Is Climate Change a uniquely serious problem

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People who believe that global climate change is a singularly important issue will treat it as such. If there is a true crisis, you drop your differences and work with people you dont normally associate with to address the problem.

You don't take advantage of a real crisis to get what you want or gain leverage to win unrelated battles.

It is wrong for liberals who claim to care about climate change as an existential issue then use it to as part of the normal political battle. In a tune when people need to work together, they are more interested in destroying their opposition.

People who are sincere about climate change are building bridges, listening to different ideas from different perspectives and sacrificing their own political interests for the singularly most urgent need.

The use of this issue to win mundane political battles is nothing less that hypocrisy.

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What is certain is that the climate movement has forced - since the late 1970's - the political establishment - both the governing parties and as well as the oppositions - to position and prioritise themselves on the issues of climate and the environment.
This is true both in its rejection (e.g. by the extreme right) and in the upgrading of its own political profile through a renewed focus (e.g. by Conservatives, Social Democrats and, of course, The Greens).

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Climate change is real and it's coming for you. Unless adequate measures are taken.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

Climate change is real and it's coming for you. Unless adequate measures are taken.

We agree. The question is whether you (on both the partisan left and right) can drop your silly partisan bickering to address the problem.

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@maxdancona,

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In a tune when people need to work together, they are more interested in destroying their opposition.

No, they don't want to "destroy" anyone. The idea is to convince voters of the seriousness of the issue. Election losses don't "destroy" anyone. The MAGA faction, which has embraced a different view of the situation, is unlikely to change its position. But their children may reject that anti-scientific stance.

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People who are sincere about climate change are building bridges, listening to different ideas from different perspectives and sacrificing their own political interests for the singularly most urgent need.

Example?

Are you saying that people who deny the reality of the problem should be taken as seriously as those who work actively for measures to combat it?

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The use of this issue to win mundane political battles is nothing less that hypocrisy.

Where has the issue been used to "win mundane political battles"? Considering its importance, politicians have been singularly reticent to deal with the issue except in the most anodyne of ways. It's hardly the political cudgel you pretend it to be. Politician know that the prescription is politically unpalatable.

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@hightor,

Last election 46% of the American electorate voted for Donald Trump. You may hate these people, but you can't ignore them. You have done nothing but insult these Americans. You say they are "uneducated", "resentful" and suggest they are "unlikely to change".

When faced with a global crisis, you are reverting to the typical politics as usual. Instead of changing yourself and thinking about what you can do differently to fix the problem, you are doubling down and insisting that your political team must win.

If you are serious about solving this problem, you will stop trying to score political points.

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@maxdancona,

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Last election 46% of the American electorate voted for Donald Trump.

You're the one characterizing all the 46% as having one single mentality. The few people I know who voted for Trump did so because they either didn't want the capital gains tax raised or they thought Biden would be "bad for business". Probably only a third of that 46% are dyed-in-the-wool MAGAtards. And yes, many of them are resentful — that's how Trump appealed to them and how he gained their loyalty. It's not worth the effort to deprogram them; it makes more sense to motivate new voters to join the cause.

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When faced with a global crisis, you are reverting to the typical politics as usual.

No, there's nothing "usual" about the wave of right-wing populism afflicting many of the western democracies, including ours.

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Instead of changing yourself and thinking about what you can do differently to fix the problem, you are doubling down and insisting that your political team must win.

You don't know what I've done directly because of my environmental concerns, and it might surprise you but I don't have a "political team".

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If you are serious about solving this problem, you will stop trying to score political points.

And what "political points" might those be? Do you really think there's a scoreboard somewhere where these points are registered? And that it even matters?

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@hightor,

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...dyed in the wool MAGAtards... many of them are resentful... not worth the effort to deprogram them...right-wing populism afllicting many western democracies...

At this point some of you may be wondering if Hightor is my sock-puppet (seeing that he is making my point so well for me). I assure you that he is a real person speaking his own ideas. Tell them Hightor...

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I don't have a political team...

That's just brilliant comedy (I wish I could take credit for it).

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

Climate change is real and it's coming for you. Unless adequate measures are taken.

We agree. The question is whether you (on both the partisan left and right) can drop your silly partisan bickering to address the problem.

I consider that the politicians right and left are not trying very hard. I don't know what's eating your Gilbert Grapes but it is time to make some moves in a serious way.

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@maxdancona,

Yeah, everyone's a captive of either a left or right political ideology...except maxdancona, who's free to place anyone else in a cage of his particular choice and mock people who engage with him on a serious issue.

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I assure you that he is a real person speaking his own ideas.

If you don't perceive any tension between right-wing populism and liberal democracy and believe that all the two sides need to do is sit down and have a discussion you simply haven't been paying serious attention to the assault on long-established democratic institutions. I suggest you read something like Jane Mayer on the "Big Lie", and then watch someone like the Pillow Guy or Sidney Powell in action and tell me which side makes more sense.

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That's just brilliant comedy (I wish I could take credit for it).

It is neither. Politics is a sideshow. I've never voted for a candidate who didn't disappoint me at some time. In most cases I prefer one side to the other but I don't allow myself to fantasize that they're working for me or that I'm on their "team".

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My challenge to anyone is simple... name 3 significant ways where each ideological side makes a valid point. Whatever else you say about me, I can name many points where you are absolutely correct because I care more about solutions than I care about winning whatever political spat we are having.

Your posts have filled with insults for the Americans you call MAGAtards (which is an clever mix of MAGA and retards ... a slur for the intellectually disabled).

A serious response will listen to ideas from the people you call MAGAtards. It will also take into account their concerns about the impact of policies the same account you consider the interests of the left.

And what about dropping this ideological opposition to geneticaly modified foods. GM technology has already been shown to be a way to decrease carbon in the atmosphere.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

My challenge to anyone is simple... name 3 significant ways where each ideological side makes a valid point. Whatever else you say about me, I can name many points where you are absolutely correct because I care more about solutions than I care about winning whatever political spat we are having.

Your posts have filled with insults for the Americans you call MAGAtards (which is an clever mix of MAGA and retards ... a slur for the intellectually disabled).

A serious response will listen to ideas from the people you call MAGAtards. It will also take into account their concerns about the impact of policies the same account you consider the interests of the left.

And what about dropping this ideological opposition to geneticaly modified foods. GM technology has already been shown to be a way to decrease carbon in the atmosphere.

I'm sure you can do it, Max...but your faith in the willingness of the right to negotiate from the center is, in my opinion, greatly misplaced.

In the Congress...the right and left negotiate; come to an understanding with the left making MANY more concessions to the right than the right to the left...and then having the right as a totality voting against the proposal when it comes to the floor.

It has happened on too many occasions to allow for any credence to you plan.

Yeah, we all have got to get along...and all have to allow for the other side to win some. BUT the right is doing all the winning....and the left is doing all the allowing.

And we are NOT starting from the center. Everything in this country is now skewed to the right. Internationally our far left is considered moderate left; our moderate left is considered almost right leaning; our moderate right is considered extremist right; and our extreme right is considered Nazilike.

Your heart is in the right place, Max. Your head is not.

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@Frank Apisa,

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And we are NOT starting from the center. Everything in this country is now skewed to the right. Internationally our far left is considered moderate left; our moderate left is considered almost right leaning; our moderate right is considered extremist right

I think you are way off base. Of course how you define left and right is subjective... but historically speaking, American culture and media and academia have swung far to the left.

What used to be normal viewpoints are now nearly impossible to express in the on a college campus... just 20 years ago a student who wrote "David needs money to buy books for their classes" would be marked grammatically incorrect by any professor, now professors.who question this usage can be fired.

The real problem is the attempt by the left to snuff out any dissenting thought. JK Rowling comments about women and biology would were left of center just a couple of decades ago. Now she is being called a Nazi.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

... name 3 significant ways where each ideological side makes a valid point.

I've played this game with you before. It never gets anywhere. There aren't two neat ideological sides. Many of us have different levels of commitment to the programs associated with each "side". I'm hard-pressed to think of any MAGA policy which raises a valid point. For instance, I don't buy the Democratic stand on immigration...but my take on it is completely different from that of the Republicans.

And yes, the people who stormed the Capitol do not have my respect. MAGAtards is as good a label for them as anything else. What do you call them? "Patriots"?

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@maxdancona,

I started a new topic on this (since it isn't directly related... or maybe it is). I do think the center has moved drastically to the left in the past couple of decades.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

I do think the center has moved drastically to the left in the past couple of decades.

1. I'm not sure if that statement is entirely accurate. Maybe it is, Maybe it isn't.

2. More important is that the center has recently been shifting to the left on kitchen table economic issues, voting rights issues, health care issues, taxing wealthy individuals, taxing super wealthy corporations, infrastructure, Reconciliation infrastructure, and climate change.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

Quote:
I do think the center has moved drastically to the left in the past couple of decades.

Interesting. Here in Europe (especially in Germany, but in other countries as well), just the opposite has been observed: the left is moving to the centre, the centre to the right, the right becoming more extreme ...

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@Walter Hinteler,

Can you explain what that means in practice, Walter?

Are people in Germany becoming less supportive of LGBT rights?

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@Walter Hinteler,

1. Here in the United States, the center has been moving to the left fairly recently.

2. Maybe it's been occurring over the last 10 years or maybe twenty years. Can't really put a date on it.

3. Prior to these current trends, I believe the center had shifted to the right.

4. I believe it started with Ronald Reagan and then ended after Obama defeated George W Bush.

5. I believe during the Obama administration was the beginning of the current trend of the center shifting to the left.

6. Social issues have been moving to the left probably for a couple of decades.

7. Kitchen table Economic issues probably been moving to the left more recently.

8. It's rally hard to put a date on political trends, because different issues may have different trend timelines.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

8. It's rally hard to put a date on political trends, because different issues may have different trend timelines.

True.
And from where you look at it, e.g. no-one would consider our health system to be "socialised" or the legal minimum paid vacancy to be "conservative" (the conservatives introduced that in 1963 and it hasn't chanced since that time [but most get six weeks now]).

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