I read this David Roberts piece over at Grist the other day, but, I missed an important part. Fortunately, Steven Goddard points it out. Roberts starts out with
 Watch this absolutely extraordinary video from the 1988 vice presidential debate, dug up by Brad Johnson of Forecast the Facts:
This is from 1988 — 24 years ago. The questioner doesn’t mamby-pamby around with he-said she-said, he states flatly that “most scientists†agree and that future generations are at risk.
And neither candidate bothers with dissembling or dodging. Both acknowledge the problem and promise to address it.
In 1988! In the ensuing 24 years, U.S. politics has moved backward on this issue.
In the ensuing 24 years, people realized that it was mostly a mule fritters issue based on giving government more control of people, the private sector, and shifting even more money to government. With the rise of the Internet, people were able to get a much less biased view as all the facts were laid out, not just the one sided “facts” appearing in the media. Anyhow, here we go
Throughout the decade from 1998 to 2008, Democrats swung around more solidly behind climate concern, but Republican sentiment stayed roughly steady. Right around 2008, however, there was a sharp uptick in skepticism about climate change, almost exclusively among far-right conservatives.
Now, what happened in 2008 that might have turned conservatives against climate? Hm … thinking … wait, wasn’t there an election that year? Why yes, I believe there was. Black Democrat took office, as I recall.
See? It couldn’t have anything to do with unhinged prognostications from Warmists, prognostications that weren’t coming to pass, that people were exposed to the other side of the issue, that science was showing that “climate change” was BS, that the models were failing, that the models were shown to be flawed, manipulated, and wrong, that data was being massaged to show what the researchers wanted it to show, that the researchers refused to release their raw data and methodologies, that the IPCC was shown to be highly flawed (to put it nicely), that those who believed in AGW the most had the biggest “carbon footprints”……no, it had to be raaaaacism.
Yeah, that should be a winning argument.
“Far right conservatives”, eh? Is there any other kind? Other than outright Nazis, I mean…
(/snark)
I bet there was another “sharp uptick” in skepticism around November 2009, too. Can’t imagine why.
I have a feeling that is the date they are trying to cover up mojo. While sentiment might have started changing in 07-09, the big switch among the normal people came about when Climategate emails came out.
However, as Teach mentioned, the internet allowed more and more people and scientists to share information without filters being applied by the Democrat Socialist Media Party.
Give people information, along with what they already know to be normal, and they can make up their own minds.
You know, I used to be a Believer, but, once I was able to start delving into the issue from both sides, I learned the reality. Unfortunately, too many Believers are un-educatable.