Why Republicans deny global warming.

Jonathan Chait of Common Dreams raises a good question: why do Republicans disagree with climate scientists more at a time when climate scientists are accruing new terrifying evidence that human activities are truly responsible for warming the atmosphere? 

Last year, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and House members: “Do you think it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?” Of the respondents, 23% said yes, 77% said no . . . So, the magazine asked the question again last month. The results? Only 13% of Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved.

As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are actually getting more skeptical. . . . How did it get this way? The easy answer is that Republicans are just tools of the energy industry. It’s certainly true that many of them are. . . But the financial relationship doesn’t quite explain the entirety of GOP skepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over the last year, even as Republicans have stiffened theirs.

The truth is more complicated — and more depressing: A small number of hard-core ideologues (some, but not all, industry shills) have led the thinking for the whole conservative movement . . .Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.

In other words, the thinking process of most Republicans is worse than …

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The Semantics of Secular Labels

Ever since I started doubting the existence of God, I have frequently encountered confusion between the numerous labels used to describe non-theistic belief systems. This is most commonly seen between the words “atheist” and “agnostic,” both of which signify the absence of definitive belief in a deity. At first glance, the distinction may seem obvious: an atheist disbelieves the existence of God or gods, while an agnostic believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God and thus refuses to commit to either belief system. However, in reality these two terms tend to overlap to the extent that two people holding exactly the same (non)belief may label it differently, one identifying as an agnostic and the other, an atheist. Further, one’s label of choice is heavily influenced by the public perception of these terms, the word “atheist” being the more pejorative of the two in the eyes of the public. This probably convinces many non-theists to describe themselves as “agnostic,” as this label seems more palatable and less presumptuous than “atheist.” If one carefully examines the definitions of these terms, however, one should become more hesitant at rejecting one label for another.

I will begin my exposition by quoting from Bertrand Russell’s 1947 pamphlet, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?

[. . .] As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a

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Spoof ads, anyone?

Madison Avenue is so clever these days that most commercials are, to some extent, fun to watch. Adbusters.org is working hard to top Madison Avenue, though, with its own spoof commercials.  Some of these are quite well done.                           You'll find more of Adbuster's spoof ads here.  Here's what Adbusters…

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Happy Birthday to Dangerous Intersection

One year ago, I made my first tentative post to this blog.  It was really a test more than a post, as were the handful of posts for the next two weeks.   We really didn’t get running until mid-March, 2006.  

In that month of March 2006, “Grumpypilgrim” and I were happy to see that, on average, 29 people visited this site every day.  Probably 20 of these daily visits were me. This month (February, 2007), there have been almost 2,000 visits to this site every day.  I guarantee that most of them are not me.   Over the life of this blog, we’ve now published 830 posts and we’ve received more than 3,000 comments.  

I am honored that so many people would take the time to visit this site and to actually stay for awhile.  The average visitor reads three pages, the most commonly read page being the home page, which consists of the ten most recent posts.  

I am truly fortunate to be sharing this space with my co-authors.  Some of them, such as Jason, have been my friends for a long time.  Others are people I’ve met (in person or electronically) more recently.  I carefully read everything each of them posts to this site.  

Many people ask whether I can tell who is visiting the blog.  The answer is no.  My traffic software does not provide me with any meaningful identifying information.  It does show me, though, that most visitors are from the U.S.   Next in line are “unknown,” …

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“It Was A Pleasure To Burn…”

February's Big Read in Missouri has selected a surprising novel--Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  I should not assume everyone today has read it, so briefly it is a novel about a future in which it is illegal to read books.  The fire department, because all houses are built of fireproof…

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