change is real and is having a major negative impact on our planet, that does not excuse Congressmen, Senators and Presidents who are elected to look out for the welfare of citizens of our country both now and in the future, to knowingly ignore what they know is true. The Republican leaders need to accept the awesome responsibilities that comes with their offices and work with other leaders both here and abroad to mitigate the existential threat that human induced climate change is causing.
Point 2:
From Tom Weaver
Tom Weaver makes two points as to why Republicans should continue to deny anthropogenic climate change. Both relate to distrusting scientists. Firstly, it was for getting something wrong in the past and secondly for being unable to explain a phenomenon that he proports to exist and that he believes is relevant to the topic if his assertion is true.
For his first point Tom states: “Remember, that when we were in college, the ice age was going to consume Canada.” And Tom is correct that some scientists did predict that and they were obviously mistaken.
For his second point, Tom asks “… have they ever figured out a correction to the data collected by satellites measuring ocean surface temperatures to the data collected by ships by measuring the inlet water to their condensers? Have not found the correction. I would imagine there is a difference between surface temperature and some 15-20 feet below…. But then it is the ocean!”
So I gather that Tom finds that these two points are further justification for Republicans continuing to deny human activity is causing global warming and for the Trump Administration continuing to take no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and if anything should continue to roll back policies implemented by previous administrations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hopefully, there are other pro-Trump supporters who can make even stronger and more compelling justifications for the Republicans’ stance on climate change than Tom has made. If so, please email me or post this on my FB page.
Counterpoint 2: These are posts taken from my FB wall by FB friends concurring that Republicans should change their tune on anthropogenic climate change:
From Larry Simeral
Note: Larry Simeral has a Ph.D. in Chemistry with over 50 years in science. He has been a Christian for over 40 years and is a Ruling Elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He has multiple publications in science and science management. He is retired from the chemical industry and volunteers at LSU. His hobbies include theology and poetry.
Global warming is true. Denying it will not make it go away. a) not a Chinese nor scientific conspiracy. b) The contributions of the sun, volcanos, and other inputs have been accounted for. When the sun, seasons, etc. have been removed the warming correlated with input from Man’s CO2 and other gaseous inputs to the atmosphere. There is not some big, hidden conspiracy or left wing forces at work. The best way forward for GOP is to affirm the truth, affirm scientific input, and develop their own forward looking plan. One can affirm the truth, but say “we aren’t going to do a lot right away because of too much effect on business and jobs.” Be truthful, upfront and develop an approach. Denial of the truth hurts the GOP, the scientific basis of progress, and is basically lying.
These are three links to very relevant articles on anthropogenic climate change. This is such an important topic that has such grave consequences for future generations. Please take the time to review these three articles provided by Larry. They are all excellent articles. If you only read one, read the first one.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/after-40-years-researchers-finally-see-earths-climate-destiny-more-clearly
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-global-warming-a-myth/
Global warming isn’t just a natural cycle
From Richard Kilbourne.
The United States is the world’s second largest polluter, behind only China. And China’s contribution is double our own. We are the world’s biggest polluters per capita. A carbon footprint has little to do with population by country.