Why do leading republicans believe AGW is a real problem, when the conservative voter base seems . . .?

Because the majority of conservatives accept the scientific consensus on AGW.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Au3ak...

It's really just the most right-wing fanatics who refuse to accept the reality of the situation. The Republican presidential candidates knew that not only is denying AGW a scientifically ignorant position, but it's not even one that would help them with the majority of their voting base.

Don't let the loudmouths on YA fool you - they're in the minority even among their own political party members.

It's not a matter of intelligence or morality. There are smart and good people at every place on the political spectrum. The dictionary definition of conservative includes "tending to oppose change", and the definition of liberal is "open to new ideas for progress". Conservatives see global warming as something that, if admittedly real, requires change to a significant part of their lives (energy affects virtually everything in modern society). Sadly, this creates an inherent bias against looking at the science. Another big part of the problem is the far-right media empire that's developed over the past few decades. Their very existence (and the tons of money they make) is based on fear. They stoke up their audience injecting fear that the "liberals", "environmentalists", or some other imagined bogey-man is trying to take their money or freedom. With a Republican president and a GOP controlled legislature (until 2006), other bogey-men had to be put forth in order to keep their audience listening. Global warming, and it's obvious association with environmentalism and Al Gore, was an easy choice. It's unfortunate, that many smart conservatives seem unable to come up with creative solutions (that don't take away freedom or break the bank) to deal with global warming. Instead, they choose to deny it's reality and leave the problem for future generations.

Because they decided, incorrectly I think, that letting one side frame the entire debate while you sit on the sidelines saying there is no problem is bad policy. But the IPCC can't model past temperature, let alone future climate. None of their dire predictions has yet to come true. Their theory can't explain cooling post-WWII or the current cooling, or why CO2 levels trail temp in all temp records and has been 20 times higher than at present with temp only 7C warmer. They really should refuse to play ball with the IPCC and their hired guns.

Will you still be yelling about AGW after the ice age returns? What would it take for you to consider the possibility that your pet theory is incorrect and fatally flawed and always has been? Why is every storm blamed on AGW, or as it's now called, climate change? What's next? Volcanoes due to AGW? Earthquakes? Meteor strikes?

A few years hence when the hysteria dies down it will be too late if we've surrendered our sovereignty to the Greens of the world, to the UN and to power-grabbing politicians. Then again, since all climate change, including cooling, is now due to AGW, they need never admit they were wrong.

It's called pandering.

When the computer models actually correctly predict something, the conservatives might be less skeptical.

In the meantime, North American temperatures have flat-lined, are still below that of the 1930's, solar max has just about peaked, and global warming believers explain that the Earth will cool in the the next 11 or so years, a situation no doubt caused by man-made global warming.

Go figure.

We must all stop ManBearPig.

AGW? please explain the acronym

AGW Access Gateway

AGW Accident Generated Water

AGW Actual Gold Weight

AGW Actual Gross Weight

AGW All Going Well

AGW Allowable Gross Weight

AGW Alt.Games.Warbirds (forum)

AGW Anganwadi Worker (India)

AGW Anthropogenic Global Warming

AGW Application Gateway (telecom)

AGW Art Gallery of Windsor (Ontario, Canada)

AGW Atmospheric Gravity Waves

AGW Automatic Girth Welder

AGW Autonomous Guided Weapon

AGW Audio Gateway

All three candidates now running for office support global warming issues, but as you said, “maybe its just to get the votes”, you may be right about that.

The other side of the coin is that many people are becoming rich over global warming, and I don’t think that they all believe in it. In fact I would go as far to say that many people who are heavily invested in global warming, think its junk science.

Conservatives do trash global warming because its obvious that the science in it has as many holes it as a slice of Swiss Cheese. Many who don’t believe in global warming are not running for office nor are they getting rich over this hoax.

First of all, McCain and leading Republicans know they're facing a real contest this time out. So they may be appealing to the whole nation they're elected to lead, not just their party.

Second, America has lost face throughout the world, and acknowledging global climate change as a serious problem is putting us in line where we should have been by now, where we need to be in order to bring China to the table. (My opinion).

And finally, I think leading Republicans want to distance themselves from Bush, because an awful lot of voters have had enough of that. Bush came around publicly way too late in this game for anyone to give him much credit for doing so.

I expect the turnout to be high for this election. Exceptionally high. And as you say, who wants to go down in history as the leader who helped kill the planet? Besides, I'm sure leaders are working on the appropriate rhetoric to bring some of their voter base around.

Republicans are unlike liberals who have clown avatars and expected to be taken seriously. Or they talk about science they don't understand and vouch for it.

Leading Republicans are smart enough to not follow your lead and put their feet in their mouthes about this topic. In twenty years...it will be they who laugh and mock you, just as these same people in the 70s, said we were heading for an ice age...

There's very little difference between republicans and democrats. They are all pro big government spending. Only conservatives still hold on to their principles.

Trying to get climate skeptics to see the cognitive dissonance in their intellectual positions is like trying to get Donald Feith to acknowledge that in hindsight it might have been a good idea to plan the Iraq War a little better.