I know this is supposed to be a blog about atheism, but global warming is (obviously!) another of my main concerns. It actually all fits together perfectly: Christians, Republicans, liars, deniers.
Here’s another reference about skeptics being paid to disagree with global warming…
More about Lawrence Solomon, apologizing for falsely calling scientists deniers. His book, “The Deniers”, is promoted as a “must’read” on freedominion.com, with no disclaimers. And he even admits that his subjects aren’t really deniers, from DeSmogBlog,
Solomon even says so. He says that while reflecting on his own research, “I … noticed something striking about my growing cast of deniers. None of them were deniers.”
Nigel Weiss, among others, objected to being used, Solomon and the National Post eventually had to apologize to him. But the series has been publicized on at least one right-wing site, freerepublic.com.
Let’s be clear, many of the deniers are status quo, small-government, right wingers with their own agenda. Many call themselves “Christians”, although there’s nothing Christian about their beliefs. They use the same techniques that Big Tobacco used (Fred Singer attacked a 1993 EPA report on the dangers of smoking, calling it ‘junk science’) and they have successfully stalled action for over 25 years (if you’re skeptical of this story, here’s a reference to the 1979 report, JSR-78-07). They still have lots of believers, for example, Sarah Palin and junkscience.com. It all goes to reinforce the right’s war on science and the “elite”. They even shamelessly promote “Carbon Belch Day”, while Exxon and Peabody are committing crimes against humanity.
Here’s an excellent series, How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.
On the point of lying, conservatives even have their own version of Wikipedia (with charming entries on homosexuality, Creation Science and lots more), here’s just one nice example of right wing hatred. The hard right is in a major battle all over the country to have creationism taught in schools (no reference needed, look it up if you don’t believe me).
I do still think there are reasonable people with legitimate reasons for voting Republican, however, I also think until the lying, hating, ignorant, largely “Christian” extreme right is marginalized to the point of irrelevance, voting Republican is voting to continue America’s loss of international credibility. Hatred and war are not the solution to terrorism, especially when America is mortgaging its future to the Middle East for oil. The US should take a good look at itself, and realize that they have a serious problem with the way they treat their poor and sick, the small-government model of capitalism is in tatters (dragging the rest of the world down with it) and the world needs the US to take a strong position on the environment. Four more years of right-wing hatred and ignorance
We all know America is extremely polarized, I believe that until reasonable Republicans disavow the tactics of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Phil Gramm, Dick Cheney and so many others, they are not acting in the interest of promoting an America that is a leader on the world stage. John McCain is no “maverick” to me and Sarah Palin is part of the scary right wing that should never get close to power.
