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Montana Legislator Introduces Bills To Give His State His Own Science (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The legislator in question is Republican Joe Read, who represents an area north of Missoula, home of many fine scientists at the University of Montana. Read has eight bills under consideration in the current session of the legislature, and two of those focus on climate change. One of them focuses on his state's role in any greenhouse gas regulatory program that would be instituted under a future president. Read is apparently unaware of past legal precedent indicating that the federal government has the legal ability to regulate pollutants. Instead, the preamble of the bill seemingly argues that Montana's emissions are all due to commerce that takes place within the state, and thus "any federal greenhouse gas regulatory program in the form of law or rule violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States."
As a result, the bill would prohibit state agencies, officials, and employees from doing anything to cooperate with federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the Montana government "may not implement or enforce in any way any federal regulation, rule, or policy implementing a federal greenhouse gas regulatory program." But if you thought Read's grasp of constitutional law was shaky, you should check out his reason for objecting to doing anything about climate change. That's laid out in his second bill, which targets both science education and in-state programs designed to reduce carbon emissions. And it doesn't mince words, suggesting that pretty much all the scientists have it wrong: "the [US] National Climate Assessment makes the same errors as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the National Academy of Sciences is also fundamentally wrong about climate change."
As a result, the bill would prohibit state agencies, officials, and employees from doing anything to cooperate with federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the Montana government "may not implement or enforce in any way any federal regulation, rule, or policy implementing a federal greenhouse gas regulatory program." But if you thought Read's grasp of constitutional law was shaky, you should check out his reason for objecting to doing anything about climate change. That's laid out in his second bill, which targets both science education and in-state programs designed to reduce carbon emissions. And it doesn't mince words, suggesting that pretty much all the scientists have it wrong: "the [US] National Climate Assessment makes the same errors as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the National Academy of Sciences is also fundamentally wrong about climate change."
And Montana is that extra special breed of republican corruption. Rememeber whitefish energy and Ryan Zinke?
The instant you start rolling out "pretty much all" or "97% of scientists" say, you're INSTANTLY anti-science.
Please explain how lawmakers should use scientific findings, if not going by consensus ?
Science is not just about objective facts. It's about theories that explain these facts. Different scientists can, and have, propose different theories for the same facts.
It depends. A big factor would be how the laws affect other states and countries.
First, it doesn't matter what you call it, if you have too much, it's a problem. You can call it peaches and it won't change its effects.
Second, there is no such thing as blasphemy against chemistry or physics, which is what life is. Blasphemy only has meaning in religion.
Third, to pollute is to render harmful through inclusion, and adding more co2 to the atmosphere renders it harmful on multiple levels, so co2 is actually a pollutant by a reasonable definition. But as per point the first, it really doesn't matter if you call it a pollutant. What matters is that we know co2 to be a greenhouse gas, and we know that GHGs promote global warming. We also know that last time co2 was this high, Earth wouldn't have been a nice place for humans. We also know that this rate of co2 rise is unprecedented. We also know that adding energy to a system produces effects, and that climate is a chaotic system. We know that our species has enjoyed a period of climatological stability, and that our actions are perturbing that stability.
Tldr you're arguing about whether we're about to be eaten by alligators or crocodiles, and it's a meaningless argument.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody, yet.
The point is that the lunatics are running the asylum.
No sig today...
"I know better than the experts, who actually studied the subject."
Why is it that politicians especially fall into the category of people who don't know what they don't know. Is undeserved blind confidence a trait that's required to go into the field?
I refuse to sign
Actually, the case for CO2 is much stronger than, way, the case for NOx, because NOx has a half-life measured in hours, but CO2 has an effective half-life in the century range (note carefully: an atom of CO2 that dissolves into the ocean tends to displace one that is already there back into the atmosphere).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
No theory is ever completely proven. Not only is it always possible to get new observations that will contradict a given theory, it's also possible to posit a different theory that predicts contradictory observations which have not yet been made. This means that consensus is always what defines our current notion of scientific "truth" (which is never absolute, so "truth" is really not a good word). For any given broadly-accepted theory there are often individual scientists who take issue with some element of the theory, or even that propose something quite different. That's not just okay, it's a fundamental element of scientific progress -- even though those who fight the consensus are usually wrong.
No one individual has the ability to independently research and verify all of scientific knowledge, so the rational choice is to accept the consensus unless you have invested in becoming sufficiently expert in a field to be able to intelligently challenge that consensus. That doesn't mean you have to challenge the consensus as a whole, either. If you can identify one part of the consensus that isn't correct and you can provide compelling evidence to support your point, that's completely valid, and a valuable contribution which can update and correct the consensus. But note that identifying one error rarely invalidates the entirety of the consensus view; more often it just points out that an adjustment is needed.
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