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Earth Day Open Thread
Tomorrow is Earth Day, the
Festivus of the
environmental movement.
What do you think about it?
Go here for a list of reason's previous articles and comments on ED.
If you must read one reason Earth Day story, in Gaia's name, make it Ron Bailey's tremendous May 2000 cover story, "Earth Day, Then and Now: The planet's future has never looked better. Here's why." A snippet:
[Like the original sponsors of Earth Day,] many contemporary environmental alarmists are similarly mistaken when they continue to insist that the Earth's future remains an eco-tragedy that has already entered its final act. Such doomsters not only fail to appreciate the huge environmental gains made over the past 30 years, they ignore the simple fact that increased wealth, population, and technological innovation don't degrade and destroy the environment. Rather, such developments preserve and enrich the environment. If it is impossible to predict fully the future, it is nonetheless possible to learn from the past. And the best lesson we can learn from revisiting the discourse surrounding the very first Earth Day is that passionate concern, however sincere, is no substitute for rational analysis.
|4.21.07 @ 4:57PM|#
It was going to come and go without me noticing, but now that you've mentioned it, I'm going to spend the entire day littering.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.21.07 @ 4:59PM|#
To celebrate Earth Day TWC will fire up his politically
incorrect
500
inch Chrysler Vee-Eight. It sucks gas like a long freight train
pulling the Grapevine.
|4.21.07 @ 5:02PM|#
I will spend it in a dank basement in front of a computer. Fuck you, grad school.
|4.21.07 @ 5:13PM|#
Bailey writes: "Such doomsters not only fail to appreciate the
huge environmental gains made over the past 30 years, they ignore
the simple fact that increased wealth, population, and
technological innovation don't degrade and destroy the environment.
Rather, such developments preserve and enrich the environment.
"
Okay, that's just a remarkably stupid thing to say. Hey! Bailey!
Look at China! How're those rivers doing? And the air
quality?
These things *may* preserve and enrich the environment *if* the
society (and, hey, markets!) desires it to be so, and *if*
entrenched interests aren't able to rig the system to ignore or
dismiss popular demand for improved conditions.
If society and markets decide that they don't really care if the
world turns into a smoggy, smokey, shithole, then that's what will
happen. And probably very quickly.
And just because things are going pretty well today doesn't mean
the environment couldn't take a turn for the worse.
Sheesh.
|4.21.07 @ 5:18PM|#
This kind of describes my feelings about the holiday;
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/06.04.19.FarceNature-X.gif
|4.21.07 @ 5:52PM|#
Okay, that's just a remarkably stupid thing to say. Hey!
Bailey! Look at China! How're those rivers doing? And the air
quality?
Worth noting that the environment was given equally short-shrift
when the real commies were running the place. I remember an
anecdote by an economics prof that there was a river in the Soviet
Union that was so polluted with oil runoff, that one day it
spontaneously exploded.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.21.07 @ 5:59PM|#
Okay, that's just a remarkably stupid thing to
say.
Sorry man, I was alive back in the bad old days when you couldn't
even see the Hollywood sign in LA through the smog.
|4.21.07 @ 6:12PM|#
Worth noting that the environment was given equally
short-shrift when the real commies were running the place. I
remember an anecdote by an economics prof that there was a river in
the Soviet Union that was so polluted with oil runoff, that one day
it spontaneously exploded.
Same thing happened to the Cleveland River.
|4.21.07 @ 6:35PM|#
there was a river in the Soviet Union that was so polluted
with oil runoff, that one day it spontaneously exploded.
More likely, like the Cuyahoga River it was ignited by a spark or a
flame like a cutting torch.
Spontaneous combustion is rare, though I suppose it might happen if
the right chemicals were mixed.
|4.21.07 @ 6:37PM|#
Speaking of mistakes and lakes, you don't need to look any further than Lake Erie to see the environmental improvement of the last 40 years. It, like, supports life now and stuff.
Grotius|4.21.07 @ 6:43PM|#
Warty,
Compare its fate to that of the Aral Sea.
Anyway, in the West the issue is how important government
regulation has been re: environmental improvement as opposed to
markets. I have no idea how one would make such assessment.
|4.21.07 @ 6:47PM|#
Of course, improvements like to air quality in LA (and to Lake Erie, I assume) are not the result of "increased wealth, population, and technological innovation", at least not directly - they wouldn't have happened without environmental regulation.
Grotius|4.21.07 @ 6:50PM|#
jayro,
I thought that air quality had gotten a lot better in a lot of
Western cities prior to air quality regulations?
|4.21.07 @ 7:02PM|#
Grotius -
I guess I hadn't heard that for cities in the west. The first CA
pollution controls kicked in really early (50's and 60's), so it
would be hard to separate things out in that case.
But unless auto manufacturers would have voluntarily reduced VOC
and NOx emissions from their cars - and it's be pretty ludicrous to
assume they would - there's no way LA air quality would have
improved as much as it has the past several decades.
|4.21.07 @ 7:04PM|#
Stop & Shop had a sale on GE compact flourescent light bulbs, so I bought a bunch of them in order to smug it up in front of my coworkers next week.
|4.21.07 @ 7:08PM|#
One of the biggest boons to environmental quality via government regulation in the US has been OSHA. They've helped to drive lots of US manufacturers to the third world.
|4.21.07 @ 7:19PM|#
I'm going to celebrate Earth Day by taping all the episodes of
"Planet Earth" on the Discovery Channel (except the two I already
have), which is having a marathon. I'll probably watch some of them
too.
If you haven't seen the series, I urge you to watch it.
|4.21.07 @ 7:20PM|#
Uh, we may have to ask Ron for an update that takes into account his current views on anthropogenic global warming.
|4.21.07 @ 7:54PM|#
These things *may* preserve and enrich the environment *if*
the society (and, hey, markets!) desires it to be so, and *if*
entrenched interests aren't able to rig the system to ignore or
dismiss popular demand for improved conditions.
The abundance and convience that markets create allow people more
free time to learn about the environment, and more resources to
actually devote to it. As opposed to deciding which of their young
to eat before they die of malaria.
The places with the best environmental integrity are the places
that a) have freer and more industrialized economies, or b) human
beings don't live in yet.
And just because things are going pretty well today doesn't
mean the environment couldn't take a turn for the worse.
And just because all life on earth hasn't been wiped out by a
massive asteroid impact lately doesn't mean it couldn't happen
tomorrow.
|4.21.07 @ 7:58PM|#
I'm going to spend Earth Day planting geraniums, weeding the flower beds, and scouting for a place to put a Meyer lemon tree. Am I virtuous or what?
|4.21.07 @ 8:18PM|#
Hugh writes: "The abundance and convience that markets create
allow people more free time to learn about the environment, and
more resources to actually devote to it."
What they learn about the environment is not necessarily anything
that will lead to environmental conservation. Maybe they're
listening to James Inhofe, or some fundie who believes God made the
world for us to wreck.
"And just because all life on earth hasn't been wiped out by a
massive asteroid impact lately doesn't mean it couldn't happen
tomorrow."
My point was that, just because we're richer and more populous and
more technologically advanced than we were 40 years ago doesn't
mean we can throw out everything we've been doing to improve the
environment and go all laissez-faire and not expect there to be any
repercussions.
If we go back to shitting our nest as badly as we used to, things
*will* backslide, and start getting worse. If you tell people they
can dump garbage and waste in rivers at will, they will do so,
because that would generally be the cheapest disposal method. Why
bother paying to ship your city's trash to a landfill when there's
a river right in the middle of town. Why bother putting your
industrial byproducts in sealed 50 gallon drums for proper disposal
when you can dump it in the river.
Bailey's column is talking like 'Gaia' and the Invisible Hand will
keep the environment nice, no matter what we do from now on. Just
because. Like magic.
|4.21.07 @ 8:38PM|#
I think it goes without saying, but I'm not Jon H.
I'm a Jon H, but not that Jon H.
|4.21.07 @ 8:52PM|#
Jon H,
Grocery shopping at Ralph's is cheaper than buying organic,
fair-trade, locally produced goat food at Whole Foods, but some
people still prefer the latter. For that matter, eating at
McDonalds is cheaper than eating at some snooty tapas place, even
though they both acheive the same result.
Price is not the ultimate determinant. People might pay to ship the
garbage elsewhere because they enjoy a clean river. Sorry to
report, but not everyone in the world except you is a brainwashed
right-wing zombie.
|4.21.07 @ 9:21PM|#
I've got some places in China I'd like to take Ron Bailey
to.
Ditto for the US. Anyone remember a little place called Love
Canal?
|4.21.07 @ 9:28PM|#
I'm impressed by the restraint when the Cuyahoga was brought
up.
Needless to say, it's about 5000% better than it was when it caught
fire.
hke|4.21.07 @ 9:38PM|#
I will be cutting down four months worth of growth in my neighbour's back yard. He's been away on business for quite a while and some of the weeds there are higher than his house. You have to love living in the rainforest.
|4.21.07 @ 10:12PM|#
Ditto for the US. Anyone remember a little place called Love
Canal?
Bailey's already done that beat:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/34786.html.
Suffice to say, the Love Canal was not the horror story the media
made it out to be.
|4.21.07 @ 10:40PM|#
I'm going to spend earth day laughing at all the tools who suck
up massive amount of natural resources, gather in parks, and create
litter by the ton. I will laugh even more when, with a complete
lack of irony or self awareness, they lecture everybody else about
conserving natural resources.
Chances are in another five years I will be horrendously pi**ed of
at self same bunch of tools as I clean up after or have to live
with the unintended, environmentally damaging consequences of their
pet policies and initiatives.
|4.22.07 @ 12:48AM|#
people, I've seen what happens when a bunch of kiddies grow up
in what is the equivalent of a toxic waste dump. My own family. All
five kids on my mother's side of the family of her generation. All
five of them with weird chronic illinesses and short lifespans,
while earlier family history has people regularly living into their
80s. All dead.
Ron Bailey can go piss up a rope. Considering his airy discounting
of what's going on in China right now, I'm not going to place much
credence in any analysis he's doing of Love Canal.
Guy Montag|4.22.07 @ 1:21AM|#
Yea, happy Lenin's birthday to you too, with this yet another attempt to destroy the "Industrial Revolution" a few cycles behind the curve.
Guy Montag|4.22.07 @ 1:35AM|#
Unfortunatly, the hybrid 1972 Charger (see last comment) has been moved to TN for the next year or so and I can not drive a few tanks of hydrogen through it for the environment. However, the hydrogen powered Jeep is available, so I will make due with that ;)
Russell|4.22.07 @ 1:39AM|#
Bailey notwithstanding, things are looking considerably grimmer
for Caia these days .Why ?
Well ,for one thing ,a lot of thoughtless folk like Gore have been
mindlessly planting trees:
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/04/offset_upset.html
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 1:53AM|#
Karen, Geraniums? I'll send you all mine. And go with Eureka Lemons.......
|4.22.07 @ 2:06AM|#
You guys remember Dinesh D'Souza? Well, today he came out
against babies going to heaven.
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/20/good-heavens-no-more-limbo/
Kunal|4.22.07 @ 3:24AM|#
Much as I hate to defend D'Souza, he isn't quite "against babies
going to heaven."
From the article you quoted:
"And so from now on Catholicism will teach that unbaptized
infants--born and unborn--go straight to heaven. I like this
idea better, although I'm going to have to throw out my old
cathechism book."
|4.22.07 @ 3:33AM|#
I know, but close enough. It makes sense in his world that God
makes babies, has them die and then suffer for a while for the way
he made them. Being "against babies going to heaven" sounds
funnier.
Speaking of D'Souza, I saw his book Letters to a Young
Conservative on a library shelf and picked it up expecting to
see the rantings of a lunatic. Instead I found a well reason book
with most of the classic defenses of conservatism. Some vague
refrences to moral order and token opposition to gay marriage and
abortion but nothing too theocratic.
Was The Enemy at Home as crazy as its reviewers made it
out to be? Anybody here actually read it?
|4.22.07 @ 5:33AM|#
I'm going to drive my '05 Mustang GT (with 300hp V8) all over
the place, consume wildly (I have some Bose noise cancelling
headphones, an iPod shuffle, new laptop battery and maybe an HDTV
on my list), laugh at ideologues and eat a whole mess of
animals.
In other words, I will be doing nothing different for Earth
day.
Max|4.22.07 @ 7:12AM|#
You can't compare free market and governmental environmentalism,
because, well, there is no blue-print for the market-side.
For example, if judges and courts worked like they should do, then
private citizens would sue the industries polluting air and rivers
for physical damage and long-term injuries.
However, we don't have such a system, so it is not right to say
that free-market wouldn't have solved the problem.
|4.22.07 @ 7:14AM|#
I'm gonna flex my muscles in the mirror, then go out and beat up a homeless person, and then... go burn fossil fuels all day long. Because I'm against whatever anyone else is for.
|4.22.07 @ 7:16AM|#
it is not right to say that free-market wouldn't have solved
the problem.
But it's naive to think that it would have.
|4.22.07 @ 8:30AM|#
I'll probably do what I normally do on Sundays. Get my read on
and take a nap.
Seriously, on the continuum from, at one extreme, libertarian
policies that would definitely work and should be instituted
immediately (such as school vouchers) to, at the other extreme,
those that could work in theory, in a differently evolved society
(such as having private businesses create and administer all laws),
leaving it up to the market to put a brake on "hard" negative
externalities (dumping poo in rivers etc.) seems IMHO to be closer
to the latter than the former end of the continuum. I wouldn't say
it can't work, but it seems to require a good many other
changes before it could become viable.
|4.22.07 @ 8:49AM|#
"Ron Bailey can go piss up a rope. Considering his airy
discounting of what's going on in China right now, I'm not going to
place much credence in any analysis he's doing of Love
Canal."
The environment was in worse shape during Mao's time. Since China
has gone fascist, allowing markets to exist as long as they serve
national interests, the environment has certainly not worsened. It
hasn't gotten a lot better, but in time, if following the patterns
of other market oriented countries, it might get better; but that
depends on the degree to which the pols in power determine a
cleaner environment will serve state and their own interests.
|4.22.07 @ 8:51AM|#
I'm going surfing. I cannot guarantee that I won't piss in the
Atlantic Ocean today. For the good of the dolphins and Al Gore's
children, I will try my best.
Hope that sticky-bumps is biodegradable.....
|4.22.07 @ 9:08AM|#
TWC, my husband bought the geraniums, and at least got'em in an
amazing dark red color. I'm forgiving him since he also bought a
purple bougainvilla. Our front yard is on a hill and faces west, so
pretty much anything we plant has to be able to survive
blast-furnace heat. Besides the potted geraniums, french lavender
has been the most successful out there. At least their plants are
courageous.
As for the lemon tree, it's a new Texas A & M variety developed
specifically for our horrible climate. (Not too many places on
Earth require plants to withstand both freezes and 105+ summer
heat.) And it smells good. I'll keep an eye out for the Eureka
variety, too. If I get a couple lemons a year I'll be happy. Mainly
I want the flowers.
Oh, and I got up early this morning and made whole wheat banana-nut
bread. I'm not sure that really counts as Earth-friendly, but it
smells good.
|4.22.07 @ 9:25AM|#
Totally off-topic, but this is pretty cool. I suppose since it ties into another recently invented holiday (Talk Like a Pirate Day) I can kinda sorta claim relevance.
|4.22.07 @ 9:47AM|#
increased wealth, population, and technological innovation
don't degrade and destroy the environment.
I would say they don't necessarily destroy the environment, but are
a necessary but not sufficient condition for environmental
preservation.
Quick, name one country in the last 30 years which has improved its
environment. The only ones I can think of are First World nations
(and possibly Iraq, what with the marshes being restored and
all).
The richer you are, the more you can afford luxury goods like a
clean environment. The more technology you have, the more you can
do to reduce your eco-impact.
The only other route to a better environment is radical
depopulation.
libertreee|4.22.07 @ 10:14AM|#
I will be working. Weekends on for me.
But, I am appearing on a public access tv show debating global
warming with two environmentalists tonight.
I guess that qualifies as my contribution to Earth Day.
|4.22.07 @ 10:18AM|#
"Such doomsters not only fail to appreciate the huge
environmental gains made over the past 30 years, they ignore the
simple fact that increased wealth, population, and technological
innovation don't degrade and destroy the environment. Rather, such
developments preserve and enrich the environment. If it is
impossible to predict fully the future, it is nonetheless possible
to learn from the past. And the best lesson we can learn from
revisiting the discourse surrounding the very first Earth Day is
that passionate concern, however sincere, is no substitute for
rational analysis."
And of course, Bailey's own resistance to global warming (along
with many other hardcore Libertarians) came (and comes judging from
past threads here) not from any passionate concern (like ideology
anyone?) but from rational concern only...Uh-huh...
Secondly, Bailey nots how much progress has been made "in the past
30 years." I would submit a HEAP of that progress can be attributed
to some basic governmental regulation and oversight, prompted by
some of that passionate concern. I mean, entire harbors and rivers
were completely ruined back in laissez faire days, and many have
been slowly and painstakingly reclaimed and/or protected. This was
NOT due to magical mystical markets and the self interested action
of businesses for pete's sake.
This is not to undercut what I hope is Bailey's major point, that
prosperity can be good for the environment at some level (if only
because it creates the kind of populace and culture that then wants
to safeguard things).
LarryA|4.22.07 @ 10:20AM|#
Hey! Bailey! Look at China! How're those rivers doing? And
the air quality?
These things *may* preserve and enrich the environment *if* the
society (and, hey, markets!) desires it to be so, and *if*
entrenched interests aren't able to rig the system to ignore or
dismiss popular demand for improved conditions.
If society and markets decide that they don't really care if the
world turns into a smoggy, smokey, shithole, then that's what will
happen. And probably very quickly.
Society and markets can only improve the environment if they have
an impact on the ecology. In a country like China, where the
government controls everything including society and the market,
social and market forces are paralyzed.
In the U.S. there were government regulations that made a
difference in the environment. But those regulations were the
result of environmentally sensitive citizens petitioning Congress
and voting for environmental representatives. Imagine the fate of a
Chinese peasant who writes the government and bitches about a river
exploding.
Wealthy and technologically advanced countries make environmental
progress because their society effectively demands their government
provide it.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 10:31AM|#
Given that the Three Gorge Dam is being built by the Chinese
government...
Most (all?) of the dam and water projects that environmentalists
complain about (and rightly so in many cases) in the U.S. were also
the result of government efforts.
Mark Lerner|4.22.07 @ 10:32AM|#
Looks like Google has decided to inject their liberal politics
onto their sign-in screen. This really makes me mad. Take a
look.
http://marklerner.blogspot.com/2007/04/google-takes-stand-on-global-warming.html
miss kelly|4.22.07 @ 10:38AM|#
I think of Earth Day as a Holy Day of Obligation for
Neo-Pagans.
Yes, Love Canal was hugely overblown. Back in the mid-80's, CH2M
Hill conducted the Love Canal Habitability Study (EPA funded) to
once and for all characterize the environmental quality of the Love
Canal neighborhood. Previous studies had lots of QA problems and
limited data sets. One vexing problem that the came up during the
Habitability Study was that one of the control areas (to compare
the Love Canal data to) was as "contaminated" with low levels of
VOCs as the Love Canal area. But that couldn't be made public
because it might have forced the EPA to do lots more home
buy-outs.
Guy Montag|4.22.07 @ 11:59AM|#
You know, it is neither an accident, nor should it be a secret,
that 'earth day' happens to be the
birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin). Well, it does seem
to be a 'secret' because the MSM, as well as the rest of the
Leftist press, choose to keep it that way.
In other 'news', speaking of the MSM, it appears that that Cho
fellow purchased two 10 round magazines on eBay and the MSM is
having a fit wanting to bring back to the Brady Bill. Just like
with 'earth day' the MSM is fairbanksing. The Brady Bill is what
gave us 10 round magazines to begin with.
|4.22.07 @ 1:16PM|#
I'm going to take my neighborhood electric vehicle for a spin. The line to kiss my ass starts to the left. But then again, I'm going to drive my SUV to Ikea later, so I guess I'll let you all off with a couple of air-kisses, only one cheek.
|4.22.07 @ 1:18PM|#
Guy,
So the fact that the media doesn't publicize the fact that Earth
Day is Lenin's birthday is proof that Earth Day is a celebration of
Lenin's birthday. If it was a celebration of Lenin's birthday,
wouldn't they celebrate it?
I can't wait to hear your theory of how stoners are really closet
Nazi's for their annual celebration of Hitler's Birthday.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 1:23PM|#
I mean, entire harbors and rivers were completely ruined
back in laissez faire days...
Yes, and who, exactly, was it that was dumping the raw sewage into
the waterways? Why, it was the government. And who, exactly, failed
to provide for or enforce property rights, the net result of which
was to allow gross polluters to savage the environment? Right
again. And who built the dams, the diversion projects, and the
water system in California that turned the Central & Imperial
Valleys into fertile farm country? Right again, that very
government that is now afforded a great deal of the credit for
solving the very problems it is responsible for creating in the
first place.
|4.22.07 @ 1:29PM|#
"Ron Bailey's tremendous May 2000 cover story"
Because nothing has changed in Ron's views in the last 7
years?
This is the "must read" article on environmentalism in
Reason?
Really?
Guy Montag|4.22.07 @ 1:33PM|#
So the fact that the media doesn't publicize the fact that
Earth Day is Lenin's birthday is proof that Earth Day is a
celebration of Lenin's birthday. If it was a celebration of Lenin's
birthday, wouldn't they celebrate it?
No, that is not what I said at all and I doubt directing you to
read the articl I linked to will result in any better comprehension
on your part.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 1:45PM|#
Mark, The Google folks, like many in the environmentalist crowd,
are more than happy to avail themselves of the very technology that
they decry as earth unfriendly. From electricity to automobiles,
dedication to principle extends no further than personal comfort
dictates.
Most live in cities and suburbs where every last remnant of native
species has been safely bulldozed and paved over while whining that
my neighbors might disturb the mating habits of the local fly
population by building a home.
And yes, I appreciate that we live in a complex modern culture that
makes it difficult to get back to nature. However, I don't
particularly want to live in the Stone Age and lots of those guys
seem to want company as they cruise back to Bedrock.
That isn't to say there aren't problems, my pet bitch is that in
Californicate the government continues to yank
every trace of anything green in every riparian environment it can
find so as to pave it with concrete. Again, that goes to just
exactly who is the major environmental rapist.
|4.22.07 @ 1:54PM|#
.. I'm going to take a ride on my dirtbike thru the National
Forest before the enviro-nazis close the rest of the roads in
them..
.. Hobbit
|4.22.07 @ 1:54PM|#
"Wealthy and technologically advanced countries make
environmental progress because their society effectively demands
their government provide it."
Thanks, Larry, for putting it better than I could have.
Who knows, we may see something similar to Tienamen Square in the
future, but with citizens demanding better accountability with
regard to air and water quality.
|4.22.07 @ 2:06PM|#
The Google folks, like many in the environmentalist crowd,
are more than happy to avail themselves of the very technology that
they decry as earth unfriendly
Watching the Lord of the Rings, I was really struck by the
irony of a story that was (at least tangentially) anti-technology
made with so much CGI the pixels were dripping off the screen.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 2:33PM|#
Baked, agreed.
Hobbit, we get a lot of dirt bikes around here, in fact, Riverside
County is dirt bike heaven as well as home to all the big names in
pro riding.
I always wonder if those guys are also pretty much blind, they
can't seem to divine the meaning in No Trespassing.
Talk about trashing the environment, boy howdy, don't even get me
started.
|4.22.07 @ 2:36PM|#
Re: JRRT and anti-technology.
I never got an anti-technology vibe from the LOR. There is a lot of
"respect for nature," but all the fetishism with elven technology
doesn't seem to be anti-technology. The elves, being immortal, did
seem to have figured out sustainable technologies and
economies.
ed|4.22.07 @ 2:47PM|#
Crap. Just when I was beginning to think Earth Day was as dead as Dracula with a wooden stake through its heart and, for good measure (if not to mix cinematic metaphors) a silver bullet through its brain, along comes this global warming thing to preoccupy busybodies and Chicken Littles alike and ruin my Sunday. I do believe the Neanderthals themselves had an "earth day." It was celebrated by hunting meat and trying to survive another day. Happy happy to those cavemen amongst us. I'm eating roast ostrich and gulping single malt to mark the holiday.
|4.22.07 @ 3:12PM|#
I celebrated Earth Day by driving around downtown looking for
the rumored Earth Day celebration, then giving up and getting a BK
Veggie meal at the drive-through.
Think globally, act locally.
|4.22.07 @ 3:15PM|#
I don't care much for the rah rah rah, but if Earthday makes people more aware of their impact (aware, not alarmed), then I'm not sure why all the disgust. As to the whole Lenin's birthday thing, Hitler's birthday was 4/20 but you don't see anybody advocating we make pot illegal. That argument didn't work out as well as I would have liked.....
|4.22.07 @ 3:15PM|#
Guy Montag,
Re: limbo, it was never an official teaching of the Magisterium
(ie, the Pope and the other bishops), so the headline "Vatican
Reverses Teaching on Limbo" is quite misleading. It was an idea
cooked up by medieval theologians to reconcile the fact that
Baptism is the primary avenue for salvation, and the apparent
injustice of sending babies to hell just because their parents
didn't baptize them in time.
The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church also gave limbo the cold
shoulder, stating that those who die as unbaptized chidren will be
judged by a standard known to God alone. Of course, JP2 went out of
his way to suggest that mothers who repent of having abortions may
meet their aborted children in heaven, lending credence to the "all
babies go to heaven" meme. A mistake, from my POV, because it kind
of undercuts the idea of original sin, but this isn't the place to
discuss that, I guess.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 3:17PM|#
Since Adam and Eve didn't exist, where does "original sin" come from again?
|4.22.07 @ 3:23PM|#
I've been saving my flouocarbons for just such an occasion. I
have stashed away cases of 1.1.1 triclorofloroethane. Maybe this is
a good time to give my keyboard an effective, old fashioned
cleaning.
Seriously, the 1st world is cleaning up and taking all of the blame
for 2nd and 3rd world irresponsibilities.
The point is that without a prosperous economy (e.g. food on the
table, shelter and medical care), the average person won't give a
damn about the belly up fish in the local waters. Without an
education, they won't even make the connection between pollution
and quality of life. Prosperity and education are made possible by
the wealth creared by the private sector.
I agree that environmental regulations are necessary to avoid the
"race to the bottom". I am equally convinced that a significant
part of th "Green Movement" has abandoned rationality for a
religious like worship of a past that never existed. I think an
intelligent, unbiased person would agree with the two previous
sentences.
BTW 1.1.1 triclorofloroetane really was a marveelously effective
contact cleaner.
|4.22.07 @ 3:29PM|#
Fuck Earth.
Even if you subtract all pollution and other human effects on the
planet, you're at the mercy of chaotic weather and plate tectonics.
A fraction of the land is habitable, let alone comfortable. The
majority of the biosphere is toxic with poisons, viruses, venoms,
caustics, corrosives, and plain old irritants. If you crack the
crust, even just a little, you get magma floes, suffocating plumes,
lethal clouds of ash, and radioactive dust. The atmosphere, on its
best day, just barely shields us from the gigawatts of power
constantly pouring from the Sun, and would offer no protection from
Gamma bursts or even high-end solar activity. On top of that, the
core is a big rapidly-spinning mass of liquid metal accumulating
and releasing magnetic charge.
Let's terraform Mars and get it right. Even better, let's get that
Dyson Sphere started.
|4.22.07 @ 3:33PM|#
I will also continue to use less than 20% of the energy that Mister Global Warming Al Gore does. I'm going to quite sanctimonious about that.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 3:42PM|#
crimethink,
So where in the evolutionary chain of events did Adam and Eve exist
exactly?
|4.22.07 @ 4:03PM|#
"I agree that environmental regulations are necessary to avoid
the "race to the bottom". I am equally convinced that a significant
part of th "Green Movement" has abandoned rationality for a
religious like worship of a past that never existed. I think an
intelligent, unbiased person would agree with the two previous
sentences.:"
Intelligent, unbiased persons being defined, it seems, as agreeing
with J sub D ;^)
I might quibble with "a significant part."
Their numbers are small like most fringe groups. ELF, ALF, Earth
First et al, are not even as big as the fringe group commonly
referred to as libertarians. I certainly hear a lot of lamenting
around here about how libertarians are not significant enough in
the policy debate.
|4.22.07 @ 4:12PM|#
A read about what "intelligent, unbiased persons" agree
on.
"There are a lot of things that "everybody knows." Everybody knows
that Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, that 2+2=4, that
most people have two eyes-and a lot of other things. If I were to
go on, it would get tedious very fast, because, after all, these
are things that everybody knows.
But there are also a lot of other things that "everybody knows,"
except that not everybody agrees that everybody knows them. For
example, everybody knows not only that there has been significant
global warming recently, but also that human beings caused this by
burning fossil fuels. We know that evolution is as solidly proven
as most of the rest of science, and that intelligent design isn't
science at all; that Iraq never had any weapons of mass destruction
(after they destroyed them); and that the U.S. government had
nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Except that, for each of these things "we all know," significant
minorities insist that they're false.
Those dissenters, however, don't matter much when it comes to most
journalism, reference, and education. Society forges ahead,
reporting and teaching things without usually mentioning the
dissenters, or only in a disparaging light. As a result, certain
claims that some of us don't accept end up being background
knowledge, as I'll call it. If you question such background
knowledge, or even express some doubt about it, you'll look stupid,
crazy, or immoral. Maybe all three."
http://edge.org/3rd_culture/sanger07/sanger07_index.html
biologist|4.22.07 @ 4:13PM|#
J sub D:
are you sure you're not thinking of 1,1,1-trichloroethane?
either that, or you're missing a number from the name. it could be
1,1,1-trichloro-2-fluoroethane.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:16PM|#
crimethink,
I don't see Genesis saying anything about that.
_____________________________________
The oddest thing is a God which waits billions and billions of
years (over 13 billion I guess) for humans to develop on this
planet and then creates Adam and Eve? Of course I guess this
so-called God doesn't experience time, etc. though somehow this God
can interject itself into the physical world.
|4.22.07 @ 4:29PM|#
Grotius,
The purpose of the book of Genesis, like the rest of the Bible, is
to explain Judaism & Christianity, not to function as a biology
or cosmology text. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that went on in
the first 10 billion years or so of the universe's existence that
didn't make it in.
|4.22.07 @ 4:32PM|#
Grotius,
"The oddest thing is a God which waits billions and billions of
years (over 13 billion I guess) for humans to develop on this
planet and then creates Adam and Eve?"
That's just weak argument (I expect better from you).
You need to refute the idea that God started the process wherey
Adam and Eve came about. It took (by your estimate) over 13b years
to come to fruition, but that is orthogonal.
|4.22.07 @ 4:33PM|#
Another good article on beliefs and their intersection with
policy...
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=E7327616-E7F2-99DF-38F214BFD77FE010
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:36PM|#
crimethink,
The purpose of the book of Genesis, like the rest of the Bible,
is to explain Judaism & Christianity, not to function as a
biology or cosmology text.
I'd say the purpose of the text is whatever the writers and editors
of the text thought that it was. I seriously doubt that any of them
that they were explaining Christianity. I suspect they thought they
were in part explaining the genesis of man, the Earth, etc. like
the authors of other "genesis accounts" in other "holy
texts."
When you read the Bible (or the Gilgamesh epic or Aristotle's
Politics) you read it in the context of the time that it
was written in and only in the context of its time.
|4.22.07 @ 4:39PM|#
I will spend the day pissing on pics of Rachel Carson, while masturbating to the thought of dying ecosystems and radical planetary upheavals.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:41PM|#
Neu Mejican,
You need to refute the idea that God started the process wherey
Adam and Eve came about.
Well that right there brings up the Epicurean problem of evil.
|4.22.07 @ 4:42PM|#
Grotius,
Genesis goes all the way up to the Jews (at that time called
Hebrews) moving to Egypt ca. 1200BC, so it would seem to be written
with Judaism in mind. In particular, in the two creation narratives
there are a lot of moral "lessons". I don't know how one could read
the story of the Fall of Adam without thinking that the author
intended to communicate some religious/moral ideas.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:46PM|#
Neu Mejican,
Anyway, it isn't a "weak argument" from the viewpoint of the sort
of claims made by revealed religion about miracles, etc. Indeed, it
directly addresses a particular concept of God.
You have presented a different concept of God, a God which
apparently doesn't directly intervene in the world, but one which
either by its conscience will or by its very essence or being set
off a process which ended with us as we exist today. The latter
notion is something like what Spinoza thought.
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:50PM|#
crimethink,
Genesis goes all the way up to the Jews (at that time called
Hebrews) moving to Egypt ca. 1200BC, so it would seem to be written
with Judaism in mind.
Sure, it was written long after those events though.
I don't know how one could read the story of the Fall of Adam
without thinking that the author intended to communicate some
religious/moral ideas.
No one contested that, did they?
Grotius|4.22.07 @ 4:56PM|#
Of course I ain't the first person to state that Moses didn't write the pentateuch; that's been around in I guess rabbinical scholarship since at least the 12th or 13th century.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 5:01PM|#
...getting a BK Veggie meal at the
drive-through...
I'm roasting a pork roast over mesquite. Not for Earth Day though,
just because it's Sunday and we're going to have a nice dinner
together.
|4.22.07 @ 5:24PM|#
I read the article before I posted my comment Guy and remain unconvinced. It sounds like a paranoid rant, is chock full of innuendo and lacks any evidence beyond "college professors are Marxists". People don't want to move the day, BFD.
|4.22.07 @ 5:28PM|#
Speaking of France:
Centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy will meet Socialist Segolene Royal in the run-off of France's presidential election on 6 May, according to initial results.
Mr Sarkozy, a former interior minister, came first with 30%, ahead of Ms Royal, who is bidding to be France's first woman president, on about 25%.
Hmm...popular tough-on-crime maverick vs. third-way socialist and
first serious female candidate. Sound familiar?
|4.22.07 @ 5:34PM|#
While I agree with the general sentiment that richer societies
and economic growth can contribute to improvements in the
environment, I think many of the claims people make concerning this
are heavily exaggerated. The reason that American rivers are no
longer catching on fire is in part because of improvements in
technology, but even more so because we have simply exported most
of our dirtiest industries to China.
China, of course, will adopt the cleaner practices as their wealth
rises...but how many more times can the rest of the mess be passed
on to someone else?
There are a number of environmental issues that need to be
addressed far more strongly than we currently are (global warming,
persistent pollutants, habitat destruction among others). Like it
or not, environmental issues are a classic case of the tragedy of
the commons, and in many cases is best handled by government at
some level.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 5:35PM|#
Karen, on second thought, don't know if Eureka lemons will take much cold. Your Agggie modified Meyer is probably a good fit for your climate (duh, you just said that).
dhex|4.22.07 @ 7:03PM|#
"You know, it is neither an accident, nor should it be a secret,
that 'earth day' happens to be the birthday of Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov (Lenin). Well, it does seem to be a 'secret' because the
MSM, as well as the rest of the Leftist press, choose to keep it
that way."
holy fifth column, batman!
|4.22.07 @ 7:39PM|#
On top of that, the core is a big rapidly-spinning mass of
liquid metal accumulating and releasing magnetic charge.
And, if I am to believe a recent tv show I saw, it is starting to
slow down, which will lead to us being fried and losing a good
portion of the atmosphere. The show tried to be fair and balanced
by presenting what positives could result from a weakened magnetic
field, but the best they could come up with was that northern
lights will be visible at lower latitudes. Weak.
|4.22.07 @ 8:01PM|#
Dead Elvis: How long before environmentalists find a way to blame the slowing of the Earth's core on SUVs?
|4.22.07 @ 8:05PM|#
TWC, we don't got a whole lot of cold weather, but we do get at
least one nasty freeze each year. (Last year, we got only one
freeze, and it was April 7. Killed the already-dismal peach crop.)
This year, we had quite a bit of cold weather. I've never seen a
Eureka lemon in any of our garden stores, and that probably
explains why.
In other Earth-related news, we have two nesting pair of purple
martins, a house wren on the back porch, and the four strawberry
plants are just covered in fruit.
|4.22.07 @ 8:19PM|#
And, if I am to believe a recent tv show I saw, it is
starting to slow down, which will lead to us being fried and losing
a good portion of the atmosphere.
The earth's magnetic field has completely reversed itself many,
many times during the past few billion years, including about
600,000 years ago when hominids were around. If losing the magnetic
field led to the earth losing its atmosphere/being fried, we
wouldn't be here to worry about it.
And TBH we wouldn't be able to tell if the earth's core slowed down
anyway. Indeed, we're not even sure what the core is made of, or
whether it's spinning at all; the dynamo theory, while the most
plausible explanation, has never been proven.
|4.22.07 @ 8:22PM|#
If dead_elvis's comments about the Earth's magnetic field are
exemplary of the level of science knowledge held by the
commentators here, then I would say it's no wonder you can
disbelieve in GW: 1) The Earth's magnetic field has flipped many
many times in the past and we see no correlation with any large
extinctions of life. 2) What keeps the Earth's atmosphere around
isn't the magnetic field; it's this little thing called GRAVITY
that you may have heard of.
Please, people, don't watch The Core and think it's a
documentary.
|4.22.07 @ 10:17PM|#
Someone above mentioned Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, and anti-technology. I don't know if Tolkien was anti-technology, but from what I've read, he did have an anti-industrial streak. The main example I've heard given is the "Scouring of the Shire" chapter from The Return of the King, where Wormtongue and Saruman (bad guys) have come to the Shire with men and established smoke-belching factories. They are driven out by the Hobbits (good guys who lead romanticized agrarian lives).
|4.22.07 @ 10:17PM|#
"Yes, and who, exactly, was it that was dumping the raw sewage
into the waterways? Why, it was the government. And who, exactly,
failed to provide for or enforce property rights, the net result of
which was to allow gross polluters to savage the environment? Right
again. And who built the dams, the diversion projects, and the
water system in California that turned the Central & Imperial
Valleys into fertile farm country? Right again, that very
government that is now afforded a great deal of the credit for
solving the very problems it is responsible for creating in the
first place."
Uhh, yeah. And no businesses, now or then, ever dumped their crud
into any river or into the air? None? And none were detered by the
government regs? I'd like to have whatever wine you are drinking WC
(absinthe?)...Anybody else like to sell that crazy here, that in
the absence of government regulation there would be LESS pollution?
I mean, sure, Tenacious D sang that the government is "f&*(ing
up the environment", but they meant this in jest brotha!
I'd like to know why in the world libertarians are so down on
environmentalism? What difference does it have from tort and
contract law, both of which are government programs (the courts and
cops enforce them) which makes markets and society livable and
viable? There are very few environmental principles that do not
correspond to tort ones (you can't run over my foot, nor may you
dump filth into the air I breathe and the river I fish in).
I think I already know the answer: the corporations who fund the
shills that "define" libertarians for most folks don't let their
shills talk about that...
naturegirl|4.22.07 @ 10:25PM|#
Sorry, I'm not a Bailey fan, but I am a fan of Earth Day, although a 24-hour period is hardly enough recognition. But if you have at least 3 billion people making a difference, well, now; I'm just trying to reduce my "ecological footprint". Now if I can only keep my corn from glowing in the dark...
|4.22.07 @ 10:45PM|#
If dead_elvis's comments about the Earth's magnetic field
are exemplary of the level of science knowledge held by the
commentators here, then I would say it's no wonder you can
disbelieve in GW:
Read it and weep...
Fairly different takes on the earth's magnetic field(s) and
reversal, summary:
How long since the last reversal - 1 million years, or 700,00
years, or less than 30,000 years ago.
How often - Every 250,000 years, or every 500,000 years, every 1
million years, or randomly.
Effect - Will have bad effects on climate, or probably not a
problem, or some (not most) may have caused extinctions. Atmosphere
could be 'blown away' by solar wind if there were no magnetic field
(i.e., Mars) (which isn't the same as field reversal), or maybe not
(i.e. Venus).
+++
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,837058,00.html
Sun's rays to roast Earth as poles flip
'Earth's magnetic field has disappeared many times before - as a
prelude to our magnetic poles flipping over, when north becomes
south and vice versa,' said Dr Alan Thomson of the British
Geological Survey in Edinburgh.
'Reversals happen every 250,000 years or so, and as there has not
been one for almost a million years, we are due one soon.'
...
'These solar particles can have profound effects,' said Dr Paul
Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'On Mars, when
its magnetic field failed permanently billions of years ago, it led
to its atmosphere being boiled off. On Earth, it will heat up the
upper atmosphere and send ripples round the world with enormous,
unpredictable effects on the climate.'
+++
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=523
...
For example, lava that solidified 30,000 years ago shows that the
magnetic field was in the opposite direction at that time.
One effect that may occur during a magnetic reversal is that the
Earth may not be protected from charged particles streaming from
the sun. ...This could be a problem, but most likely the atmosphere
is thick enough to protect the Earth's surface.
Although the recent movie The Core tells the story of the Earth's
magnetic field dissipating, causing the entire atmosphere to
disintegrate, you don't need to worry about that happening! The
magnetic field will exist as long as the outer core is liquid - and
that will be for a long long time!
+++
http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/magnQ&A1.htm#q6
HOW LONG AGO: about 700,000 years, according to the "tape
recorder"
HOW MANY TIMES: Many, about half a million years apart on the
average.
+++
http://geomag.usgs.gov/faqs.php
However, before the last reversal, which was about 780,000 years
ago,
Reversals are random events. They can happen as often as every 10
thousand years or so, and as infrequently as every 50 million years
or more.
The magnetic field of the Earth does protect us from fast-moving
charged particles streaming from the Sun, but so does the
atmosphere. It is not clear whether or not the radiation that would
make it to the Earth's surface during a polarity transition, when
the magnetic field is relatively weak, is sufficient to affect
evolution, either directly or indirectly, and cause extinctions,
such as that of the dinosaurs. But it seems that the radiation is
probably insufficient.
++++
At least these guys aren't pretending that they can predict the
future climate, much less the weather next month.
|4.22.07 @ 10:54PM|#
Ken,
So government caused environmental disasters don't matter? It is OK
to ignore the substantial amounts of environmental damage
government has caused?
That seems to be what you are saying.
Libertarians and conservatives oppose ineffective,
counterproductive, expensive, government environmental policy.
Don't confuse that with opposition to environmental protection.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 11:02PM|#
Karen, I spent most of Earth Day undoing the global warming damage to my bougainvillea. For the first time in memory we had a hard freeze that was hard enough to kill a lot of stuff to the ground. Killed three bougainvillea outright and the rest were severely damaged. A lot of the stuff is coming back now, the Mexican Sage, Society Garlic, Blue Salvia and the like. Because cold air drains we didn't get much damage on the hillsides and the lemon tree survived.
Guy Montag|4.22.07 @ 11:02PM|#
crimethink,
Guy Montag,
Re: limbo, it was never an official teaching of the Magisterium
(ie, the Pope and the other bishops), so the headline "Vatican
Reverses Teaching on Limbo" is quite misleading. It was an idea
cooked up by medieval theologians to reconcile the fact that
Baptism is the primary avenue for salvation, and the apparent
injustice of sending babies to hell just because their parents
didn't baptize them in time.
The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church also gave limbo the cold
shoulder, stating that those who die as unbaptized chidren will be
judged by a standard known to God alone. Of course, JP2 went out of
his way to suggest that mothers who repent of having abortions may
meet their aborted children in heaven, lending credence to the "all
babies go to heaven" meme. A mistake, from my POV, because it kind
of undercuts the idea of original sin, but this isn't the place to
discuss that, I guess.
What the hell are you talking about or who are you talking to?
The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.07 @ 11:08PM|#
Ken, I wasn't drinking anything. I believe that I specifically
said the following:
And who, exactly, failed to provide for or enforce property
rights, the net result of which was to allow gross polluters to
savage the environment?
You seem to be arguing against what I said while confirming
it.
It is the classic libertarian argument, and you of all people
should know that. The government does not recognize property rights
in air or water. No property rights = tragedy of the commons =
dumping shit in the rivers.
tarran|4.22.07 @ 11:10PM|#
Ken,
You may not be aware of this, but up till the 1830's or so,
polluters routinely did get assessed for damages in court.
Pollution, under common law, was treated as a form of vandalism and
trespass.
For example, a factory owner could expect to be sued by people who
lived downwind of his smokestacks and forced to pay damages for the
damage his soot caused. To prevent this factory owners did start
investing in primitive emission control systems.
Then the courts began to rule differently, stating bluntly that the
advantage to society provided by factories outweighed the benefits
of people not having their property polluted.
In effect, the government courts gave businesses a carte-blanche to
pollute. And, pollute they did. Freed from having to pay for the
damage they did, factory owners began to treat the world around
them like a garbage dump. In fact, they had to; an ethical factory
owner who allocated precious capital to pollution control processes
from his production systems automatically placed himself at a
competitive disadvantage.
Modern environmentalism takes the same approach; instead of
respecting private property rights, it seeks to have the courts
define "ecological diversity" or "environmental conditions" as
taking precedence over both the privilege to pollute that the
government granted to factories, and the private property rights of
land-owners.
Speaking for myself, this is why I am down on mainstream
environmentalists. They are, in their own way, behaving just as
immorally as those whom they claim to oppose. To use a much abused
analogy, just because I oppose George Bush's War on Terror, does
not mean I support Al Queda.
|4.22.07 @ 11:33PM|#
"Then the courts began to rule differently, stating bluntly that
the advantage to society provided by factories outweighed the
benefits of people not having their property polluted."
I'm with you all the way there. I've read many of the cases you
refer to. But I will say this: there was a time when common law
took it to polluters, then they backed off, but environmentalists
pushed for regulation which deterred polluters, and I think that is
all good. I don't like people dumping crap in my air and water, and
if the government is stopping that, then more power to them! In
fact, I may not have the time or wherewithal to find out who is
dumping what, so three cheers for the EPA for doing it for
me.
You've correctly IDed a source for trouble: when private property
rights conflict with "ecological concerns." We agree (I think?) on
the idea that the government should step in to protect our property
rights (they can do so with tort law or with enviromental law it
seems to me). But what happens in the latter case? If there is only
three blue furred minx, and I think my kid should be able to see a
blu furred minx, but two of them live on your land and you want to
kill 'em and build a Starbucks...Well, I say maybe the majority
should be able to vote to disallow you from doing your plans, but
that should be a taking and you should be compensated...I mean, you
don't get to make that decision about what my kids want to
see...
"It is the classic libertarian argument, and you of all people
should know that. The government does not recognize property rights
in air or water. No property rights = tragedy of the commons =
dumping shit in the rivers"
WC, I'm not sure where you are coming from...The gov currently
works hard to keep people from dumping anything in any river or air
(their tort law protects water and air, to a certain degree). Is
that not a good thing?
TJIT: "Libertarians and conservatives oppose ineffective,
counterproductive, expensive, government environmental policy.
Don't confuse that with opposition to environmental
protection."
So what environmental protection do you support? I imagine that it
will be similar to what an "environmentalist" supports. I imagine
this because it's reasonable to not want people to dump sh*t in the
air you and I breathe, and the rivers we fish and drink from. And
this is actually what the government does... There is of course
some tension when the government acts for purely "ecological
reasons", i.e., to protect "nature" in ways that do not "directly"
affect humans. I'm curious, which species would you not care about
if they went extinct, and what government restrictions would you
support to keep such extinctions from happening?
Gray Ghost|4.22.07 @ 11:52PM|#
A thought on the Earth's magnetic field flipping in the near
future. I'm speaking totally ex rectum but hear me
out.
It's been mentioned here that a possible driver of cloud formation
is cosmic radiation. (More high-energy radiation leads to more
ionization in the upper atmosphere, more ionization in the upper
atmosphere leads to more cloud nucleation sites, more sites leads
to more clouds...) The Earth's magnetic field currently screens us
from a large amount of radiation. If flipping the Earth's magnetic
field will temporarily lessen the intensity of the magnetic field,
won't that increase the number of charged particles interacting
with the upper atmosphere? And won't that lead then to more cloud
formation, raising the Earth's albedo, and possibly lead to
temperatures decreasing?
Or is it that our magnetosphere doesn't have much of an effect the
highly charged particles that are implicated in driving cloud
formation, so altering the magnetosphere won't have any impact good
or bad for cloud formation? I'd wonder if ice ages track with
polarity flipping but if Le Muir is right, it seems that science
can't agree within an order of magnitude when pole flipping
occurs.
tarran|4.23.07 @ 12:21AM|#
Ken,
I don't quite agree; I'm one of those free market anarchists that
thinks we should get rid of the government entirely! Obviously,
without a government to promulgate them, in my utopia there would
be no governmental regulations. :)
This is not an area I've really considered in depth, but I would
suppose that the response depends on the localizability of the
pollution. The act of polluting falls on a continuum; At one
extreme, would be one man dumping garbage in his neighbor's yard;
At the other extreme you have every internal combustion owner
pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (I don't consider CO2 to be a
pollutant, but for the purpose of this posting let's assume it
is).
Now in the case of the man dumping garbage, it's very easy to
assign a victim and an aggressor. This is just the thing that
courts can handle easily (historical anarcho-capitalist societies
have had courts: the courts were limited in enforcement mechanisms
and lacked monopoly power), so this is not of concern.
But the other end of the continuum is quite a problem. It's hard
for a victim to prove that they were damaged. It is also hard for a
victim to identify who emitted the CO2 that injured them.
So I don't see courts as being able to handle this. What I would
expect would be that market processes would handle it based on how
much of a nuisance this diffused pollution is.
If it is a nuisance that impacts vast numbers of people, they will
boycott the polluters. So, let us assume that CO2 caused 60% of the
population to have runny noses. Of course, they hate it, so they
start boycotting car-manufacturers, some of the car-manufacturers
(many of whom also have runny noses from the pollution their
products cause) try to gain a competitive advantage by marketing
reduced CO2 cars and nature takes its course.
On the other hand, if only 1% of the population suffers from runny
noses, their boycott will probably get them no where, so they will
have to find some other way to mitigate the damage, perhaps by
buying CO2 filters for their noses, or living out in the Ho
rainforest or something.
I actually think the Carbon Offsetts market is a very interesting
attempt to handle this problem. Again, I personally think these
markets are an attempt to fix a non-problem, but looking at it from
an economic perspective, this is a classic case of private
environmental protection, where a charity collects money from
supporters, and sends that money to persuade people to behave in
ways that the supporters wish.
Now for ecological preservation, it really comes down to the
landowners' choices. So, if I owned some forest, and thought an owl
species was worth preserving, I would preserve it. If I wanted to
harvest wood from my forest an kill the owls, I would do that
instead.
In the case of your blue-furred minx example, I categorically
disagree with you. If you want your kid to see the animal, buy it
from me. Or buy the land. But invading my land and threatening to
hurt me if I use it in a way that is not to your liking is actually
quite monstrous! Before you protest that you don't want to invade
my land, consider what would happen to me if I were to defy your
blue-minx killing law. When a person is arrested and jailed, they
are in effect kidnapped at gunpoint and held for many years.
But, in the absence of such violence, I think one would see free
market attempts at species preservation. For example a charity
would go out and negotiate with landowners and pay them to protect
cute or popular species on behalf of their supporters in a manner
similar to carbon offset markets.
As to my personal preferences about species preservation, I have
very minor demands. I would like to see blue-jays, cardinals,
chikadees, parakeets, dogs and cats preserved. Based on the
conversations of Koko the gorilla and signing chimpanzees, I am
inclined to recognize their "human rights", meaning that they
should be allowed to own property, guns, etc. However, again, this
is an inclination rather than a conclusion, perhaps its the result
of reading L. Neil Smith and David Brin at an impressionable age.
:)
|4.23.07 @ 12:33AM|#
"What, O Earth, I dig out of thee, quickly shall that grow
again: may I not, O pure one, pierce thy vital spot, and not thy
heart!" (Hymn to the Godess Earth, v.35, Atharva Veda.
Note: our advanced civlization is doing exactly the contrary. One
considerate if it is not purposely.
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 7:11AM|#
No Reason dispatch from the Capitol File party or the
DC Corrospondant's dinner?
Heard Cheryl Crowe tried an uncusseful coup attempt on Carl Rove.
One would think a loud-mouth like her would actually know . . . er,
never mind, I am reminded of her toilet-paper scheme and one should
not expect her to know anything but a chord set.
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 7:49AM|#
Oops! Make that Karl Rove above. Don't want any Humanaties Department students going on a rampage over spelling something wrong.
|4.23.07 @ 7:57AM|#
Tarran
Let's skip runny noses and try carcinogens being pumped in the air.
But, as you say, its subtle, and the market won't pay to sniff out
who is dumping what (has it ever?). So there is no boycott or
backlash, and no end to the pollution and many, many people die
(btw-most companies would not mind a boycott by 60% of the
population, they go for little niches and do just fine).
Once you grant courts the power to resolve the obvious tort issue
you mention, even if "not in a a monopoly" (whatever that means),
why not give the government power to police the pollution in the
first place?
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 8:29AM|#
Another correction:
In other 'news', speaking of the MSM, it appears that that Cho
fellow purchased two 10 round magazines on eBay and the MSM is
having a fit wanting to bring back to the Brady Bill. Just like
with 'earth day' the MSM is fairbanksing. The Brady Bill is what
gave us 10 round magazines to begin with.
That should be the old Assault Weapons Ban (no longer in effect),
not the Brady Bill (which is still in effect). Cho was still
following the AWB even though it is no longer the law.
biologist|4.23.07 @ 8:36AM|#
Guy Montag | April 23, 2007, 7:49am | #
Oops! Make that Karl Rove above. Don't want any Humanaties
Department students going on a rampage over spelling something
wrong.
you misspelled Humanities
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 8:42AM|#
you misspelled Humanities
Then I need to go into hiding before some crazed pacificist comes
out to get me.
|4.23.07 @ 9:08AM|#
Ken said, "the market won't pay to sniff out who is dumping
what (has it ever?)"
One counterexample comes to mind. Consumer Reports is run
with no government support (other than 501(c)(3) tax breaks, I
assume), and it gathers, digests, and disseminates lots of data on,
e.g., the reliability of used cars going back years. I don't see
any reason why a similar publication couldn't arise for
disseminating pollution information that no one person could gather
on his own. I'd pay $50 a year to subscribe to such a thing if I
felt it was reliable.
|4.23.07 @ 9:15AM|#
BTW, 2 questions if anyone is still reading this thread:
1. Tarran, your discussion above regarding the common law and
pollution is very interesting to me. Would you be able to direct me
to any source(s) on that history?
2. Anyone -- what is the best source (online, book, whatever) for
understanding the
global-warming-is-real-and-will-be-bad-and-requires-action-today
argument? Something written for a well-educated non-scientist who's
not afraid of statistics.
Thank you.
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 10:19AM|#
Anyone -- what is the best source (online, book, whatever)
for understanding the
global-warming-is-real-and-will-be-bad-and-requires-action-today
argument? Something written for a well-educated non-scientist who's
not afraid of statistics.
All of that should be in the DDS 813 section, but they keep tossing
it out as non-fiction.
Try that Albert Gore, Jr. movie along with some of his wacky books.
He seems to have explained it in a manner to convince many folks
that it is for real. He has been saying that we only have 10 years
left for over 20 years now and his followers never give up on
him.
For the equivelant on Anthropology see the writings and movies by
Erich Von Daniken.
In other news, for Earth Day, the Festivus of the environmental
movement, I had a Cheesesteak sandwich, hold the swiss I
prefer provolone thank you, fries and about 9 huge Fosters
drafts.
|4.23.07 @ 10:44AM|#
jp,
In Feb 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
released a summary of its recent report for policymakers. That's on
line.
|4.23.07 @ 11:38AM|#
Ken,
I oppose policies like biofuel mandates. They are sold as a way to
improve the environment and rent seeking companies get legislation
to mandate the use of biofuels. The end result is the "green"
regulations cause more environmental destruction then doing nothing
would have. The article below give an example of this.
What
about the land
Quote from the aricle.
Farther south, another biodiversity hotspot is being rapidly cleared to plant a biodiesel crop. Nearly 80 percent of Brazil's Cerrado region -- a woodland savanna mix -- has been cleared for agricultural production, mostly for soybeans, according to a Conservation International report.
Too many environmental advocates ignore the consequences of the policies they push. They would be disgusted with their ignorance if they realized the damage it causes.
|4.23.07 @ 2:52PM|#
...9 huge Fosters drafts.
As one Australian friend tells me "Fostuhs is 'strylyun fuh
piss".
But you're not getting the original Melbourne flavor anyway. The
Fosters you can buy is brewed in Toronto and has been formulated to
appeal to the American palate.
|4.23.07 @ 6:00PM|#
Sadly, I was too busy to do anything to piss up the leg of the
status quoers yesterday. Usually, I start up my lawnmower* and let
it run until it runs out of gas. Didn't even get a chance for a
BIG, lighter fluid drenched BBQ fire. It's a sight to see; looks
like Napalm going off.
*No blades of grass are harmed during the running of the
mower.
|4.23.07 @ 6:06PM|#
*No blades of grass are harmed during the running of the
mower.
You should have the blade sharpened.
Guy Montag|4.23.07 @ 7:35PM|#
Almost forgot. I did the modified Rachael Corrie pancake breakfast with a waffle and straberry glaze.
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