Why liberals and conservatives view climate change differently

This post examines, through the context of global warming, why liberals and conservatives often have different opinions on issues where there is a considerable amount of scientific evidence. Global warming, which, if true, may be the most critical issue of our time.

The media

The conservative media (Fox News, conservative talk radio) has generally refuted climate change and global warming and ridicules those who claim otherwise. However, they are starting to come around. Here's a sample:

• Enormity of the Man-Made Global Warming Hoax Has Yet to Sink In

• Fox News Watch's Scott: "Maybe it's time for the granola-crunching press to change its doom-and-gloom message" on global warming

• New Research Shows Wind Farms Cause Global Warming

• Dinosaurs Passing Wind May Have Caused Climate Change

• Global warming skeptics as knowledgeable about science as climate change believers, study says

• Official: More in US convinced of climate change

The mainstream and progressive media (CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CurrentTV) present a mixed view:

• Author: Focus on clean water, not global warming

• Global Warming Denialism ‘Just Foolishness,’ Scientist Peter Raven Says

• Rising sea levels can't be stopped, scientists say

• Arctic Expedition to Probe Climate Puzzle

• Greenland's Dying Glaciers: Scenes From Vanguard

Confirmation bias

Whatever your opinion is on climate change, you can find concurrent opinions in the media. Furthermore, you will tend to gravitate to news media that confirms your opinion which then further reinforces it. That, in a nutshell, is confirmation bias. If you have a more extreme view, you can certainly find concurrent views on the Internet. Facts become theories, theories become opinions and opinions become fluid. One concludes his or her gut feeling as fact. See:

• The Political Brain

The smart idiot effect

Conservatives tend to be more confident in their opinions. Liberals tend to be more open to changing their opinion. Both views have merit. The smart idiot effect occurs after one has formed an opinion and then presented with scientific "facts" that contradict their opinion. Studies show that smarter and more educated people will dismiss the facts more often than the general population because they are more confident in their opinions. Those that refute the facts even though they are intelligent and knowledgeable are the "smart idiots." Even more interesting, the more "smart idiots" are presented with facts, the more confident the "smart idiots" become in their original opinion.

• Diagnosing the Republican Brain

• The Strange Conservative Brain: 3 Reasons Republicans Refuse to Accept Reality About Global Warming

• The Republican Brain on the Republican Brain

• The Polarizing Poles: Yet Another Study Shows That More Knowledgeable Conservatives Are *Worse* on Global Warming

The facts

The earth is getting warmer. The air temperatures are getting warmer. The oceans are getting warmer. The polar caps are melting and sea levels are rising. Glaciers are retreating. 2011 was the 9th hottest year on record. The 10 hottest years on record were from 1998 to the present. From July 1, 2011 to June 30th, 2012 was the hottest year in the United States.

• National Climatic Data Center: State of the Climate National Overview June 2012

• NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record

See NASA's website on global climate change. Every single graph shows that the earth is warming.

• NASA Global Climate Change: Key indicators

It is almost certainly due to increased "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere. It is almost certainly man made. Curious things, these things known as "facts".

• STUDY: Climate Coverage Plummets On Broadcast Networks

Conclusion

Once one accepts global warming as fact, then one has to contemplate this:


Update

• Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Confronting the vampire squids

Feedback from the previous post, Neoliberalism, was mostly about the claim which is paraphrased as follows, "The world is run by psychopaths." Then along comes a post which I came across from a well respected alternative media blog, "Washington's Blog":

Why Don’t the Corrupt Players On Wall Street and In D.C. Show Remorse for Their Destructive Actions … And Why Don’t We Stop Them?

* * * * * * * * * *

If you see something, say something! And I don't mean New York City's hideous, fear instilling, "If you see something, say something." campaign for unattended packages. I mean that if you know of someone who is doing or has done a heinous crime, for God's sake, do something about it. I'm sure that you were appalled to hear that people around Jerry Sandusky covered up his criminal activities. The linked post above also delves into why people don't speak up. More can found in the following article, "Penn State Deconstructed: The Psychology Behind the Silence."

* * * * * * * * * *

So, what can be done to remove the vampire squids of the world? To create a system that can't be "gamed" by a few psychopaths hell bent on world domination?  Protesting isn't enough. Activism isn't enough. Changing public opinion isn't enough - unpopular wars and lack of universal health care in the US are two prime examples. Political action groups seem ineffectual. The race is on folks: regime change versus a totalitarian state. Certainly:

They got the guns but we got the numbers. — lyrics from "Five To One", The Doors.

* * * * * * * * * *

On the latest, "Moyers & Company" are Shelia Bair and Vandana Sheva. Both have ideas how to take on the vampire squids of the world:

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Additional material about narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths:

• Dream Candidate, Nightmare Politician: The Political Narcissist And The Political Sociopath (audio)
• The Psychopath in our Midst (short article)
• The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless versus the Rest of Us (book)
• Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (book)
• The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry (book)
• The Corporation (documentary - just for fun!)

Update

• How Will the 99% Deal with the Psychopaths in the 1%?

One way mirror

Glenn Greenwald first coined the phrase, "The government’s one-way mirror" in 2010. More recently, he wrote:

[T]he essential expression of the American Surveillance State: we can and will know everything about what you do, and you will know virtually nothing about what we do. In a healthy society, that formula would be reversed: the citizenry (with rare exceptions) would know most everything about what their government does, while the government would know nothing about what citizens do in the absence of well-grounded suspicion that they have done something wrong. (Please read the entire article.)

 Greenwald talked about the Surveillance State on The Alyona Show July 3rd,2012:

First they came...

First they came for the "terrorists",
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a "terrorist".

THE PRESIDENT'S QUOTES ON ISLAM

Then they came for the Muslims,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Muslim.

NYPD spying program aimed at Muslims 

Abject bigotry at the New York Post 

The real criminals in the Tarek Mehanna case

First They Come for the Muslims 

Personalizing civil liberties abuses

Then they came for the protesters, activists and dissenters,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a protester, activivist or dissenter.

Pentagon Rebrands Protest as “Low-Level Terrorism” 

In Modern America, Questioning War Is Considered Terrorism 

Truthers and Terrorists: Questioning 9/11 Is Becoming An Increasingly Dangerous Use of Free Speech

The incoming police state - part II 

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The original poem by Martin Niemöller (from: First they came…):

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. 

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Update 1: 

Federal judge complicity

Update 2: August 11, 2012

I left two comments to Glenn Greenwald's, "Combating Islamophobic violence":

Thursday, Aug 9, 2012 02:51 PM EDT

First they came for the "terrorists"...
Then they came for the Muslims...

------------------------------------------------

Saturday, Aug 11, 2012 01:05 PM EDT
 

Of course, the above comes from the famous poem by Milton Mayer:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Any hate crime is unforgivable, unconscionable and should be punished as such. It's even more dangerous to society when hatred towards a minority group becomes institutionalized and normalized by the government and the media. From Naomi Wolf's book, "End of America", the first step from morphing from an open society to a closed one is, "Identify a terrifying real or perceived threat." This is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany where six million Jews were hideously, inhumanely and systematically executed. Muslims are now being used as this threat in the US.

I think the best way to remember, honor and respect the Holocaust victims is to prevent it from ever happening again.

Wikipedia: First they came...
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Documentary: End of America
Garrison to honor deceased at Holocaust remembrance