Earth Day Open Thread
Nick Gillespie | April 21, 2007, 4:23pm
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.
Neu Mejican | April 22, 2007, 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
Mr. F. Le Mur | April 22, 2007, 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.'
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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!
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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.
tarran | April 22, 2007, 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.
Ken | April 22, 2007, 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?
