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The Skeptical Environmentalist
The book has caused quite a stir in the circles of environmental activism. Bjorn Lomborg, coming from a green background, has thoroughly reviewed much of the work in the field and raised some concerns about the quality of the consensus analysis and conclusions. Sample chapters and further defense of his work can be found at www.lomborg.com
Disclosure Statement: I am a small 'g' green. I am a member of the Viridian Design Movement if not of the Green Party USA. I hold as a matter of fact that dependence on hydrocarbons is unsustainable for both the developed world and as a path to long-term growth for the developing world. I strongly believe that it is a moral imperative for humanity to preserve as much of the planet's natural beauty and habitat as possible. My general impression with the state of climate studies is that human activity is probably having an effect on the global climate. To what extent is a matter still open for debate in my opinion. But hey, its OUR PLANET we're talking about, so why take chances? That said, I also consider myself to be just as rabid an empiricist. I detest being led about by phony data or false conclusions, and I will not support any cause that cannot bring itself to tell the truth to the public about its data and agenda. If the current data does not fit my model of how life should be, I know that I shouldn't blame the data or the messenger. So, I am trying to be as objective as possible here, but I am coming from the green end and analyzing this work in that light.
Lomborg is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhaus in Denmark. His specialty, indeed his only other major academic paper, is in the field of game theory. Lomborg -- once upon a time a deep green himself -- set out in 1997 to debunk the claims of economist Julian Simon, a environmental degradation doubter. He found that much of the data had a tendency to support Simon. This lead him to a thorough review of much of the major scientific work in four major areas of "the environmental litany" (Lomborg's words).
- We are depleting a finite supply of natural resources.
- The human population continues to grow, threatening our ability to feed the teeming billions.
- Species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, deforestation is accelerating and fish stocks are collapsing.
- The air and water are becoming ever more polluted.
The result was The Skeptical Environmentalist. In each of these areas, Lomborg looks at a broad swath of the scientific work done to date to support these claims and finds them wanting. He gets very specific and points out numerous errors of omission as well as slanting of the data and just plain making up results to fit the hypothesis. Lomborg accuses environmental scientists of behaving more like lobbyists trying to put the best possible spin on an issue by manipulating the facts. He also takes to task a credulous media for swallowing this tripe hook, line, and sinker, as it were. Sadly, in some key areas Lomborg has -- either through ignorance or purposefully -- committed errors of omission and selective data use to make some of the same mistakes in analysis, and this very much reduces his credibility.
The first thing that sets the book apart from almost all nonacademic works in the area is the completeness and openness of the research. The book is copiously footnoted. Because of this it is clear from some of the attacks on Lomborg that his critics have been unable to muster the stomach to give it a thorough read, as many make totally false claims about Lomborg's inclusion or reference to specific studies and specific cases. If for no other reason, this completeness makes The Skeptical Environmentalist a valuable resource for anyone interested in environmental science. It is a very complete bibliography of the current work in the field. There are over 2,900 end notes in this 500 page book.
The thing that makes the environment such a slippery public policy subject is its uncertainty. Although the state of our understanding of climate and ecological complexity grows each year, it is still unable to predict with any certainty future events. The only thing that will prove a particular set of data is the future. At which time, of course, it is impossible to take preventative action.
It is probably quite understandable that environmental scientists would take great umbrage at both Lomborg's cheek and his conclusions; seeing how they pose a threat to a consensus of opinion about the state of the global environment and the degree of risk human activity poses. These are people with years of interest vested in their research and in using that research to try and get through to public and politicians who show a lot of reluctance to take on the problems and potential threats of human impact on the environment.
Lomborg quite correctly points out in his chapter on pollution that the worst pollution effects are the results of the early and middle stages of industrial development. Here he states that things are getting better in the developed world and as technology advances, the environmental impact of human activity will be reduced. He acknowledges that something must be done to help the developing world find a different path of development than that already taken by the developed nations. Lomborg takes the green movement to task here for trying to do everything at once; forcing developing nations to spend on "clean" technologies while spending on health and economic development for the poor nations. After wading through what must have been a mind-numbing torrent of cost-benefit analysis data, Lomborg says that choices must be made, political and financial resources are finite and some levels of protection cost more than they are worth. However, one must deeply fault Lomborg's cost-benefit analysis for not making a good attempt to elucidate the cost of environmental degradation per se but instead focusing on pure human property and health costs. What price does one put on the stability of the Gulf Stream currents? What is the actual opportunity cost of one barrel of oil considering it comes from finite supply for which the actual amount is unknown and the burning of which causes environmental costs we can only approximate? These questions have vexed economists for decades, but the answers are surely not zero.
Lomborg's big picture of the general shape of the global climate and of biodiversity is one that debunks most of the more extreme forecasts. In this he has produced valuable analysis. But by his own admission he has skipped over local trends and impacts that have profound social and economic implications. For example, while stating that the actual rate of species extinction over the next 50 years is more likely to be 0.7% rather than the 20-50% numbers bandied about by the World Wildlife Fund et. al., he misses the threat of local species crashes such as that of Atlantic Cod that nearly ruined the fishing industry Eastern North America and Northern Europe in the 1980s and the resulting threat to previously unfished stocks as industrial fishing operations switched to roughy and so on.
The big picture and long-term focus also misses the boat on another key issue. Recent analysis of deep-ice core samples at the poles and in Greenland have shown that in the past, the climate has changed very sharply and very rapidly; on the order of several degrees of average temperature in a decade or less. These changes are probably due to snap changes in the ocean currents caused by salinity levels and minute temperature deviations that, when they go over a certain level "trigger" such events as the mini-Ice Age of the 1500s to mid-1800s. Lomborg completely bypasses addressing the fact that even the minimal human environmental impact he says the data supports could be enough to tip the balance in these areas. And should such evens occur, even Lomborg would admit they would be economically and politically devastating. Perhaps it is his rigid attention to what is measurable that prevented him from addressing this issue. There is too much uncertainty involved to begin to assess whether or not we even can prevent such "trigger" events and thus begin to make cost-benefit analysis of preventative measures.
The most shocking thing about The Skeptical Environmentalist is not its heretical views (in the eyes of greens) however, but the reception it has received among the environmental movement. Instead of praising its depth and using its own errors to show the way forward the community has -- in the grand tradition of the left eating its young -- gone after Dr. Lomborg with a furious anger. Recently, when Dr. Lomborg showed up at Oxford university, the author of an environmental study with a competing view shoved a pie in his face. In its January 2002 issue, Scientific American devoted 11 pages (electronic copies are US$5.00) to attacking the book, its author and his conclusions.
Not surprisingly, the free-market loving Economist has taken up the defense of Dr. Lomborg with both a lead opinion piece and a feature in the February 6th issue. In addition, the magazine had Lomborg pen a "by invitation" piece in August, 2001, a rare honor. The New York Times has also come to his defense with a "Scientist At Work" puff piece in November, 2001.
But by attacking the book and the author so shrilly, the environmental community risks its own hard-won credibility. It acts just as Lomborg accuses it, like lobbyists with an axe to grind, not cold-eyed, empirically-minded scientists. Lomborg's study has its flaws, as does any environmental study. But those flaws should be attacked on their merits alone. At its worst, The Skeptical Environmentalist merely muddies the waters of scientific and public consensus on global human environmental impact. At its best it provides a crucial reality check for those who seek profound social and economic changes in the name of preserving environmental sustainability.
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Here is a link that has a thorough rebuttal of the work.o mborg12 1201.asp
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/l
Also see this article in the January 2002 edition of
Scientific American
Misleading Math about the Earth
ESSAYS BY STEPHEN SCHNEIDER, JOHN P. HOLDREN, JOHN BONGAARTS AND THOMAS LOVEJOY
The book The Skeptical Environmentalist uses statistics to dismiss warnings about peril for the planet. But the science suggests that it's the author who is out of touch with the facts.
LetterRip
I agree with of Lomborg completely.
In the NYC area, the reverse is essentially true.
Cormorant Population Boom
The 1998 State of the Environment Report shows declines in pollution across the board.
NY State spending billions for environment
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
I think the Bush administration and other global-warming naysayers should keep that old saying in mind. Yeah, perhaps there isn't sufficient proof that we're screwing up the climate. But the stakes are so high, even if there's only a 1 in 1000 chance that global warming is likely, then it's a risk that should not be taken.
The real point, of course, is that those who oppose the global warming theory usually have economic interests that would be hurt by the development of alternative energy sources. As usual, follow the money!
Reminder: find a new sig
You make a good point, but all I'm saying is that it's going to be pretty funny for all the earthy-crunchy types when they lead expensive and prohibitive lifestyles trying to make the world a better place, and suddenly we get hit by an asteroid, a plague, or China gets frisky with nuclear weapons...
Too bad they did. Evironmental science is really dificult stuff and it sounds like this author made a strong attempt at it. With subjects as complex as climate change, econmoics, and population planning, making a decent book with a valid conclusion is a dificult problem.
"Limits to Growth" was a pretty important book on this subject and it got almost everything wrong. A very dry but funny read if you dig it up. The basic ideas from it are still ratling around even when they are clearly oversimplifications.
--->Life is like that sometimes...
EXCUSE ME???
I fail to understand why any sentient being would take that perspective on life... are you complacent with the statement you made? Do you WANT to fade away? Do you wish that on your race? Your species? I certainly do not. Personally, I want to see us soar into space, settle on as many planets, planetoids, moons, asteroids, space stations, comets and suns as possible. While there are many who are skeptical about humans eventually migrating from the homeworld, I'm not one of them. I think we can do it. I believe we WILL do it. Wheter we conquer our problems on Earth first, is, of course, another story. Perhaps Earth will be damaged beyond repair, and it will be essential for all but a few humans to eventaully leave the planet, lest they be ravaged by disease, hunger, or any of a multitude other plights which may face our descendants.
We won't live forever.
While some transhumanists may disagree with you there - I see your point, but, you are wrong. We will continue to grow, change, adapt, evolve to the situations which the cold universe presents to us, but, I have strong reservations about the human race dying out. In thousands of years from now we will, to be sure, be an entirely different and perhaps unrecognizable species - or maybe even more than one species - but, we will still exist, in one form or the other. Even if it is simply the human spirit living inside a wholly different organism. We will live on.
So let me save you the suspsense, pack your shit folks, we're all going away.
No, I don't think so. Why don't you do us a favor and go away yourself, so you won't get in the way of those of us who truly aspire to peace and progress for humankind.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
As a non-fan of Mr. Lomborg, I'd like to offer up a few links:
Anti-Lomborg - Responses to Bjorn's environmental writing
Debunking Pseudo-Scholarship: Things a journalist should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist
Union of Concerned Scientists examine The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg
I subscribe to Mother Jones *and* the American Spectator, basically to see what the extremists at both ends are saying.
Since I became a subscriber I know, based on my junk mail, that my name has been sold to donor solicitation lists of the left and the right.
So, every month I get mail from Jerry Falwell, etc., about how the Homosexual/Abortion/Socialist lobbies are destroying the U.S. These compete with mail from NARAL, NOW, PFAW, etc., about how the Heterosexual/Anti-Abortion/Capitalist lobbies are destroying the U.S.
(Aside: now that I think about it, I do get a lot more mail from the left than from the right. More religious fervour, I guess.)
My point is that the only way these people can raise money is by scaring the bejesus out of those who can be scared.
The environmental lobby is no different: it scares to raise money.
What's great about this book is how it demonstrates the lies in the propaganda.
Of course, he'll never be forgiven for that. And my guess is, from a survey of my junk mail, that there will be a lot more people out to trash him than to support him. Poor sod.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
As an aside, lets just apply Occam's Razor. Here are the two possible alternatives:
(Full Disclosure: I am a Geophysical Fluid Dynamicist, so I could be part of the conspiracy [TINC] myself)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I am on the middle ground in this issue, however I do a few things to ensure that I am at least trying to make a small difference: (basic stuff of course)
1) I try to car pool as often as I can. Living in Atlanta, our traffic here is so bad that the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicles) lane is a smart choice so I don't have to leave at 5AM to get to work at 7:30.
2) I don't litter. I avoid throwing anything on the ground, and pick stuff up I see when I can.
3) I try to recycle as much as I can reasonably do.
The problem with #3 is that from what I have seen, the apartment complex I live in does a great job with the different containers for recycling, but when the garbage company comes along, they throw EVERYTHING in the back of the garbage truck and take off. So, all our local efforts aren't doing a damned thing. Anyone else seeing this problem?
Sent from your iPad.
The truth of the matter is, climatology, geology, etc. do not have the luxury that physics, molecular biology, and other "benchtop" sciences have in that, in the latter fields, it is mostly possible to construct the systems in question in the lab and probe them. However, testing most major hypotheses in climatology is simply not possible as they would require altering the climate in a deliberate manner which is neither possible nor desireable.
Personally, I am of the opinion that we need to enforce much stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment.
Who Let the Dogs Out at Scientific American? by Patrick J. Michaels.
It's just another perspective.
What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero? - Hobbes
is that in most cases, there are benefits beyond "saving the planet" to living a more Green lifestyle. Most Green design not only provides environmental benefit but also benefits such as self-sufficiency, health benefits, or even just creature comfort (a good natural-lighting design in a building can immesurable enhance the space, for example).
Even beyond Global warming, there are a slew of inarguable truths that indicate a stance that is green-er (not Green, but greener) is necessary. Ever taken a trip to a solid waste facility? All those guys can talk about is how they are running out of space because of all the unnecessary trash we generate. In areas such as that, greener developements (less packaging, for example) saves everyone money! yes, money! believe it or not, green lifestyle can actually be economically feasible.
The only question on my mind is, when the oil starts getting low OR we no longer have a decent source (presumably because the oil producing nations have a "shortage"), is America going to retain its status against now-developing countries that are doing it right from the beginning? Are we larger enough to convert when necessary?
If not, we need to start planning, because we have an achilles heel, and its name is oil, no matter how you slice it.
OK, fine. As a scientist and reasonable person, I must admit the possibility that our activities are having absolutely no effect on the environment, and the measurements of climate change are just part of the small natural oscillations in our system. I must admit this possibility, because we don't have enough evidence yet, and to dogmatically cling to a belief without evidence does us no credit, and is the mark of a different ideology.
But on the other hand, look at the problem from a practical perspective. Suppose that global warming is "false" (ie. we're not causing it). Then our actions now have no effect and by reducing emissions, curbing pollution, we do nothing (except improve our own cities, etc. a little bit). But if the phenomenon is real, and our actions now make it better or worse, then by continuing on our present course, we are making the problem worse.
Given these choices, in the absence of information, isn't it more logical to bet on the second? Isn't it safer to assume the worst case scenario? I.e. let's stop doing the things that people suggest may be harming the environment, because if they actually do, we'll be screwed in 50 years? And if they're not harming the environment, we did no harm anyway?
Do some people not understand this logic??
I would consider myself an envornmental skeptic... not that I don't believe pollution, etc is a problem. It clearly is.
My skepticism lies with this: I see a lot of "solutions" that only make the problem worse, and I see these being endorsed by those who should know better. (I haven't read the book, but I probably will; I want to hear what he says).
Recycle, Reuse and Reduce.
By far the most important of these are Reuse and Reduce. Recycling is a band aid to fix things when people don't, or won't, do the other two.
It begs a lot of questions: is it better to use a 20-year old vehicle sparingly, or should I buy a new, high-milage vehicle and feel good about my "contribution" to the envornment?
Certainly Industry wants me to buy a new product when a perfectly good one already exists. But is this a good solution? The question is hardly ever asked (and I'm not saying I know the answer; I am saying why is the default answer always seem to be: make more stuff, because it's "better" than the old stuff?).
Recycle aluminum cans? Why is this the "green" solution, when it costs as much in energy (electicity, at least some of which is coal-fired) to make aluminum as it does to recycle it? Why not use less aluminum?
I hope he asks and attempts to answer some of these questions; I would be interested in his conclusions.
Thanks for reading my post; now I have to go back to surfing with my own [personal heavy-metal laden, coal-burning, disposable] enviormental nightmare (a computer)...
In the area where I have the most background, climate change, it takes the usual corporate apologists' position, that the outcome will be at the (IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) consensus level or more benign, and then piles up evidence on the more benign side.
Well, the thing about the consensus opinion is that it is based on the entire pile of evidence, not just half of it. By the definition of best estimate, for each piece of evidence showing a more benign outcome there is a less benign outcome.
Now here's the sticky part - the consensus is the median estimate of physical changes due to human alterations of the environment. It's not an average and it's certainly not a cost-weighted average. As I used to try to argue endlessly on sci.environment, the right policy is based on the economic risk, which is weighted toward worst-case scenarios. Cost increases nonlinearly with perturbation, and small perturbations may have negligible costs. This means that the sound and economically valid response should be weighted more heavily toward more pessimistic scenarios. It's simple cost/benefit risk analysis.
When I make this argument, "environmentalists" don't buy it because risk analysis often doesn't match their preconceptions. They have come to the point where they distrust basing any decisions on statistical analysis of evidence, which of course is a completely idiotic position. On the other hand the "wisdom of the free market" forces don't buy a risk analysis of climate change because, well, it inconveniently argues to interventionist policies, and they have a preconception (equally idiotic) that no rational analysis can ever point to government intervention in the marketplace, so there has to be something wrong with the rational argument since it reaches the wrong conclusion.
The point here isn't that there is no book to be written about political correctness, sheepish credulity and factual wrongheadedness among environmentalists. There is one, just as there is another to be written about their opponents. Politics is not science, though, and apparently political books sell better than science books that threaten preconceptions on all sides.
The problem is that this book appears to be just one more piece of trash on the vast heap of conclusion-first polemics, not a cure for it.
mt
P.S. K5 reviewed this book back in August.
-Crypthanatopsis
Gee, the scientific priesthood had declared that the weather gods are angry and want some sacrifices made to atone for the sins of humanity and set things right again. You can be sure the anti-business enviro's are going to claim the benefit of every doubt. We've already been thru the Freon/Ozone hole thing, which is mainly a 'screw the US' ploy while Mexico and other 3rd world dumps still pump out tons of the stuff. But, whoever they choose to sacrifice, someone's going to make bundles off it, they always do.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
THE SHIN-RA are poisoning the earth and we got to do something about it!
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
We're outta here as soon as the Vogons show up. ;^)
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Sigh.
On my office cube I have a graph of the ice core data from Vostok, Antarctica. The graph of mean planetary temperature change looks like a roller coaster. Goddess sure does like to mix it up. What's striking about it is that for the last 12,000 years or so, we've had an anomalously stable and warm trend. Just about the time humans figured out how to grow wheat and live in villages.
Did humans cause global warming? Well, I don't think there were that many campfires back in the paleolithic. How bout the other way round? Maybe the stable, warmer temperatures made possiblee the "stupid human trick" of huge cities based on domesticated crops?
My unscientific take on it is that the climate is a big 'ol complicated chaotic system. If you're betting your civilization on linear trends persisting very long in any direction, then you're lookin to get spanked. And you haven't looked very hard at the data. I'm as green as the next bumper-sticker-sporting, recycling vegetarian. But I think we're just clever monkeys in the end.
I predict Christmas will be at least 5 degrees colder than the Fourth of July this year in Madison, Wisconsin. Since you allege that I can make no predictions whatsover, you will take me up when I give you odds. Five will get you twenty.
Weather prediction and climate prediction are different things. I made a climate prediction there, not a weather prediction.
Take my bet or admit that your argument is nonsense.
mt
There is no doubt that the Skeptical Environmentalist contains many errors. But it contains a lot that is useful, and it does not pretend to be a book about science. It is a book about the statistics used by certain people to support certain arguments.
I D=885936) As a result of this, one whole chapter of the book is glaringly wrong.
Sometimes the stastics used are dubious: the Economist themselves ran a story on how the world's figures on fish production were flawed because of massive misrepesentation from China. (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_
*BUT*
The reaction to the book does the environmentalists great disservice. Rather than rationally approaching it from the point of view of the statistics, and admitting that - in a few cases - statistics used to back up a points were wrong, the environmental movement has reacted hysterically. Normally sensible people have attacked Lomberg as an agent of big business, the oil companies, etc.
This is wrong. Attack Lomberg for his errors, do not get caught up in some hysterical conspiracy theory.
And talk about statistics. The book is about statistics, not about global warming. It may well be that global warming is worse than expected, but attacking him for having a different point of view (and that alone) is wrong.
Just my $0.05...
*r
--- My dad's political betting
There are a whole slew of different environmental problems between developed economies and non-developed and developing ones. Remember the problem with the Great Lakes 30 years ago? I belive the worst was Lake Superior, which was polluted so bad it was considered unsafe to swim in. Now its full of pleasure boaters and fishermen on the weekends, thanks to a massive enviormental clean up of the factories along its shores. This is part of the transition from a middle-industrialized to a modern industrialized economy.
Now, however, the Great Lakes are facing more subtle problems, like rising temperatures from suburban sprawl runoff, causing certain species of fish to move deeper in the lake, cutting off food supplies for other fish, etc. etc. This is mroe of a modernized economics problem, extremely difficult to find a solution, but also not as outright dangerous (at least in the short term) as the problem of old.
As the world becomes more developed (and I'm an optimist, I firmly belive that eventually Africa, South America, and parts of Asia will finally begin to advance to our current standards of 1st world coutnries), we will probably face less of these outright dangerous problems, and more of the "long-term potentially dangerous but we dont know what the effect will be and we don't even know how bad it really is sort".
The question then becomes are we going to be honest about the dangers, and what we know about them. Do we have the courage to say "We really don't know if global warming is occuring, and if it is, we really don't know what that means. Given the best of our information, here's what we can say...". Kudos to the Skeptical Environmentalist for being brave enough to face down the status quo and introduce some much-needed uncertainty and honesty.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
The magazine offers several reviews (each by a scientist reviewing the part of the book that covers the science they know best) plus an overview of the book.
The long and short of the criticisms are that the book ignores lots of works, cherry-picks results from works he does sites (ie, he only mentions the results that back his claims), and that he fails to understand most of the statistics he uses to argue with.
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
Yes it can "hurt" in the sense that almost all environmental protection activities have some money cost associated with them.
For example, one figure I've seen thrown about (which may or may not be true, but it illustrates my point) is that the cost of implementing the Kyoto Agreement (on controlling carbon emissions) would be about the same as the cost of providing a source of clean drinking water to every person on earth that doesn't have one (which is, shamefully, a lot of people).
That's not to say that if we scrap Kyoto we would spend the money saved usefully elsewhere, but the point is that environmentalism does cost.
So it's fair to do cost/benefit analysis of all proposals (but very hard to get agreement on those costs and benefits...)
>
> 10 million gallons of water melting from the North Pole Ice Shelf: $500,000
>
>60 deg. F February average temperature in Boston: priceless.
Actually, judging from housing prices in Silicon Valley, people are willing to pay about $800,000 for 60F February temperatures ;-)
Over the years the following has been the consensus of the scientific community at one time.
1. We are on the verge of a man made ice age because of the amount of pollutants we are putting into the air (circa 1970)
2. The earth is flat
3. The earth is the center of the Universe
4. People with mental handicaps should be sterilized to prevent more mentally retarded children from being born
5. The age of the earth is (insert favorite number here)
Look at who and how environmental scientists are funded. They are for the most part funded by governments. The same governments that would only fund research into why certain illicit drugs were bad for you and cut funding to any study that found a use for said illicit drug. This is not about objective science it is about getting funding, it is about ego and it is about power. Look at my sig, I said that because I have personally watched people in the scientific community ignore data that does not agree with THEIR OPINIONS. Some try everything in their power to suppress data that suggests their hypothesis is wrong. They have to because their ego's are too big and their funding depends on them being PERCIEVED as correct.
Science should be about objective analysis of the data. That is often not the case, it's about cliques and popularity and grants. Newton is turning in his grave.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Try actually studying some of the research (and analysis by both sides and neutral, if you can find them, observers) instead of sticking to the USA Today headlines. The comments I have read have mostly demonstrated that the shrill cries of the big-business, big-money environmental lobby have managed to overpower all calls for an objective study of these issues.
Wow, my bullshit detector's meter got pegged in the red for a minute. This sounds like one of those "statistics" that Rush likes to parrot.
In reality, the impact of other human activity is about 100 times more significant than the impact of space launches. See, for example, The Space Shuttle's Impact on the Stratosphere, MJ Prather, MM Garcia, AR Douglass, CH Jackman, M.K.W. Ko and N.D. Sze, Journal of Geophysical Research, 95, 18583-18590, 1990. It only took me 30 googleseconds to find it.
There are 6 billion people on earth, 5 billion of those appeared the the last 100-120 years
If so, I think *all* them appeared in the last 1-120 years.
Given these choices, in the absence of information, isn't it more logical to bet on the second?
If it's free, sure. It isn't. As the greens are fond of pointing out, we have limited resources. It follows we should spend them where it's most likely to help - I suspect 3rd world debt relief is a better buy for humanity than radical emmisions reductions of the same cost.
My views on the environment are fairly anti-libertarian in many ways, but I believe 100% that the libertarian solution carries the only solution to it.
When land is owned publicly, it is treated badly. When you want to find the worst perpetrators of the environment, you'll find commercial businesses polluting on public land that they lease.
By taking the libertarian road, and privatizing all land, you're now give businesses and people a vested interest in keeping the value of the land high, not low. Just like a renter of an apartment takes generally worse care of the place than a condo owner, the same is true of a company or an individual who may one day want to sell the land for its value.
If everyone owns their land rather than leasing it from a public entity, you now have civil protection against someone polluting your land. Some big industry pumps poisons into their river that end up in your groundwater? Now you can sue. Currently, when a business pollutes on leased government land, who do you sue? The government? These are the same guys that leave loopholes in the law so that their buddies CAN pollute.
The people who think that there is no way that pro-environmental scientists aren't harboring a conspiracy are nuts. Every science I've had the ability to witness has some "global" conspiracies that are used in order to keep people "needed" that business. The environment is no different.
The worst polluters in the world are socialist governments. That's a fact. The most pristine forests in the world are on private land. That's a fact. Some of the forest preserves in Central American that are privately owned are so much cleaner than the public land residing next door to them that its scary that people really want our government running the forest preserve system.
If you want to protect or preserve some land, find others who agree with you, and set up a private land trust. Its happening more and more around the world, AND IT WORKS.
If you want the air cleaner, then get government out of the air regulation. End the EPA. If a business is pumping chemicals into the air, its up to the third party watchdog groups to monitor it, and let people know. When there is legal evidence that a company is harming land or individuals off of their property, then a civil lawsuit can entail. End of story.
Sure, there are flaws in my "world," but the flaws in today's world are obvious: environmental protection laws hurt small individual landowners, as the large business either lease their land from government, or get such amazing loopholes granting to them in the laws, that they actually can pollute more, not less.
... yesterday (in Danish).
According to the article, Lomborg was charged with (directly translated) "scientific dishonesty*", which means "acts or ommissions whereby there in the research happens forgery or alteration of the scientific message or gross deception of a person's contribution in the research".
The charges fell the same day Lomborg is applying for the position of director of the newly founded Institute for Environmental evaluation in Denmark, by the council concerning scientific dishonesty.
*dishonesty is not really the correct word in English. It's more "dis-HONOUR" than "dis-sincerety".
-Kraft
Live and let live
We really don't have enough critical thinking going on in the environmental sector. It's a whole lot of bandwagon, dogma, and emotional fervor.
I think of myself as environmentally responsible, but I really don't buy in to most of the propaganda that is out there. I mean, I agree that we should clean up, stop polluting the air, water, ground, and space, and help developing nations get to where we are in a cleaner way than we did.
But many environmental activists, especially the global warming nuts, just refuse to recognize some basics of science. The global environment is a chaos system. You cannot predict its behavior, and therefore you cannot predict how it will respond to particular stimuli. It changes all the time, always has, even before mankind infested all corners of the planet.
These measurements of half degree changes in the average global temperature quoted by panic-inducing lobbyists as proof that we are destroying the world are an example of the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "after this therefore because of this".
I really believe that many of them think the ends justifies the means, and they will say anything and scare anyone just to accomplish their goals. And mostly I agree with those goals. But that kind of tactic is arrogant, non-democratic and dangerous. Responsible people go about creating change by educating and convincing. Those who think they know what's best for everyone and are willing to force their solution without convincing everyone of its validity should be feared, watched, and held to the standards of our open society.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Myself I find Lomborg's work makes environmental action more fruitful. I much prefer positive outlooks. "Hey. things are getting better: lets keep doing things to make them keep getting better" instead of "Things are terrible. We're all going to die. Let's go trash our local MacDonald's so that we postpone the date of the world ending by a couple of minutes."
Works like this are important because they attempt to help people make choices.
For instance: on page 80 he references estimates that 2 million people die and 0.5 billion people get sick every year because of lack of access to clean water and sanitation.
How about global warming? Page 291. "Even a small decrease in winter deaths would greatly outweigh a small heat death increase."
Obviously a contrived example. But the book is great for being able to looks things like this up. 1/3 of the book is reference!
Lomborg would be the first to admit that there's lots of room for improvement: he would agree that 2 million deaths is unacceptable. He comes to the conclusion that we should take action on global warming.
Bryan
One thing surprises me: Bjorn Lomborg seems to accept that Carbon
dioxide emissions cause 2-3C warming. I'm not there yet.
The uncontrolled, ex-post atmospheric models hardly convince me, but
the correlation of temperature with CO2 over millenia is intriguing.
But have you ever opened a warm soda can?
The 8C air temperature swing would affect rain and the oceans about
the same amount. Atmospheric Carbon dioxide swings from 200 to 300 ppm
which is coincidentally just about the decreased solubility at
increasing temperature.
So which is the chicken, and which the egg? If the Earth heated up
from some exogenous cause (solar, geothermal, geomagnetic), then CO2
would rise as an effect not a cause.
A statistics professor would say "Correlation does not prove
causality". Why doesn't Bjorn?
"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents... Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without a belief in a devil."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
So you conclude that if we don't understand the climate, that there's nothing to worry about. Hey, why not put your caveman at the controls of a nuclear power plant and let him play with all of the buttons and knobs? He certainly doesn't understand nuclear physics, and the noises and lights make him happy, so everything will be fine!
But ... but ... why doesn't Lomborg risk his credibility for attacking the environmentalists so shrilly? Could it be that there's one rule of debate if you're saying things that appeal to the people who own the media which decide who has "credibility" and one rule if you're saying things they don't like?
You certainly can't tell me that Lomborg is unfailingly polite in his attacks on environmentalists because he's not.
That's why he got a pie in the face by the way; not for authoring a "rival study", but because he had basically accused this guy of saying things he knew to be untrue in order to get government grants. If you accuse people of what amounts to fraud in public, you have to expect some comebacks, and you shouldn't pretend that people are only attacking you back because they can't handle your message.
In any case, this article is mis-sectioned. What kind of a "book review" spends about two thirds of its length ranting on unrelated political issues related to other peoples' views about the book and half that much tlaking about the book itself?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
These cities are what are called Urban Height Islands. Because of the black tar on roads and other hat absorbing characteristics of cities, cities retain more heat, and so are hotter.
Measurements of increased average heat temperatre in cities should take into account that changing the structure of the city can change the temperature measurements... although they may not always do so.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Oh yes, it can. C'mon yourself. Don't you remember at least some of the recent debacles?
Greenies are certainly well-meaning, if sometimes undiscerning. Unfortunately, their irrational attitude and lack of scientific training often make them easy to manipulate. As a result, large corporations have been using the legitimate concerns of misinformed green activists to push their own agendas. Said agendas are generally meant for profitability, not environment preservation. The two only meet accidentally.
In short: Emotional action without fact checking or a reality feedback loop almost invariably produces either a random disaster, or the exact opposite of the intended action. Environmentalism is no exception.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
There's multiply reasons why global warming could be great
#1. It's keeping us out of an ice age. I believe the historical record indicates that we're past due for the next ice age.
#2. Back in mideval times, it was much warmer. In fact, there was actually green plants on greenland! That's where it originally got the name. Has anyone know how hot it is in the Jungle? If it's so hot, why is there so much biodiversity? See next point.
#3. Increased heat leads to increased percipitation and more rain. That's why jungles have so much life - it's the rain. Increased circulation of rain could help increase vegitation (think crops too)
#4. Reglaciation. You know how warming is suppose to melt the ice caps? Well, if there's more rain, it's postulated that there will be more percipitation over the ice caps. Hence, more glaciation, to combat the minimal loss due to heat increase (which makes a small difference when it is already so cold)
#5. Most warming is at night. This is great for crops, as it protects against early frosts.
There are lots of other reasons why it's goo, these are just some of them.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
As a scientist, I can tell you that analysis and presentation of data is treacherous. The best scientists will sometimes find their preconceived results regradless of the actual data. All scientists must try to present their results in the best light in order to keep working. In a small subfield, researchers are often personally acquainted and are intimately familiar with the analysis techniques, so they are capable of seeing what valid results lie underneath the veneer.
This is my most difficult problem with climate change. I do not work in that field, and I can't personally analyze the validity and importance of various claims. This makes it very hard for me to have an opinion. I can point out two problems, though.
Numerical models of things such as weather or resource consumption are complicated. At best, the model can be shown to be consistent with past trends. But any model is only valid over a range of parameters. Outside of this range, the believability of the results drops to nothing. Furthermore, the ability to reproduce short-term variations is no indication that the model will be a valid predictor of long-term trends. We must constantly skeptically re-evaluate these results.
(Dont't misread me; I think that a huge and dangerous climate change is on the way unless we drastically change how we live in the environment.)
Enough for now...
A recent review, by James Glassman, that was in essential agreement with this one about the merits of the book and the reaction of the green community addressed the Scientific American article (which I had read previously) in more detail. Of particular interest to me was background information he supplied on one of the four critics Scientific American selected for the review, Stephan Schneider.
Kassman includes the following quote by professor Stephan Schneider, a bioligist from Standford.
"[We] are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place. . . . To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media cov-erage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dra-matic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
When I read the Scientific American review I remember thinking that the tone of the artical was much more rhetorical and less substantive then I would have hoped/expected from the magazine. While I never doubted that there were individuals and groups who used 'science' to further political agendas it is very dissipointing that an institute whose focus is not even environmental science would publish such a questionable article.
In the previous comment, I meant to add: (c) MTBE was profitable to sell, and now it's profitable to remove
Sorry for the incomplete post.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Okay, so there's a 1 in 1000 chance that global waming may happen, and then's there some chance that it's bad (there's good evidence that it could be good as well). So it's a try or maybe have some bad stuff... that may kill us all, but we're all guessing. But there's a pretty good chance that making any systematic changes that would stop the "impending doom" would take years to implement in an economically sound way. The more draconian approaches would definetly hurt economic growth and industries, as many renewable technologies are still being refined. And we all know that global economic down turn can be bad (hint: look at WWII, but add some nuxes).
Oh, and guess what. The environmental lobbies and scientists have financial interests too. They get paid for studying stuff that matters. If there's no problem, they get no funding. Remember the Ozone-hole threat back in '92? NASA blew that one way out of proportion. It actually shrank! But they did get some good money to do research.
I'm not saying scientists are evil capitalists; many of them are good people with good intentions, but the only way they get funding is by making a threat out of a situation that may not be a threat at all.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Environmentalists have been spewing whatever "facts" they want for years and, as mentioned in the intro, the media has bought it hook, line, and sinker.
There are two guilty parties here:
1. The environmental "scientists." They claim to be scientists--and many even are, by title. But I also feel a scientist has a responsibility to the truth of what he reports. When scientists start using their title as "scientist" to pass off unsubstantiated theories and hypothesis as verified results, they've lost all credibility as scientists and really ought not to be able to call themselves "scientists" anymore. They are liberal environmentalists with an adgenda and already know the results they want before they perform the "experiments."
2. The Media. We all know the media is biased. Nothing new. But when it comes to the environmentalist movement it's incredible how much latitude they are given by the media. An environmentalist can release a press report "Study shows that farting may contribute to the ozone hole." The news reports it as fact. You read the story and the report a little more closely and you find out that a study has shown that farting has increased 20% in the last decade and the ozone hole has increased 19%... so it MIGHT be possible the farting caused the ozone hold expansion. There's no distinction made by the media between cause and effect and just random correlations of data.
In all, the whole environmentalist movement is tainted by bad scientists who report what they want to beleive, not what the data proves, and by the media that blindly reports whatever these people spew without due diligence in reporting the validity of the claims.
Is it a good idea to reduce pollution? Sure, the days look nicer when there's a nice blue sky above us. Is it a good idea to conserve energy? Sure, saves on the construction of new plants and saves us money. Should our cars be more efficient? Sure, it'll let us stop at the gas station less frequently, save us money at the pump, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Do I think that the ice caps will melt and flood New York City and Los Angeles if I drive my car too much? No.
Do I think it's the end of the world if some unknown bug species in Brazil goes extinct? No, many species have come and gone over time, this is nothing new.
Do I think huge and powerful hurricanes are going to become common because of global warming? No.
Do I believe environmental models that, every time more and more factors are taken into account show less and less environmental change? No.
Do I believe environmental models that don't even take into account the affect of CLOUDS??? Come on.
Get the facts straight and then let's talk about what can or should be done. In the meantime, the environmentalists can do their part by trashing their old polluting VW Buses and getting a more efficient, cleaner car that's been produced in, say, the last 10 or 15 years!
Regulations have costs. Lower economic growth translates into less science, medicine, culture, opportunity for the less fortunate of the world.
Instead of mindlessly repeating Republican Party slogans, how about explaining how regulations lead to lower economic growth?
Regulations lead to lower profits for some campaign contributors, like Enron.
But please explain how having more energy efficiency LOWERS economic growth? Sure, it brings in less money to oil companies. But if we are spending less on gas, and less to heat and cool buildings, and less to power our industry, and less to purchase oil from the Middle East, how does that LOWER economic growth???
Thank you. I've been wanting to write one for ages, and now you've done it for me, and written pretty much exactly what I would have done. Now, if you'd just post it to kuro5hin, that would be even better :)
A couple of random points: Are you sure that Lomborg's cost-benefit analyses ignore costs to the extent you imply ? My understanding is that he's included all effects that could impact humans, but ignored those that only impact the natural world. Of course, such analysese are tricky, and arguable completely worthless, so there's no guarantee he has got it right. However, in principle, if the lesser-spotted fenge cricket of outer mongolia has no known impact on human wellbeing, it seems quite defensible not to consider its loss a cost.
I agree that catastrophic changes, such as switching ocean currents, or positive feedbacks, are very serious possibilities. These kinds of things, where the probability is low or unknown, but the potential consequences are catastrophic, are the hardest issues to deal with. I cannot buy into the "precautionary principle", that we must avoid possible problems, even if there is no evidence that there really is a problem, because it seems to undermine out standards of evidence.
I agree absolutely about the treatment Lomborg has received. It is a disgrace. The number of scientists who have butted in merely in order to dismiss his credentials, or complain at even having to respond, and then obviously failed to even read the book is appalling. It is equally appalling how many people on the "other side" have picked up Lomborg and equally misrepresented him as being completely opposed to all environmental controls. Unfortunately all these misrepresentations, which oddly enough turn out to be very similar, show up in the comments here. On that note:
Lomborg does not claim everything is fine. Nor does he claim all environmental research is fraudulent. Indeed, he cites lots of it. Although many of his critics have accused him of abusing statistics, very few such claims appear to be supported (one or two are). Its just easier to snicker "lies, damned lies, and statistics" than it is to engage in a serious argument. A few serious errors in the book have been spotted by various people, but these do not, in fact, damage the book as a whole.
To see that, you have to understand the skeleton of the argument being made. This breaks up into bits. The first "big picture" claim is that most people believe things that are just plain wrong about the state of the world: that population is growing out of control, or that disease is more prevelant now than ever before. Lomborg refers to this broadly eroneous picture of doom as "the litany". Environmentalists tend to play on this, even though they often know it to be incorrect, because it helps their cause. Lomborg takes them to task for this.
However, Lomborg also makes a series of other, largely unconnected, claims about the scientific consensus in different fields. For instance, he disagrees with many biologists about species extinction rates, and with the IPCC about the Kyoto treaty, but agrees with the UN about population growth. These various claims stand or fall alone, and although they reinforce the overall case that most people have an exaggerated idea of how bad environmental problems are, attacking one does not destroy the whole thesis of the book. In different fields, Lomborg is either with the consesus, but that consensus has failed to penetrate the media and acitivist organisations (population), differs only slightly from the consensus, but believes the political action being taken is wrong (global warming), or opposes the consensus because he believes it to lie on statistically shaky foundations (species extinction).
Lomborgs claims are well within the remit of science. It behooves anyone who believes him to be wrong to reply as a scientist, not as a high priest trying to cast the impostor out of the temple. Its not like he's claiming the invisible sky pixie is going to save us or something.
Greenland got its name as a joke from its discoverer (Erik the Red, IIRC). He found both Iceland and Greenland and reversed their logical names deliberately, to steer others away from the one that was actually green.
And, no, global warming would not be good for us. The ocean currents on the planet would shift radically, and weather patterns would follow. This would Really, Truly Suck. And we haven't gotten to coastlines receding, but as someone who lives in a coastal Florida city, I can assure you it'd bother me.
There's an old joke abut George Bernard Shaw being bothered by a female fan at a party, until he asked her, "Madam, would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" She repliced, "Of course." "Then," he asked, "would you sleep with me for ten?" She was offended, saying, "What kind of woman do you think I am, Mr. Shaw?" He replied, "We've already established that, madam--we're just haggling over the price."
I think of this a lot when I listen to the debate on global climate change. The majority of the scientific community recognizes that there is a trend to global warming and that human activity does affect climate. The debates now are--or should be--establishing just what the correlation is between the two.
The problem is that at least in some models--which seem to be supported by empirical evidence--ecosystems absorb a lot of abuse until they're overloaded and collapse abruptly. This means that dire warnings can always be put off--look, things obviously aren't that bad, the sky hasn't fallen, you Chicken Little!--until the catastrophe the Chicken Littles were warning about happens. And, like the Y2K problem, public health and airport security, spending on preventive measures definitionally appears to have no effect: success means things continue as they are without catastrophe. You only see failures.
Go and read the book. Now. Or at least look at it. Creation scientists are basically at odds with the whole edefice of scientific naturalism. Lomborg is just saying that some of the claims often made about the environment are wrong. In most fields he is not contradicting the scientific consensus at all, just pointing out how it has been misrepresented. On some occasions, he does point out that claims made by scientists (biologists get a hard time) are not supported by empirical evidence, but you do not need to be a specialist to make such a judgement. Indeed, as a statistician, he has the qualifications required.
He is also eminently reasonable. If you go and read his website, you'll see several admissioms to errors in SE (seen Henry Morris do that ? thought not), and several serious efforts to answer his critics.
Now stop propogating slanders and go an learn what you're talking about.
It shouldn't take a lot of deep thinking to realize that if we retrofit buildings and build more efficient cars it HELPS the economy.
Fair enough. But does it help more than it hurts? If the increased productivity by itself is enough to justify it, people will do it without regulation.
Mostly, though the regulations requiring more efficient cars have caused the SUV boom and gotten thousands killed driving tiny subcompacts that crumple like tinfoil in a serious crash.
It is within the lifetimes of most of Slashdot's readers that we begin to get answers to these questions.
It depends on how long slashdot will stay alive not ? Will the OSDN survive that long...will the internet...
Quazion.
> If you are an oil baron, environmentalist panic is very, very good for business.
No, it's not. What a pile of crap. The large energy companies spend millions funding dubious research to rebutt the findings of all the scientists who are not funded by energy companies.
Read "Green Backlash".
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
The book published in Denmark was less complete than that published in the UK and USA. It also contained several errors that have been corrected, as well as some that have not.
I seriously recommend that you read the book as well as the rebuttals. Many of them badly misrepresent Lomborg's case.
I rather hope that global warming is real. Imagine - natural changes generally take place over thousands or tens of thousands of years. If global warming is real and extreme, I might be able to witness widespread planetary alterations in my lifetime! How exciting!
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
No conspiracy is required. Lomborg is exactly with the scientific consensus in most of what he says. His criticisms are mostly of the interpretations that have been made of the scientific data.
Lomborg is largely in agreement with other environmental scientists in this. However, their concern tends to come through to the general public as a conviction of impending doom. This is the problem SE was written to counteract.
Come to that, some of the SA rebuttals are OK too. However, it is Lester Brown, not Lomborg, who is fighting the scientific consensus on population, and EO Wilson spends most of his bit bemoaning being disturbed from his majesterial slumbers, and attacking Lomborg's credentials. Like Wilson is great respecter of intellectual turf. Not.
There have been thousands of studies on this: taxes + regulation = total gov burden. The higher the total gov burden, the lower the economic growth.
Those are slogans, not "studies".
Here's a simple study for you to try. Go look up the periods if highest taxes on the rich and corporations and place that over a chart of economic growth rates. You are in for a big surprise.
After you see the results of that simple study - ask youself WHO benefits from feeding the public slogans saying less public oversight of businesses is good for them.
The very lengthy article in Scientific American pointed out that the reason Bjorn Lomborg's book has been so strenuously criticized by environmental scientists is that the book goes to great lengths to misconstrue, misquote, and otherwise misuse the studies that he so liberally references in his text. The authors of the studies he (mis)references are some of his loudest critics. The SA article backs this criticism up with detailed critiques from several scientists from different fields of specialty. Each critique provides numerous specific examples of how wildly off the mark Lomborg's use of the source data is, and how it difficult to understand how he could arrive at some of his conclusions if he had in fact actually read and understood the source data that he quotes so liberally. This entire debate is regrettably yet another example of how most people will believe whatever is the most convenient regardless of what facts are staring them in the face.
Let me get this straight... somebody wrote a book that had opinions in it? I have never heard of such a thing.
And he favored facts and statistics that helped validate his hypothesis? I am absolutely floored. I cannot picture people doing this.
Am I understand this correctly? It seems that people who agree with him are happy with his book, and people who don't agree him are upset. Once again, I am stunned if this is the case.
Francis Bacon sort of summed it up -
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
I think you mean urban heat islands. The asphalt has a lot to do with it, but so does the decreased evapotranspiration due to removal of vegetation, and anthropogenic heat sources (industry, cars, etc). The increase in temperature isn't that pronounced; at most it's a few degrees above the surrounding rural/suburban areas. And, some cities have the reverse effect, due to increased vegetation in desert cities, for example, or because of large amounts of water released by factories, etc.
isn't very honest. My recollection about HCFCs (the replacement for CFCs used in compressed aerosol cans) was it was presented by industry.
Bezene? Environmentalists' choice? Another example of industry's reaction to the environmentalists. Even if, but the correlation between leaded gas use and childhood lead-related disease complex is strong and proven. In countries where leaded gas is still used (most of the rest of the world), urban urchins have higher lead blood serum levels -South American cities are an excellent example.
"irrational attitude" -ad hominem attacks are certainly a sign of rational thinking!
"Emotional action without fact checking or a reality feedback loop almost invariably produces either a random disaster, or the exact opposite of the intended action. Environmentalism is no exception."
As a "reality feedback loop", try living in countries where environmental controls don't exist: again, Latin America, where beaches are so polluted with raw sewerage that you can't go there for risk of typhoid and other feces-transmitted diseases. Try living on the shores of the Rio Pinheiros or Rio Tamanduates in Sao Paulo, Brasil, which are essentially open sewerage canals!
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
it cant HURT us to be more eco-friendly.
Yes, it can. Even if it was only $$ it would still have an impact on human suffering. Perhaps to an American or European a few percentage points of lost GDP is no big deal but to the developing world it can literally be the difference between life and death. Sometimes the cost in human suffering is even more direct. Malaria was essentially wiped out in southern Europe and America and there was initial progress in the third world due to the use of the pesticide DDT. The third world programs were curtailed (though some third world countries still use DDT) because of the environmental fears of people who had already benefited from it's use. The direct result is millions of deaths in Africa. Also many programs had already started but were stopped before wiping out infected mosquito populations, as with any "non-lethal" dose the result is a strain of mosquitos that have a higher resistance to DDT. Because of this the third world may now NEVER achieve the success combating malaria that America and Europe already enjoy. The environmental threat was quite real (though exagerated) but the human cost was also very real, indeed catastrophic.
Now, which of the following responses to your post is most appropriate? Select only one.
a. Thank you for your thoughtful and poignant reply. Your insightfulness has moved me to accept your learned viewpoint.
b. Wow, that guy really set you off. Huh? Considering the juvenile nature of your response I have decided to give further deference to your opponent's views.
or
c. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls.
Lomborg quite correctly points out in his chapter on pollution that the worst pollution effects are the results of the early and middle stages of industrial development. Here he states that things are getting better in the developed world and as technology advances, the environmental impact of human activity will be reduced.
To clarify, I'm not a "doomsday" environmentalist, meaning I do not believe that all those cans of hairspray used to maintain beehive hairdoos in the 60's will cause the Earth to spiral into the sun.
However, while it is true evidence suggests that the developed world is better at manufacturing things than the developing world when it comes to pollution output verses productivity, that's not an inevitable result of technological advance. That's because of politics.
Politically the constant push of the environmentalists have forced manufacturers and power generation plants and car makers to reduce emissions in the United States. We have decided, in a sense, that the environment is worth the increased monitary and R&D expense that it cost to create smoke stack scrubbers and reduced emissions fuels and higher-efficiency cars. The current push for electric vehicles is not because the technology inevitably leads to putting a bunch of batteries into a high-performance golf cart and calling it a car; it's because environmentalists in California have dictated by law that a certan percentage of cars must be electric in the near future.
Take a look at Texas, where certain environmental controls have been negated or loosened. Some of the worse pollution in the United States occurs along the Tex/Mex border, in large part because no-one cares, the laws aren't in place, and if given a choice between polluting or spending a huge amount of money on pollution controls, factory owners in Texas have demonstrated they'd rather keep the money. The only thing that prevents them from polluting even more than they do is the potential cost of litigation.
Look; I believe a lot of environmental research is bogus. I was there at JPL when they first noticed the hole in the ozone--I saw the first pictures--and I remember a researcher telling me that the good part about this is that, if phrased as an environmental disaster, it would assure his research group continued funding for years. And I also used to work for a company who made "short runs" of printed circuit boards (about a hundred or so a month), who used to clean the toxic flux off the boards in a dishwasher hooked up to the main sewar line. (That shit's toxic waste, yet they didn't care they were flushing this stuff down the city sewar line. After all, it was just a hundred printed circuit boards worth--not that much, right?)
So I know that while a lot of this big-picture stuff may be bogus, if people aren't checked, by and large their apathy will cause more damage to our immediate environment. (After all, how can Mankind's CO2 be doing such damage to the global weather patterns when a volcanic eruption can put out more CO2 in an afternoon than all of Man's pollution in a year? Yet take those hundred printed circuit boards and multiply by all the printed circuits produced in the LA basin, and think of all that flux working it's way into the drinking water supply.)
I like to think of it as "think locally, act globally." I don't think we can accidently destroy the entire earth's ecosystem. But we sure as hell can mess up the air and water and greenery around a city--making our lives quite miserable in the process.
And I'm happy for the greens--not because in some unforseeable future we've reduced the chances of the sea level rising up and washing half of Los Angeles away. I'm happy because environmental laws have decreased the number of "unhealthful" air quality alerts that have been issued here since the 80's. I can now run along the Highway 5 corridor without feeling that my lungs are about to melt from the toxic waste in the air.
If you sell cars in the USA, and their average fuel economy is below X (about 25mpg, I think?), you have to pay a huge fine.
As a result, the automakers stopped development and manufacturing of the big station wagons people used to buy. (Wagons which, by the way, didn't easily roll over).
SUVs, however, are *trucks*, and thus exempt from CAFE. Thus these are pushed to anybody who wants a big car, even though they're worse for the environment and user than a big-old Caprice wagon would have been.
Certainly, you can build safer cars. But the most obvious way to make a fuel effecient car (make it tiny) makes it more dangerous, and CAFE, pervesely, encourages trucks with poor, dangerous handling.
And to those who don't know, Ken Lay had his own desk at the White House.
Just curious, Are you talking about his lobbying and financial support of the Kyoto Accords during the Clinton Administration?
That error is covered on Lomborg's website at www.lomborg.com in the "corrections" section. There is also a complete rebuttal of the WRI/WWF critique under "criticism/responses". To summarise: they are selective, and they misrepresent.
OK, I'll bite, how about Sagan's prediction after the Gulf war:
Shortly after the first oil wells began to burn, Carl Sagan appeared on ABC's Nightline and predicted that " the net effects would be similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer" (p. 37,
1992).
Or, how about the great frozen earth from 1975:
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects
Or, what about the great earthquakes that were predicted in The Jupiter Effect:
Such was the forecast of a scholarly and well-documented book entitied The Jupiter Effect, coauthored in 1974 by Cambridge astrophysicists John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. The book targeted 1982 as a time when meteorological and geological activity would build up and become intensely magnified thanks to a variety, of physical mechanisms operating simultaneously. Highlighting the forecast was a massive and disastrous earthquake on the southern section of the San Andreas Fault near Los Angeles.
Should I go on...
NULL
Geeks are plainly anti-environment. At least computer geeks are. Computers and techno gadgetry as a whole are extremely environment unfriendly. Geeks (as a whole) don't really care at about that at all. I.e. leaving the computer on 24/7 to get more RC5 numbers for thier team is far more important to any geek than realizing that leaving the computer on causes air pollution. Not to mention what went into making that new whizbang video card or where the old card it replaces will go. Geeks by nature are generally self serving and not open to other peoples opinions or views as well. This also leads to anti-environmentalist actions. Not by thought mind you. I think all geeks would SAY that they are all for the environment. But very very few of them actually DO anything about it...
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
In the most basic case, simple law and contract enforcement is an example of government regulation at work. I don't know too many libertarians who argue that we'd be better off without these things. Instead we look to strike a balance between necessary, helpful regulation, and unnecessary, damaging regulation. That balance can be hard to strike sometime, but blanket anti-regulation sentiment often goes too far, and forgets about the need for an intelligent balance of regulation... in favor of "throw the baby out with the bathwater" scenarios.
Never forget that Scientific American has long had a strong left-wing bias. I have read both the Scheptical Environmentalist and the Scientific American attack on it. The only thing interesting about the attack in SA is that they devoted so much space to it.
Scientific American, in addition to its environmental bias, also has very strong biases in the area of arms control. Thus they always publish the most pessimistic scenario about anti-missile defense and related issues.
The fact that all articles they publish are either neutral or tilting towards the left/green establishes without doubt their bias.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents...
The environmental movement may be based on misinformation, unfounded fear or outright deception but it is not based on hatred.
The World Resources Institute's stated purposes is: WRI is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people's lives.
In so far as there is a "unifying agent" it is an appeal to people's concern for others, not their hatred.
I hate to sound nihilistic, but in the end, we're just another species on this planet that will eventually go extinct.
EXCUSE ME???
I fail to understand why any sentient being would take that perspective on life.
Actually, if you do not believe that there exists a supreme being greater than our universe itself (ie. God) and do not believe that humans have God-given individual eternal souls and do not believe that there is single standard of morality, then his statement makes perfect sense. There can be no meaning in our brief lives if eternity itself lacks meaning. Eventually, even if trillions of years from now, human life will in fact end, whether from the universe re-collapsing into a singularity or expanding infinitely into a state of zero order. Most likely, some other event would destroy us before that. Point being, our physical existance individually and as a species is temporary and you cannot in any way deny this. The question then, is whether there exists a spiritual realm that transcends our physical/mental existance--some way that our choices have eternal consequence and can be judged by an absolute standard of morality. If not, then there is nothing keeping us from living as destructively as we desire--killing, raping, plundering each other and the earth. However, this is not the state of existance as we know it. We live our daily lives as if there is meaning in our existance. I believe there is.
What does this have to do with environmentalism? Because if God exists and he created us and this earth as our home, giving us a standard of moral behavior, then we should respect him, each other, and the earth for the beauty therein and with hope for an eternal meaning in our existance.
'trolling for Jesus' since 1999. (-:
I haven't read the book, and only a few of the reviews in Scientific American / other mags, but now I'll have to find the time. Of all the accusations, the one of misquoting is the worse one. Anyone can be bad at science or statistics and write about it- peer review will reveal the weaknesses and a good scientist will admit their mistake and go on. But misquotes makes someone else look bad- you've tied them to a strawman and they have to prove they aren't the strawman's maker while simultaneously demolishing it. You're forcing them to look defensive, even though, in fact, they have no reason to be defensive, because the misquote isn't their real argument.
A good review of quotations and misquotations used in arguments is in the proposed talk.origins (creation evolution) Misquotations FAQ.
Consider malaria. Malaria infects 300-500 million people annually and kills around 2 million of them. (source) The single most effective way to kill mosquitos and to reduce the incidence of malaria is DDT. Unfortunately, DDT has potent negative effects on the environment, so your naive "it can't hurt us" position would argue that we should totally ban DDT. Unfortunately, that's literally a death sentence for thousands if not millions of people living in tropical nations.
This is a somewhat dramatic example, but my point is that eco-friendliness DOES have very real consequences in some cases, and we need to be careful about weighing those consequences against the benefits. If we're talking about recycling paper and plastic in a developed country, well, yeah, the benefits are reasonably large and the consequences are probably trivial. But don't assume that's true for every environmental problem the world faces.
More information here.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
You took the words out of my mouth. I'm keeping an open mind about Lomberg's claims and trying to examine more evidence, but I was infuriated by the rebuttals that claim Lomberg is wrong but provide no concrete evidence to back up their assertions. The SA article in particular really angered me.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
The fact that all articles they publish are either neutral or tilting towards the left/green establishes without doubt their bias.
You say that the fact that some of the articles are neutral is evidence of bias. What sense does that make?
The Left gets most of the heirs to family fortunes who feel guilty about their wealth.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Remember The Princess Bride? "Inconceivable!" "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
I'd have to say the same about your "inarguable", because I'm now going to argue agsint it. You're saying that we generate too much trash, and the proof is that solid-waste facilities are running out of space. Fine, so existing facilities are running out of space. But there is plenty of space for trash on the planet. Ever been to, say, Montana?
Yes, there are downsides to generating too much trash, and we don't want to have to truck it all around, and we don't want the world to become a big dump, and we shouldn't use virgin resources when we can easily recycle. I agree with all those things. But your conclusion that it's "inarguable" that we're running out of space for solid waste is just stupid.
As for your oil argument, I'm curious to know which countries are "doing it right". Modern life requires energy. How do you propose to generate said energy? Gas has the same potential supply problems as oil (though it's cleaner), nuclear generates nasty waste, dams destroy river ecosystems, windmills and solar only work in some places and in any case are only suitable as complementary sources of power (you can't store energy for use when the sun is down or the wind isn't blowing), etc. Personally I hope fuel cells work out for cars, but to the best of my knowledge nobody has successfully mass-produced those yet.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Ahh, the ad hominem/guilt by association bogey man of the moment. Just to clear things up - Enron SUPPORTS environmental regulations, specifically the Kyoto Accords. It gave 1.5 million to environmental groups and lobbied the Clinton administration hard for Kyoto. (does guilt by association work both ways?) To quote the Washington Post: But please explain how having more energy efficiency LOWERS economic growth?
Umm... It usually costs more. This is most likely in those cases where it must be imposed by government regulation. If it made sense financially (energy cost savings made up for higher initial costs) then businesses and individuals would transition over without government coercion. And it's not just efficient consumption of energy but clean production, which also costs more. There are also issues that have nothing to do with energy production or consumption. CFC emmission controls mean that refridgeration equipement is more expensive. Refridgeration is a seriously life-enhancing technology that most people in the third-world already suffer by not being able to afford. Making it much more exensive not only has significant negative impact on the economy but a significant negative impact on health and life-span. Which in turn can ironically have a negative impact on the environment.
This is not to say that many environmental regulations aren't beneficial - just that there is almost always a cost and in some cases that cost in some cases can be quite high. If government doesn't attempt to evaluate these costs and weigh them in the balance with the projected benefit we are likely to make some very poor choices. It is probable that we may even do more environmental harm than good. Wealthier nations have far lest environmental impact than poor nations. If overzealous regulations trap developing nations below a certain threshold their net impact would be negative.
No, I show that since they are neutral or left establishes their bias. If they were ALL neutral it would not. If they were neutral and left and right it would not.
I use the terms left and right very loosely here, btw.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Environmentalism is wrong because it holds nature, not man, as the standard of value.
Absoultely untrue. Environmentalism is fully compatible with humanism. Environmentalism is simply a recognition of the connectedness between man and nature. I believe the environment should be saved not only because it is the right thing to do, but primarily because I do not want to see mankind disappear due to his own greed and wastefulness.
There are some who place more importance on the environment than on man. But to say that this is a core or necessary belief is just incorrect. Such a view is no more necessary than being a Christian requires one to oppose abortion. There may be a correlation, but it is not an absolute requirement.
In the 1950s (iirc), the World Health Organization wanted to wipe out malaria in Borneo. They sprayed liberally with DDT to kill the mosquitoes. The DDT also killed a parasitic wasp that laid its eggs in the caterpillar that ate the thatch used for roofing. Without a predator, the caterpillar population grew, they ate their natural food, and the people's roofs fell. The WHO replaced the thatch with tin roofs, and so all seemed well until the locals began to get typhoid and sylvatic plague.
It happened like this:
That's right, the plague, brought to you by the World Health Organization.
In order to get the rat population back in check, cartons of stray cats were dropped into Borneo by parachute.
No. I wrote a long essay about this once, but rather than post it: Here's the thing: It is possible that Thales of Milet, generally regarded as the first scientist held that the earth wasn't round. This is controversial because his pupils certainly did say that Thales held the earth to be a sphere. After that, no scientist has seriously held the earth to be flat. Aristotles made several proofs for the spherical shape of the earth. The circumference of the earth was measured by very high accuracy by Erastotenes long before the birth of christ.
However, some "learned christians" held that the earth was flat in the early 4th century, before Augustine came around to reconcile Platos teachings with christianity. That was the end of flat earth among any "learned" men.
The claim that Colombus had to argue that the earth was spherical is absurd. The argument was on the distance to Japan, scholars argued that it was much too far to be travelled by ship. And guess what: They were right.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Given a certain discount rate (that is to say assumptions about the time value of money), it is often economically rational to liquidate the land, for example in many kinds of mining operations. Likewise, farming or fishing practices that may not be sustainable over a twenty year or longer horizon may be economically rational based on their increased immediate productivity to the individuals making the decisions about how to exploit a resource.
In theory, as land is degraded, the marginal value of the remaining undespoiled land goes up, providing a disincentive from despoilation. Except that there may not be any mechanism for a land owner to recoup this value. The land owner rationally bases his exploitation decisions based on excludable benefits and costs -- that is how he will benefit as an individual and pay as an individual -- no matter how affected he his by the costs of exploitation and benefits of preservation on a global scale.
The tragedy of the commons shows that, in absence of an effective means of rational cooperation between people, private ownership and exploitation is more productive and sustainable. However, in many respects the commons is inescapable: we live on one planet, in one biosphere, dependent on one hydrosphere, drawing all our our biological wealth from a common pools of biota and environmental systems. So, duly considered and democratically adopted limitations on the exploitation of these common resources would be good thing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Suppose we know very accurately what happened over the last quarter million years. Does anyone else think that the other 15999/16000 of the picture might be important?
Earth has changed a lot in its history, and life is stil here. I'd suggest it isn't naive, so much as stupid to attribute a worldwide change to human activity. Then of course, there is a possibility that on a 4 billion year old planet your "disturbing and destructive trend" is only a part of some bigger natural cycle than the two hundred years people have been looking.
Though this will undoubtedly be modded down for suggesting that perhaps nature itself is heartless and can be enormously destructive.
Wave to some dinosaurs on your way home from work.
Here.
**>>BELCH
A fact which may not be apparent to people aged under 55: the cleanliness of the environment in developed countries has improved enormously in the last 50 years. I grew up near an industrial city. The rivers were filthy, the air was filthy (you blew your nose, and what came out was black - sorry to be disgusting, but it's true). The word "smog" originally referred, I believe, to London fogs which were so thick that visibility was about one meter (cause was smoke from burning coal). Using the same word for the thin haze from automobile exhausts is a bit of a joke.
It was worth cleaning the place up, and it is worthwhile to continue to clean it up. But the trend over the last 50 years has been one of vast improvement. People who claim otherwise sound either dishonest or unobservant to me.
I've found that recently, SA has taken the same dark, dingy, stupid path that Discover took a few years ago... down, down, down into the depths of politically correct balderdash.
The fact that they denied him the right to respond to his critics, then harassed him when he tried to respond on his own website (which is now 404'ing, unfortunately), is a red flag.
No, I haven't read the whole book, and yes, I did read the SA articles. They were sour grapes and it showed to anyone who didn't reflexively agree with the prejudices of the authors. Data and quotes were few, accusations and anger was high. The cover of the magazine should have read "How Dare You Question Us!?!"
Unfortunately, there are many areas of "debate and discussion" in the modern world where the BS Index is so high that anyone who tries to find out what's actually going on either gets burned out trying or marginalized if they think they did find something interesting that doesn't fit into anyone's agenda.
This is one of those areas. I doubt the situation will improve. It is glaringly clear that major environmental shifts have occurred throughout history and prehistory, and it is also glaringly clear that we have only a sliver of an idea how we interact with that system.
Are tugboat cars going to cause global warming? Or will they delay global cooling (we are, after all, in an unusually long interglacial period - how much longer do we have)?
But the serious attempt to get a grip on what the likely future is and how we might productively interact with it is hamstrung by all these agendas.
And to all those worshippers who think people become magically objective when they put on lab coats: I wish you were right, but you are dramatically wrong.
There are a few people committed to the truth, but not enough to form a lobby, and there's no money in it. Yuppies don't get hot and bothered and send donations when a politician or academic lies on TV, you don't have a magazine or research center. And if you expect government grants to find the truth, well, you know the rest...
Without the truth, you never know what to do next. And the truth is a difficult thing to get hold of even when people aren't lying to you.
I leave you with this thought: How much would the political document called Kyoto cost if it were implemented by everyone, with its silly concentration of banning plant food (CO2) and less emphasis on possibly more dangerous "system inputs"?
And how much would it cost to bring irrigation and potable water systems to every region on the face of the planet that currently lacks it?
I hate to sound politically correct, and I really hate race-baiting, but could it be because pale europeans are worried about sunburns and swarthily-complected children are dying because they don't have sanitation (or pest-killers)?
Scientists should be precise and fair in their assessments of real world and experimental data.
Lonborg is sloppy and biased. It's evident throughout his book. It's not even a close call.
The difference between science and this whatever-it-is should be obvious.
--------
Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Please do not use the words "charged with", when you should have said "accused of .." or "reported for ..".
...
And remember to mention that the guy accusing him, was one of the 18 guys that wrote a book back in 1999 responding to lomborgs book.
Oddly enough they didn't feel the need to report him, before he applied for a position, at an institute, that has influence on funding in this area
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
A lot of "greenie" measures make a huge amount of sense if you use basic economic analysis. The problem is that lots of people don't bother because they apply one set of measures to "normal" expenses like a house, but demand a much greater payback from environmental improvements. People will often demand that an environmental measure pay its cost in a year or less, which is insane when the lifespan of the improvement can be 20 years or more. Such things should be evaluated on the basis of long-term capital expenditures, standard mortgage rates, and other cornerstones of economic payback analysis. (The problem is that most people have no idea how to do even the most basic analysis, so they will stick money in a savings account earning a taxable 2% a year when they could buy some CF bulbs and be earning 25% per year tax-free on the same money.)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
> theres talk of sea rise within 100 years, if it dosn't happen within my life time, then it will within my kids (when i have some). if bits of the coast start getting submerged then some of you may not mind, but when its your entire country thats underwater (.tv) and you have to find a new home in a new country then you'd be concerened about the rate the levels are rising.
Okay, how high will the oceans rise in 100 years? How high is Tuvalu? And most importantly, who's doing the talking about sea rise being enough over the next century to swamp the bottom half of the world?
> and as for co2 encouraging plant growth, well bugger me if i'd prefer to continue breathing, than wait an see if any other plants can take up the slack when there's no more rain forest.
I'd consider this funny if I didn't think you were serious. If I could snap my fingers and vaporize the entire Amazon rain forest now, other plants would take up the slack before we were all in danger of CO2 poisoning. Don't forget, trees aren't the only plants out there, and algae and moss grows fast.
I'm very much concerned about deforestation, especially in South America, but let's try to keep things rational.
Virg
I'm sorry, but you just got a (-1, Too Sensible for Slashdot).
Virg
To say the least.
He is basically saying that almost every ecologist in the world is a part of a Green Anti-Corporate Conspiracy, and that it is his sad but necessary duty to correct the record.
Please.
This hack has been thoroughly discredited long ago. The reason he is alive is the same reason Velikovsky's "World's in Flight" is still alive, Christian fundamentalist creation dogma is considered "science", the American majority believes the guvmint is hiding aliens, and that trees cause most of the world's pollution.
I'm not going to cover the science. I'll leave that to the scientists, poor bastards.
Americans believe science to be a democratic body of knowledge. It isn't. It is a method AND a body of accepted theory and knowledge. The opinion of of the majority of non-scientists is not admissible as evidence. Popularity wih libertarian corporate theory has no bearing on the science.
It isn't a "religion" with "high priests", either. People who claim such usually have a clerical collar hidden under theor clothes, somewhere, and are using the "accuse the enemy of that which you are doing" method of attack which is working so well for right-wing zealots.
Lomborg is not arguing science. He is playing rhetorical games to please anti-science, a large segment of the American population, and to shore up the position of corporations and business, who are pursuing a long-term populist project to eliminate science from political decision and replace it with industry-friendly pseudo science. It's about money, money, money. In America, they will win. Everywhere else, they look on aghast as we embrace superstition and business to the exclusion of sanity.
Lomborg pinpoints flaws in arguments on the small scale in order to rhetorically destroy the larger arguments. Problem is, his NEED TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE aside, we are performing a worldwide uncontrolled atmospheric experiment. It's in the beginning stages now, but as the population doubles every thirty years or so, and the other nations follow our industrial example, the factors involved in the experiment will grow exponentially. The trick is to stop the disasters now, while they are small, before they chaotically grow into something we can't even imagine.
I notice a lot of the argument pro-Lomborg (I do hope I am spelling the name right) is based on a, there is no word better to describe it, hatred of a made-up enemy called the Greens. No doubt communistic, liberal, and out to destroy our money.
Problem is, the Greens are a political party with their own agenda. Ecologists without political axes to grind are in vast agreement that we are changing the ecosphere. How could we not be? It's just a matter of how.
Also, ecologists, meteorologists, and other scientists who blow the danger horn are not going to get rich bucking the power base and right-wing fringes who are indeed running things now. They are taking chances and not getting rich, just to do the right thing. Their opponents, who are trying to defuse them by using any number of dirty intellectual tricks, ARE on the side of people who will give them much money. I tend to believe the people doing it for the good of all mankind rather than people who are representing themselves and their rich patrons.
As for "keeping an open mind". Scientists do this professionally. They know how. What they don't do is refute every opposing opinion. They did a lot of the argument before, when the evidence for the theories were collected. If someone comes forward to dispute it, they have an extraordinary claim, and it is their job to provide extraordinary proof. Lomborg does not do this; his exposition is directed toward non-scientists who are pre-disposed to believe for political reasons, and for people who simply don't understand the issues involved and can be swayed through rhetoric alone.
Even Jerry Pournelle, as conservative a scientist who ever was whelped, and a proponent of the Bell Curve book, was convinced a few years ago, after reading the accumulated science, that we are conducting a massive uncontrolled experiment on the Earth's atmosphere. If HE, after all those years of asking for evidence, was convinced it is happening, I am frightened.
As for "Greens" not having "evidence", I can only say that after fifty years of study, and all the accumulated evidence presented, if a Slashdot reader says such a thing, that reader is in no mood to ever be convinced. It is hopeless. They accuse others of ideological bias, but they are convinced that no evidence can prove the other side's case. Right-wing corporate mindset is the only thing I can call it; there is no real term for this ideology. No evidence will ever work, no study will ever be complete, and the end result is that in the face of a half century of science and the consensus of the world's scientists, the laws governing pollution will be overturned. The rest of the world will slowly change their laws as well, in a rolling ideological tidal wave, resulting a REAL pollution experiment that will change the world.
It isn't what you are doing now that is the problem. It is the precedent you set when that trail is widened and the asphalt laid down.
What happens in 10, 20, 30, 50 years to that trail?
By starting the encroachment, you start a landslide of destruction -- someday.
The world of our roads is large enough. The idea is to draw a line, and say "no more". Leave some of it in peace.
The problem is that a little damage today results in the rationalizations that turn your trails into highways and subdivisions in a few decades. Population pressure is infinite.
We have so much developed land. At some point you have to say stop.
While everyone is certainly entitled to a belief and an opinion, I am glad to see something in support of an idea besides the notion of humans are a plague on the earth. I am glad to know that there are people in this world who can see through the doomsday warnings most enviromentalists seem to constantly throw upon us. By no means do I support strip mining the entire planet, but we are only hindering ourselves when we limit ourselves to the resources that we will use.
Ten years ago all you heard was CFCs are akin to satan himself and they are making a huge whole in the ozone layer in Antartica. If we didn't stop using CFCs, that it would certainly destroy the entire ozone layer thus leading to an hostipitable world thus killing us all. Now the part you didn't hear: the ozone hole has always been there, will always be there, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it given current state of technology. For all we know, if it wasn't there, we would have died a long long time ago. Nevermind the fact that it naturally grows and contracts on its own regardless of anything we do. Nevermind that as far as we can tell, its been there before humans ever walked the Earth.
While you can find a study that will say anything you want it to say, the world is not running out of oil, nor will it anytime soon. The president of BP has said the biggest oil reserves ever to be discovered in the world are in areas controlled largely controlled by the United States; that is out in the Gulf of Mexico. He has said that they rival the oil fields of the middle east, yet we continue to tie our hands together and submit to whatever price OPEC says we are going to pay. Russia is quickly increasing their output much to the dismay of OPEC, which is demanding a reduction of output as to raise the price. We have the technology to get our own oil, but there are people in this country who want to see that we are slaves to whims of other countries.
As usual, the same people who want to erase the SUV are the same people driving around in cars that don't come close to meeting the mileage standards they propose for an SUV (nevermind that they drive just as much as anyone else). What happened to capitalism? If you build it they will come, that seems to be holding true for the sport utility vehicle. If they are so damaging, why would people buy them in the first place?
Look at the Grand Staircase/Escalante Nation Monument created by Prez Clinton. He created it with no warning or input from the state of Utah. And he didn't even come TO UTAH to announce it, he did it from the Grand Canyon hundreds of miles away from any of the people whose lives it "Enroned" (where was his concern for the little guy then?). Since the whole industry the towns were built on are now useless, they are destined to become ghost towns within ten years. The coal stockpiles in that area is what sustanined those towns; with the money earmarked for children's education. But now it will sit forever for future generations to "enjoy". Too bad they will not recieve any benefit from it as it will be in a perpetual state of "for the next generation."
There are the biologists who planeted fur in the forest to have it protected, but since when does the truth matter? PLEASE, don't bother us with the FACTS! What? What's that? the ice layers at the poles are thickening, not melting?
The energy market can take care of itself, alternatives fuels are being developed everyday. When there is one that is cost effective and convenient, our current sources of fuel will be replaced with different ones. Look at all the windmills and solar panels in California, but they still had the infamous power crisis in summer of 2001. Those simply do not provide enough power to meet our needs. Amazing breakthoughs are achieved virtually on a daily basis, in 50 years, oil will more than likely only be found in a museum and billions of barrels in untapped reserves, as it will be as outdated as an abacus.
Humans have inhabited the Earth for thousands of years and we are still here...Why in the past 30 years is it all of a sudden we are all doomed just by living are lives? It's time companies that enable us to live as comfortably as we do from being demonized. The same company that writes our paycheck. The same company that pays your health insurance. The same company that gives you the Christmas bonus. The same company who will develop the future sources of energy. The same company that keeps the American dream a reality for everyone.
I'm sure many of you think that what I have just said is equivalent to blapshpemy and will attack the way I said my thoughts as whining, or even me for thinking this way (hes just a crazy nut don't listen to him)...it's becuase you know I'm right, and no one expects you to respond any differently now...
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I think that anyone advocating for 'zero polution' is more than counterbalanced by the companies/lobbists who would like to have 'zero' controls.
Nonsense. Nobody would pay attention to companies/lobbies with such dumb ideas. But people pay a lot of attention to environmentalists whose real goal is zero pollution or even zero technology, but who hide it behind nice platitudes and the very distortions revealed in the book.
"As a side point, if technology/population without pollution is as impossible as you seem to think, then we're probably going to have a really, really hard time with space travel much beyond the orbit of the moon."
It depends on how you define pollution, and what kind of space travel you plan to have. Does the space ship have to be able to produce itself? Does it have to be able to make semiconductors (which you are obviously using in order to have this conversation)?
And of course, there is a huge difference between zero and acceptible. Do you really believe that zero pollution is necessary for space travel? Do you really believe that zero pollution is even possible in any human activity? Do you believe that nature itself doesn't pollute?
Here's a few clues:
Dioxins are produced by lightning induced natural forest fires.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons are produced by some life forms.
CO2 is produced by all animals.
Pesticides are produced by many plants.
Sulfur oxides are produced by volcanoes in huge amounts.
Get it? Zero pollution is not only a silly goal... it is impossible and unnatural!
The only good weather is bad weather.
What is happening is sort of a decentralized network of more-or-less in-agreement people who believe that there is a lefty environmental/liberal agenda that needs to be neutralized.
What I've observed in the last eight years or so is that such right-leaning people have learned to spike the media lemonade, by creating pundits that sound reasonable and can be trotted out in conservative publications and new shows initially, then slowly become stars of mainstream popular press.
The actual scientists and greens are slowly pushed off the spectrum as moderates become the new liberals, and the far right simply becomes conservative.
It's worked on a lot of issues. Do remember that most publishing houses and news services are now owned and operated by extremely conservative men, and that bias is making itself present in many ways. Look at Michael Moore's book, "Stupid White Men". It was yanked from distribution months ago because he would not tone down his critique of Bush, and his publisher spiked an already printed book rather than publish something that offended his political views. It's now published, but the point is, non-conservative views are disappearing quietly from TV and book and newspapers. And what is indeed left is being redefined. Fox News is "Fair and Balanced" with moderate conservatives posing as liberals while right-wing loons are the new "mainstream". Wish I had got that memo.
Point is, this book is out there, and being pushed hard, even to the point of getting flogged on Slashdot, because there are people with axes to grind making sure it influences opinion.
From what I understand, he uses statistical games and rhetoric to mash environmental issues. Very Bell Curve; I assume he's a darling on Fox and CNN and MS-NBC. Pity I don't watch them anymore.
The thing is, there is no heavily-backed anti-Lomborg to refute him. Science isn't organized that way. So this book will have an impact, not that one is needed with this admin in power.
most environmnetal controls are a good thing, like not dumping chemicals into bodies of water, and don't litter, and don't over hunt. but a lot of the stuff is bad, the recycled paper example listed above is a good one, another is the attmpted ban on hunting (sorry, but if we remove ananimals natural preditor, we have to assume the responsability for the population control or the natural environmnet will be destroyed).
while I do think that Lead in gas is not a good thing, it is incorrect to cite a simple correlation as proof since corrolations != causation. perhaps the lead if from other sources like drinking water that is not filltered (a very common problem) perhaps it is from lead paint, or any other source of lead. like I said it is better to be safe about lead contamination than sorry, but don't cite correlations as proof. it is also a bad Idea to replace one poison with another. find an inert substance that can replace the lead before you do replace it, otherwise, you end up with just as many problems and there is no net benefit.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Acid rain has no noticable effect on tree growth [Figure 98]
Even if so, so what? It kills lakes, reducing them to algae ponds. Depends on what he wants to look at, doesn't it?
Smoke, lead, SO2, ozone, NO2, CO concentrations in the air (US and UK) decreased steadily over the last 25 years [Figures 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95]
And so? They are down because of decades of war fought by environmentalista against car and oil companies. If it is indeed down, let us pay homage to their unpaid labor.
That still would not change the fact that I would like to live in a place with clean air (read, "without perceptibly filthy air") to breathe, and more plants and animals to look at.
From the hills near San Francisco, you can clearly see the blanket of smog in which people are living. Although this is a localized effect from an intense concentration of cars, etc., and might be safely blown away over the ocean, its effects completely buffered by the vastness and resillience of the environment, it is still a real downer to live in it, and I would much rather be able to simultaneously live in SF and breathe clean air.
So even if there were no negative effects of human activity on the environment whatsoever in the long term, there would still be motivation to reduce emissions and increase the diversity of life.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
I've seen better explanations of this term, but this one should do. Just because the consequences of global warming are potentially catastrophic is no validation of the theory.
Nope, no sig
If you want to argue diet patterns, at least try to keep honest. Do you really think the "other white meat" and "it's what's for dinner" commercials have significantly increased the meat consumption. Most Americans don't hardly eat meat these days except from McDonalds.
Both the value of the research and information in this book and the reception it's getting from the Informational Powers that Be seems to differe from the reception Galileo got from the Roman Catholic Church in a matter of degrees only. Both the Church and the rabid environmentalists have had a history of speaking the "Truth" and a vested political interest in being the only source of this "Truth." And instead of disputing the information in question, the church and the environmentalists decided to take the route of character assassination. 400+ years later and herecy is still dealth with the same way.
Anyway, the more I learn about the environmentalist debacle, the more I'm reminded of Ian Douglas' (a pen name for William Keith) Heritage Trilogy. A totalitarian world government taking power to "save the world from itself and the pending environmental disaster" and the dissenting voices weened down to the US and a handful of others. The more I hear about the single-mindedness of the environmentalists (and though that know better and use scare tactics anyway deserve their share of the blame), the more frightened I get of the multi-national organizations they hold sway with.
then there would be more elephant turds and humpbacked whale turns and such.
Not really, the threat is only as serious as you perceive it to be. I don't know if global warming is real or not, the data is as skewed as the interpretor's bias. If you believe, or want to believe, you'll see what you want to see. The sad fact is most people's views, including those of reputable scientists, are biased. The whole grant proposal system doesn't encourage diversity since those who sit on the grant committees are themselves biased and are looking to award grants to people who will confirm their ideas. I know it is true, I've co-authored several NSF and NASA proposals and have made a nice chunk of change in my spare time. Last year our team even won a share of NASA's Space Act Award. But that doesn't mean what we did was particularly interesting (to me at least), it just means we did something that impressed some folks who wanted their preconceived ideas confirmed.
With the exception of the Jupiter thing, the examples I cited earlier were proposed and accepted by a large segment of the scientific community at the time (not unlike global warming), not because they were true, but because people seem to want to see scary things on the horizon. Poor Carl, I think he even scared himself with those oil well fires...
NULL
I disagree with this assertion, and thus the rest of your argument. (Just so you know.)
Hmm.. care to elaborate on where your philosophy goes with this? (That being, how our lives can have meaning if there is no eternal significance to our existance..) And what stops us from having a violent free-for-all?
You are right that "b", "c", and "d" will likely have a far more devastating effect than "a". However, "a" is the only thing we can influence to a reasonable extent (don't believe those silly movies that claim you can evaporate an asteroid with a laser mounted on an F-16).
Your argument about CO2 also has some merit. In fact, if it wasn't for CO2 and the greenhouse effect, average temperature on earth would be at least 6 degrees Celsius (~11 F) lower. You could probably ski in Arizona in July. Furthermore, contrary to some belief, CO2 is not "toxic".
However, two facts are rarely disputed:
1. CO2 traps infrared radiation.
2. Since the start of the Industrial Age, humankind has been dumping significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Some scientists believe that we could be causing a "runaway" greenhouse effect: more CO2 in the air causes rise of temperature, causes more CO2 in the air, etc. There are theories that something like that might have happened on Venus, which has an average temperature of 867 F, and an atmospheric pressure of about 90 times that on earth.
Other scientists believe that CO2 emissions cause a negative feedback effect: more CO2 would mean more trees, thus more absorption of CO2, hence a stabilizing effect.
I think this issue is far from settled. The optimists might well be right. However, should the pessimists be right, then we have a real serious problem. A runaway greenhouse effect would probably wipe out almost all life on earth, so it's in the same category as your other examples. Stakes could be tremendously high here. We might as well be a little careful and look into ways of limiting CO2 emissions. Saving energy is quite an effective way, it costs nothing (on the contrary...), is effective immediately, and it buys us time to explore alternative sources of energy.
Of course, whatever the estimates of fossil fuel reserves are, eventually we will run out of it, so the CO2 emission problem will go away given enough time. Hopefully it won't be too late by then.
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Asbestos is far from harmless . . . It's seriously carcinogenic. It's released from materials containing it in many ways, including just sitting out in the sunlight until the glue binding it together into fibre boards breaks down . . .
Getting rid of asbestos wasn't a "health nuts" thing, it was a perfectly sensible and sane decisions - it's hard to say, but it's possible that banning it's use has saved more lives than were lost in the WTC. Whatever the case, it's a really bad example.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Ya well, at least CNN prints actual transcripts of its shows for people just like yourself to challenge. Try finding a transcript of one of Rush's shows sometime.
> No, I show that since they are neutral or left establishes their bias. If they were ALL neutral it would not. If they were neutral and left and right it would not.
No. Bias would be if they always came down on the center or one side of an issue when there was substantial evidence supporting the other side as well. If the evidence happens to come down on the center or one side only, then authors/rags always coming down on the center and that side only would be evidence of honesty, not of bias.
For instance, if the authors/editors always come down on the side of a "round" earth rather than a flat one, that's not bias, that's factual reporting. (Or perhaps "bias toward the truth".)
BTW, I'm not saying I know that the evidence only ever supports one side in the current argument; I'm merely pointing out that your purported evidence for bias isn't evidence at all. It would be bias if their reporting were skewed w.r.t. the good science that is done on the topic, but you haven't shown that, or even tried to show that.
> I use the terms left and right very loosely here, btw.
Yes, you started with "left/green" and now you've reduced it to simply "left". The real question isn't "left vs. right", but rather, "What are the consequences of our lifestyle?". It's too bad that the issue has become politicized, but we need to try to see through the politics to the science.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> [(?)Gl]assman includes the following quote by professor Stephan Schneider, a bioligist from Standford.
I would very much like to read that review, if you could give a URL or print reference for it. A link to the source of Schneider's original statement would be useful as well; I can't find either with Google.
Thanks.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hey! I never said I wanted a winner. Just that the observed were interesting.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
A nice book called "The Hidden Order" by somebody Friedman but not Milton, explains the market libertarian argument clearly, rigorously and succinctly, not to mention smugly. It is worth reading and utterly wrong.
The easiest way to disprove a hypothesis containing the word "always" is to find a single counterexample. In this case I find it easy enough. Requiring and funding universal public education removes the freedom of the individual to decide whether it is to their own advantage to attend school. Which societies, then, are better off in the aggregate? Those with universal mandated public education, or those where poor people are allowed the free choice of sending their children to work at an early age?
The fundamental error of the Friedmanesque argument (I think he is related to Milton, IIRC) is the presumption without demonstration that the net change in well-being is the sum of the aggregate individual changes in well being, and that the well-being of the surrounding context is not affected in any way except by direct effects on individuals.
While my children may be worse off by a few pennies by not stitching together sneakers for rich people, in other words, they are better off for being more likely to live in a world with better opportunities.
This is the fundamental intention behind all regulations, whether they are well-designed or horribly botched. Of course, every regulation reduces the universe of choices and hence has an immediate negative impact. Stopping the analysis there is pretty silly, though.
mt
When the north pole faces the sun, I predict it will be warmer in the north than when the south pole faces the sun, all else being relatively equal. This is a climate prediction. It predicts the physical properties of the atmosphere in response to a shift in the earth's axis relative to the sun. It is no different in principle from predicting shifts in properties of the atmosphere due to changes in atmospheric composition.
The details are harder to work out because we have less historical evidence to work with. (Whether or not this is good news is left as an exercise for the reader.) However, the chaotic trajectory of the system is not especially relevant.
For those familiar with the pop literature, we aren't discussing where on the butterfly the system is going to be at a particular moment. We are discussing how we are changing the underlying system, and hence the overall shape of the butterfly, much as it changes naturally every season.
mt
While I grant that such groups are far from mainstream in the environmental movement, what about those groups who are convinced that reducing the world population to an "environmentally enlightened" 100,000 is the only way to save the planet?
Just because an organization says "We are not something" does not mean that they actually are not something, especially if "something" could adversely affect their perception. If Microsoft said on their web page that they are "Dedicated to preserving the ideals and funding the development of the GNU Project," would that be accurate?
The most dangerous person is the true believer, be it a fundamentalist Christian/Jew/Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/Communist/Anar chist/Libertarian/Fascist/Yankees Fan/Man Utd Fan/Free Software Advocate/etc. Why? Because the true believer has been brainwashed into believing that only their mantras are true. From this, it logically follows that they consider anyone who disagrees with them to be wrong. This has the tendency (at least in my experience) to cause them to automatically disregard any argument from someone who is opposed to them ("Well, you're not a true believer in the Bible, so I will not listen to your arguments that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God").
The most dangerous person is the true believer...
In practice, political organizations of true believers, in Eric Hoffer's sense of "authoritarian faith", have proved to be emphemeral and unstable, although in the short-term they can be fairly disruptive. The reasons for their failure are that true believers are remarkably gullible and thus liable to exploitation and betrayal by their leaders. They are incapable of compromise and thus can't form alliances that give them broader influence. Even when they become large enough to pose a threat, they usually stir fair-minded centrists out of their torpor and find their opposition larger than ever.
Most important, true believers are prone to disillusionment when, over time, the world does not unfold as they expect it. True believers rarely moderate their views. Instead, they shift from irrational idealism to cynicism when their goals perpetually elude them. As cynics, they drop out of the political process and carp from the sidelines.
For some reason, cynicism is easier to sustain over a long period of time than irrational idealism. The result is that cynicism probably threatens public life and discourse more than hate groups and fanatics. True believers at least stir up debate and force the majority to think about and defend their values. Cynicism undermines the idea that things can ever get better.
it's as if we were asking you to sacrifice your first-born
<p>
The problem here is that <i>you</i> have set in your minds an evolutionary gulf that has somehow made you superior to the rest of <i>us</i> and given you a Darwinian right to rule over the rest of us.
When I say "we", I mean citizens of countries outside of the U.S. of A. who approve of the Kyoto accord, even though it isn't perfect. When I say "you", I mean citizens of the U.S. of A. who support Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto treaty because it would allegedly cost the U.S. more than it does China...
Never mind that, with a fifth of its population, the U.S. pollutes twice as much as China. Also, while China's economy has increased much faster than that of the U.S. over the past few years, CO2 emissions have actually decreased...Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
No wonder people outside of the U.S. often believe that you Americans have "set in you minds an evolutionary gulf that has somehow made you superior to the rest" of the world. Lord knows your government acts as if it had a "Darwinian right to rule" over the entire globe.
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