GOP Platform: We Cause Global Warming
From an elated Washington Post:
In a First, Draft GOP Platform Credits Human Role in Global Warming
By Juliet Eilperin
Republicans started making the final changes to their party platform today in Minneapolis, hammering out a staunchly-conservative document that calls for constitutional amendments banning abortion and gay marriage while leaving decisions about how to pursue the war in Iraq up to the next president.
But the 48-page document — which is roughly half as long as the party’s 2004 platform — does reflect certain priorities of the presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, by highlighting issues such as the environment.
The current draft doesn’t get into the weeds like the previous one did, according to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who co-chairs the platform committee. “We wanted it to be shorter, more principled, forward looking,” he told reporters during a conference call this afternoon.
While the 2004 platform did not mention global warming, the draft document Republican delegates took up today in committee includes a one-page section “addressing climate change responsibly.” For the first time, the platform acknowledges that human activity has contributed to global warming: “The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth.”
But the document remains silent on the question of capping carbon emissions — a policy McCain endorses — and tamps down the idea of using broad government regulation to address the problem.
“Republicans caution against the doomsday climate change scenarios peddled by aficionados of centralized command-and-control government,” the platform draft reads. “We can — and should — address global warming without succumbing to the no-growth radicalism that treats climate questions as dogma rather than as situations to be managed responsibly…
Please, Gaia, no.
But I guess we better get used to stories like this.
13 Responses to “GOP Platform: We Cause Global Warming”
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August 27th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:41 am
The GOP might as well acknowledge the effect rain dances have had upon all the precipitation we San Antonians have enjoyed this month. How ridiculous.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I hope it snows in Minnesota next week. Stories like this don’t surprise me but I still don’t expect to see them.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:27 am
follow the money, Globaloney is big business now. hold your breath
August 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnVKkJFYkhg
August 27th, 2008 at 11:32 am
WTH?
Sigh.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“For the first time, the platform acknowledges that human activity has contributed to global warming”
No, the platform doesn’t acknowledge human activity as a cause, it claims human activity is a cause.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth.
Technically there is an implied relationship of these two sentences by there proximity but taken individually it really isn’t that bad. Industrialism has put more carbon in the atmosphere, that is fairly evident. And there is good scientific theory that carbon in the atmosphere could cause warming. The implication is that industrialism has caused the warming but it isn’t actually stated that way.
My only concern is that the republicans are a bit behind the ball as far as terminology goes. If we are in fact seeing some climate change stemming from solar activity (and possibly significant cooling) it behooves us to use our scientific and innovative powers to insure our continued quality of life.
This should be the Republican platform, as opposed to a Democrat platform of industrial reduction, government market manipulation, and forced consumer conservation; the Republicans should offer an ideology focused on technological improvements that maintain and improve our quality of life regardless of the changing climate.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Take the plank out. Just leave the bar!
August 27th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
OH MY GAWD
The GOP succumbs to human creation of climate change with no scientific proof in their charter! The idiots are truly in charge of the asylum! AND WE PUT THEM THERE to screw us! McCain might as well choose Al Gore or Hillary as his running mate, that would be perfect, he would believe whatever they told him to believe.
The Republican Party and what it stands for is OVER! I officially Quit if they put this in the platform!
By their definition any carbon based life form that creates carbon dioxide is a contributor to global warming- can anyone see how stupid this is? Lets get rid of every animal on the planet (except humans) to make room for the terrible carbon footprint of the human! Stupid is as Stupid does!
IDIOTS
August 27th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Actually the climate has been cooling since 1998…
But then why should facts get in the way of the money train?
August 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Somebuddy buy Dave a beer!
That is exactly how it needs to be approached.. (assuming I am seeing what I think I am seeing..) We need to offer that we are CONQUERORS of our environment! and no warming or cooling is going to mess us up. Shtuooopid solar flareupsh anyhowz… tall thosh low liffe tree huggin libralz tha mj md zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….. ok ..nap time.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
It looks like the Global Warming crowd has won the debate. Usually when one side in a debate has to exaggerate or deliberately misstate the other side’s arguments, it means those arguments cannot be defeated head-on.
I’ve read nothing here that honestly and intelligently confronts the evidence that connects the dots from human activity to increase atmospheric carbon emissions to global warming.
I suppose it is something that the GOP Platform Committee makes at least a vague allusion to the problem, even though the platform they are sending to the convention still won’t admit that a) it’s a problem, b) that we are the cause, or c) that we have to choose between doing nothing to halt it and looking our grandkids in the eyes and telling them we just don’t give a *(&^$* about their adult lives.