A good
New York Times read on what Republicans get from their curious new climate-denier talking point "I am not a scientist." Short answer, they get to
run away from the question.
Jon A. Krosnick, who conducts polls on public attitudes on climate change at Stanford, finds the phrase perplexing. “What’s odd about this ‘I’m not a scientist’ line is that there’s nothing in the data we’ve seen to suggest that this helps a candidate,” Mr. Krosnick said. “We can’t find a single state where the majority of voters are skeptical. To say, ‘I’m not a scientist’ is like saying, ‘I’m not a parakeet.’ Everyone knows that it just means, ‘I’m not going to talk about this.’ ”
That problem, you see, is that it's no longer credible to deny that climate change is happening—voters don't buy it. But acknowledging that it is real would quickly end the campaign dreams of any Koch-affiliated Republican who tried.
For now, “I’m not a scientist” is what one party adviser calls “a temporary Band-Aid” — a way to avoid being called a climate change denier but also to sidestep a dilemma. The reality of campaigning is that a politician who acknowledges that burning coal and oil contributes to global warming must offer a solution, which most policy experts say should be taxing or regulating carbon pollution and increasing government spending on alternative energy. But those ideas are anathema to influential conservative donors like the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and the advocacy group they support, Americans for Prosperity.
Calling it a "temporary Band-Aid," however, implies the wound will heal. Will it? The Koch brothers and other energy titans aren't going to be demanding any less fealty from their sponsored politicians two years from now or six; this notion that
I am not a scientist is a silly-sounding stopgap while the party crafts a
real response to climate change and needed energy policy shifts implies that such a plan might eventually emerge. So far the only plans in that regard have been offered up by the party's less savvy (cough) spokesmen, and they consist of something between
Climate change is a perfectly natural process that we can do nothing about and
Sucks to be you. If we're looking for the John Boehners and Mitch McConnells of the world to start explaining a realistic process that both mitigates the most catastrophic effects of climate change and allows the folks who sign the big checks to continue strip-mining large portions of North America, good luck with that.
In any event, an interesting question. When the I am not a scientist talking point itself gets too silly to use, what will it be replaced with? And just how toasty will we all get in the meantime?