Pirate's Cove

Now, many Conservatives and Republicans may be thinking “this whole climate change issue is meaningless, and better left off the agenda for the debates”. At surface level, they seem correct. When it comes to polls on what Americans care about, climate change is almost always dead last or next to last. However, the Cult Of Climastrology will never give up on their push, because it is not about science, or protecting the environment, or limiting the temperature of the Earth to no more than a 2C increase (interestingly, none of their proposals would address this). This is about politics, and implementing regressive, authoritarian policies, being the Progressives (nice fascists) that they are. Policies that would control the lives of citizens, private entities, and economies, shifting more and more power to a centralized governmental system.

So, it is important to understand where candidates stand on this issue

(NPR) Last week, President Obama released a plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Climate change has also been cropping up on the presidential campaign trail — both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have released their own proposals.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans now favor government action on climate change, but the candidates — and big donors who support them — still range widely in opinion. Some call it a hoax and oppose government action, while others have called for sweeping change.

Many are for action, until they learn of the cost of living increases and loss of freedom associated with those policies.

“It’s actually quite remarkable how stable opinions have been,” said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford professor who has surveyed Americans about global warming for the past two decades. “The vast majority of Americans have said they think the planet’s been warming over the past 100 years and attribute that, at least partly, to human activity as the cause.”

Count me, and most Skeptics, in that majority. It’s just that we say that mankind only plays a small role, and quite a bit of that is from land use and the Urban Heat Island Effect (not to mention massaged data).

Despite the fact that the majority of Americans believe in climate change, only around 4 out of 10 Americans said Obama and Congress should view global warming as a top priority in 2015, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Most Americans thought the economy and fighting terrorism were top priorities.

In that poll, climate change came in next to last.

As for where the candidates land, well, hit the link for the full details, being a huge layout. There are six questions

1. HAS SAID CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL
2. HAS SAID CLIMATE CHANGE IS MAN MADE
3. HAS CALLED FOR SOME DEGREE OF ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
4. HAS EXPLICITLY SAID HE/SHE WILL COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE IF ELECTED
5. HAS MADE SPECIFIC PROPOSALS TO REDUCE EMISSIONS
6. OPPOSES KEYSTONE XL

Climate change is real. That is not the debate. It’s about causation. Again, Mankind does play a small role. And there is nothing wrong with reducing some emissions, particularly from methane and several other strong greenhouse gases. But, giving massive control to the federal government, along with policies that increase the cost of living, which primarily harms low and middle income citizens, are bad ideas.

For Republicans, would you guess that Bobby Jindal’s record as a Warmist is worse than Lindsay Graham’s? Neither seems to be gaining traction. Jindal could, potentially, but Graham is going nowhere fast. George Pataki’s record is pretty bad, as well, but, he’s not a front runner, and won’t be. John Kasich is, and he has called for some measures on Hotcoldwetdry. He just doesn’t want any that could negatively affect the economy. People need to ask him some very pointed questions. This goes for Jeb Bush.

For Republican voters, whether a candidate believes Mankind plays a role is immaterial: it’s whether they would institute policies. And, BTW, none are against Keystone XL.