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Big Tobacco Funded Anti-Global Warming Messages
An anonymous reader writes, "The UK Guardian is running an excerpt from the new book "Heat" by George Monbiot (to be published later this month) spelling out the network of funding opposing global action against global warming — specifically, limits on human carbon dioxide generation. The excerpt outlines a web of fake citizens' groups and bogus (but authoritative sounding) research institutes designed to convince laypeople that human causation of global warming is scientifically controversial. Not surprisingly, the article notes funding by ExxonMobil. More interesting is the role played big tobacco, tying their attack on the health risks of second-hand smoke to global warming skepticism." From the article: "What I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate funding of lobby groups denying that man-made climate change is taking place was initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris."
The tobacco companies are seeing that their basic agenda and their best interests are very similar to the oil companies. Tobacco companies have people hooked on to a big health hazard while big oil compaines do this using the black goo they extract. Between them, it does not matter who is supporting what.
All this from a company that paid for studies that declared smoking couldn't be linked to causing cancer.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
For the free market to operate "correctly" (allocating money/resources to entities that generate value) its members must have access to good information about products -- their benefits and their costs. In the idealized theory, the market must have perfect information about products.
When the sources of information are so frequently corrupted by established power centers, how is there any home that efficient value-allocation will occur?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Poopenmeyer: Garbage ball, huh? That sounds serious.
Farnsworth: Very serious, Mayor Poopenmeyer.
Poopenmeyer: I gotta be sure this isn't another scientific fraud like global warming or second-hand smoke. [He presses the intercom.] Send in my science advisor.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
. . . they're employing their core competency to leverage creation of a favorable issue environment.
Put another way, what they're doing is encouraging the creation of a population of irate soreheads programmed to doubt anything on command.
I mean, dang, there are a lot of folks out there who think Penn Jillette and Micheal Crichton are authorities on global warming and second hand smoke.
The people who want to blame Exxon for Hurricane Katrina are obviously picking and choosing. As I understand it, though, scientists have a reliable measurement -- global mean surface temperature -- which shows a steady rise and which is not contradicted by local cooling. I like that scene in the Crichton book when a guy points to a cooling trend at a single weatherstation and says "there's your global warming".
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
More than you ever wanted to know about CEI:
Exxon's Cash Pipeline to CEI
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Average global warming does not mean that everyone everywhere is going to experience a warming trend. Local conditions *will* vary, some places getting hotter, some cooler, some dryer, some wetter etc.
A better term would be 'accelerated global climate change'. And it is the accellerated part that is important. Where in the past ecologies may had had time to adapt to change, if it is too rapid humans and the species they depend upon may not be able to adapt.
However, 'accelerated global climate change' makes for an awkward sound bite.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
What's the motivation behind Philip Morris trying to debunk global warming?
In the idealized theory, the market must have perfect information about products.
I think you mean to say that in an ideal world, the market *participants* have perfect information. Participants in markets don't need to have perfect information for markets to be preferable to other methods of distribution. Communism (for example) doesn't become superior because you have to call around town to find the best price, and you decide to stop searching before you've called them all, in other words.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
After reading that a couple of years back, I would definately be interested in checking out his latest work.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
I'll admit that I'm a little suspicious of a report like this that meshes so perfectly with all my liberal suspicions of Big Oil and Big Tobacco.
But the "Both sides do it" argument is pretty rediculous. Would some truly argue that the relatively meager lobbies and scientific groups that promote awareness about global warming have the same type of power and persuassion as these mutiti billion dollar profit corporations? Sure both sides point to studies that benefit them. But one side doesn't have to fabricate its science, and isn't backed by monetary interests in the same way the corporations are.
Saying "both sides do it" is like throwing a penny on one side of a scale and a couple of lead bars on the other.
Yes, the art of deception. The doctrine of "perception is greater than truth" is followed by people and organizations of low moral standards. One would think that in the age of instant information one could ferret out these amoral jerks but it's not easily done.
A couple of enabling factors are present that contributes to the problem.
1. In general people are lazy, complacent sheep who hear what they want to hear and don't take the trouble of getting involved until a problem directly impacts their lives. When that happens it is usually too late.
2. There is such a volume of information and disinformation that it all blends into a kind of white noise that can make shifting the truth difficult for the few who really want to get at the truth. And if they do get at the truth problem one and two kicks in. Few will listen and their warnings just become part of the white noise.
I'm just as guilty as most. It's just easier for me to sit back and watch seeds of corruption grow and bear fruit. Oh, I add to the white noise with my complaints but there are so many issues and no one really listens anyway. The shame is that the fruit of corruption will eventually be the end of mankind or maybe even all life on Earth.
Heh, intelligent animals... Mother nature's greatest mistake!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
So now, not only are smoker responsible for 1000's of deaths from 2nd hand smoke, they are now responsible for global freaking warming?
Hehehe...geez. I mean, so far, not even the WHO's study on SHS shows a meaningful connections between SHS and lung cancer in non-smokers....
Lordy...if it is that bad, why not just make it against the law...or is this global warming connection thing the last nail in the coffin of tobacco smokers?
(Note: Former smoker here...trying to quit, but, againts all the laws disallowing smoking in bars or other privately owned establishments.)
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Example: They'll only refer to the cities / countries showing warming trends, and ignore those that are actually showing cooling trends. Both sides do it.
If big tobacco was smart (and I'm sure they are), they would play both sides of the game. Like for instance, big tobacco would do studies to support the claim the global warming exists, screw up the study, and get this to be one of the top studies that people use when trying to prove that global warming exists. They aren't going to do any damage to their cause because there would already be valid scientific studies out there. They are just replacing the valid scientific studies with crappy studies. If you can't beat your enemy, replace them with something you can beat.
Libertarianism is unworkable and deeply flawed. It, like Communism, relies on something that does not exist: the perfect human being. In order for Libertariansim to work all people must work towards their own elightened self interest. The problem is that's not how humans work. We (and I'm speaking in terms of populations more than particular people) are selfish, needy, dishonest and mean.
Libtertarianism also relies on corporations acting in their own best, long-term self interest. We've all see that modern corporations don't look any further down the road than their next quaterly statement and in every place where there is not sufficient regulations they abuse the system and their employees to the limits of human endurance. That chemical spill in India was the result of an American chemical company locating a plant in a country with lax environmental and safety laws and operating their plant at those minimum specs in order to save money.
To blindly trust businesses is folly at best and suicide at worst. The only time businesses care about you is when you spend your money on their products and services. Never forget that.
I grew up in a Libertarian household. None of them remain Libertarians.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
A million tiny smoke stacks can't be wrong.
--
This is a joke. I am joking. You have been joked with.
Isn't it amazing how the side you're on is always right?
The other side is always lying, deceiving, manipulating... aka propagandizing. But, certainly not YOUR side.
(pardon my completely unbiased interjection)
My ZooLoo
Mmmmm... Tomacco....
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
Gravity is a theory
Of course, its the basis for which I pick my side.
Response to MC by professional climatologist. Summary: He's not right.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I KNOW people want to believe this. That's fine. It's a belief, great. So is Catholicism. And, like Catholicism, that doesn't mean it's fact. Global warming, right now is a theory with lots of supporting evidence, but no proof. If it had proof, it wouldn't be a theory.
"Gravity" is just a theory. That things denser than air fall toward the surface of the Earth is a fact, as are other facts that relate to gravity. The theory of gravity (pick one... Newton's, Einstein's...) attempts to explain those facts and predict further facts from such an explanation. No amount of watching things fall will EVER "prove" the theory of gravity correct, at least in such a way to change it from a "theory" to a "fact".
Likewise, that the average surface temperature of the Earth is increasing is a fact ("global warming"). There are theories that attempt to explain this. Some of these theories are well-supported by the facts. Others may not be. But none of them will even be "proven" and elevated to anything beyond a theory.
Theories aren't proven. They don't become facts, no matter how much support they receive or how well they hold up. Theories are always theories and being "just a theory" doesn't make an idea any less sound.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The article is about paid lobbyists representing the richest corporations in the world while pretending to be something else entirely. So where so-called "global warming fanatics" are concerned, I don't see the similarity, whether some of them are overly-selective or not.
If you're saying that environmentalists never have ulterior motives for their cause, then you're sadly mistaken. Many of them are anti-technology, including the author of this article, having bought into the myth of the noble savage. They realize that the only way to force people to abandon high technology is to make them fear it, and the best way to do that is to convince them that everyone will die if they don't stop using it.
To be sure, there are a number of people genuinely concerned about global warming, but most of them are also more concerned with more important related problems, such as the fact that gas costs too goddamn much to begin with and we'll eventually run out of it.
Rob
The key part of the term "Global Warming" is "Global". That is to say that the average temperature of the entire surface of the Earth is increasing. This is, in fact, objectively observable and undisputed (at least in the literature on the subject). As ocean currents and wind patterns are now changing, some places are warming more rapidly, and others cooling -- as predicted. For example, another degree or two will push the Gulf Stream far enough south that the temperature in Northern Europe would be expected to drop to an average of just under 0C. At the same time, however, the 1 degree change in average global temperature would locally increase temperatures in parts of the mideast another 10C.
A popular tactic used by the paid "Global Warming" denial lobby is to concede that global warming is real, but that one of the following is true: the climate is simply following a regular cycle and there's no need for concern (the amount of CO2 and the speed is unprecedented and the effect appears to actually be mitigated by particulate pollutants and accelerating as the pollutants settle out of the atmosphere), or that the effect is not anthropogenic in nature and thus there's nothing we can do about it (it may be too late, but all evidence in the literature points towards anthropogenic causation).
Climatologists are not referring to places with warming trends and ignoring those with cooling trends. They are looking at the whole enchilada and reporting what they see. Lobbyists and gullible press are the only reason anyone thinks otherwise. The literature is very unanimous and exhaustively complete on the subject. From a political perspective there may be two sides or two schools of thought, but not on the scientific side. That argument was settled long ago.
This sounds to me more like Objectivism - Ayn Rand stuff. I realize that a lot of self-styled "Libertarians" subscribe to the theories of Objectivism, but I don't think that the two are exactly the same. Or perhaps this is what Libertarianism has become. I've personally favored Libertarian ideals, but if these have become tainted by business and by Objectivism, then I will re-think the next time I consider supporting them.
"Historically mild?"
Where did you get that little "data point" from? The drastic swings indicated by ice core samples are so far back they're from PRE-history.
It must be tough being a conspiracy theorist when most of your targets of blame never get any more specific than "the left" (i.e. scientists) and have almost no assets or power worth speaking of compared to the ultra-wealthy interests trying to discredit them.
I'm no socialist. I think there's sometimes good reason for allowing billionaire's to prevent poor people taking their food. But I'm not so brainwashed as to think that it's axiomatic and in absolutely no need of justification. Only a libertarian could have such a twisted view of 'liberty'.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The organization at the core of all of this is The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). Odd linky which connects them to here.
...
Ready for the brain-twister? They are pro nuclear energy.
Demonize away!
The other interesting tidbit found here (sorry about the horrid flash link) is that Exxon has moved $12+ million (discoverable) towards anti-global warming organizations. That sounds like a lot -- until you realize they make a billion $ a day
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
It's scary how many /.-ers seem to hold opinions like the grand-parent of this post.
Then again, many (probably most) of us are American, and we are the guys who:
- Believe that evolution is "junk science"
- Don't believe in global warming
- Are proud to be "Ditto Heads"
- Fell prey fear during the Salem Witch Trials, the McCarthy Era, and now Neoconservatism
If you need public support for a scientifically proven wrong point of view, simply back the majority of us who think science is bunk. Join the Religious Right, Big Tobacco, Exxonmobil, and the Neoconservatives in taking advantage of (and promoting) our ignorance.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Sirrah, you have convinced me! I'm going to get on a plane right now so I can find George Monbiot and kick him right in the balls.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The Myth of Second Hand Smoke claims that inhaling smoke from somebody else's tobacco is at least as dangerous as being a smoker, if not more so.
Ahhh, but this is not what was stated and this is, by itself, an assumption. There is a lot of research that has gone into secondhand smoke by a lot of different groups, some of which was scientific and some of which was not. While there may have been claims by some that secondhand smoke is more dangerous to nonsmokers, that was by no means claimed by all. The important question is, what are the dangers of secondhand smoke and are they significant?
The study you site involves two people both exposed to secondhand smoke. One is a smoker and one is not. It then monitors the rate of lung/throat cancer, presumably with other controls and normalization on the test group. How then can you claim, "claims that Second Hand Smoke is dangerous are bad pseudo-science at best, intentional lies at worst." when this study only addresses the relative danger of smoke exposure to smokers and non-smokers?
By almost all reputable accounts second hand smoke is dangerous to both smokers and non-smokers, although different studies have shown this to differing degrees. To claim that a study that provides support for the idea that secondhand smoke is not more dangerous to non-smokers somehow supports the idea that secondhand smoke is not dangerous, is what I would refer to as "dangerous pseudo-science." From the CDC, "Secondhand smoke exposure causes heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their heart disease risk by 25-30 percent and their lung cancer risk by 20-30 percent."
You seem to have fallen for a bait and switch marketing ploy.
Anytime a correlation approached 1 (like I need to tell this crowd), relavance of the subject approaches zero. In the Second hand smoke study (A meta study by the EPA), the correlation bounded 1 at the 95% confidence interval. This doesn't look very good for someone trying to say "Second hand smoke is bad". So what does the EPA do? They lower the confidence interval to 90%. Please check out Numberwatch for discussions of why 95% is a really bad number. Any number less is just plain FRAUD.
Even with the lower confidence interval (p value or poisson ratio inverted), the EPA was only able to show a Relative Risk (correlation) of 1.19. Everyone run for the hills.
Even First Hand smoke is a little dubious. As JEB at numbewatch puts it, saying that smoking causes cancer is like that fertilizer cause tomatoes to grow. Using the same statistics that make the CDC say that 400,000 people each year die prematurely from smoking, you can say that 200,000 people each year are saved by smoking. The calculation is fraudulent, irrelavent and insulting.
Mr. Brigness of Numberwatch would love to be on the payroll of any of those illustrious companies, but he just keeps fighting irrational numbers because he is ornery, not because he has a financial axe to grind. Actually he does, he just doesn't get to see the money flow into his coffers.
Remember the Global Warming industry is rolling to the tune of $2.5 Billion. But it doesn't matter if they have fiscal motivation for crying wolf.
This is a crowd of programmers. Don't we have people here who have experience dealing with non-linear coupled models. We did a project in Engineering to model a Cross-flow heat exchanger inside a building. The dynamics of X-Flow are moderately well understood. 20 students made 20 models we had 20 solutions with different outputs, no correlation whatsoever. The professor was stumped. He failed to recognize that when you start approximating Nusselt, Prandl, Russel, and several other factors, you are pretty much screwed especially when they are all hinged upon each other. That was in a contained system. One in which all boundary conditions have been specifically defined. Got news for the Global Circulation Modelers, they aint got that.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
The Japanese diet seems to have some protective effects. Japanese women who move the US have higher breast cancer rates, for example. If so that would account for some difference.
Even so the Japanese get lung cancer from smoking. From a Japanese lung cancer study:
So, pop quiz. Which seems more likely to you? (a) A cabal of college professors, not standing to lose much of anything, jeopardize their careers and their scientific credibility by conducting a widespread campaign of disinformation to subvert the scientific process and whip the public into a panic. (b) A cabal of titanic multinational corporations, standing to lose untold billions if carbon controls are implemented, conducts a widespread campaign of disinformation to subvert the scientific process and confuse the public.
I understand that it makes for good airplane reading, but come on. In the real world, Occam's Razor rips the whole mess to shreds. (Plus, isn't it telling that the best bit of media global warming deniers have on their side is an unabashed work of fiction?)
(Also, if you're going to claim the existence of the aforementioned scientist conspiracy, please provide at least as much evidence as there already is for option (b). Thanks.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This is part of basic, peer-reviewed science. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and figure they've thought of that already. If they report the number as 330, it's reasonable to guess that it's around 330 +- 10. If you really can't find the uncertainties in the professional articles, email the authors. No offense, but I'd be shocked if you've thought of something they haven't.
The general consensus is that the global temp is up 0.5c +/- .2c. So the warming trend may be as high as .7c and as low as .3c. I can see this, but add to this that the temperature measurements have a posted error correction of +/- .7c we now have a problem. The global warming that may be happening is within the error rate of the temperature measurement. If Microsoft tried to use numbers like this we would tare them apart but the global warming crowd uses them and they are ok?
This is fine, as long as there are lots of measurements. Uncertainties add in quadrature, so we pin down a more narrow confidence level with a great number of measurements.
To those how would point to the chart that shows us warming, they all seem to start around 1880. This is odd as this marks the end of the little ice age, to say that we are warmer now than we were during the little ice age is, well, duh!
The point isn't just that we're warmer now than we've been since the 1880's, but the CO2 levels are the highest they've been in the last 800,000 years, at least. And we've broken through the 200-300 ppm envelope the levels have been in only the last 100 years, so it's the *rate* of increase that is particularly worrisome.
I am sorry, the science seems off and with out solid science to back it up I just can not believe the hype.
Again, and I don't mean any offense, but these seem like simplistic arguments. We might want to be humble enough to assume that these people, most of whom are really smart, and spend their whole professional lives studying just this phenomena, have already considered these things. I'm not advocating a blind appeal to authority, but it's only curteous to assume that the experts in the field carry *some* authoritative weight.
Oh, please. Al Gore is hardly fearmongering. If you take a quick glance, you'll see that the ExxonMobil noise machine makes a set of claims, and Al Gore makes a set of claims. You could be forgiven for thinking that, naturally, the truth lies just about in the middle. Most people don't have the time or the inclination to do their own research, and this is a common strategy---one tha the aforementioned noise machine takes advantage of.
ExxonMobil's claims are lies, half-truths, distortions and deceptive readings of old evidence. If they have evidence, they should submit it to the same process everyone else goes through. But they don't. They should influence your thinking on climate change about as much as the profusion of ID books at your local Christian bookshop means that it's just about as correct as evolutionary theory. The claims that Gore makes are backed up by consensus. By the best methods we have of finding things out, this is what we know.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
There's a reason why we live better in the USA than people did in the Soviet Union, or in the typical middle-east dictatorship.
Indeed, and that reason is mostly to do with the rule of law and a well regulated market, which is not much like the "free market" libertarians defend. Nations with better-regulated markets than the U.S., like Canada, Denmark and Sweden to name but a few, have populaces that live better than people in the USA do. At least according the UN measure of quality of life.
Neither libertarianism nor communism require "perfect humans", whatever those might be. But they do require human beings to be other than they actually are, and therefore have not been notably successful in the creation of stable societies.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I guess this is technically off-topic, but I hate, HATE those Truth.com commercials
You got that right: Your feelings about commercials on TV are offtopic.
To see a bunch of snotty college kids in commercials going around telling everyone how evil cigarettes are, when you know these same kids get drunk and smoke weed on the weekends
Wow, typecasting much! Wanna add something about their mama, while you're at it?
they even dupe local governments into complying and forming a nice little pseudo-fascist state where you can be arrested for daring let a smoker into your club or restaurant (but remember, drunks and stoners are a-okay!).
1- Stoners are routinely put in prison.
2- If you drink next to me, I don't get second-hand drinks in my stomach.
When your smoke stays out of my lungs and eyes, and when its stink stays out of my clothes and hair you'll have a point. In the meantime, you couldn't be further from the truth.
You can't take the sky from me...
Property is essentially the opposite to liberty. So, I'm not sure why libertarians bang on about freedom, when what they really want is ownership.
... and then they built the supercollider.
this doesn't pass the smell test. there's no sureer way of getting more people on the side of your cause than to lump the other side with existing known boogeymen.
next we're going to learn that people who don't believe the moon landing was faked are aligned with nazis
Smoking kills 400,000 people per year huh? Are you sure that isn't some of the "truth" that you got from the silly commercials this guy was complaining about in the first place? Only about 3,000,000 people actually died in 2004. Given the ~20% rate of smoking in adults at that time, that's only ~600,000 smokers that died in 2004. Are you seriously suggesting that 2/3 smokers die from smoking?
> These whiny irritants love imposing their feelings about smoking on business owners and everyone else.
And the same asshats are gearing up to make McD's change their menu to reflect their 'enlightened notions' of what you should be eating. Of course these same dipshits are also trying to decide what sort of unsafe at any speed piece of plastic crap car you 'want' to drive in the name of 'global warming' while THEY fly their fucking private jets to (press) conferences to announce what they want to impose on us tomorrow, for our own good of course.
And anyway, Today's Daily Hate thread points to an article in the fscking Guardian.... my what a reliable source that is, why not just link to Daily Kos guys, he is probably a more credible source!
And yes, reasonable people CAN question both A) the existence of Global Warming and B) whether any/all of any Global Warming which might exist is caused by humans. Personally I'm leaning more to the some Global Warming is happening but with the observed increase in solar output (and evidence of warming on Mars) that it is mostly natural. But if it can be shown that it is going to get bad enough we should meddle in Gaia's 'plan' and do something artifical to lower the temp a bit, perhaps a space based solar shade.
Democrat delenda est
I really hate hearing that term. The anti-smoking industry (yes, it is a huge money grubbing industry) has convinced the public that smoking is killing X number of people by making up this term 'Smoking related illeness'. For example Lung Cancer. If you die of lung cancer, you are immediatly added to the total number of people that died of 'smoking related illness' This is irrelevent to whether you would run 10 miles every day out in the desert, and consistently inhailed sand particles that were blown up in the air, and scratched the hell out of your lungs every day for 30 years. It must have been the evil second hand smoke!!!
I cannot believe for one second that inhailing the crap spewing out of the back of cars does not lead to 'Smoking related illness'.
Some of my favorite commercials that have come from the anti-smoking industry were, one where a half dozen early 20'ers are driving around in a beat up old van with nasty chemicals spewing from the tailpipe, while screaming over a megaphone at the houses of tabaco executives.
The one where they tell you that someone living with a smoke is more likely to die because the second hand smoke in so much more dangerous than the directly inhaled smoke. Completely ignoring the fact that the smoker will be breathing significantly more second hand smoke than anyone they live with.
And the one where they the tabaco industry MUST be advertising to kids, because 34 years ago one of their market researchers noticed that kids like sweets. Of course its a good thing that we got those secret documents, because we would have never know that kids like sweet otherwise, and after all, no adults like sweets.
The biggest here is that once an idea gets to a certain point, the proponents of that idea can just start out right lying. Then anyone that calls them on their lies gets villinized. After all, think of the children.
It's real simple. Smoking is bad for you. Anything that you inhail into your lungs that is not air (with a few medical exceptions) is bad for you. Smoking is NOT as bad as the smoking industry wants to make it out to be. If it was, 20% of our population would be dead within the next few year, and our society would be in freefall.
If you want a perfect example, look at the American Lung Association's website. If you can't see any questionable 'fact' in there, you have already drank the cool-aid.
The problem that the 'environmentalists' have is that their side of the global warming debate has been playing the same game as the anti-smoking industry. They have made many outragous claims, and frequently request or demand that people change their lives based on questionable data at best. Does that mean that we shouldn't work for cleaner air? No. Does it mean that global warming isn't happening? Who knows! What it does mean is that the issue IS in question, and when the global warming zeleots start claiming that the proof is undeniable, they are just adding to the distrust.
Ok, rant over....
Libertarianism is unworkable and deeply flawed. It, like Communism, relies on something that does not exist: the perfect human being. In order for Libertariansim to work all people must work towards their own elightened self interest. The problem is that's not how humans work.
This is interesting because it is a different way of looking at the same issue I have described before, and with much the same conclusions... but drastically different terminology. From everything I've read, economic extremism fails. Almost every economy is based upon communist cells of some size, operating competitively in a capitalist market, with some degree of socialism mitigating the gap between the very poor and very wealthy. What you refer to as communism, is in fact an economic system that has tried to enforce a very large communist cell size, with large amounts of socialism, and no internal capitalism. It is an extreme to try to eliminate capitalism and it fails, badly.
Libertarianism is a push for a smaller government that eliminates socialism and in some cases communism. It too fails, due to its extremism.
Your arguments about human nature are probably spot on. The balance of communism, socialism, and capitalism has developed in response to how humans operate and all reflect parts of human nature. Your assigning of a human that does not desire socialism as a "perfect" human does not jibe with my, personal opinions, but I think we're on different pages that read the same.
That's not true, but it would have no relevance anyway. Who are you to tell someone they can't slip out the back door and relax with a cigarette?
This is true of alcohol as well, and many other products. Also, there are surgeon's general warnings on every pack of cigarettes informing people of the consequences.
From alcohol to chocolate to fast food, what you describe covers a wide range of products that you apparently feel should also be regulated. Aside from the fact that the government proves time and time again that it's inefficient at regulating anything, you're actually arguing for the government to "regulate" your life and your free will, putting the judgements of what is good and what is bad in the hands of politicans and legislators rather than the individual. If you don't like smoking, fantastic! Don't smoke, and avoid places that allow it. It's a very simple solution that doesn't involve imposing your decision on everyone else.
If the government gets a hold of a study proving a link between angry music and violent behavior, can the government start telling you not to get tattoos or listen to heavy metal for the good of society? Can they start banning other influences they deem negative to your health, such as controversial books and movies?
"I'll smoke, I'll get the cancer, I'll die. Deal? Thanks, AMERICA." - Bill Hicks
"Sufferin' succotash."
Come on, are you serious? You (most likely) haven't even read a peer-reviewed article on the subject, and you are questioning their results' error levels...
Remember, they actually analyze the little gas bubbles for CO2 concentrations, the error level in these analyses is relatively small as they are taking direct measurements, not inter/extrapolating from indirect measurement techniques (like tree rings, or relative biomass deposits in sediment).
My point: You can trust ice core readings. Don't question the peer-reviewed articles funded by NSF, grants, DOE, etc; instead, question the stuff funded by corporations.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You bang on an interesting point.
Property is a right to exclusive enjoyment. (A right is a power, enforceable through the state's monopoly on force.) Freedom to enjoy property not your own, ends where the right to exclusive enjoyment of the owner begins.
Liberty is a right to be free of an oppression. It is not a dipole to property, per se. The idea of property - a right to exclusive enjoyment - is a liberty. Without that liberty, you cannot have property. You would not be 'at liberty' to own property, in the common sense.
Libertarians advocate strong, nigh absolute, property rights by individuals, sanctioned by the state but without state interferrence other than when that property right is infringed upon. Most notably, the philosophy abhors tax (which is ridiculousness, IMHO). Thus, the Libertarian philosophy requires both property and liberty, as they act in tandem.
It's not only a sign of immaturity to return the accusations, but it does not make any sense at all to state that governments want to hear that global warming is within their responsibilities.
"The only time businesses care about you is before you spend your money on their products and services. Never forget that."
Fixed for you. no charge.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
You think that a vague desire to destroy the world muwahaha, which scientists have because they're, y'know, mad scientists, somehow secretly pervading the entire scientific establishment, is a more plausible source of bias than, y'know, simple short-sighted greed?
Also, I see that you've failed to come up with anything other than vigorous hand-waving to back up your claims. Did you bother to read the last paragraph of the post that you replied to?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"The most common omission I find is the error level on charts. Take the ice core samples, what is the error level? Most I have seen have stated that the current PPM of CO2 is at an all time high! It has been stated that the current CO2 levels are 330+ ppm and from ice cores we know it has never been higher, or do we? What is the error level of the ice cores? +/- ??? If it is +/- 500ppm than the charts are junk, if it is +/- 2ppm then they may mean something. To date I have not been able to find anything that states the accuracy of the reading or the error level of the ice cores."
I did a quick Google search. The uncertainty in the Vostok ice core data is plus or minus 2-3 parts per million by volume.
Here's the data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok_co2.html
From the description:
"CO2 and CH4 measurements have been performed using the methods and analytical procedures previously described (Barnola et al., 1987, Chappellaz et al, 1990). However, the CO2 measuring system has been slightly modified in order to increase the sensitivity of the CO2 detection. The thermal conductivity chromatographic detector has been replaced by a flame ionisation detector which measures CO2 after its transformation into CH4. The overall accuracy for CH4 and CO2 measurements are ± 20 ppbv and 2-3 ppmv respectively. No gravitational correction has been applied."
If anyone wants to see what the Vostok ice core data looks like, here's an open letter I sent to the Canadian environment minister, including a graph of the ice core data: http://www.geocities.com/rwvong/future/greenhouse. html
You may not be too worried about a CO2 level of 370 ppm, but it's still rising. If we proceed with business as usual, by 2100 it'll be at 800 ppm. (Again, looking at the ice core data, it's never been higher than 300 ppm at any time in the previous 400,000 years, which includes several ice ages. In comparison, settled civilization based on agriculture is less than 10,000 years old.)
If we make a serious effort to stabilize and reduce CO2 emissions in the next ten years--if the EU countries can do it, why can't we?--then we should be able to stabilize CO2 levels at about 500 ppm. There'll still be warming, but it'll be slow enough to adapt.
Huh? Libertarianism doesn't rely on corporations even existing. Limited liability is just a government-enforced way to keep accountability from happening. Does using government force to prevent people from facing the consequence of their mistakes, sound like heartless libertarianism? ;-)
Incorporation could perhaps somehow be made compatible with libertarianism, but there would be a lot of tit-for-tat to work out.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And FYI, extreme Democrat != socialist. On most issues, I consider myself a pretty extreme democrat, but I am not a socialist. I support some sort of national health care system, and a strong social safety net, but I am a small business owner and capitalist.
It is interesting how negative connotations attached to words can cause people to try to redefine them. For example, you claim adamantly to not be a socialist, and then describe several socialist programs you support. Socialism is simply society as a whole contributing to provide some level of support to all of society. Socialized heath care is socialism. Public schools are socialism. Libraries are socialism. Police forces are socialism. Subsidized housing is socialism. Almost all charities are privately funded socialism.
Socialism is an inherent part of human nature, for the whole society to help its members out. Everyone is a socialist to some degree, it is just a matter of how much socialism and what types an individual supports. Libertarianism has, as a common principal, no government involvement in socialism (resulting in drastically reduced socialism). In a country like the US, which already has less socialism than most industrialized nations and which most economists agree is has lower standards of living and greater crime as a result of that, this is an extreme economic position to take.
Now I don't want to start a discussion of political parties stated platforms and functional platforms, but the Democratic party both in principal and in action does support socialism... they just go to great pains to never call it that for PR reasons. The Republican party also supports socialism, albeit different programs and likewise avoids calling it that. I caution you, don't confuse political posturing for reality and public relations with science. It is very easy in these days of mass misinformation campaigns.