Starrfall on 12/3/2009 at 21:23

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You don't know how this works. If you're making the claims, you're expected to back them up. It's not our job to disprove the stuff you invent. Especially when the claims you are making are mostly ridiculous.

Like claiming DDT was banned because of media hype and misinformation, for example. It took ten years of public debate (going from the release of Silent Spring), then 7-8 months of EPA hearings with more than 100 experts testifying, and then the ban was pushed back 6 months to allow transitions to new pesticides. And after all of that pesticides companies sued and it took another year and a half or so to tell them "yes this decision actually was based on substantial evidence". (http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/02.htm) source (there, see how that works?)

edit: there you go! Now here are the problems: the Time article pre-dates the DDT ban by like 20 years, and as such it's missing about 20 years of scientific development and study. Citing anything on the Free Republic makes you a joke, the fact that one professor ate a bunch over 40 years and didn't immediately die doesn't mean jack shit in the science world, and the article suggest that DDT as it was used did in fact pose problems to wildlife (making your claim that "the threat didn't exist" completely wrong). The Straight Dope article similarly admits that DDT as it was used "was a bad thing" so you're still wrong.

Your authorities are either useless or do not support the propositions you cite them for.

june gloom on 12/3/2009 at 21:31

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He is correct that eugenics predates the Nazis though, and was quite popular right here in the United States.

But vA needs to learn how to debate without sounding like a mid-90s conspiracy theory site. What the fuck does eugenics have to do with the global warming/cooling argument?

Shoshin on 12/3/2009 at 22:00

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So, in any collection of three completely unrelated things, if two of them are crap, it necessarily follows that the third one is also crap?

I'll need to use this "logic" more often.

demagogue on 12/3/2009 at 22:04

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1. I wish people would stop getting all hot and bothered by NGOs and the media, and then others getting all hot and bothered that people are getting so hot and bothered by NGOs and the media. Stop the cycle from the start! Fuck 'em. They're not scientists or economists. Of course most of them trying to sell a political agenda and newspapers. And of course most ordinary people are lazy and stupid and believe whatever the read (on technical matters it hurts their head to think about). All of that is a given. But it's also a total red herring to the actual live policy debate going on.

If you want to make a responsible decision, you go straight to the horse's mouth. If I were making a decision on this, I wouldn't take a single thing a news reporter or NGO brochure would say seriously. I would listen to the climate scientists and political economists, do as much research as I could into primary documents, and even then put in checks so we can update the decision as information gets better over time.

The fact that the scientific community itself has published a consensus report, and has updated it a number of times that only reconfirm and go into more and more detail what was known from the beginning should give any responsible policymaker great pause ... And by "responsible" I mean the guy that actually has to make a decision affecting real people and real industry, not just doing armchair ideology.

2. On that note, everybody who cares about the climate change problem needs to read the IPCC's (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm) report for themselves, critic or fan ... So you can cut out 99% of the fear-mongering and red herring criticisms at the source.

3. Of course, what the climate change debate is missing is a satellite picture of a huge fucking ozone hole over Antarctica, or an easy out for industry (CFC substitutes actually being as cheap to produce as CFCs). It's a very dramatic free-rider commons problem, especially given (as you say) the substantial regional variation of expected harm ... It's an incredibly hard policy problem as it is. We don't have to attack mainstream science to admit how difficult it is to find a good policy that responsibly balances all the interests at stake economically, fairly, and enforceably. Those are the problems we need to concentrate our energy on, and those are real problems that require real and intense debate.

4. On that point, people should differentiate between what's science and what's policy. The scientists just give us a risk portfolio of expected human-caused climate change, where and how (a portfolio, just like when you're buying stock; it's not a crystal ball. It's the information you need to make the best decision). It's the policymakers job to make a responsible decision based on the best science.

If you don't like the proposed changes based on political values, be a man and say it straight. Admit, "Yes, the scientists give us this risk portfolio. But I don't want to see our way of life change, so frankly I'll accept the tradeoff ... especially, let's be honest, when the brunt of the harm will go to poor Southern developing countries and not to Canada." Now that's a valid argument. Why dig up minority science to do your work when you can just say what you politically value outright?

Edit: Sorry, can't resist one more point...

5. Responsible Policymaking 101 (aka Warren Buffet's 1st rule of Investing): One doesn't make responsible decisions based on one fact in isolation. You build yourself a risk portfolio and make a decision based on the best information from the best sources. And you do the calculation cold, dispassionately. If the best information tells you there's a 60% chance of $10B damage, 30% of $5B, 10% of no damange ... You value that overall at worth ((60+15+0)/10) $7.5B-risk and act according to that.

If there's a minority scientific opinion that calculates the harm to be much less, or nonexistant, and has a cognizable causal reasoning behind it ... fine, put that in the portfolio equation, and let it have its small % affect on the overall picture.

Muzman on 13/3/2009 at 02:01

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What do Eugenics and Y2K have to do with anything?
Eugenics was not in any way scientific theory by present day standards (even 1900 standards).
Y2K was a big deal. That's why everyone went to so much trouble fixing it up before 2000. There wasn't anyone working in the area who thought, by the tick over, that the world would end. By then the press had lost interest in the real story and was more interested in survivalist nutters blowing themselves up trying to prepare for armageddon when they're local servo's checkout counter refuses to work anymore.