Anti-Science Party

For background, I was raised as a Republican, but have been utterly disappointed by the GOP for at least a decade now. This is for many reasons, but the one that is motivating this post is that they have chosen to become the anti-science party. This is particularly evident when it comes to climate change, but it's also visible in their long-standing crusade to inject creationism into school curricula. The climate change issue alone would have been enough to force me to abandon the party, but they have actively pushed me away over the last few years with their anti-gay rhetoric, anti-intellectualism, and now thinly veiled racism, and totalitarianism.

But let's focus on just the anti-science thing for a moment. Unfortunately, Republicans don't have a monopoly on catering to beliefs that are, shall we say "highly improbable" of being true. For example, the idea that GMO foods are unsafe is a banner that the left wing of the Democratic party has been carrying for quite some time, despite plentiful evidence to the contrary. If you view politics through the (limited) view of a left/right spectrum, then the Green party is just the left-wing analog of the Tea party, and the Greens are (quite unfortunately) not highly concerned with whether science supports their positions.

Why do I give the anti-science lefties a pass, while damning the anti-science right-wingers for their views? Well, I don't give them a pass, but I do dismiss them. I can safely do that because despite appeals from some of their most passionate (but unscientific) base, the Dem party hasn't made banning GMOs part of their platform. The most the that the D's have been willing to do is establish an (entirely voluntary!) organic classification and advocate for GMO labeling. The cries for banning have largely been ignored by the party. Anti-vaccination is another non-scientific position from the left ... or is it? Turns out that it's not really a left / right thing -- there are plenty of right-wingers who are anti-vaxers, too. My most-definitely-Republican mother among them. And again, the Dem party has mostly ignored that issue (as has the GOP, thankfully).

So both sides of the ideological spectrum have some decidedly anti-science beliefs floating around. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the R's have incorporated anti-science beliefs into their DNA. And the GOP doesn't just hold views that are unsupported by science, they actively attack it. It's a big difference. Furthermore, the biggest, most politicized anti-science issue that Republicans are championing is dangerous. Remember reading about the Dust Bowl, and what an environmental/financial disaster it was back in the 1930's? It was nothing compared to the sort of problems that unchecked global warming will cause. The dust bowl was able to sort itself out after merely a decade or so. The consequences of our present-day greenhouse gas emissions will be with us for millennia. From the IPCC (SPM 2.4):

Many aspects of climate change and associated impacts will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are stopped. The risks of abrupt or irreversible changes increase as the magnitude of the warming increases. {2.4}

Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. Surface temperatures will remain approximately constant at elevated levels for many centuries after a complete cessation of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions. A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO2 emissions is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial timescale, except in the case of a large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period. {2.4, Figure 2.8}