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Even Republicans might start to believe in climate change after this year

Published on 61 Comments on Even Republicans might start to believe in climate change after this year

Every once in a while I like to take a look back at my predictions from 2012. Here's one of them:

The fact of climate change will become undeniable. The effects of global warming, discernible today mostly in scary charts and mathematical models, will start to become obvious enough in the real world that even the rightest of right wingers will be forced to acknowledge what’s happening.

Hmmm. Not bad! The predictions were for 2024, and this year's world-gone-mad weather might well be the starting point of a change in outlook even among wingnut Republicans. We'll see.

61 thoughts on “Even Republicans might start to believe in climate change after this year”

  1. jakejjj

    Fresh from his errant inflation denialism, Kev the "Progressive" racist lectures on another subject that he knows NOTHING about. LOL

    2. Dee Znutz

      The only inflation I believe in is the pump you’ve had surgically installed in order to continue performing sexually.

    3. Pittsburgh Mike

      Kevin is right about inflation -- comparing prices against 2020 is stupid, and on top of that, various part of the economy are going to be adjusting at different rates to an ever changing 'normal.' We won't know if there's any significant inflation risk until a year or more from now.

      And calling someone racist these days is pretty pointless, now that everyone fits the ever broadening definition of racist. You may as well accuse Kevin of breathing oxygen.

    4. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Au contraire.

      I was a liberal Democrat... until Kevin Drum told me the left was responsible for the culture war.

    2. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      The comet in Comet Ping-Pong is the literal comet whose striking off the Earth will reset geologic time.

  3. bouncing_b

    No. They won't. Their capacity for denial is endless.

    Suppose Kevin wrote this headline:
    Even Republicans might start to believe covid is real after this year.

    Then continued as above: the fact of covid will become undeniable ...

    Clearly, "undeniable" facts can easily be denied...

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      The more manifestly obvious climate change becomes, the more Republicans will seek signal their loyalty to their leader through increasingly irrational denials. For a sample just see jakejjj.

      1. jamesepowell

        That is the most likely development.

        What have wingnut Republicans ever changed their minds about? Sure, there are things they stop talking about or deny they ever said, but can you recall any 180 reversals?

        1. Salamander

          Starting a few days ago, Faux Newz started pushing Covid vaccination. (Of course "they NEVER!! opposed it!")

          We have video recording technology and the Internet never forgets, but somehow, the ol' Memory Hole thing still works.

    2. Salamander

      Re: Covid. Republicans continued denying the existence of Covid-19 even as they died of it. The only way around this and the climate change stonewalling is for sane Americans (currently Dems and fellow lefties) to dominate government. Which is why the GQP is working to prevent majority rule...

  4. cld

    Have the people who attacked the capital who are now going on trial been ordered by the court to have mental health evaluations? I haven't seen anything about this.

    Many of them seem clearly challenged in this area. If their mental fitness isn't considered how is the trial fair to either them or the rest of us?

    I just saw some Republican bragging about how when they regain control they're going to do everything they can to prosecute Anthony Fauci, while the Justice Department uses any pretext it can to avoid prosecuting or even investigating Republicans unless they absolutely cannot avoid it.

    Facng no consequences for anything conservatives have only gotten worse and willl only continue to get worse,

    and they don't care if the world burns.

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Mental health evaluations for conservatives? Unfortunately gross ignorance and stupidity is not a crime; conservatives consider ignorance and stupidity to be a feature not a bug.

      1. cld

        So many of these lunatics who attacked the capital are so obviously fringe personalities I think it would be helpful to medically characterize them. How many of them have a history of mental health diagnoses, psychotic episodes, or family histories of violence? This is the character the right wants to represent as virtuous.

      2. Salamander

        Gross ignorance and stupidity are neither crimes nor officially considered mental health problems. Nor is being an a-hole, like nearly all the murderers in recent mass shootings.

        Unfortunately.

    3. lawnorder

      Yes, I just saw a report that the "Q-anon shaman" has been assessed. He is mentally ill, but not bad enough to be unfit to stand trial. This was strictly a "fitness to stand trial" assessment, but it looks like he doesn't qualify for "not guilty by reason of insanity" either.

      1. lawnorder

        Apparently, the government psychiatrists agree that the conditions of his confinement are aggravating his illness. That seems to me like a bad thing, but I didn't see any indication that anything will be done about it.

        1. cld

          And he was clearly a low-hanging fruitcake.

          I'd be interested to see if there are commonalities between them that could be flagged ahead of time and in that way better fix the responsibility on those who make an effort to stir them up.

    4. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Well, given Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer's pained response to his fellow jail inmate tossing poopoo & peepee at him, we know he is manifestly NOT metal.

  5. Jasper_in_Boston

    The same people who are cheering on the accumulation of US covid deaths are going to start cooperating with "the libs" on climate change because of scary weather*? You've GOT to be kidding me.

    *Scary weather, needless to say, is how they derisively characterize what's going on.

  9. TriassicSands

    If the Democrats signal they're willing to fight climate change by cutting taxes on the rich, the Republicans might agree. Of course, that won't do anything to fight climate change, but Washington's coveted bipartisanship might get a boost.

  10. Jasper_in_Boston

    Destruction of the Earth's carrying capacity is a small price to pay for showing loyalty to a serial rapist, tax-dodging, fraudster-reality TV host, Kevin.

        1. illilillili

          Clever. Repeating what someone else said and then replacing some of the words in the sentence with random words picked out of the air. Yeah, that's how intelligent people communicate.

  11. Austin

    Kevin's optimism for the eventual redemption of the Republican Party is always good for making me laugh literally out loud.

    I don't expect to see the GQP do anything on climate change ever in my lifetime. I fully expect representatives from the Islands of Miami, Tampa, Orlando, etc. joining up with the Mad Max Gang of thirsty senators from the failed southwestern states of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, etc. to hold all proposed climate change legislation hostage in the years before I die.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Sinema should propose trading filibuster repeal for Mississippi River or Great Lakes water.

      1. lawnorder

        There's an "easier" solution to the southwestern water shortage. The Columbia River dumps an average of 7,000 cubic meters of water into the Pacific. If a portion of that were diverted into the Colorado, the southwestern states would have ample water.

        Of course I know that diverting the Columbia is no more practical than diverting the Mississippi, but at least the distance is less.

  13. D_Ohrk_E1

    How do most people deal with cognitive dissonance most of the time?

    When people heard things on FNC that they didn't like, they started switching to Newsmax, prompting FNC to change tactics. A dozen Trump officials indicted by his own DoJ and they still thought it was a partisan witch hunt and blamed Democrats.

    People die all the time from their cognitive dissonance -- COVID-19 is a contemporaneous example of this.

    I remember my libertarian professor telling us that people make the best choices for themselves. When we're 20, it seems plausible. When we're 50, most of us come to experience the truth that all of us have difficulty making good choices all the time because we struggle with our cognitive dissonance. Those who are truly ignorant of the human condition and are a lost cause will only see this flaw in other people.

    To be free of cognitive dissonance, one must be fluid and open to new inputs/data. Otherwise, we just spend most of our time seeking confirmation bias. People say that they're not seeking confirmation bias, but we all do it; we all seek correlation to support our causation.

    In the end, most of the people who do not believe in climate change will never change their minds.

  14. jte21

    I think you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment, Kevin. Republicans will start caring about climate change when their donor base does. And right now, there's still more $$$ to be made by pumping and refining fossil fuels than by worrying about some forest fires or the occasional coastal flood. And besides, the wealthy can always just move their gated enclaves a few miles inland as the seas rise and pump the AC. See? No biggie.

  15. skeptonomist

    Do Republicans really dispute the fact of global warming? Some still do, but most are or will soon be in the second phase, which is refusal to admit that it is human-caused. How do we know that it is not a punishment by God for not following the dictates of TV preachers? Vast numbers of people believe that such things happened in Biblical times, and millions also believe in what Trump claims on various topics. Acceptance of the fact of global warming will not mean that action will be taken against it.

  16. Salamander

    "The weather always changes."
    "The climate is always changing."
    "Whatever happens, it's Gawd's will."
    "People can't affect the whole world! Are you crazy, or what?"
    "It's not getting hotter, it's just different ways of measuring temperature these days."
    "So it's happening. Too late to do anything about it."

  17. David Patin

    Not until large parts of southern Florida are under water will denialism disappear.

    And perhaps not even then.

  18. kahner

    A new study has found widespread support for climate-friendly energy policies among registered Republicans and Democrats.

    The study, conducted by Yale University and George Mason University’s climate change communication programs, surveyed nearly 1,000 registered voters from across the political spectrum — Republicans, Democrats, and independents — in December.

    The survey found 53 percent of registered voters think global warming should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress while 66 percent feel the same about developing clean energy sources.

    There was also broad support from both Democrats and Republicans for eight energy policies that would help address climate change.

    The two most popular policies were providing tax rebates for the purchase of solar panels or energy-efficient vehicles and funding research for renewable energy, with 82 percent approval among all voters.

    While both proposals garnered close to 90 percent approval, or higher among Democrats, figures for conservative Republicans were notably lower, at about 60 percent approval for both the tax rebates and renewable energy research.

    https://www.vox.com/2021/1/15/22233228/democrats-republicans-view-climate-change-global-warming

  19. peteshan

    Kevin's 2012 predictions generally are looking pretty good. I don't think he specifically addressed the troll population increase, but that's a trivial omission. Think of which, can I block them here the way I can do logging in with Disqus?

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