This paper appears to extend the work of one of the authors and the recent study that found lib’rulls and conservatarians process information differently (and I repeat again from above Lakoff’s hypothesis about stern father figures).

Best,

D

For the security obsessed…

Moving away from petroleum increases national security. Right now major oil producing companies can have undue influence over America because they can cut off our oil supplies.

For the greedy…

Moving away from petroleum and to an in-country energy source for transportation would stop the huge flow of American wealth to other countries. And it would be a lot less cheaper to fill your car with electricity.

Using American made energy rather than imported oil would increase our tax base thus allowing a further decrease in personal taxes.

For the small town, red state folks…

Developing more renewable energy systems would mean hundreds of thousands of new good paying jobs for Americans. Many of those jobs would be located in the ‘heartland’ where good jobs are scarce. Lots of small middle-America towns would find new life.

And those jobs on the wind farms and in the solar fields couldn’t be sent overseas.

For the religious types…

Reducing our use of fossil fuels would help us be better stewards as commanded in the Bible. For example…

” The land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. ” Lev. 25:23-24

For the racists…

Avoiding a 20 rise in the seas would mean a lot less immigration of people “not like us” from lands such as Bangladesh which would disappear under water.

There are lots of ways to sell the message that we can and need to change our energy structure.

The perception among a lot of Republicans is that the main stream news media is strongly biased against them, not especially in environment or energy topics, but across the board. One argument is that news professions attract people with “advocacy” tendencies, so the people who populate news organizations are by and large self-selected liberals. Conservatives tend to choose business, engineering, and similar careers because they are more concerned with earning a living than advocacy, and from their perspective creating businesses and products is the type of “good” they feel rather than fighting for a cause that might inspire a news person.

Obviously this is a huge generalization, but it probably sums up a major part of the Republican distrust of the media. It would be interesting to see some kind of statistical study documenting the political leanings of news professionals like reporters in areas that have nothing to do with energy and climate. If we find a liberal bias there, the obvious solution to the problem that Joe presents (convincing Republicans to trust the media on climate issues) is to correct the bias. If we find no bias, the solution is to point this out to the Republicans.

I suspect that there’s a similar source of Republican distrust in the science area. In particular, they may suspect that scientists that choose careers in environmental or Earth sciences most relevant to climate change tend to do so as advocates for the environment. Again, it would be interesting to analyze the general political leanings of the scientists to see if there is anything to it.

“That really leaves only one source of “information” that might change the views of Republicans and that is the leadership of the conservative movement itself — conservative politicians, conservative think tanks, conservative media, and conservative pundits.”

It will be almost impossible to convince conservative leaders, whose ideology features low taxes, small government, and business freedom to promote climate change steps that involve high taxes, big government, and business regulation, particularly if these steps hurt the U.S. economy while helping the economies of countries with opposing ideologies like China. I’ll take an excerpt from the RGGI post:

“If you want a serious plan that respects climate science, that auctions allowances and uses the revenue from those auctions to help Americans transition to clean energy …”

How do you expect to get a conservative leader to advocate not only a carbon trading system that is essentially a tax that will affect everyone, including the middle class, through higher energy costs, higher costs in any product that uses energy, hits to their retirement investments which are contain energy companies and energy-using companies, etc … but on top of that uses the tax revenue for more government programs???

To have a fighting chance of convincing conservative leaders to go along with such a scheme, some sort of compromise is needed where the tax revenues are offset by lower taxes elsewhere, rather than using them for more government. Or … some other compromise that the conservatives like would be needed. Even that wouldn’t convince all of them, but it would probably get many interested. However, the compromise has to be reasonable, and can’t be torpedoed by the extremists from the left or the right … not easy.

In the meantime, while the political climate debates go on, energy independence steps that happen to also be good for the climate are probably a much easier sell to conservatives. Many conservatives dislike OPEC, most dislike high gas prices, many are in states with lots of farms, and conservative ideology favors entrepreneurs like those that might help with PHEVs. Yes, there are the oil companies, but nevertheless the energy independence angle is probably the most productive one to push for now.

Peter — Congrats. You have been put on permanent moderation.

BTW, a 6 degree temperature change and 20 foot increase in sea levels will necessitate a worldwide nanny state, that decides who lives where, rations water, food, and energy, etc. as I have argued at length.

Thanks for clearly stating that for you it is not about science, or even physical reality, at all, but rather all about your own political ideology and paranoia.

(Interesting how Jews, once one of the groups most hated by the right, have become one of their most valued.)

Got to say that the Repubs are in deep doo-doo with coming generations. It’s going to take some creative work to find new groups against whom to aim their bile.

But corporations, sure some/many would like it if they didn’t have to adapt their business to respond to environmental concerns. But for the most part adapting won’t mean loosing lots of money.

Since the playing field is leveled in that all similar businesses must adapt there will be no loss of competitive advantage and the incurred costs will be passed on to customers.

Additionally many of the changes in ‘business as usual’ that are needed to protect the environment also happen to reduce energy needs/expenses. Another place where we seem to have gotten very lucky with petroleum prices skyrocketing at the same time as global temps reaching a critical point.

Overall few businesses are in the position of watching their industry disappear as is coal. Coal stands to go the way of whale oil refiners and harness makers. It’s no longer a matter of “if” but “when”.

Oil can certainly see decreasing supplies looming in the future. They know that for a long, long time they will probably be able to sell smaller amounts for higher prices into a smaller market of buyers who can’t find a workable alternative. (Thinking planes and ocean going freight in particular.)

I just can’t see any industry other than coal having adequate need to hold off changes in how we power our lives. Like tobacco companies fighting anti-smoking attitudes, coal is fighting for its existence.

The memes Steve posited show the bankrupt status of the current AGW clan in relation to contributing any usable ideas for use in improving the lives and the Earth’s net environmental state. Turning to a some anti-tech, low powered, and anti-wealth social structures with a puntitive taxes structured to prevent progress or personal freedom.

Even if Joe Romm and the rest of the AGW conspracy wasn’t lying– I’d rather deal with a 6 degree temp change and 20 foot increase in sea levels then allow the imposition of a world-wide nanny state under the guise of environmental emergency dictatorship.

Best,

D

A couple of brief thoughts:

For quite some time the Republicans have been in the business of assembling an unnatural majority. Loss of any significant segment of their base means they lose elections, so they are forced into least-common-denominator policies combined with exhortations to stay united. As Bob points out, though, it’s hard for them to avoid a certain amount of boiling off.

Their position on climate disruption needs to be seen in the context of their longer history on environmental issues. I think many if not most Republicans would admit that environmental protection policies have been a good thing, but at the same time see no contradiction with delaying and weakening new ones. This template was pretty much fully-formed by the time climate disruption entered the policy arena.

Bob, in a broad sense nearly all corporate interests are served by denial. They see climate disruption as one more externality that will cost smething and effect their long-term plans, would simply prefer to not deal with it, and consider delaying dealing with it for as long as possible to be an unalloyed good.