- Capitalism and Alternatives -

I don't think so

Posted by: Samuel Day Fassbinder ( Citizens for Mustard Greens, USA ) on July 12, 1999 at 10:16:59:

In Reply to: links posted by Gee on July 07, 1999 at 15:11:54:

: I am not saying that such things are *not* happenig, but that it isnt all corporate nonsense

SDF: And I'm arguing that you're arguing corporate nonsense. Glad we got that cleared up.

: The recent debacle over deformed frogs and salamanders (blamed on pollution, knee jerk laws suggested then discovered to be a common bacterial agent) shows why caution is necessary.

SDF: An interesting appeal to caution, from one whose notion of ecological truth is derived from Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource II, which denouces ecological caution as an attempt to limit humanity. Simon's arguments must, of course, be considered cautiously, especially since Herman Daly has demolished their shell-game approach to resource shortages (and I've pointed this out before in great detail) in the second half of this Web page.

: These sites are also of the sort that offer counter views (and yes most are 1998/99)

SDF: Uh, I don't think so. Check again.

: http://www.nhes.com/current_issue/feature.html

SDF: This is an argument from the Greening Earth society, which argues a priori that CO2 is good, not that we ought to determine such a thing empirically (apologies to those who were expecting objective scientific inquiry). It takes some alleged inaccuracies of 1995 studies (see Gee's claim above) as proof that the entire notion of global warming is nonsense, not risking the least bit of direct clash with the primary claims of global warming advocates. And I'm wondering where it gets the idea that flooding hasn't happened to China.

: http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/climate/v4n20/hot.htm

SDF: Here is an article that claims that global warming is occuring (concession noted) but that it's good, that it results in warmer winters. No discussion follows of the disruption of ecological balance that even that should produce, nor any discussion of the destruction of coral reefs, icebergs the size of Delaware breaking off from Antarctica, species extinctions in the fragile tropical ecology of Costa Rica, global aggregate temperature increases, or 1998 as the hottest year in history, all effects of global warming.

: http://www.nationalcenter.org/TP38.html

SDF: This article has as its presupposition the notion that scientific truth is a matter of taking a vote among scientists.

: http://www.sepp.org//scirsrch/scirsrch.html

SDF: This page offers a series of links, one of which claims that "we aren't seeing global warming" in some satellite measurements (which have since been discredited as the result of technical difficulties), therefore there is no global warming.

: http://www.globalwarming.org/science/alter.html

SDF: This tries to discredit the idea of CO2 as a "greenhouse" by making an illicit comparison between global warming in natural history as a product of increases in solar luminosity, and global warming in human history as a product of anthropogenetic increases in CO2 levels. I'll tell you what. We should take all the folk who don't think that CO2 causes global warming, and put them on a one-way flight to Venus, where of course the atmospheric CO2 doesn't warm the atmosphere anyway. We will then see the extent to which ideology will substitute for a good air conditioner.

: There is no room for assumptions and 'well, it seems right' on either 'side' of the issue when it regards somethign of such importance.

SDF: Then there should be no room for any of the above links, which merely seek to nitpick about the research and which can be debunked with the most elementary notions of argumentative fallacy. Try again, Gee.



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