Conservatives should stop denying global warming. That seems like a no-brainer, but I don't mean that they should sign on to global CO2 regulation. What they need to do is specifically stop denying that it exists. Not only would it gain them significant public support, (which I mostly don't want,) but it would hugely increase our chances of actually solving the problem. (Which I mostly do.)
The second-biggest danger to the "solve global warming by worldwide emissions regulation" movement is those who don't want to do that changing their tune from "there is no such thing as global warming" to "yes, there is global warming, and yes, human activity is causing it. We're going to solve it without imposing a radical restructuring of the entire world economy, by shifting all of our efforts from "prevention by treaty" to "mitigation by technology." (The first-biggest danger is, of course, the fact that there is no precedent in human history for thinking that the global regulation approach will actually work.)
The climate-change organizations have known this for years... it's the primary reason why any mention of "geoengineering" has been verboten... because any credible solution to the anthropogenic global warming problem that does not require an enforcable, global system of CO2 emissions control will immediately eliminate 90% of the public support for that option. Not that I think it is an option... as I've said repeatedly, I think it's an idea doomed to failure in the absence of a planetary government. The existence of independent nation-states that can only be compelled by force of arms renders it unworkable.) The existence of nuclear weapons makes it positively dangerous.
There is a very vocal, and probably minority, (I have no idea what the actual proprotion is by count... I can only judge the relative volumes... in the "amount of noise made" sense, rather than the "amount of space occupied" sense,) subset of global warming advocates who seem to have more investment in worldwide behavior modification than in solving the problem.
And it is a real problem.
While there are perfectly valid reasons to question the accuracy of the models, (mostly in the assumptions about the nature, direction, and magnitude of the feedback in the climate system... the models whose predictions are driving the public debate assume large positive feedback loops that drive the system into massive, virtually-unlimited heating,) there's no good reason to doubt the underlying physical facts:
1) Carbon Dioxide gas traps infrared light.
2) Human industrial activity is increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The smartest thing the counter-forces could do would be to move the argument from the existence of the problem to what is the best solution.
Unfortunately, I fear this ship has sailed. There have been attempts... there was an article in Townhall and a few other conservative publications, that made exactly this argument. The writer was excoriated by most rightwing radio hosts, except for IMHO the two smartest ones, Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt... neither one's a Buckley or Kirk, but they're the best the Right's got these days, and they got it. The reaction they gottfrom their audience for saying publicly, "this is a good idea, and we should do it," was immediate and impassioned, and overwhelmingly against them... neither one has mentioned it again, that I know of. There's no going back for them now.
I call this "unfortunate" not because it hurts the Right politically, but because it virtually gaurantees that we will solve this problem only in crisis mode... which means that it will cost a hell of a lot more, and a hell of a lot more people are going to die. Not because they'll drown, but because there has never been a significant movement of humans that has not been accompanied by large amounts of violence and death.
Even if sea levels don't rise significantly enough to matter, changes in weather patterns will cause massive changes in human population patterns. Lots of people are going to have to move, and they're going to have to move to places where there are already people living. That usually doesn't work out well.
Don't forget the effect that the "Little Ice Age" had on European history. Between the climate shift and the Black Death, (and it's trivial to make an argument that the cooler weather contributed to the plague,) Europe's recovery from the fall of the Roman Empire was delayed at least three centuries. It did not require massive glaciation to make that happen. A slightly shorter growing and travel season was all it took.
The problem is real. The solutions that are being discussed are utopian fantasies... where they are not obviously unwise. The fact that the debate has ossified into either one solution or denial of the problem is likely to cost us dearly.
--Shannon