I am a "Denier" when it comes to AGW, but this liberal has some good points. I included a poll because LL puts a lot of GW stuff in "Education", rather than in "News/Politics". I think we need a new catagory in "Sections" because we all know how well the search feature works here.

Menderman

Story Below:

Global warming and partisan politics

June 13, 9:12 AM

Major scientific issues often play out over a timespan of a generation or more--in fact the German physicist Max Planck went so far as to suggest a half-humorous 'rule,' that a new idea wouldn't become accepted until the scientists who grew up with the old idea either retired or died.

The scientific controversy over the extent and ramifications of global warming is perfectly normal, and may last another 30 years. It is also perfectly normal for differing political parties to disagree over the direction that public policy should take, and those disagreements can last even longer. But when the two perfectly normal phenomena are combined, it gets weird in a hurry.

As an example, it is not normal that Republicans would object to the idea of conserving energy where possible and becoming less reliant on foreign oil. Put that way, President Obama's energy plan sounds Republican. Doesn't it? And although I am very much a Democrat, I don't for one second believe that (most) Republicans would oppose good policy just because it's Democratic in origin. I can understand the controversy over cap and trade (even though John McCain supported cap and trade), but not the rest of Obama's energy policy.

And an idea I support strongly, that we reduce CO2 emissions through foreign policy first, by providing cleaner energy to the poorest third of the planet, sounds strongly Democratic. However, it gets no traction at all with traditional liberals who have always been proponents of foreign aid, due to the shrill insistence of environmentalists that it is US coal plants that must go first, as if the atmosphere actually cared where emission cuts originated.

I think in this case the fault lies on the Democratic side, for pushing and polarizing the issue to the point where Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olberman are moderating the debates on cable television. By characterising skeptics as morally equivalent to Holocause deniers, Al Gore and other ultra-Greens have already demonised the opposition--so much so that there is no motive for Republicans to search for common ground. The Democrats don't need to, due to their commanding majorities in Congress.

So here we are in June 2009, with Republicans fighting the idea of energy independence through new technology, and Democrats ignoring the poor. I think it's safe to say that mixing scientific controversy and normal partisan politics is not producing the results I want to see as a citizen.

The only glimmer of hope I see is that conservative Republican (and die-hard skeptic) James Inhofe joined uber-liberal (and ultra-Green) Nancy Pelosi in supporting a bill to reduce Congressional use of energy recently. The key to joining forces was quite simple--the supporting legislation made no mention of global warming or climate change.

Author: Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller is an Examiner from San Francisco. You can see Thomas's articles on Thomas's Home Page.