Michael Crichton on Environmentalism

How can that be so, when the political environmental groups have such an appalling record.
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What do you mean? I'm talking about evidence from the scientific community, not political organizations.


I think the problem we have today is that the big well funded political envirnmental groups have so much power.
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Are you saying you wish environmental groups were just *token* spokespeople for a lost cause...powerless and ineffectual?

Speaking of powerful organizations, the funding for these environmental groups doesn't come close to the vast sums of money spent in spreading confusion and undermining initiatives to address environmental concern. For example, consider the power, money and influence exerted by industry just in the lead-up to Kyoto:


In the lead up to the Kyoto conference on global warming the fossil fuel industries in the US and Australia stepped up their campaign to prevent a treaty being signed that involved greenhouse gas reduction targets for both countries. A US consortium of 20 organisations launched an anti-climate treaty campaign in September this year. These industry groups representing oil, coal and other fossil fuel interests spent an estimated $US13 million on television, newspaper and radio advertising in the three months leading up to the Kyoto conference to promote public opposition to the treaty...

In 1998 the New York Times reported on internal American Petroleum Institute (API) documents showing that fossil fuel interests intended to raise $5 million over two years to establish a Global Climate Science Data Center as a non-profit educational foundation to help with their goal of ensuring that the media and the public recognise the uncertainties in climate science. The documents state that victory will be achieved when climate change becomes a non-issue and those promoting the Kyoto treaty using existing science appear "to be out of touch with reality".

This was just the latest phase in a corporate funded campaign to discredit global warming predictions and undermine the political will necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Various front groups have been formed to oppose measures to prevent global warming, particularly in the US. They include the Global Climate Information Project which was formed just before the Kyoto meeting and spent millions on newspaper and television advertising aimed at scaring the public about what an agreement at Kyoto might mean in terms of increased prices for everything. The Coalition for Vehicle Choice, which is funded by car manufacturers including Ford, GM and Chrysler, also ran advertisements in the lead up to Kyoto.

Sharon Beder

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/index.html

Drooper if you're going to talk about environmental groups having "so much power", you have to recognize there's another side to that coin.
 
Tony said:


Hey Luke, This was before my time, but I heard that enviromentalists were up in arms about global cooling in the 70's. Is that true?
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In Carl Sagan's Cosmos there was an entire episode, "Who Speaks for Earth?" devoted to the various problems facing the environment. Sagan was of course one of the people whose research determined that the greenhouse effect was responsible for Venus' lead-melting temperatures. He regarded then (circa 1980) that the risks of global cooling and warming were equally dire. Of course in 1980 we weren't watching pieces of Antarctica drop into the ocean.

16 years later, by the time he published his last book Billions and Billions the pattern had been more clearly established: we were entering a period of warming. Whatever climate change means most, it means that our weather is being disrupted. People seem to think that it's simply that we will have more expensive air-conditioning bills in the summer; it's a lot worse than that. Sagan pointed out that insurance companies are starting to become alarmed at the amount of damage seasonal storms are causing -- more violent tornadoes, more violent hurricanes and tropical storms, more violent everything. Global warming is pumping more energy into our weather system, and so far it seems to be equalizing itself through more destructive weather. This has reprecussions far beyond what setting you make on your thermostat. There is an economic component to our careless habits with regard to the environment. It will catch up with us someday.

A final point, which I don't remember if Sagan made or not, but which is highly pertinent, is that with a couple of rare exceptions, the fall of almost every civilization in history has been strongly assisted by a long-term change in the local climate.
 
Re: EvilYeti:

Kodiak said:
Consider:
Envirotruth

a front organization for the National Center for Public Policy Research.

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research

Still Waiting for Greenhouse

John Daly is a junk science nobody that employs an astrological consultant to "disprove" AGW. Mention him to any earth scientist and they will laugh at you.

New Hope Environmental Services

Curious you didn't spell out their full title, "New Hope Environmental Services for Western Fuels Association and Basic Electric Power Cooperative". Why is that?

Greehouse Warming: Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth?

Hoyt's a self-admitted amateur who's conclusions are drastically different from careerists in climatology.
Sorry, but Science and Nature hold more weight for me than an erols customers web page. If he is really onto something, there are better places to publish his work. The fact that he hasn't and no one else is building on his work, is a clear indicator of specious research.

SEPP
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Another front organization with ties to the fossil fuel industry and the Moonies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Environmental_Policy_Project

So your evidence against AGW includes front organizations, oil industry propaganda, astrology, an erols webpage and the Moonies.

I see your references are as high caliber as Luke's. :rolleyes:

Are you SURE you're a skeptic? "Conservative Creduloid" would seem a better title!
 
Another thread questioning Global Warming?

Alright I know the drill.

First off quoting a sci-fi author and some highly-charged political sites with titles like "Still waiting for Global Warming?" is hardly convincing. You may as well quote the Institute for Paranormal studies to support Uri Geller, or Chrichton again on the dangers of NASA bringing home alien viruses from outer space.


And since this has obviously been reduced to "battle of the links" I will now present mine:

First off we have The National Academy of Sciences.



Then Nature Journal.


Followed by
Scientific American.



The
Royal Society.


And just for good measure leading scientists like Jared Diamond.




Kodiak, Luke, if you show me a source stronger then all the above, I will admit you have raised a reasonable doubt. Until then, I will assume your doubts are less based on reason, and more based on ideology. If the Royal Society, National Academies, Scientific American AND NATURE journal can't convince you of something--- just what in the world can? The apocalypse, or would that itself be labled by such scholarly sources as the CATO Institute as "junk science" guided by pseudoscientists (like the National Acadmies and Royal Society) of course, to take our mind off the "real problems" of crypto-socialism?


But like I said, present some stronger sources then the above, and I'll listen to you. Until then, stop presenting your political dogma as legitimate science.
 
Statement from the Director of the Skeptics Society Michael Shermer:

All the scientific evidence points to the fact that global warming is real and that it is most likely human caused.
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And:

The geometric growth trend of environmental destruction and species extinction is equally remarkable and frightening. There is a very real possibility that humanity will not survive to the year 3000 unless sustainable technologies are developed within the next 50 years. In my opinion the next half-century will determine rest of the millennium
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Last:

Will we be like the Easter Islanders standing there staring at the last palm tree, and say "screw the future, let's cut the damn thing down"? Or will we heed the lessons of history and find a solution to our own Eco-Survival Problem? There is a difference between us and all those who failed to find this solution. We are the first to realize the consequences of our actions in time to do something about them. The question is, what will we do?
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This is in a speech promoting free markets (hardly making Shermer a fan of socialism.)


http://www.futurefoundation.org/humanity3000/2pg_shermer.html
 
To EvilJeti and DialecticMaterialist:

You guys seem lazy-minded to me.

A questionable source is a good reason for skepticism, but not to automatically disregard the content completely.

So if Saddam or John Edward told you the Earth is round, you'd just criticize the source a disregard the content of the claim?

I am well aware of the questionable sources on both sides of this issue, but I come down as a HCGW skeptic after looking at all the content from both sides, not scoffing at my opponents sources and walking away without addressing the content.

This is known as circumstantial argumentum ad hominem.

This particular form of Argumentum ad Hominem, when you allege that someone is rationalizing a conclusion for selfish reasons, is also known as "poisoning the well."

It's not always invalid to refer to the circumstances of an individual who is making a claim. If someone is a known perjurer or liar, that fact will reduce their credibility as a witness. It won't, however, prove that their testimony is false in this case. It also won't alter the soundness of any logical arguments they may make.
 
DialecticMaterialist said:
Statement from the Director of the Skeptics Society Michael Shermer:
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The fallacy here is Appeal to Authority: This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that a well known or prestigious person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the mere fact that such a person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

Mr. Shermer might be right, and he might be wrong. He isn't automatically right just because he heads the Skeptic Society.
 
Re: To EvilJeti and DialecticMaterialist:

Kodiak said:
You guys seem lazy-minded to me.

Considering you have not fact-checked A SINGLE ONE of your sources, I would say that title would apply to you in spades.

A questionable source is a good reason for skepticism, but not to automatically disregard the content completely.

No, it will remain a questionable source up and until they prove themselves otherwise. The burden of proof is not on me, or anyone else, to prove them wrong. It's up to them to prove their case in a clear and scientificaly verifiable fashion. Publishing anonymous rants on the internet is not a valid way to accomplish this.

So if Saddam or John Edward told you the Earth is round, you'd just criticize the source a disregard the content of the claim?

False analogy. We already know the earth is round, so their opinion either way is irrelevant. A better analogy would be if Saddam or John Edward's said global warming was a myth. According to your logic, we should hold their opinion equal with those of the experts. It's easy to see that with your world view, AGW can never be proven as long as their is one person alive who does not accept the evidence.

I am well aware of the questionable sources on both sides of this issue, but I come down as a HCGW skeptic after looking at all the content from both sides, not scoffing at my opponents sources and walking away without addressing the content.

No, you've already made up your mind regarding AGW due to your conservative ideology. You then researched data that reinforced your particular dogmatic belief system. Unsurprsingly, 100% of this came from front organizations of oil interests and other junk-science sources. Not a single authentic science source.

This particular form of Argumentum ad Hominem, when you allege that someone is rationalizing a conclusion for selfish reasons, is also known as "poisoning the well."

How is pointing out that oil industry pundits and astrologers may not be the best source for climate science "poisoning the well"? I'm not name calling here, I'm just stating the facts. The sources you named are not science organizations. They are propaganda mills.

It's not always invalid to refer to the circumstances of an individual who is making a claim. If someone is a known perjurer or liar, that fact will reduce their credibility as a witness. It won't, however, prove that their testimony is false in this case. It also won't alter the soundness of any logical arguments they may make.
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But the burden of proof is still on them to make their case. Their lack of experience, education, credibilty, special interest funding and known biases does nothing to help that.

They are free to author papers and submit them for review and publishing in the appropriate journals. When they chose to do so, as my sources have, then I will examine them. Until then, they are not even worth considering. Thats the way science is done in the modern world.
 
Kodiak said:

The fallacy here is Appeal to Authority: This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that a well known or prestigious person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the mere fact that such a person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

But Mr. Shermer is not making a direct claim regaring AGW. He is basing his opinion on the work of others who ARE experts! And considering his background, he is perfectly qualified to determine the integrity of science research.
No one is saying that the AGW valid hypothesis is valid because Schemer says so, that is a strawman of your creation. We are saying that since a luminary such as Schermer endorse the work of the climatologists researching the global warming problem, it is highly likely their methodology is sound. It just one more piece of a now very large puzzle.

Mr. Shermer might be right, and he might be wrong. He isn't automatically right just because he heads the Skeptic Society.
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Considering his qualifications, do you have any evidence that he is incompetent to judge the validity of scientific research? Or that you are even competent to render such an opinion?
 
Kodiak that is utter nonsense. First off, your own links would be nothing more then "appeals to authority" given your reasoning.


Secondly there is a difference in logic between a false appeal to authority and expert testimony. The former is dubious, the latter is perfectly acceptable.


To quote a logic reference:

While sometimes it may be appropriate to cite an authority to support a point, often it is not. In particular, an appeal toauthority is inappropriate if:
(i) the person is not qualified to have an expert opinion on the subject,
(ii) experts in the field disagree on this issue.
(iii) the authority was making a joke, drunk, or otherwise not being serious

A variation of the fallacious appeal to authority is hearsay. An argument from hearsay is an argument which depends on second or third hand sources.
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http://www.savagemind.com/encyclopedia/logicalfallacies/AppealtoAuthority


Basically my authorities are qualified, as they represent the world's leading experts in science. Kodiak's authorities are not, as they are political groups, not science.
 
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