Global Warming: Why would anybody Lie about this?

[champt10]

I havent figured this one out yet. As I was watching Hannity and Colmes again, they were talking to a global warming skeptic, and for the second day, had the names of global warming skeptics scrolling the bottom of the screen. It reminded me of a question of mine. Why would people lie about Global Warming? I dont understand why people like Sean Hannity think Al Gore and others are intentionally not telling the truth. WHat do any of us have to gain by believing in something that Im sure most of us would hope isnt true.

[Erika]

1. People don't want to hear their planet is dying

Even if their children's future depends on our actions. The GOP is all about, be happy, spend, don't conserve.

Our kids will die if we don't help them. W's rich elitsts friends are too happy with living with the power and excess wealth at the moment to even care about their own kids.

[rodeodance]

2. seriously--I can not wrap my head around how those types think --about

gl. warming (or other issues). Its immoral-----when lives are being destroyed or ways of living (islands going under, severe glacial melting---peru will have water problems very shortly.------polar bears drowning. ect ect ect.

[bigmonkey]

3. Upton Sinclair's quote:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

The result of subordinating your beliefs to what you perceive as your loyalty to business, either abstract or your personal work situation, can be that you blind yourself to things that can hurt you. I knew a man once who was unable to admit the possibility that lawn treatments were poisoning his own well, and harming his family (even killing his pets), because "these are professionals, they know what they're doing." That's actually _more_ extreme than allowing yourself to be propagandized against scientific facts.

As I see it, it's the subordination of human values to business values that causes this.

[Erika]

4. Excellent post. Thank you.

We need to wake these people up.

[SpiralHawk]

17. And then all the dominoes will fall

If the republicon evangelical christofascists accept this basic truth, then they will have to start confronting the Vast Pack of Lies the radical right-wing corporate propaganda BORB has been catapulting into their TV-Dead brains for the last 20 years.

All the dominoes would fall, and their fragile chickenhawk-republicon egos would be atomized.

[BulletproofLandshark]

5. I just watched "An Inconvenient Truth" for the first time tonight.

To hear Al Gore lay out such a convincing argument on the effects of global warming makes it that much more unbelievable that people would go out of their way to try to discredit him. These right-wing fools have respect for nothing but the dollar, when they should have spent more time respecting nature instead.
Do they honestly believe that keeping the economy rolling trumps keeping civilization intact? Besides, there's plenty of money to be made and plenty of jobs to be created in the proliferation of wind, solar, hydroelectric power, etc. But nothing will change until the destiny of civilization is taken out of the hands of Big Oil forever.

[PSPS]

6. As George Bush himself said, "Who cares? I'll be dead."

[Shoelace]

7. stop Exxonmobil from funding these skeptics and deniers

they are criminals at best and bottom line - they did finally admit that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are a causative factor in climate change but they do continue to subsidize these various skeptic deniers who twist real science like a pretzel!

Here's a good site to keep up with what they do;
http://www.stopexxonmobil.org/

Here's a great site with a couple of the best graphs on CO2 emissions, etc., I've seen in my years of studying the science (esp. for laypeople);
http://zfacts.com/p/194.html

Another great website from Ross Gelbspan who has done great work getting the message out there. Be sure to check out his "Disinformation" link as he is great at exposing how and why the petroleum industries do and how they do it.
http://www.heatisonline.org/main.cfm


For those of us who know better, it's a fight for life and we must be proactive to dispel the myths from the propaganda machine that pumps out endless garbage so that people will not stop fueling up. It's so much more difficult to be conscious of what we give and take from Mother Earth. We are a very lazy species so it's up to us to spread the word so that others see a "reward" for their efforts.

Perhaps we need to figure out how to best define this "reward" such that this very reward outweighs any hardships therein.

Further, it seems to me that our American culture should begin to support the notion that a collective effort is is a good thing and not a "communist plot"!

Huge changes ahead for humanity. For those who know what is at stake, it's worth the work. Do your research and be forewarned - the PTBS don't want us to change our consumer lifestyles even though there's a bonanza of profit and jobs awaiting us all if we can actually make the shift to clean energy!!!

[greenman3610]

12. great links, thanks

[AlCzervik]

8. because oil companies want to continue making huge profits.

look up some of those names and see what you find and who funds them and what their actual degrees are in. There is big money to be made in spin.

[leftofthedial]

9. because they hate us for our freedoms

[Swamp Rat]

10. Sean Hannity would rather we fear Bushler

That is why THEY pay him.

[ends_dont_justify]

11. Not about global warming: it's about blame

So long as human beings can take a blame for something they will find ways to justify how they do not need to, as it is human nature. This is also why people justify torture and killing: killing is a necessity so rather than assume blame for this action, human beings would rather make it seem the act is not worth worrying about and try to find ways to kill -- wars for humans, hunting for animals.

[Pangolin]

13. They just cornered the snowmobile market?

just a guess. :shrug:

[Igel]

14. People don't lie about global warming.

They honestly didn't want to have it proven that it's going on. But once it's shown that there's global warming, then there's the next step.

Blame. But people don't really care about the blame per se. As with not wanting to have global warming shown to be a reality, not wanting to have humans blamed for it is also a secondary issue. The main issue is ...

What do we do about it?

If we're responsible, then we need to so something. Most of the possible 'somethings' are unpleasant, some to the extreme.

[Jim Warren]

15. Upton Sinclair

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”

[cooolandrew]

16. The proof is far too real I talk to Aussies they have had drought for over a yaer...

... it's even to the point some Australians feel they may die of thirst if the drought lasts much longer due to water shortages. Meanwhile a video article showed the huge cracking up of ice in polar regions effecting peoples livess there. The proof is pretty evident, let alone several pacific island on evacuation stand-by in case the island is washed away. Link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwe6QjW6M1I