Topic: Ron Paul
Politicised Science Global Warming and other Politicised Science take us to La La Landby Ivan from Oregon
(Libertarian)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
The Costs of Politicised Science
The latest scam to come down the pike to enslave us and make more money to those that are already rich is the whole "global warming" issue. Now, this is not an article trying to deny that there's global warming going on - there is some of that. What is at issue is whether this trend is caused by man, and what we should do about it, if anything.
For those of you who wish to short-circuit this article and get to the particular meat of the matter of "global warming", I have a link
at what I think is the most authoritarian study of the matter by one of my neighbors here in Southern Oregon, Art Robinson, (my PH.D is in Electrical Engineering, so I don't really qualify) whose extensively researched study (almost 200 references) comes to the conclusion that man's contribution has nothing to do with the normal cyclic temperature of the earth, and we couldn't do anything about changing it if we wanted to. In fact, he comes to the conclusion that the current warming trend is good for us and our miniscule contribution to atmospheric co2 is helpful to the production of more vegetation (food crisis, anyone?), rather than disruptive, Al Gore notwithstanding.
If you think back, politicising of science has been a long-standing practice that goes back centuries. For example, the Catholic Church almost burned Galileo at the stake because of the "heretic" postulate that the earth revolved around the sun, rather that vice versa. Galileo was a friend of the Pope, so he got away with it. Copernicus came close when he said that the orbits of the planets were eliptical when the Church said that God would not make "Imperfect" orbits and almost burned him at the stake for it.
More recent examples come to mind: In the 1980's The "Montreal Protocol" banned the usage of Freon, world-wide. This put a great strain on the food chain, especially in the poor countries. Freon, which is one of the most efficient of refrigerant gasses in the world, is heavier than air, and I have yet to hear, how the propellant in my underarm deodorant, heavier than air, winds up in the stratosphere at 50,000 feet. Just coincidentally, at that time the patent for Freon, owned by Dupont had run out, and they just happened to have a substitute (more expensive and more polluting).
Another example comes from the 90's when I was in California. The State pushed through a law that mandated the addition of "fluoride" to township drinking water. The "fluoride" is a wasteproduct of industries, (steel, paint, etc), so what better way to dispose of it than making it a "food additive". The stuff etches glass, kills cattle, causes osteoporsis in women, but it's OK for human consumption.
The latest idiocy these days is diverting corn production to "Ethanol", contributing to world hunger. Ethanol may or may not be a good idea, but corn is not a good way of producing it. It takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than you derive from burning it as fuel. Such is our legacy of the Al Gores (the inventor of the internet) of the world. We get what we deserve.
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2008 Ivan from Oregon, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, March 2, 2008
Last modified: Monday, March 3, 2008
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Our living space on this planet or the space In which people can exist in is a very thin layer around our very large planet. That space is only 3 miles up and 3 miles down. 3 up and you run out of oxygen, 3 down and you cook to death.
All of the polution created by man over the last 100 years is some where in that 6 mile space.
Think about going three miles from your home and think of that standing that distance on end. That is the space we can live in..... not much. Now consider 10 million cars in any large city in the country polluting that space all day long. How much breathable air is left?
As far as the corn issue goes.. The majority of the corn grown in the United States is purchased by the US government in the form of farm substitives. The government forces farmers to grow corn at a rate that keeps up a reserve of corn big enough to supply the world with corn in case of a disaster, war etc. However we don't use it. Our Government then forces the farmers to plow the corn back into the fields to keep the price of corn up just as it does with all crops.
There never has been and never will be a shortage of corn.
People that say the world will starve are people that stand to loose oil revenue if we switch to ethonal, not the farmers who don't like plowing their crops back into the ground because the feds wont let them sell it.
Posted By: Ivan from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-03 04:11:35
Kipper, I appreciate your point of view, but it seems you haven't looked at Robinson's well researched paper. Nobody is arguing for polluting the air. The issue there is CO2 as a "greenhouse gas" which we produce by simply breathing. Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant - plants need it to derive their carbon for growth.
The point of my article is that when politics and science get mixed up, the net result is typically a policy that enriches the fat cats at the expense of the little guy (we the people). Tell the Mexicans protesting about the cost of their tortillas that there is no shortage of corn. Subsidies for the Archer Daniels Midlands of the world are not good policy. The big agribusiness industry does not treat soil as a precious resource, but that's another discussion.
Politically based decisions that should be the province of science and the free market almost always result in higher costs and inefficient use of capital, usually to the detriment of the little guy.
Fluoridation, as you mentioned, is very politicized. It's not, and never was, based on science. It's time to end this wastefull, ineffective and harmful practice.
I recently read an article that a climatologist in Britain wrote where,during the UN summit in global warming that produced the Kyoto Protocol he was instructed to remove data that pointed out that the current warming trend was a natural cyclical phenomenon. There was a period in the Middle Ages where the average global temperature was higher than it is today. There's a link at educateyourself.org if you wish to take a look yourself.
Ivan, thanks for this thought provoking article. As somewhat of a "church heretic" myself, I have long identified with Galileo and it was good to see his example along with all the others you brought up. :)
Good. Didn't I read somewhere that when Mount Penituba (sp) blew in the Phillipines that it released more greenhouse gases in fifteen minutes than man could in 150 years? And, your point on corn has to do with efficiencies rather than production and is right on. I did not know that about Copernicus. Of course all orbits are eliptical, it is just a matter of eccentricity. I have said for years that one of the main functions of government is to fabricate a problem and then ride in on a white charger to fix it. Not very poetic, but you get the idea.
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2008 Ivan from Oregon, all rights reserved.