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Coal miners are a symbolically massive constituency. There aren't that many coal miners, but there are quite a lot of people who view coal miners as representative of a particular vision of America (sort of like how there aren't that many cowboys or farmers). Specifically, a mid-century vision oriented around stereotypically "manly" industries like manufacturing and resource extraction. Conversely, opponents of clean energy will raise practical objections, but there's a heavy undercurrent of aesthetic distaste for green energy. Like caring about the environment more broadly, it's hippy and lib-coded. It's not a coincidence that the non-fossil fuel most attractive to anti-environmentalists is nuclear power, with its massive engineering requirements and historic status as bete noire to environmentalists. There is, of course, also the broad self-interest question. Red states are heavily intertwined with the oil and gas industry, so there's interest in portraying renewable energy sources as inefficient or outright pointless while downplaying the costs associated with fossil fuels.
Of course, there's a tension between peoples' personal views and the legal environment in which these systems exist. Thus, e.g. Texas installing more solar than California despite Texans thinking that solar power is gay.
Remember "learn to code"?
Years of being talked down to by someone who was smugly wrong has done a lot of damage.
For me, this touches on a big issue. I strongly suspect that the people who are pushing wind and solar are the same people who are wrong about George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse, Duke Lacrosse, Global Warming, gender ideology, HBD, third-world immigration, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Black Lives Matter, gay marriage, and probably a bunch of other stuff I can't think of at the moment.
What all these things have in common is that they are a magnet for people who are far more interested in following what's fashionable, i.e. virtue-signalling, than anything else.
This is interesting to me, because one of those is just a plain brute fact that is true, that can't be argued with, and yet you choose to deny it and package it up with all the other culture war shibboleths that are part of the culture.
I wonder to what extent everything someone believes is received from the air their breath with no reference to how the world actually is? Is it the same for every population, or do some groups actually have more of a connection to cause and effect?
It's global warming by the way. There is room for debate on some other yes/no propositions you have up there interspersed with the axiomatic statements, but that one is just a thing that is real, but some people don't want to be real so they close their eyes to it/believe the grifters and woowoo peddlers instead.
Well when you assert that "global warming" is "real" and a "plain brute fact" what exactly do you mean by "global warming"?
That average temperatures across the globe taken over the course of year X, are higher than x-1, and x+1 will be higher than x.
Eg, the globe is warming.
Less snarkily, that the models popularised over the last 50 years or so have been mostly correct, and all show a warming trend. That is the thing that is a plain brute fact that can't be denied: that climatologists in the 70's said "Hey, it looks like it's getting hotter" and then it did.
This is what I would call "motte global warming." And yes, there is little room to doubt that motte global warming is "real" and a "plain brute fact."
But when I said that a certain group of people was wrong about global warming, that's not what I meant. Because they push what could be called "bailey global warming." The idea that (1) if unchecked, mankind's CO2 emissions will cause significant warming; AND (2) that warming will be magnified by water vapor feedback; AND (3) that this magnified warming will have a devastating impact on the climate, i.e. it will cause major harm.
To be sure, when these people are on the defensive, they do what all motte & bailey types do: They pivot to the motte. "It's indisputable that global surface temperatures have risen measurably over the last 100 years" or "basic mathematical calculations show that an increase in CO2 levels will lead to measurable increases in global surface temperatures" All true, but later they pivot to the bailey: "We must substantially reduce CO2 emissions or else there will be a disaster!!"
I can't really comment on this since I don't know what specific models you are referring to. That being said, I would challenge you to find a prominent climate model which (1) made bona fide predictions which were interesting, correct, and were actual (i.e. not retroactive) predictions; and (2) also predicts dangerous warming for the Earth.
There is no bailey, it’s all motte. There’s an extremely strong scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to global warming and there’s no credible alternative explanation for the rise in temperature. The only thing that tracks the rapid temperature rise is human causes.
Let's cut to the chase:
Please summarize the evidence that mankind's greenhouse gas emissions, if unchecked, will lead to DANGEROUS warming, i.e. warming sufficient to cause substantial harm to human life and property.
Do you believe that this position represents scientific consensus?
If, so what's your evidence that this position represents scientific consensus?
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