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thismeintiel on 04 December 2016
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Shadow1980 said:

While not all conservatives believe outlandish nonsense, I cannot help but notice how American conservatism in general has become more and more open to rejecting objective reality. Bircher-style paranoia is becoming ever more mainstream. We are, after all, talking about a political movement where the majority of its members think that not only is the scientific consensus on global warming is wrong, but that the science is part of some vast left-wing hoax designed to destroy America's economy or something else equally nefarious. We have dozens of Congressmen and now also a president-elect who parrot this nonsense. AGW denialism has become increasingly ingrained into the very notion of what it means to be a conservative. More and more it's becoming part of their identity. Fewer than one in four Republicans accept the scientific consensus that global warming is real and predominantly due to human activities.

If you can be convinced to reject physical reality itself, you can be convinced of a host of other outlandish claims supported by zero evidence. Even in 2016, less than 30% of Republicans agree with the statement "Barack Obama was born in the United States." And most relevant to this discussion, at least 60% of Republicans believe voter fraud is common. Again, we have conservative people in positions of political power who either refuse to fight against these obviously false ideas, or they believe in them themselves. This is not healthy.

They say that all stereotypes have an element of truth to them. While support for science denialism or Birtherism or voter fraud conspiracies are not unanimous, they are present in an overwhelmingly majority of the conservative populace.

To be fair, there are plenty of liberals who believe ridiculous things, but in every case I can find, support for such notions is far, far from mainstream, and in many cases it has no significant ideological component (liberals and conservatives are both just as likely to be anti-vax or anti-GMO, for example, and such views are a relatively small minority). The "paranoid style" is largely a conservative phenomenon in today's America.

There are deniers of global warming because there is NO consesus among scientists.  Nor has there ever been.  The same tired report that is always quoted is taken out of context.  There was a lot more questions than is global warming real and caused by humans or is it not real.  Scientists included in that 98% include people who said it MAY be real, but don't believe it is man caused.  People who think it MAY be real, and man MAY contribute to it.  People who think it MAY be real, and man contributes to it, BUT not in any significant way.  People who believe it is real, BUT man doesn't contribute to it.  People who believe it is real, and man MAY contribute to it.  And people who believe it is real, and man contributes to it, BUT not in any significant way.  If I remember correctly, it was much less than half who actually believed it was definitely a thing and definitely was caused by man to a significant degree.  So, you may want to actually research that before just blindly spouting it. 

You may also want to ask yourself that when multiple scientists who believed it was real and man significantly affects it gave their projections for warming in the future, why ALL of them were off by great margins.  Even the ones who "lowballed" how hot it was supposed to get.  We've even had a "warming pause," as they like to put it, for more than a decade.  Why they said we would be under water by now, yet we aren't.  Why they said we would have far more hurricanes, yet we have had fewer.  Why it was originally called glaobal cooling, and they even wanted the government to dump coal in the artic to warm the planet back up.  Then, when they were wrong and the climate slightly warmed, they switched to global warming.  Then when the data didn't support it and they couldn't get what they wanted done, they changed it to climate change.  How convenient.  Now, they can point to anything that seems slightly out of order, and scream, "Climate Change, got to do something."

But, here's the largest piece of evidence the people in power who spout that nonsense don't believe it.  Why is it that those in power who scream climate change the most, all have multiple houses that suck energy far beyond a normal household?  Make sure they fly in private jets, burning hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gallons of jet fuel a year?  Drive nice cars that burn more fuel than a hybrid or electric car, something they should be driving?  Answer.  They don't give a crap about the environment, don't believe in climate change themselves, and just use it as a talking point to gain more power and wealth.  Even Bernie is getting a private jet, now.  What hypocrites.