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Ronald Bailey desperately tries to avoid getting put into the docks by global warming activists, liberating his fellow skeptics as he goes.
Tim Lambert|10.23.06 @ 9:13AM|#
Sigh. The ban on the agricultural use of DDT saved lives by
slowing the development of resistence.
Ron Bailey should be ashamed of himself for spreading Milloy's
disinformation.
|10.23.06 @ 9:15AM|#
Keep it up, Ron. You've got another hundred of these to write before you switch to Stage Three: "Yes, it is happening, and yes, it's our fault, and yes, we should have done something, but gosh darn it, now it's too late!"
|10.23.06 @ 9:19AM|#
Isn't there a significant difference between using DDT indoors to kill malaria carriers and the way it was used by gigantic agriculture operations in the 1960's? As I understand it, the old system was to dump tons of the stuff from airplanes, allowing it to build up in the ecosystem as well as breeding resistant bugs. The proposed use to kill mosquitos is to spray indoors every other year or so? (Sorry about no links. I'm home with the stomach flu today and am just not up to doing a massive search.)
|10.23.06 @ 9:40AM|#
"The proposed use to kill mosquitos is to spray indoors every
other year or so?"
A practice which remains effective for the sole reason that
environmental and public health activists put an end to the
widespread, resistance-inducing agricultural use.
But what do you expect from a shill who quotes another paid
shill?
|10.23.06 @ 9:43AM|#
Oof.
Read the wikipedia entry on Milloy.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_Milloy
Timothy|10.23.06 @ 9:44AM|#
Do you mean "Put in the stocks", Weigel? I've never heard of these "docks" used for storing Global Warming skeptics.
|10.23.06 @ 10:02AM|#
Oops, wrong web address.
Oh well. Read them both.
Odd choice of character witnesses, Ron. I suppose he was just a
lung cancer skeptic, relying one peer reviewed studies to raise
questions and advance the debate.
|10.23.06 @ 10:10AM|#
I sure love intelligent, mature discussions on these matters.
Nothing convinces me of your correctness more than just dismissing
those who you disagree with as "shills".
And Joe, your logic is faulty here anyway. It was not the mere act
of 'stopping the widespread use on entire ecosystems' that took
such a toll on the human population; it was banning the use of DDT
entirely. Just because a pleasant side effect of sacrificing all
those lives was a longer path to resistance for the bugs, doesn't
mean that it was justified to ban it altogether.
|10.23.06 @ 10:14AM|#
Ugh, apparently the viruses affected my brain as much as my GI tract. I know perfectly well that DDT doesn't "breed" resistant insects, but I'm too tired and out of sorts to rephrase the sentence.
|10.23.06 @ 10:28AM|#
Timothy, I believe that the use of "dock" here was based on the
British usage:
1. the place in a courtroom where a prisoner is placed during
trial.
�Idiom2. in the dock, being tried in a court, esp. a criminal
court; on trial.
[Origin: 1580�90; perh. < D dok (dial. sense) cage, poultry pen,
rabbit hutch]
From Random House Unabridged-2006
|10.23.06 @ 10:30AM|#
Ooops, the squirrels saw that origin as a tag, one more time
here:
Origin: 1580?90; perh. D dok (dial. sense) cage, poultry pen,
rabbit hutch]
|10.23.06 @ 10:46AM|#
Ron - kudos for being intellectually honest enough to publicly
admit you were wrong
this next inquiry isn't meant to be belligerent as it might sound.
I asked before, on another thread, but missed your answer, if it
was given.
what credentials (training, coursework, degrees) do you have that
qualifies you to critique and report on scientific matters?
|10.23.06 @ 10:48AM|#
Evan!,
DDT was never banned entirely in Africa - only the widespread
agricultural spraying. The UN treaty (1982?) that called for the
ban specifically exempted indoor spraying and called for more
research.
Calling the policy recommendation that came out of that research a
"reversal" is highly misleading - sort of like saying that Grist is
calling for the punishments of legitimate scientists arguing over
research in peer reviewed journals.
In other words, the same dishonesty, in the same direction, that
one reliably finds in Ron Bailey's posts.
|10.23.06 @ 11:14AM|#
biologist:
That link you gave me to the scientific paper about people
over-estimating their abilities....was a white-knuckle, heart
pounding, edge-of-your-seat thiller.
Karen:
I'm sick, too. Poor me.
|10.23.06 @ 11:19AM|#
Biologist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Bailey
"...attended the University of Virginia, where he earned a B.A. in
philosophy and economics in 1976. He attended the University of
Virginia School of Law for three semesters."
Not that college is the be all and end all...
|10.23.06 @ 11:21AM|#
buckshot:
so did you like it?
my irony/sarcasm/hyperbole detector might be malfunctioning
if there is a hidden meaning to your remarks, please feel free to
state them outright
Mike Laursen|10.23.06 @ 12:01PM|#
Whenever someone asks a scientist a skeptical question about climage change, the questioner may be annoying as hell but he is ultimately doing the scientist a favor. The more the scientist is prompted to gather more evidence and build a stronger case, the better off we all are.
|10.23.06 @ 12:12PM|#
biologist:
I was making fun of myself because that was some heavy stuff, I'm
not used to reading scientific papers. Please don't interpret my
lame shot at irony/sarcasm/humor as containing any hidden meaning,
none was intended. Sometime jokes don't translate over the
internet.
Yes, I liked it and I'm impressed that scientists go to such
lengths to explain, justify and footnote. That's how it ought to
be. You're a scientist and read stuff like this all the time (I'm
sure). I have a 10th grade education and stuff like that is a
challenge for me. Brains aren't enough, you have to have the
training and practice to breeze thru something like that. Same
thing with legal documents, lawyers easily read and understand text
that would challenge an intelligent person who lacks the legal
training.
The information I gathered about myself was that I'm probably a
pretty smart guy because I'm so willing to admit when I don't know
or when I'm wrong. I think it was Carl Sagan who once said that the
greatest fear of any scientist is that there is someone smarter
than himself out there. It must be gut-wrenching to invest
considerable time and brains into something and then someone else
proves you wrong.
Scientists make our lives better, I respect and appreciate all of
you.
Jennifer|10.23.06 @ 12:14PM|#
The more the scientist is prompted to gather more evidence
and build a stronger case, the better off we all are.
Only up to a point. How are we better off by wasting scientists'
time debating with those who still insist that the earth is 6,000
years old and all creatures were created as they are now? How are
we better off if geographers waste their time discussing the
mapmaker's art with flat-earthers? After a certain point, the
benefits of skepticism are negated by the law of diminishing
returns.
Not all skepticism is equally valid. Our knowledge of American
history won't be improved if I attend a historian's convention and
say "I'm skeptical that there ever was a president named Abraham
Lincoln! Cease whatever you're researching and convince me Lincoln
was real!"
|10.23.06 @ 12:22PM|#
biologist: the wikipedia is essentially correct--there is some
additional schooling not listed, but not in a scientific
discipline.
I am a science journalist who covers the intersection between
science and policy (in fact, a better title for my current position
might be science policy correspondent). In any case, I have been
covering science and science policy as a PBS producer and print
journalist, editor and author for 25 years or so. I do what any
journalist does--I call up scientists, policymakers, and read the
relevant literature to do reporting. Since I now work for an
opinion magazine, I also get to share my opinion about what I find
out. In any case, one does not have to be a CEO to be a good
business journalist, nor a Senator to be a good political
journalist, nor an artist to be a good arts critic, nor a good cook
to be a good restaurant reviewer and so forth--anyway you get the
idea. Over the years I have talked with hundreds of actual
scientists and attended scores of scientific meetings. I also
ttended an MIT science "boot camp" for science journalists and
received other training. To be a bit less defensive sounding, I
have always regretted that I took the initially wrong path toward
law school during college (fortunately I quit before I became a
lawyer) If I could do it all over again, I would become a molecular
biologist. If my fondest hopes for longevity research are realized,
then I will fulfill that ambition. Until then, I will continue
reporting on scientific advances, their implications for public
policy and try to help foster a policy environment that will enable
those advances to be made.
Besides wikidpedia you could click onto my bio at Reason, not to
mention the bio that the folks at Exxonsecrets has assembled for
me. I include below an updated bio for your information.
Ronald Bailey is the award-winning science correspondent for the
public policy magazine Reason. He is the author most recently of
Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Case for the Biotech
Revolution (Prometheus), and his work appears in the The Best
American Science and Nature Writing 2004. In April, 2006, Bailey
was shortlisted by the editors of Nature Biotechnology as one of
the 22 personalities who have made the most significant
contributions to biotechnology in area of society and ethics in the
last 10 years.
Prior to joining Reason in 1997, Bailey produced several weekly
national public television series and documentaries for PBS
television and ABC News. Bailey was a staff writer for Forbes,
covering economic, scientific and business topics. His articles and
reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, Smithsonian, National
Review, Readers Digest, and many other publications. Bailey won a
first place 2004 Southern California Journalism Award for best
magazine feature for his story, "The Battle For Your Brain," which
delved into the ethical and political conflicts over new brain
enhancement technologies. In 2005, Bailey won a first place
Southern California Journalism Award for best online commentary for
his series on creationism, "Creation Summer Camp."
Bailey is the editor or author of four other books dealing with
environmental science and policy including Global Warming and Other
Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to
Scare Us to Death (Prima Publishing, 2002), Earth Report 2000:
Revisiting The True State of The Planet (McGraw Hill, 1999), and
The True State of the Planet (The Free Press, 1995). He is the
author of ECOSCAM: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (St.
Martins Press, 1993).
Bailey has appeared on many television and radio programs,
including the NBC Nightly News, National Public Radio's To the
Point and Marketplace, and various C-SPAN programs. He has lectured
at Harvard University, Yale University, Morehouse University, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, the
University of Virginia, and many other places. In 2004, he
testified before a congressional committee on "The Impact of
Science on Public Policy.�
He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the
American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He is also an
adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the
Cato Institute.
Bailey, who writes a popular weekly column on science and
technology for Reason Online (reason.com), lives in Washington,
D.C., and Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife Pamela.
P.S. I've been trying to post since this morning another entry with
various links to other relevant DDT malaria articles (including to
Tim's posts) but our infamous server squirrels have so far
frustrated me. I think the squirrels hate embedded hyperlinks.
|10.23.06 @ 12:27PM|#
"P.S. I've been trying to post since this morning another entry
with various links to other relevant DDT malaria articles
(including to Tim's posts) but our infamous server squirrels have
so far frustrated me. I think the squirrels hate embedded
hyperlinks."
We've all got The Malaria from the global warming and the lack of
DDT. Stop making fun of us.
thoreau|10.23.06 @ 12:32PM|#
How are we better off by wasting scientists' time debating
with those who still insist that the earth is 6,000 years old and
all creatures were created as they are now?
I ask myself that question every time I respond to comments on my
blog. But I go in for the abuse anyway...
|10.23.06 @ 12:38PM|#
"We've all got The Malaria from the global warming and the lack
of DDT. Stop making fun of us."
Then please find a road, sit, and wait...the Clampets need tonights
dinner.
Anyway, the Neo-conservative obsession with DDT is irrational.
There are a variety of ways dealing with malaria and other pests.
Reliance on one single tool risks an evolutionary response by
either Mosquitos or the Malaria bug itself. Indeed one of
the reasons that DDT use ahs gone down is because the immune
response by mosquitos went up.
Don't get me wrong I am really glad that we in the U.S. don't have
to deal with Screw Worms anymore, thanks in large part to DDT.
|10.23.06 @ 12:42PM|#
Yeah, there is global warming. The Earth is coming out of an ice
age, but temperatures are no where near cyclical highs. Solar
activity and other natural phenomena are better causal agents than
human activities.
Wake up Bailey. It seems near impossible to buy into the spurious
claim of humans being the significant cause of global warming
without accepting the accompanying anti-free market prescriptions.
Either Reason loses it's libertarian leanings or you will find more
inviting environs in which to propound the Left's favorite
pseudo-science and Henny-Penny scare tactic.
Jennifer|10.23.06 @ 12:47PM|#
NoStar, I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or
sarcastic. If the former, I'd like to know what mechanism has fixed
things so that for the past 150 years we've steadily increased the
amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, without creating a
corresponding increase in the greenhouse effect?
I first heard about global warming in the late 80s or early 90s and
it made perfect sense to me: CO2 makes the atmosphere warmer than
it would otherwise be, so increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will
also increase atmospheric heat retention, unless there's some
extraordinary variable negating this effect. What variable is this,
do you think?
|10.23.06 @ 12:51PM|#
The Earth is coming out of an ice age, but temperatures are
no where near cyclical highs.
It's not the peak, but the steep slope that is worrisome. It takes
time to adapt. Warm too fast and there isn't time to adapt. All
those past warming events were relatively slow adn easy to adapt
to...with a few notable exceptions.
Solar activity and other natural phenomena are better causal
agents than human activities.
Historically yes, but not this time around.
It seems near impossible to buy into the spurious claim of
humans being the significant cause of global warming without
accepting the accompanying anti-free market
prescriptions.
I have posted ideas here on Hit-N-Run on what to do in a
libertarian manner which actually help reduce our carbon load
without killing the global economy, but oddly noone else here seems
interested enough to develop them. :(
|10.23.06 @ 12:53PM|#
Ron, thanks for responding
as I said, the question wasn't meant to be as belligerent as it
might sound, so no need to be defensive
although, IMHO, "science" is a much broader and more complex topic
than "business", and since no (honest) scientist would present
himself as an expert in all fields of science, it must be much
harder to be a science correspondent/ journalist, expected to cover
all field of science, especially difficult without formal training
in science. I wonder if that might be part of the reason you didn't
agree with the global warming people right off: you were relying
too heavily on the opinions of the skeptics. I don't have a strong
opinion on global warming, as it's (way, way) outside my area of
study.
I enjoy your columns here. I have a copy of Ecoscam, but haven't
had time to read it. Anyplace I can go for updates on the Ecoscam
book?
finally, a committee of our dept. cited your book Liberation
Biology in a report justifying our need for a new building,
complete with modern research and teaching labs.
|10.23.06 @ 1:08PM|#
"NoStar, I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or
sarcastic."
Jennifer, there is a very good reason for that. I am being
both.
|10.23.06 @ 1:27PM|#
biologist: Of course joe might retort that I was merely doing
the bidding of my corporate masters with regard to global warming.
;-)
In any case, the main source of my skepticism was chiefly on the
controversy over satellite and weather balloon data versus surface
temperature data. The satellites find much less warming than the
surface temperature records do. I also admit that the fact that I
had reported environmental activists (as opposed to scientists)
making exaggerated "scientific" claims for impending apocalypses
that never occurred, e.g., mass starvation due to overpopulation,
running out of non-renewable resources, cancer epidemics caused by
synthetic chemicals, and disasters created by genetic engineering,
and so forth, also inclined me in a skeptical direction when it
came to global warming catastrophes.
BTW, lest anyone think that the satellite vs. surface temperature
argument is completely settled, think again. See Christy &
Norris "Satellite and VIZ-Radiosonde Intercomparisons for Diagnosis
of Non-Climatic Influences" in upcoming issue of the Journal of
Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Basic conclusion is that the
when proper adjustments are made, satellites and weather balloons
agree that the warming trend is at the low end of climate model
projections.
|10.23.06 @ 1:32PM|#
As I noted a few days ago, the world is exactly 5767 years old.
You goyim are killing me!
Jennifer, you'll never get into the club when you don't even know
how old the world is.
Not that the age of the world affects the following, which I agree
with even though I no longer follow the law.
Ramban in his commentary to the Torah wrote:
�This also is an explanatory commandment of the prohibition you
shall not kill it [the mother] and its young both in one day
(Leviticus 22:28 ). The reason for both [commandments] is that we
should not have a cruel heart and not be compassionate, or it may
be that Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species
altogether, although it permits slaughter [for food] within that
group. Now the person who kills the mother and the young in one day
or takes them when they are free to fly, [is regarded] as though he
has destroyed that species.�
|10.23.06 @ 1:36PM|#
"Nuremburg style trials" for "global warming deniers"???
It appears that fundamentalist lunacy is not confined to the
religious sphere. Of course, I can already hear some of you
replying that modern environmentalism has been a quasi-religion for
a long time.
|10.23.06 @ 1:37PM|#
When I read that Mars is also experiencing gobal warming, in
light of no significant human interaction in Mars' ecology and no
reported volcanic activities, increased solar activity would be a
better bet for causation on both Mars and Earth.
Unfortunately, accurate measurements of solar activities are only
available for the last 30 years, but they do tend to show an
increase superimposed over the better known 11 year cycles. We can
do little more than guess at how long this has been
happening.
It is similar to when the ozone hole was first measured over
Anarctica. Without knowledge of how long it has been there, an
assumption was made that it is a human caused and recent
development. This ignores that ozone is created by an interaction
between coronal discharge and oxygen and that this radiation is
diverted by the magnetic poles. As long as we have a magnetic
field, there will be less ozone above the poles. While the some
countries like the US have decreased used of ozone damaging
fluorocarbons, other countires like India and China have increased
usage. Recent measurements suggest the ozone hole is closing.
Computer modeling has not shown a convincing reason for this.
I suspect it is the same with the relationship between variations
in solar output and global climate; we do not fully understand the
mechanisms involved enough to satisfactorily explain the perceived
changes.
|10.23.06 @ 1:53PM|#
Dear Apostate Jew,
The 5767 age for the earth actually refers to time since Adam.
Also, that counting system was created by Rabbis who were trying
prove Bar-Kochba had fulfilled certain prophecies. The calendar was
fudged by 240 years. By mistake they removed and extra 100 years,
as those prophecies were already fulfilled by Yeshua.
Anyway, the Jewish Calendar Year should be 6007. Do not forget that
this counting begins With Adam and does not include years for the
previous five "days" of God's creation.
Mike Laursen|10.23.06 @ 2:23PM|#
Jennifer, you're absolutely right! There's a huge difference between being skeptical and being closed-minded.
|10.23.06 @ 2:47PM|#
biologist:
I forgot to mention that when I started reading that paper I
briefly thought you might actually be putting me to the test to see
if I'm up to the task. It's easy to misconstrue the intentions of
people you don't know.
|10.23.06 @ 3:05PM|#
What, no reference to the years you spent holding a chair in
Environmental Studies at the illustrious academic temple known as
the American Enterprise Institute?
You're being far too modest, Mr. Bailey.
|10.23.06 @ 3:25PM|#
A minor thread hijack, but in line with the overall tone
here:
Recently I've been running into multiple persons who fervently
attribute the current lowered gasoline prices to a conspiracy,
i.e., an 'October surprise' intended to help Republicans in the
November elections. Even some otherwise fairly rational people have
blithly advanced this idea, and their contention that 'after the
elections watch the prices go back up'.
My response has been to attribute causality more to market forces,
about how gas prices usually go down after the summer travel season
and so on, and with a resulting surplus of gasoline as a byproduct
of heating oil production. (Frankly, I think it's a safe bet that
prices WILL go up after the elections-- coincidently, about the
same time that people start driving more for the Thanksgiving
holiday season.) I just find it hard to believe that any
individuals or groups have this much influence over a specific
global marketplace worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
So Ron and all, what's your take on this? Are the current prices
the result of supply and demand and other normal market forces? Or
is it all politics? Am I just insufficiently enlightened as to the
extent of the BushCo oil crony cabal's true power? Discuss.
|10.23.06 @ 4:13PM|#
joe: Modesty has nothing to do with it. I've never worked with or for the American Enterprise Insitute, though I wrote a couple of articles for their magazine.
Mike Laursen|10.23.06 @ 4:18PM|#
It seems near impossible to buy into the spurious claim of
humans being the significant cause of global warming without
accepting the accompanying anti-free market
prescriptions.
I don't see why accepting the idea of climate change necessarily
has to conflict with free markets. But, if a conflict between fact
and idealogy comes down to it, fact had better win out. Unless
you're ideology is completely worthless, it probably just means
you'll have to refine your ideology to be a bit more
sophisticated.
Jennifer|10.23.06 @ 4:53PM|#
I don't see why accepting the idea of climate change
necessarily has to conflict with free markets.
I believe in global warming AND free markets, but I don't think the
latter can solve the former. It's similar to the way the
unregulated free market, left to its own devices, can't solve the
pollution problem. Suppose you and I own factories and are in
competition. You and I have identical costs for labor, raw
materials and everything else except one: you are a socially
responsible person who recycles toxic waste so that it does no harm
to anybody, whereas I'm an irresponsible person who dumps toxic
waste in a nearby river.
This means my overall costs are lower than yours, so I can
absolutely smash you in the marketplace. What's the unregulated
free-market solution to helping you regain your competitive edge
against me? Stop being responsible. Start dumping your toxic
waste.
Personally, I have no problem with the regulatory solution of
making it illegal to dump toxic waste in the river (although some
of our current regulations are overboard, I think.)
Ron Bailey, if you don't mind me asking: when you were a
global-warming skeptic, how did you explain the way increased
levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere did not lead to an
increased greenhouse effect?
|10.23.06 @ 5:17PM|#
Jennifer, if I were some kind of hardcore, market-fixes
everything libertarian, I would say that the environmentally
responsible company would advertise this fact a great deal, thereby
attracting conscientious consumers to pay a little more for a
product that doesn't destroy the earth. If they took enough of the
market share, the polluting competitor would have to clean up their
act or be driven out of business.
Just a thought.
Jennifer|10.23.06 @ 5:31PM|#
I would say that the environmentally responsible company
would advertise this fact a great deal, thereby attracting
conscientious consumers to pay a little more for a product that
doesn't destroy the earth.
Has any evil been wiped out solely through consumer choice? I don't
think so. For every one person who says "I refuse to buy goods made
in China unless I can be sure they weren't made by slave labor"
there's twenty more who are thrilled by how inexpensive Chinese
goods are. And I can't think of any environmentally unfriendly
companies who went out of business because so many of their
customers chose to switch to the more expensive, but responsible,
competitor.
|10.23.06 @ 6:08PM|#
Ron Bailey, if you don't mind me asking: when you were a
global-warming skeptic, how did you explain the way increased
levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere did not lead to an
increased greenhouse effect?
Jennifer:
All other things being equal, increased greenhouse gases do
necessarily lead to increased temperatures, but not all things are
necessarily equal. For example, warming increases water vapor which
might be channeled into producing low clouds which if they
increased just enough, then warming would be completely compensated
for and the average temperature balanced out. (BTW, no one knows
for sure yet how clouds will react to warming.)
Or MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen's notion that an atmospheric
"iris" opens as a result of speeding up the hydrological cycle
which allows excess radiation to escape into space thus
countercooling the planet.
Researchers have suggested a number of other possible negative
feedbacks that could cool the planet in response to increased
greenhouse gases.
Hope that helps explain a bit why I was skeptical so long.
|10.23.06 @ 6:16PM|#
My bad, Mr. Bailey.
Rather than "American Enterprise Institute," which is front for a
broad array of big business interests, I was referring to your time
as the resident environmental scholar at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute, which is much more carbon-lobby intensive in its funding
and PR.
"It seems near impossible to buy into the spurious claim of humans
being the significant cause of global warming without accepting the
accompanying anti-free market prescriptions."
I agree. While some environmental problems, like overfishing
shellfish beds, can be solved through market-based solutions, there
simply is no way that the atmosphere can be privatized.
|10.23.06 @ 7:17PM|#
Ron,
Since your a card carrying member of the ACLU,
what is your definition of hypocrite?
Does the ACLU have a definition of "hypocrite" or do they believe
the word does't exist?
|10.23.06 @ 7:35PM|#
i appreciate you putting up yr. bona fides, Mr Bailey.
My own empiracal observation says we are on some sort of
warming/dry trend in the SW US & Midwest, at least.
I remember the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Phillipines in
the......80's? At the time, a newsnugget (truthiness?) bit was
Pinatubo threw more CO2 into the atmosphere that the last century
of human endeavor. Rubbish? Weasel? Close to true? Any idea?
i figure the climate is changing. Thats what it does. Visit the
Grand Canyon if you think I exxagerate. The question is: what
PERCENTAGE of the change can be attributed to human endeavor.
Figure that out, and then you can cypher weather various cures are
worth the effort.
Cotton was a big user of DDT. the fields were hosed down with the
stuff. Its poisoning wells 40 miles S of the cotton fields of
southern AZ, creeping along the aquifer.
DDT works great. So does a 45/70. Do you use a 45/70 on gophers? If
you want to kill mosquitoes, why hold high something that kills
everything?
|10.23.06 @ 7:37PM|#
I just saw this on MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391047/
Thought it fit in well.
Nick
PS-so is Terry just gonna pop off any thread that Ron is associated
with?
|10.23.06 @ 7:41PM|#
Sorry guys,
I don't know how to link. I probably should have said that that
link is about the effects of solar rays on global warming.
Nick
|10.23.06 @ 8:55PM|#
A practice which remains effective for the sole reason that
environmental and public health activists put an end to the
widespread, resistance-inducing agricultural use.
hey look joe reads tim lambert's blog...hey joe notice how tim has
evolved his stance as he has steadly been proven wrong???
plus there is the problem with crop land not being mequito's
habitat...kind of hard to develope imunity to ddt when you are
never exposed to it...plus the huge problem that milaria has been
successfully eradicated in countries using DDT at the exact same
time they used it as a general pesticide in ag.
Then there is the fact that mequitos are a vector and not actually
the pest so in fact there is a stronger selective force for
mesquitos to adapt resistance to milaria then to DDT
resistance.
wow three ways you are dead wrong joe...
|10.23.06 @ 9:02PM|#
Not simply 'Solar' rays Nick, but Cosmic Rays. Real Climate has
a word or two to say: http://tinyurl.com/yh7x9u
In regards to warming on Mars, the study in question took place
during the peak period of the last solar maximum. I imagine by now
all those Dry Ice formations are back more or less where they were
before they melted. again Real Climate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192
|10.23.06 @ 9:07PM|#
Just because a pleasant side effect of sacrificing all those
lives was a longer path to resistance for the bugs, doesn't mean
that it was justified to ban it altogether.
opps i guess you were wrong 4 times joe...
and tim lambert didn't see you there...you are wrong all the
time.
|10.23.06 @ 9:29PM|#
Ron has not responded to any of my inquirers.
Truth hurt Ron?
Understandable, since the truth is your a hypocrite and a
coward.
|10.23.06 @ 10:44PM|#
"Has any evil been wiped out solely through consumer choice? I
don't think so. For every one person who says "I refuse to buy
goods made in China unless I can be sure they weren't made by slave
labor" there's twenty more who are thrilled by how inexpensive
Chinese goods are."
Fear of a bad reputation does sometimes affect how companies do
business. I know he's not respected much around here, but Thomas
Friedman documents a number of cases where activists have
successfully pressured companies to change their business practices
or risk a bad rep in his book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." For
just one example, the anti-dolphin in the tuna campaign drove
companies to be more careful in their fishing practices.
But I have wondered myself about the efficacy of markets, or at
least the dogmatic stance that markets can solve any sort of
problem, when it comes to dealing with certain kinds of pollutants
or any sorts of issues around water or air (I think I remember
though reading something by Rothbard years ago where he talked
about some system of tracers in the air that would be able to
actually track the sources of pollutants. Seemed a little sci-fi to
me at the time but I at least thought it was interesting). On the
other hand, simply because markets haven't worked so well, or we
don't have a good model yet, doesn't necessarily mean that
political decision making should be given a pass or be thought of
as the default fail safe solution. The bottom line is that the
question should be framed as "which one will work better in this
case, markets or government, for this particular issue?" as
afterall, government is often not so efficient either in dealing
with some forms of pollution or social problems.
|10.24.06 @ 10:06AM|#
joshua,
I don't think I've read Tim Lambert's blog. Was there a point you
wanted to make?
"plus there is the problem with crop land not being mequito's
habitat" Depends on the crop in question. Also, the use of DDT on
crops spreads the substance much more widely due to runoff and
subsurface flows. Not to mention, in addition to application on
crops, DDT was once often used in the areas around agricultural
settlements - fighting the mosquitoes over there so we don't have
to fight them here, as it were
"kind of hard to develope imunity to ddt when you are never exposed
to it" Except that the rise of DDT-resistance mosquitoes in areas
where it was used for agriculture is a widely observed and
documented phenomenon. Gee, joshua, it almost looks like you don't
know what the hell you're talking about.
"Then there is the fact that mequitos are a vector and not actually
the pest so in fact there is a stronger selective force for
mesquitos to adapt resistance to milaria then to DDT resistance."
This doesn't make any sense. Mosquitoes don't become infected by
the malaria they cover, and they don't become resistant to passing
it on. They do, however, become resistant to DDT, as has been amply
documented throughout large swathes of Africa.
You make these assumptions that you'd like to be true, but the
evidence proves you wrong. Assuming an absense of DDT-resistant
mosquitoes? Wow. I can see you're developed quite a resistance to
factual evidence.
|10.24.06 @ 11:27AM|#
"kind of hard to develope imunity to ddt when you are never
exposed to it" Except that the rise of DDT-resistance mosquitoes in
areas where it was used for agriculture is a widely observed and
documented phenomenon. Gee, joshua, it almost looks like you don't
know what the hell you're talking about.
actaully no it isn't, most of those studies (which are few in
number really parrot the fall in quality of ddt being produced in
communist countries in the 60's and 70's
there are no cases of DDT resistance in Africa...you are thinking
of indonesia...unless you consider not landing on walls
resistance.
and why again didn't all those misquitos in latin america ever
become resistant before milaria was wiped out??? or in the northern
meditaranian or the phillipeans...why is africa so special joe?
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