Today I got an email from my friend / debate opponent Bill Devlin. Good guy. He wrote to tell me that once again he was hearing about the infamous petition to remove a show from TV because it mentions God in it too much. Usually it’s Touched by an Angel or some show like that.Naturally, these rumors are false. TV stations are private (non government) companies and can broadcast whatever they like. There has never been an attempt to stymie Freedom of Speech like this — it’s a lie by those who themselves lobby so that you can’t rent movies like the Last Temptation of Christ from Blockbuster (they don’t like it, so you can’t watch it).For verification, check out the fcc.gov web site and do a search for Atheist.And for anyone who receives this email, I urge you to “reply-all” and include the FCC link — people who spread falsehoods should be known for it.
HairlessMonkeyDK
But I am not arguing corporate data. I do not care a fig about them.
What I care about is reason over religion, and the environmentalist left looks and behaves far to much like the religious right to be believed in my opinion.
mxracer652
Well, you do look like a democrat, but then, I have been know to issue a a few brays and hee-haws myself now and again.
This is the issue. We see what the media presents to us. The media is interested in things that make us pay attention. This is not always what is true. Hysteria sells ads and brings in the revenue. It also brings in the contributions to activist organizations. Check out the high 6 figure salaries for the heads of environmentalist groups.
This also affects what scientists do for the government. They subsist on govt. funding for their livelihoods, so will propose and couch there funding proposals and results to conform with whatever the current political climate demands.
Nothing new here, move along.
Again, be careful of funding bias. As you correctly pointed out, Corporate funding can cause bias, but so can political funding.
Greenpeace among others. Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology . The principles are made to sound good, but when you think of what would be needed to implement them, they would make the worst of left and right totalitarianism look like a Vermont town meeting in comparison. Enforced birth control, forced abortion, eugenics if not genocide, centralized planning for everything. Amazing how benign such hideous evil can be made to sound.
Yah, RFK Jr. is a squib, as seems to be the case with the entire Kennedy clan starting with Teddy the Hutt. JFK and RFK, (the originals), would likely be considered Reagan Democrats today, if such a thing could exist. They certainly seem to have more in common with old Ronnie Raygun than they do with their heirs. Politically, at least.
When was the last time we saw an atheist on a show ,movie, play ,that reflected atheist’s in a positive light?
Why worry about planet warming or the inviro issues,Jesus is coming soon and the rightous will all be raptured up to heaven.
Don’t tell me, believing in the date or not, that you don’t think reducing pollution is a good thing?
Maybe you don’t believe in global warming, but surely you wouldn’t want to drink strait from lake Michigan!
Global warming or not, we still have only one planet on which to live and the environmentalist left can’t be called evil for asking to stop degrading it.
JONBOY
I wish I could say i have seen such, but I can not recall any.
All right!. I’m gonna go fuel up the pickup truck right now!
tomwright:
Hey, I understand that completely. We’ve no real yardstick to go by. All of your examples are valid ones.
True enough, but we are a MAJOR factor at this juncture.
(quisling, BTW, translates to ‘traitor’)
Reading the site you provided reminded me of the ‘Sahara club’ for some reason. & the Rand website as well. No accusation here: ‘reminded’ is the operative word. & yes, people do get carried away (being the same age as you, I’m well aware of it).
While I’m not a ‘tree-hugger’ (too many bugs, sap, splinters, etc), the old aphorism about an ounce of prevention springs to mind. I’m not overly paranoid about it: the oil’s going to run out some day (pretty soon, seeing as how everyone’s up in arms about it).
We just need to stop soiling our own nest, is the way I see it.
reluctantatheist
I debate the idea that we are a ‘MAJOR’ contributor. I doubt it in fact. The world is too big for us to affect it in a major fasion. Yes we can DETECT what we dump into the atmosphere, but how much that affects the atmosphere is unknown.
An ounce of prevention is fine, but unfortunately this is often turned into the precautionary principle, which prevents any activity until it is proven benign. Using the P.P., humanity would still be in Africa staring at the red sea contemplating the dangers in crossing it to populate Asia.
Another media meme I find a lot of problems with. But that is a separate argument.
No argument here.
The problem is in how it is done, who pays and who benfits. As soon as polititians and govenments get involved, you know it is the little guy that is gonna get screwed.
The problem is OVERPOPULATION! Too many people living a non sustainable lifestyle. If there were only a quarter to half a billion people in the world then everyone could live like Americans or even better. The single most important environmentally responsible decision to make is not to breed. It seems like the ones doing most of the breeding are entirley the wrong kind of people (religious, ignorant, and poor) while the right kind of people (secular, educated, intelligent, wealthy people) are just not having kids.
Alex.
tomwright:
I dunno – nuclear bomb testing is something that springs to mind.
Ain’t that the truth.
Well, it ain’t an infinite resource. We keep treating it as such, it’s gonna run out.
Media meme? I came to that conclusion all on my lonesome.
How do ya like that? Left meets right, & agrees!
Write the date on your calendar!
tomwright, I did mean data.
‘them fingers have a way of trying to foil me at every turn…
You are righ again, the planet is far older than us, and will “outlive” us most certainly. The data we have is small, and we may or not be changing the weather.
We do know that greenhouse gasses affect the weather.
We do know that we emit greenhouses gasses.
We do not know with certainty that the gasses we emit are really what’s making the weather fubar.
When in doubt, caution is often better than carelessness. It’s not about going back to caves, but about changing the way we do things.
New coal powerplants should not have to be built. It is time to try and find better power sources, and make available ones less expensive to the general public.
Fusion, solar, wind, geothermal, all valid, clean power sources. BUT, not enough research is done on how to make those not very cost effective sources more efficient.
“Clean Coal” is an oxymoron.
Some ‘radical’ environmentalist sites promoting climate change ‘propaganda’:
NASA
http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/warming.html
National Academy of Sciences
http://dels.nas.edu/abr_clim/evidence.shtml
The Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
MIT
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
New Scientist Magazine
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change
Scientific American Magazine
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DA7C0-FBE9-1239-BBE983414B7F0000
Wow, what a bunch of loons. Good thing we have that genius Steven Milloy looking after us. Gee, he must be pretty much the smartest man in the entire world to have been able to out-science so many other scientists. I’m sure it had nothing at all to do with him being a paid advocate for ExxonMobil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy
tomwright,
I agree the little guy gets screwed but here is how I propose the question to people who don’t think humans are to blame. Now don’t do this obviously but what would happen to you if you go in the garage, leave the door down and start the car? That’s on a small level so how could it be healthy on a bigger scale?
alexgator1
From what I have read, (and I am not digging up any more links today, I am behind in homework), it is more a political problem than anything else. There is plenty of food, water and medicine to go around. It is just corrupt governments, or where there are no governments, corrupt war-lords, (as in Somalia), that steal all the aid and use it for themselves, or oppress the people and steal all the wealth for themselves.
So you are saying all us atheists here on nogodblog, we should all schtup like bunnies?
I’M IN! I VOLUNTEER! ANYONE ELSE WITH ME?
YEEHA!
reluctantatheist
Measurable, but how has it affected planetary weather?
How serendipitous!, I just wrote a post on this a few minutes ago.
http://wrightwing.net/2006/03/21/18/40/261
sword_strike
yup
There is some debate over which gasses have what effects, with some revision downward to how much CO2 is involved, and revision upwards on others.
frequently. I am very good at it, myself.
Yup
No argument in general, but in degree and method.
Newer technologies in coal gasification and combustion have cleaded it up immensely, especially gasification, to the point where it can be almost as clean as natural gas. It can also be turned into low-sulpher diesel fuel using similar technology. There are pilot projects under way on all of these. Is it as clean as, say, hydro? No, But it is far form the dirty nasty stuff we think of from the past. And it may be better than other alternatives when cost, logistical and political factors are included.
Fusion is unlikely in our lifetimes, from what I have read, but you never know. Solar is getting more competetive, but until it is still to expensive without subsidy. But there is some potential there for some applications.
Wind power also has posibilities, but still is very expensive.
Geothermal is too liited in the places where it can be used, North America is not Iceland, and I doubt building a power plant over Yellowstone would be welcomed.
There is a newer fission tehnology being piloted in South African and Chine called Pebble Bed Modular Reactors that shows promise. Far safer and less complicated and costly than current designs used in the western world.
sothings are progressing, technology, if it is not stifled by politics, will makes us better of, just as it did when we moved from wood, to coal, to gas and oil, etc. Each step more powerful and less polluting than the previous.
rainbows4dinosaurs
He is a reporter with science degrees and law degrees, nothing more. But he is a good resource.
So far as Exxon goes, look at the list of contributors to many enviro groups. Guess who you will see in the list? Hint: 2 ‘X’s in the name.
Does that invalidate those groups as well?
TXatheist
I never said it was healthy. It is a matter of degree. We tend to think on the human scale, not the global scale. What is bad in a garage, while certainly not good for the world, is not going to affect the planet. Like a fart in a windsorm, there is a stink, but try to detect it.
Again, should we do better yes. But we do not need to call out the fire brigade over the possiblity that fart may ignite.
time to read.
ADM100 mySAP Technology administration.
Sounds like a real corker! Good night all.
Well, I didn’t list any environmental groups. That is not where I get my science. I am well aware that Green Peace et. al. often resort to emotionally charged rhetoric and selective evidence. Such is true of all advocacy groups – it is simply not their job to be impartial.
On the other hand, ‘climate change’ (the Bush era term for global warming) is very real, and all the stuff I’ve been reading lately suggests that it may even be worse than originally thought. Are there some scientists who contend this? Of course – a handful at least. But the vast majority of scientists working in the environmental and climate sciences tell us that this is indeed happening and that we had better be doing something about it. All scientific knowledge is dependent on a working consensus within the scientific community, so when the majority tell me to pay attention, I pay attention.
On the other, other hand, here’s where you and I can meet half-way:
I also believe that our best hope for combating global warming is through the market. Sure, some government regulation may be needed in the short term, but as the truth becomes apparent more and more people will start demanding green technologies from energy corporations. Hybrid cars are just the tip of the iceberg.
Tomright,
You say we are showing hubris, those of us that think we are negatively affecting the environment. I say just look at the rate species on Earth are being made extinct. There is no way this can be accounted for “naturally”.
I agree with you that all species affect their environment,(some in the past it seems have done it to their own extinction) we are the only ones thought to be able to control our influence. This makes us responsible for our actions. To wait to react until nobody disagrees may mean we have already passed the point of no return.
A long time ago in chemistry and thermodynamics classes we did mass balance equations. You start with your fuels and oxygen and you ended up with your exhaust products. Fuels were almost always hydrocarbons, the source of which was almost always fossil fuels. Exhausts where ideally carbon dioxide and water,( in real life you may get carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulfer compounds, partially burnt hydrocarbons, and other undesirable compounds).
Do the mass balance for our human driven energy consumption worldwide and you see where the problem is. We’re expending carbon fuels at a high rate but doing little to lock carbon into permanent things. The natural attenuation by plants might nearly offset this short term, but for the general loss of forests, especially rain forests.
What is the solution? We must use alternative energy sources but our current and future demands outstip all sources but nuclear. We can only hope with increacing use it will be made more environmentally friendly.
Oil and coal will still be a big part of the economy but only as raw materials for products like plastics ( with great emphysis on recycling), thus not disturbing the carbon balance.
Science got us in this mess, that may be the only way out of it.
Alex,
Do attribute your quotes – the idea is far from new. See,
“The Marching Morons,” by Cyril M. Kornbluth
See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth
Of course, you may prefer eugenics – and there is a long and vile history to that movement.
Eugenics was first defined in 1883 by English anthropometrist Sir Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, as the “science of improving the stock.” Because it was seen as a cutting-edge science, eugenics took root in America and imparted respectability to exclusionary immigration laws, which limited the entry not just of those with hereditary diseases but of entire ethnic groups, as well. Eugenics even made its way into the Supreme Court, which in 1927 upheld compulsory sterilizations in the case of Buck v. Bell. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the most progressive justice of the era, wrote, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Cearly J. Holmes’ opinion presaged the Cheney, Bush & Rumsfeld administration.
Here’s a news flash – recent – & this is the appropriate thread for it:
http://biblioblography.blogspot.com/2006/03/were-going-in-anyways.html
based on this news story released today:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060327/pl_afp/usbritainbushiraqdiplomacy_060327064943
I say we impeach this goddam loon before he screws anything else up.
Alex,
I agree. People are reproducing irresponsibily. In my college biology class we did an experiment with duckweed. After unchecked reproduction in a closed environment, all the duckweed died. Why? Because their environment reached it’s carrying capacity. As I watch urban sprawl decimate what were fields when I was a child, I wonder–When will mother earth reach her carrying capacity. Probably not in my lifetime, but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren best be warned.
Cry4Turtules,
You might want to check out some stuff on the Malthusian catastrophe. It’s basically the theory you espouse, except in some detail. But be prepared because it is rather old and has significant holes.