Gordon wrote: 

"To deprecate or ignore the benefits of economic
growth and technological progress seems pretty pessimistic to me."  


Where are your facts to back up the assumption that taking steps to curb
human contributions of greenhouse gases is going to impede long-term
economic progress and preclude technological advances? Please convince
me how NOT taking steps to curb our dependency on fossil fuels -
maintaining the status quo - represents progress or technological
innovation? I would argue that a society that directly and indirectly
subsidizes much of its fossil-fuel infrastructure - exploration,
production, pipelines, etc. - hardly represents the "free society" that
you and Klaus blithely aspire to.


Gordon wrote: 

"Where, outside of mathematics and the physical sciences, is there ever
one hundred percent certainty?"


I agree 100%. Hence the need for "scientific consensus." Thank you for
helping make my point. 

Have a great day. 
Todd MacFadden





-----Original Message-----
From: EnviroNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Davy, Gordon
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 4:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [EN] Freedom, not climate, is at risk

Todd,

Please forgive me for misunderstanding what you wrote, and thanks for
clearing up that you meant it was Klaus and not I who was making grand
sweeping statements without factual basis. But I am still puzzled by
what you say, so please forgive me in advance if I've misunderstand you
again in your Friday posting. Why do you say that Klaus' essay has a
"complete lack of supporting evidence" for his claims of threats to
freedom by political correctness, and of the alarmists as being
"Malthusian pessimists"? Do you mean to say a) that you think that there
is no evidence for his claims, or b) that he did not present such
evidence? 

I believe that Klaus' essay does present adequate evidence for his
concerns, particularly given the limited space available in the
Financial Times. In his first sentence he cites three examples of what
he takes to be political correctness: Gore's film, the Stern report, and
the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I am
not an expert on any of those, but they have been discussed in this
forum. 

You object because Klaus labels as "Malthusian pessimists" those who "do
not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and
ignore both the technological progress that future generations will
undoubtedly enjoy..." To deprecate or ignore the benefits of economic
growth and technological progress seems pretty pessimistic to me. I know
I'm in favor of both for myself - aren't you? So if economic growth and
technological progress, which occur naturally in a free society, are
bad, who should be deprived of them? By what means should these elitists
deprive other people of their liberty and pursuit of happiness? Isn't
that a threat to their freedom? Shouldn't they feel threatened? 

If his criticism of them is invective, what level of disapproval would
you direct at them? What would you call people who don't believe in
economic growth and ignore technological progress? Is he just imagining
such people, or do the three examples he cites reflect lack of favor for
economic growth and ignore the benefits of technological progress? How
does one cite chapter and verse of something that should be there and is
missing? If Klaus is wrong, and the three reports he cites show that
they really do exhibit a belief in economic growth and recognize the
benefits of technological progress, maybe someone would care to cite the
evidence so as to refute his claims.

Turning now to the notion that anthropogenic CO2 is a significant
contributor to global warming, I'm sure that you will agree that those
who favor it have more visibility (and, in many areas of the world,
political clout) than those who disagree. In fact, that preponderance of
opinion has been used by those who favor the notion as evidence for its
truth. So I will put this question to you: are you aware of attempts to
silence the dissidents - in any of these three examples or elsewhere? Is
Klaus just imagining it, or is it maybe such attempts are so well known
as to need no further documentation?

As for the "biggest threat to freedom" being a superlative, if there are
at least three threats to freedom, there must be a biggest one, so
what's so wrong with his stating his belief that it is "ambitious
environmentalism"? I'll ask what I asked before: if he's wrong, what do
you see as today's biggest threat to freedom? Which do you say is
greater - this threat to freedom or the threat of global warming if we
fail to take the steps that Gore and others are urging us to take? 

To refer to those who "completely dismiss the contributions of humans"
as having a "marked disdain for science" and desiring to impose
"doctrinal totalitarianism" is to erect a straw man. Many of those who
challenge the majority position are scientists, including Professor
Richard Lindzen of MIT, whom Klaus cites. It's hard to see how they
exhibit a marked disdain for science, although I'll grant that they may
well have a marked disdain for some of what the majority represents to
be science - that's why they disagree. There aren't enough of them to
exert any kind of control, let alone totalitarianism, unless
totalitarianism means saying things that might induce people to not get
with the agenda. 

I also disagree with your characterization of those who promote a
position with certainty as propagandists. We expect people to promote
their position with certainty - who'd bother to pay attention to anyone
who didn't at least appear to know and believe what he was talking
about? It isn't certainty but dishonesty in the presentation of the
evidence and arguments, with an intent to mislead people, that
constitutes propaganda. As I've said before, those who challenge the
paradigm are much less likely to engage in propaganda because they know
they will be challenged.

I don't see how it helps advance the cause to cite the IPCC conclusion
that global warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin". The
issue is not whether human activity has had any influence but whether it
has had an influence that is so significant and so detrimental to the
public welfare as to warrant the costs associated with attempting to
stop or reverse that influence. 

Also, to talk about "one hundred percent certainty" before taking action
is missing the point. Where, outside of mathematics and the physical
sciences, is there ever one hundred percent certainty? We elect leaders,
whom we refer to as politicians, to sort out competing claims and
interests and arrive at decisions in the absence of such certainty. That
could even be taken as a brief job description. When they decide in
accordance with our wishes, we laud their statesmanship. When they
decide against our wishes, we don't conclude we were wrong; we dismiss
their decisions as "just politics."

I have written for years on this forum and the Leadfree forum of what I
have been calling demagoguery by environmental activists. In the case of
removing "hazardous substances" from electronic products, it has been
obvious that they don't have any evidence.

The case of global warming is clearly more complicated. No one disputes
that the greenhouse effect is real or that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or
that its abundance in the atmosphere has been rising. But those facts
taken together do not constitute any kind of evidence that anthropogenic
CO2 is causing significantly more global warming than would be going on
otherwise. There is a logical fallacy referred to by its Latin name:
"post hoc ergo propter hoc" - after the fact, therefore because of the
fact.

In weighing the evidence and arguments, you don't have to be an expert
to look for the extent to which the protagonists are willing to
acknowledge and discuss the non-anthropogenic contributions to climate
change: variations in the sun's output, atmospheric dust, and water
vapor (a greenhouse gas present in orders of magnitude greater abundance
than CO2), and the clear geological evidence for climate change before
human activity could have been extensive enough to contribute - i.e.,
before the level of atmospheric CO2 began to rise measurably. If you
don't see variations in those natural, non-anthropogenic causes
discussed with the same level of detail as anthropogenic CO2, be
suspicious and look for an agenda. This isn't just a scientific debate.
As in any other story, the advice given to reporters is valid: follow
the money.

If your concern with global warming is about a deplorable oceanic
encroachment on low-lying populated areas due to a rising sea level,
have you ever seen a discussion of why the top layers of many areas of
the earth, including many lofty mountaintops, are made up of sedimentary
rock? I'm not a geologist, but I know that sediments deposit under
water. Why, if such large areas of land now above sea level were
evidently once covered by water, presumably due to natural causes, is it
so obvious that this time a rising sea level is contributed to by human
activity? 

On what basis does one conclude that sea levels must and can be held
fixed? I recall a story of a Greek king a long time ago who tried to
hold back the tide. In fact, to refer to an activity as "holding back
the tide" is synonymous with calling it "futile." Have we become so
sophisticated that are we now able to do something about the weather and
to keep the mean sea level fixed? The Greeks had a word for this:
hubris.  That's pretty close to arrogant, so maybe by your criterion I'm
being propagandistic, too, in my comments.

Whether it's lead in electronics or global warming, these people claim
that the situation they are concerned about is so serious that we must
act now - we can't afford the luxury of ordinary reasoned discourse to
reach a consensus before committing to a course of action. They say that
their opponents are contributing to the worsening of the situation by
not getting with their program now. That is demagoguery. I have asserted
that their real reason for such alarmist rhetoric is that they know that
their case would be weakened or fall apart if subjected to an ordinary
cost-benefit analysis. 

The activists even trot out their "precautionary principle" when it's
convenient, yet ignore it otherwise. Have you ever seen environmental
activists discuss how the precautionary principle applies to the
consequences of the draconian changes they advocate? Yet by their
principle, it's up to them as proponents of change to show that when all
consequences are considered the change they advocate won't make things
worse. How thorough are their environmental (and economic) impact
statements? Do they want to coerce the earth's inhabitants to revert to
a style of life before the industrial revolution? How is that better? I
wonder what they would advocate if we were experiencing global cooling.

Make no mistake. They don't just want to convince us of the truth (or
likelihood) of their claims, they want to persuade us to adopt their
remedies - their agenda. If they can't convince us with their evidence
and arguments, they're willing to frighten us. They are much less
interested in the integrity of their means than what they see to be the
importance of their end. They don't want us to take the time to consider
any consequences other than the ones they promise. 

Without coming out and saying so explicitly, they don't just want us to
believe that human activity is causing significantly more global warming
than would be occurring without it, but to agree to force most people
(but not them!) to cut back on doing the things that they say are
causing it (at least enough to cause a significant reduction in the
trend), and to believe that the cost of doing so would be less than the
cost of not doing so. 

Cutting back on the things that they say are contributing significantly
to global warming would require a significant reduction, not just of our
freedom, but in our standard of living. Who would oppose it otherwise?
The reason they want us to do that is because, they say, they are
concerned about what will happen to some people's standard of living if
we don't. Or, for some of the more misanthropic activists, because polar
bear habitat will be affected. That is a matter to be sorted out not by
science but by politics.

Gordon Davy