Replies

"Calling extreme environmentalists worshipers in a new religion isn't very effective."

A - it's not a new tactic.
B - it's certainly not an inaccurate accusation.
C - I could hardly disagree more & would deem doing so highly effective:

"Its much better to point out their ulterior motives. "

Coulter has done so - in spades!

"How should conservatives fight this? "

If you haven't already, read Ann's book cited above.

Also, with respect to "Denying global warming and denying that it will be a real problem if global warming continues at the current trend is useless because the data from a dozen seperate scientific disciplines in 20 different countries all say the same thing - that global warming is real and has been increasing since 1976."
You seem to be missing the distinction that few are denying cyclical global warming - e.g. it obviously wasn't Hummers & Escalades which ended any of the planet's numerous earlier ice ages.
Rejecting the left's shameless political opportunism & campaign to promote related self-serving mass hysteria is another matter entirely ... especially when, barely 3 decades ago, these same folks & their msm fellow travelers were similarly obsessing about what they then alleged to be the onset of cataclysmic global cooling.

>>You seem to be missing the distinction that few are denying cyclical global warming - e.g. it obviously wasn't Hummers & Escalades which ended any of the planet's numerous earlier ice ages.<<

Let me take this part since I think there is agreement there. Previous global temperature cycles are exactly the kind of thing we (conservatives who want to avoid needlessly crippling the economy) need to talk about. We have been at about this temperature three times in the last 10,000 years and each time it cooled back down.

>>especially when, barely 3 decades ago, these same folks & their msm fellow travelers were similarly obsessing about what they then alleged to be the onset of cataclysmic global cooling.<<

This is another good point of yours. Global warming stopped between 1945 and 1976 leading some to predict a coming ice age. In retrospect I think the lesson there is that CO2 production cannot be simply controlling global warming because CO2 levels went up significantly during that time. That's another point we should be making.

On one level I really want to stop here with our areas of agreement. But I think the tactics issue is too important. I also hate to criticize Ann Coulter because it upsets people and we invoke the required pictures rule.

But...

1. As a Christian I don't feel empowered to judge other's relationship with God. She is free to do so but I don't think it helps. You don't change people's minds by calling them Godless. The atheists dont care and the Christians hear the insult not the argument.

2. I think the global warming aspect of her presentation mainly marginalized her and the effort to refocus on causes of global warming.

3. You (and she) are obviously free to feel that environmentalism is a religion but that's not the way to win a scientific debate. The far left has done an excellent "OJ glove job" - they have linked the existence of global warming with human causation. We need to concentrate on delinking those issues.

4. We need to use numbers that the public can understand... I'll bet you the average person who thinks Al Gore is right has no idea that the temperature change is one degree in 100 years. We have time to study the causes.

5. We should decide on a main objective. My personal opinion is that the best outcome we can hope for is to emphasize how slow global warming and convince the public that we can easily take 10 years to examine its cause and see if it stops or at least slows down.

My best to you. Its nice to have a rational discussion/debate about this.