Politico has noticed a new mocking tone that the president is adopting on the stump to ridicule science-denying Republicans.
The sarcastic bear is loose, and he’s loving every minute of it.
President Barack Obama is letting his inner Don Rickles run free, mocking climate deniers as the crowd who used to think the moon was made out of cheese or spineless dopes who can’t or won’t listen to science even though the science is all overwhelmingly pointing in one direction. Their heads are in the sand. They are members of the Flat Earth Society.
The way the article portrays this mockery is as a calculated poll-tested strategy to win over younger voters who don’t respond too much to talk about polar bears or butterflies, but who do react negatively to people who simply deny the validity of science or the credibility of scientists.
I’m of two minds about this. First, it makes sense to figure out the most convincing way to talk to the public about climate change. I don’t think doing so has to be considered as inherently cynical.
Second, this is just a basic fact-based thing. If your opponents are denying reality as a political stratagem, what else can you do but mock them for it?
Ultimately, what the Republicans are doing amounts to fraud. In the example of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, denying the predicted rate of sea level rise is a way to artificially boost your property values, which is a crime against the people who will unwittingly pay too much for a house that will be under water by the end of this century.
I think we can all understand the impulse to protect the value of your property in any way you can think of, but it’s still fraud. And, since the president can’t simply prosecute every example of fraudulent political speech, his only option is to make fun of it.
Property owners in the Outer Banks should be clamoring to talk to the president about what they can do to save their property so that their grandchildren might be able to enjoy it, but they’re more interested in preventing the state of North Carolina from officially recognizing the threat. That’s short-sighted and wrong. And that’s where the whole GOP is headed on this issue.
They have earned their mockery.
Is it fact-based that the globe has not warmed in 17 years? Or did somebody make that up?
Are you serious? Nobody made that up, but somebody cherry-picked it, and is trying to use it in a totally misleading way.
Here’s a fact:
Let’s see, we have a steady increase in average global temperatures going back over several decades, which correlates with a steady increase in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere over the same period. And then about 17 years ago the temperatures seem to level off, although in fact the CO2 concentration is still rising and we’re pretty sure we know where that extra heat is going: into the ocean.
But the earth hasn’t warmed in 17 years, so build Keystone XL.
Also, too, the mass of arctic ice has precipitously declined over the past 17 years, but the warming has stopped!
Everything frozen on earth is melting, but the warming has stopped!
This denialist talking point has been debunked by the NASA climate scientists and others for nearly a decade now, but as with all “conservative” nonsense, it is a zombie lie that can’t be killed.
It relies on selecting 1998, a record shattering el nino year, as close to the starting point, ignores the fact that the past 17 years have THEMSELVES been most of the hottest years on record—and even then the trend is warming. Decade by decade shows continual warming. And we are beginning a new el nino year…
So no, what you have stated is not a “fact” accepted by the scientists (or statisticians)—instead, it’s statistical game playing, made up by liars, which hopefully you are not fooled by.
It is also a dishonest talking point the last 17 years is not flat, this link is from back 2009, but makes the scientific facts easy to read, for those who want to read the actual science, and not politically inspired GOP denier dishonest talking points.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1998-is-not-the-hottest-year-on-record.html
Fraud is putting it mildly, considering how much more is at stake here than property values in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Fraud is a valid point, especially if you extend it to the stock value of the various business interests with a stake in denying climate change.
But I think think politically it is simply a matter of Obama is not running for another elected office so it doesn’t matter if he comes off a little offensive to the easily offended. Meanwhile 30% of American will always think he is the antichrist and deny CO2 problems. But the middle folks without the time or inclination to care much about politics need a decisive wake up to point out that the nut jobs are indeed nuts (and indeed not scientist) to firmly discredit them.
This is the right time as the election is getting closer and Obama is the guy for the job. Especially because he is very good at it.