JunkScience.com's Ultimate Global Warming Challenge

Well this should be easy. All you have to do is prove that global warming is real and caused by human activity.

Ah, you do have to use science though: but that shouldn't be a problem given the "consensus" and all that.

Can't wait to see the first entry. Any entry come to that. Problem with global warming is the same for all ecomyths: asserting it's so, doesn't make it so.

A lie is a lie: doesn't matter how often or how loudly it is repeated. Saying it is, doesn't mean it is -- especially in science.

No use getting upset with me: write out your proof, send it in and collect $100,000: much more productive and creative. But again, that's another thing about critics -- they don't actually create anything of value.

Side bet: more people criticise the contest (and/or its sponsors) than actually submit entries.

Ideology and the Lessons still unlearned

People sometimes wonder what is meant by ideology and just how does that affect the use of science in public policy. Surely, if we have the science, ideology has nothing to do with things, right?

Sadly, no. Ecomyths are the result of ideology and the continued imposition of beliefs despite the scientific evidence that contradict those beliefs.

A good example is well explained here. It is the situation in Britain where a program was introduced into schools to promote healthy eating by giving kids a free fruit or vegetable serving each day. The follow up evaluation showed the program had no long term influence on the eating habits of children. Yet, despite the data clearly showing the program to be a massive (and expensive) failure, the academics conducting the evaluation recommended that the program be expanded, rather than cancelled.

Their thinking? Everyone knows fruits and veggies are good for you, kids have to eat right and if this program hasn't worked, then we will just double our efforts until it does. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. (Especially easy when it's the government's money you are spending and you get to be a recipient).

This is ideology, not science. The science has just shown the program to have had no behavioural effect. Moreover, its starting premise also is flawed, as the most well-conducted studies following hundreds of thousands of people for decades continue to show "no relationship between fruits and vegetables and cancer and no statistically significant associations with major chronic disease or cardiovascular disease."

Does this make fruits and vegetables bad? No, of course not. But is does make them much less of an invisible cloak of protection against cancer and disease than they are often portrayed as being, and certainly not a life essential to be foisted on kids at government expense.

The definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing you've been doing all along and expect a different result.

Aerosols: heating or cooling?

The standard line in explanations of global warming to explain the disparity between rising carbon dioxide emissions and an absence of temperature increases in the period from 1940 to 1975 is that heating was precluded by the cooling of the atmosphere by aerosols, which when banned in the 1970's resulted in temperature rises.  Oops! it seems the scientific data totally contradict that explanation: a new study shows that aerosols cause temperatures to rise.

 

Now you would think this would be headline material.  Interestingly, the mainstream media has been rather silent about this latest scientific discovery.  Luckily for us Steven Milloy continues to monitor the world of junkscience, much to the continued dismay of his legion of critics.

 

Yet another inconvenient truth.  Can't wait to hear and read the convoluted explanations for this latest nail in the coffin of global warming.

 

At what point do we cease to explain away the litany of exceptions to the hypothesis and move forward to a more robust, accurate explanation of reality?

 

 

A horrendous development

This post was summarized as a horrendous development. Not sure what else to say. It occurs that you will read this proposal and either agree whole heartedly with the post, or seek to find some rationalization or defense for the proposal: this is either protection of personal freedom or its eradication.

And if you are unsure what Britain would look like under such a scheme, I recommend watching V for Vendetta.

Sadly life has started to mimic art, rather than art merely acting as a parody of life's comical aspects. The scope of governmental intrusion into daily life in Britain really is astounding: at what point do people say enough?

The Contrarian View

Promo for another new blog to me, The Contrarian View. I couldn't decide which of several posts for July I wanted to link to, so I'm posting a link to the whole blog with an encouragement to read the series of posts on climate change, environmentalism and politically incorrect questions about nicotine, history and human nature.

Agree or disagree. Doesn't matter.
The point of the blog is to have you consider for yourself, your truth and where it is leading you in your life and why.
Kinda the whole purpose of this whole blogging thing in the first place.

Apply the precautionary principle to the precautionary principle

One of my favourite seminar topics I pose for my students is for them to apply the precautionary principle to the precautionary principle. 

 

It is a basic, axiomatic tenet of environmentalism that the precautionary principle is an essential aspect of all public policy deliberation.  Yet many are unaware of the ramifications of the precautionary principle and, more so, its common application in the restriction of human activity, rather than as a tool to assist in decision making.

 

Here is a good post on the precautionary principle, a link to an originating, thoughtful essay and a series of interesting comments that illustrate the myriad of ways in which the precautionary principle is (and isn't) understood to be working.

 

All of which is a great excuse for this quote from Samuel Johnson: Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

 

dispatches from TJICistan

Quick lesson in blog geography, networking journeys that come from tripping over blogs that a new to you and following through.

Started here with some fun dispatches from TJICistan, which led me here to an economics blog with good insights and then to here with a comparative discussion/data set on global economic freedom.

And if the terrain gets too strenuous, you can stop, as I did, here for a little discussion on the real Cuba and the wealth disparity between Fidel and ordinary citizens in socialist paradise (and yes, before you comment, I have visited Cuba on three occasions, and find a lot of credibility in what the real Cuba website documents).

Four websites, all with economics, freedom and development as central themes: the blogosphere is huge and you can browse every day and find new, interesting sites to read and stretch your pre-conceptions. Or, not.

Stasis is the default condition of the lazy and the slave. If, however, you are just a Prisoner, a free person and not a number, the blogosphere can help you find your freedom from learnt and learned oppression.

Coyote Blog: The 60-Second Climate Skeptic

From Coyote Blog comes this 60 second summary of climate skepticism, which distils this full-length 80 page discussion.

 

What I admire about these posts are that they are solid efforts by a layperson to both comprehend and communicate our understanding of climate change and the AGW theory.  That Warren Meyer as the author has made these efforts available, readable and as accessible as he has is both a credit to him and an excellent demonstration of the ability of the blogoshpere to turn all of us into publishers.

 

As to his content: many will find his arguments persuasive but doubtless, there will be those whose ideological predisposition will be to disregard what he is saying.  To those, there is still merit in reading Meyer's paper as it highlights the basics of why so many lay people remain unconvinced about AGW and unswayed by the dogma being thrust at them.

Bloggers for Positive Global Change

As indicated below, I am now a recipient of this award, courtesy of the fine folks at Carnival of Climate Change. As part of the rules of the award, it is now my responsibility to nominate five blogs I feel have taken the weight of the world upon their shoulders and are trying to build awareness among their readership in order to create a more sustainable and enlightened future.

So my five nominees are:

• QandO: up to date, contemporary politics and good discussion pages: excellent writing
• Samizdata: a blog for people with critical, rational and individualist perspective aka libertarianism -- they do it best
• Tech Central: dynamist perspective on all aspects of public policy, always well written and well substantiated
• Spiked: UK counterpart to QandO, contemporary, controversial and with a great stable of regular contributors
• Ponder the Maunder: the blog from the school kid that started as an extra credit assignment: Kristen Bynes shows that one person with an idea and the courage to share her views can indeed have a profound influence.

Positive global change: a construct that is timeless and a founding principle of enlightenment. As Stephen Covey has written: Renewal is the principle -- and the process -- that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.

Carnival of Climate Change

New website, with a lot of good, useful and uniformly skeptical links on climate change.

They also say some nice things about ecomyths and I am grateful for their recognition as I am to all the people who stop by and read my posts. I hope that ecomyths will continue to provide ideas for thought, ways to think and organize beliefs, and continued inspiration for those who are not convinced that everything they are being told they should believe is in fact what they believe.

I remember reading once that it is not important what your faith is, only that you have faith -- you do have strong convictions and live your life consistent with those convictions, to be the best you, you can be. The corollary to this ideology is that we then respect the views of others, especially when they differ to ours. This is not a blog asking everyone to agree with me, to think as I do. (wow, that's a relief for some!).

It is a blog that wants passionately for people to know what they believe, to have clear faith, to have hope and optimism for a brighter, better tomorrow. Mostly this blog is a passionate appeal for individual freedom and responsibility, for the ordinary and the exceptional amongst us to reject the conformity and dogma of blind obedience to authority and learnt ignorance, to reject apathy and to overcome the oppressive complacency of much of society that would confine us to a stasist future derided by Orwell, Heinlein and Hayek.

The only way I know how to do that is to learn for oneself. Learning means reading and reading needs help to sort out the useful from the confining. Sadly, having spent my entire life in education, first as a student and now as a teacher, I know only too well that even education discourages individual thinking.

So, big question of the day: why is it that so many are scared to think for themselves?

The only two real shortages in the world are common sense and real leadership.

Want to change the world? Facilitate the realization of common sense (it starts with personal responsibility for everything we do) and develop better leaders -- people who empower others not those who want power over others.