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Do you debate US climate change deniers?

The German

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I`d like to ask my European colleges specificaly.

Do you engage in debates concerning the subject with US climate change deniers?

We all know that on our lovely continent there is a general consensus on the matter.

Accross party lines everyone agrees to not ignore the scientific facts, and the only ones who argue against the science are to be found on the fringe or people who only have an audience in the US.

It is wonderfull that in our country scientific institutions still have their independence.

I chose not to engage with any US climate change deniers in debate since it would be a pointless exercise. To me it would be like talking to some loath who insists that the earth is flat.

How about you Danes, Romanians, Turks and Brits?
 
I`d like to ask my European colleges specificaly.

Do you engage in debates concerning the subject with US climate change deniers?

We all know that on our lovely continent there is a general consensus on the matter.

Accross party lines everyone agrees to not ignore the scientific facts, and the only ones who argue against the science are to be found on the fringe or people who only have an audience in the US.

It is wonderfull that in our country scientific institutions still have their independence.

I chose not to engage with any US climate change deniers in debate since it would be a pointless exercise. To me it would be like talking to some loath who insists that the earth is flat.

How about you Danes, Romanians, Turks and Brits?

Thanks bro.

I did it one time, like I would debate evolution with some. Scientific denial arguments generally mutate faster than bacteria and I'm not particularly interested in the arms race. Remember when it was climate change is not happening at all, then it became it is happening but humans aren't responsible? It's simply too boring to keep up with whatever hole in the theory they think they've found that no scientist in the field had never thought of ever I tells ya!
 
Thanks bro.

I did it one time, like I would debate evolution with some. Scientific denial arguments generally mutate faster than bacteria and I'm not particularly interested in the arms race. Remember when it was climate change is not happening at all, then it became it is happening but humans aren't responsible? It's simply too boring to keep up with whatever hole in the theory they think they've found that no scientist in the field had never thought of ever I tells ya!

yeah that evolution thing....... I would be embaressed to have evolution a "controversial subject" in my country.

In which other countries is it controversial??? Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and such.
 
yeah that evolution thing....... I would be embaressed to have evolution a "controversial subject" in my country.

In which other countries is it controversial??? Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and such.

'Merika! :doh
 
I don't, unless I have a really bad day and feel suicidal.

But perhaps even debating flat-earthers, geocentrists, chemtrail advocates and HIV deniers is more fun. In a sick kind of way.
 
It is wonderfull that in our country scientific institutions still have their independence.

That was a good one. Of course, I don't know, where you are, but here there are only very few independent scientific institutes. Most are owned by the state and the researchers are government employees. That is quite the opposite to undepentent.
 
I`d like to ask my European colleges specificaly.

Do you engage in debates concerning the subject with US climate change deniers?

We all know that on our lovely continent there is a general consensus on the matter.

Accross party lines everyone agrees to not ignore the scientific facts, and the only ones who argue against the science are to be found on the fringe or people who only have an audience in the US.

It is wonderfull that in our country scientific institutions still have their independence.

I chose not to engage with any US climate change deniers in debate since it would be a pointless exercise. To me it would be like talking to some loath who insists that the earth is flat.

How about you Danes, Romanians, Turks and Brits?
Other than a few fringe people, I don't think many here actually deny anthropological climate change.
There are people like myself who are skeptical of the alarmist portions of the IPCC's predictions.
But I have no doubt we are changing the climate.
The extent we are changing is an open question.
 
-- I chose not to engage with any US climate change deniers in debate since it would be a pointless exercise. To me it would be like talking to some loath who insists that the earth is flat.

How about you Danes, Romanians, Turks and Brits?

Once I saw that there were the equivalent of "flat-earthers" in the environment change discussion; I just didn't bother to engage. I wouldn't say it's an American only thing though, I remember there being quite a vocal sceptic group over here too which tended not to debate or discuss subject on their websites but to attack the people who wished to discuss the subject.
 
That was a good one. Of course, I don't know, where you are, but here there are only very few independent scientific institutes. Most are owned by the state and the researchers are government employees. That is quite the opposite to undepentent.

Yeah now, that makes perfect sense: The government influences their dependent scientists to scare the people about climate change... just for that suddenly, Green parties rise and environmentalism becomes a strong force, which makes said politicians lose their power and gets them in conflict with their major donators from big business. And that's the reason why politicians in Europe now pretend all the time they're doing something against global warming, but in reality try to use every loophole they find to not do much and to please the oil and car industry instead. That makes perfect sense.
 
Do you engage in debates concerning the subject with US climate change deniers?

We all know that on our lovely continent there is a general consensus on the matter.
1. Why are you comparing a country to a continent?
2. Americans' views on climate change are similar to most European countries. Indeed, more Americans take affirmative positions on the impact of climate change than several of those countries. Even further, there doesn't appear to be evidence of a 'clear consensus' on your 'lovely continent'.

Just wanted to shut down another "Europe is so much different than the U.S." myth.

Citation: Climate change opinion by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
1. Why are you comparing a country to a continent?
2. Americans' views on climate change are similar to most European countries. Indeed, more Americans take affirmative positions on the impact of climate change than several of those countries. Even further, there doesn't appear to be evidence of a 'clear consensus' on your 'lovely continent'.

Just wanted to shut down another "Europe is so much different than the U.S." myth.

Citation: Climate change opinion by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Assuming these polls are true, I can only conclude that the major difference between Europe (or at least Western Europe) and the US is that in the US, one of the two major parties denies both scientific consensus and public opinion, and massive amounts of resources go into counterfactual denialism propaganda, which is very visible online.
 
Yeah now, that makes perfect sense: The government influences their dependent scientists to scare the people about climate change... just for that suddenly, Green parties rise and environmentalism becomes a strong force, which makes said politicians lose their power and gets them in conflict with their major donators from big business. And that's the reason why politicians in Europe now pretend all the time they're doing something against global warming, but in reality try to use every loophole they find to not do much and to please the oil and car industry instead. That makes perfect sense.

I think the mechanisms are a little more complex that we see at work in socio-economic groups. What we do see, is an interplay of formal and informal decision making dominated by a high confluence of peer group pressures, homogenous job parameters and life plans etc. Every individual organization will have somewhat different mechanics and usually bureaucratic environments you will find complicated rituals that are hard to discern from outside. But other times they are quite obvious, where subsidies or projects are involved. As the Germans say, if you pay the piper you command the toon, or something like that. It is really very interesting to watch happen.
 
1. Why are you comparing a country to a continent?
2. Americans' views on climate change are similar to most European countries. Indeed, more Americans take affirmative positions on the impact of climate change than several of those countries. Even further, there doesn't appear to be evidence of a 'clear consensus' on your 'lovely continent'.

Just wanted to shut down another "Europe is so much different than the U.S." myth.

Citation: Climate change opinion by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Always click on the reference. The Gallup poll says acceptance of anthropogenic climate change is at a level of 49% in the US. The UK is lower at 48% but the vast majority of European countries have higher acceptance.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/117772/Awareness-Opinions-Global-Warming-Vary-Worldwide.aspx
 
I have had a few brush-offs with the climate change deniers. It's been an unpleasant experience overall. I can honestly say it is one of the areas of discussion where I don't learn anything from the exchange or gain some insight into the others' POV. they all repeat the same non-sensical bollocks. I think it's the severe misunderstanding of what words mean that drives a lot of them... I think they think that pseudoscience is actual science... but ofc, it's not because "psuedo" means false.

After the last encounter I have decided that they're beyond approach and understanding and that the only solution is to pay no attention to them. I won't waste my time debating such topics further down the line.

I will end by saying that I can understand peoples' positions when they say that they don't want to have this push for green energy because of economic reasons. Ok, I don't respect that position but I can understand it and respect the people upholding it. It makes little sense to me and I find it short sighted but whatever. What I can't understand is people who say we shouldn't go green because climate change don't real. I mean that's just... silly.


It's one of those partisan issues for americans. If they're wrong then the other side is right and they can't be right and bla bla bla bla. It's bollocks.
I think the reason that only some politicians (usually on far left or far right) in Europe are against the scientific fact of climate change and have voiced their opinions on it is because they're being paid by people who have a key interest in not pursuing green energy. It cannot be because of votes. I don't think there are votes in global warming denying and surely if there are, they are like infinitely times fewer than the people who do accept the scientific reality and care about it. So it must be money.. bribes basically or just plain old stupidity.

We are sort of immune in Europe from hyperpartisanism due to the multi party system. You can find, in theory, a political party that will mirror your views more closely than just having 2 main parties and an election system that encourages a 2 party state.

//ofc, a multiparty system only works if there are actual political parties in place instead of just gangs of crooks pretending to be politicians. but that's a corruption issue. But even in my country we are all very much pro-green energy. It's a project that is very popular with the voters, especially the youth which is very eco aware and the former ruling party lived and died by gaining the support of the youth... the current administration is idiotic at best, downright retarded usually... but it too recognizes the importance of keeping green energy investments up (and there are tons of internal and foreign investments) and we have almost 800k people working in green energy in Romania. it was about 600k in 2012 so I think the numbers gone up considerably.

EDIT: spelling errors.
 
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