So. The committee which accused Bjorn Lomborg of "scientific dishonesty" has been publicly upbraided and spanked by the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology. (Link via Pejman.)
I'm honestly not surprised. Having watched the Lomborg "controversy" since the release of his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, I have invariably noticed that his critics rarely so much as lay a glove on him when it comes to the facts and data. Nor do they even very often question his interpretations. Rather, they almost invariably go after his character, his motives, his qualifications, or on issues he hasn't even raised--anything but the actual data and interpretations Lomborg presents.
Furthermore, every time I've taken the time to check Lomborg's references, examine the data myself, I've found Lomborg to either be indisputably correct, or to be at least reasonable and highly defensible in his conclusions.
The whole "controversy" over Lomborg merely underscores for me the extent to which "environmentalism," for too many people, ceased to be about genuine concern for the planet, and became instead a pseudo-religious (or in some cases outright religious) cult, where rigorous science and a dedication to a fair-minded analysis of the facts takes a back seat to fear, hysteria, psuedo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo, and contempt for the human race. Not in all cases, of course, but in too many of them.
Case in point: the widely-touted "fact" that the Pentagon supposedly believes in catastrophic global warming dooming the planet. This was widely and breathlessly reported on multiple weblogs and many web sites.
But there was no such Pentagon 'report' on Global Warming. Almost no one who breathlessly reported that it was so, not even professional journalists, bothered to do the tiniest bit of fact-checking before simply accepting it as true, however.
You know what I really love? How whenever I say anything like all this, I am accused of being a "right winger" or an "apologist for corporate America." As if a commitment to hard science, a rigorous dedication to objectivity and fact and responsible analysis, simple skepticism of extreme claims, is the exclusive property of Republicans and right-wingers.
That seems like an awfully dangerous notion to me.
Don't even get me started on the irrational, mean-spirited, thoroughly ill-informed crap the Bush administration got back in 2001 over arsenic standards in water, either. I never saw so much hypocrisy and so much scientific ignorance on display in the public arena in my entire life. Not to mention naked partisan hate-mongering and just plain irresponsible politicking. It was almost like watching William Jennings Bryan argue that the theory of evolution was a perversion of God's word. It was certainly no more rational than that.
Why is it that those of us with a committment to clean air, clean water, endangered species preservation, wildlife conservation and forest conservation are expected to toe some vast "movement's" party line when it comes to these issues? Why must we be required to throw rationalism and objectivity and fairness out the window in order to be "environmentally conscious?" Are we required to be unfair and irrational? Is that what it says on the "Caring Environmentalist" membership card?
It really bugs me. Although I like to think that the tide is turning, and that more people who care about the environment are starting to think critically and ask hard questions before simply swallowing whatever they're told by politically-motivated partisans. I'd like to think so, anyway.
You RIGHT-WINGER! You're just APOLOGIZING FOR CORPORATE AMERICA!!!!
You forgot that I'm a sellout and an apologist for the Bush administration. Come on, get it straight.
My bad.
*clears throat*
YOU'RE A SELLOUT WHO'S JUST APOLOGIZING FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!!!!!
Better?
The thing that bugs me the most is the absolutism of the left. Bush has been tryng to improve the environment. He asked a simple question of industry. "With the money you have to spend, what would give the best results?" He got a reasoned answer and tried to set policy that would produce results.
The left has reacted hysterically because they got the previous administration to set absolute standards that cannot be met without large expenses. See arsenic standards. Any plant maintenace needs to conform to the new standards. They have made it easier to pollute and pay fines then to fix the problem.
Bush is doing the classical MBA cost value trade-off that result in better products. The left has been demanding the vitually impossible. Remember what Lomborg said, for the cost of Kyoto we could provide the world with clean water.
Oh, Dean, now you've gone and done it: What's "irrational" about seeing evolution as a "perversion of God's word."?
Why is that science, true science, is under attack if the left doesn't like it and the press supports the attack? A clue, I like to watch 'Jeopardy' and I've watched for many years but over these same many years I have noticed a trend, actually two trends.
The contestants choice of subject and accuracy of answers, overall, has declined in two areas; science and geography. Not all contestants but enough to be noticed. These are all bright people but something is wrong.
If people have little knowledge of science then they are apt to believe the bullshit flung from the far left.
You mean like finding the report and reading it? Like reporting that right there in the introduction to the report itself that it was not just extreme, but way over the freaking top, and complete make-believe? That kind of research?
Anybody who took those reports seriously is...well, moron is too polite a word.
You horrible right-winger, you. ;)
Goes back to Crichton's observances on the nature of environmentalism: it's a religion, not a science. I know from my own observations over the past 20 years, conservationism is no longer a term in active use and meaning. "Environmentalism" has sprung up and displaced it.
Why?
Pretty simple, I'd say: Conservationism is a study of intelligent management of scarce resources that treats humans and human needs as an inextricable part of the environment that needs to be factored in when weighing the impacts of conservation policies. Environmentalism attracts a mentality of people who are at heart inimical to humanity and human needs.
The goal isn't preserving habitat and species: the goal is the reduction of people into yet another level of savagery. Similar to the reduction to savagery by schools, ghetto management policies, reservation management, entitlements, destruction of Christianity, promotion of purience over entertainment, promotion of "equality of values" over value.
They're all facets of the same thing: a general hostility to civilization coupled with an unspoken agenda to return the sheeples to a manageable state of barbarianism.
And before the usual leftie shrillness starts in, do note that I'm a half-amerind who's spent more than a bit of time on and around reservations and reservation managements, I grew up on the streets and spent a considerable amount of time around the barrio, I'm a non-Christian, and I kinda like purience to boot. ;)
And on top of that, I'm basically a barbarian at heart. Maybe it takes a barbarian to recognise the neo-savage... and to spit on him.
I just noticed some of this in the comment's to Michele's post regarding hatefulness from the left.
We see Bush as destroying all of these things. A clean air act that says carbon dioxide isn't a polutant anymore.
Uh, dude, check out your current issue of Best of High Times - GROW America. Increased CO2 levels can increase plant yield 20 percent. Take a peek at how many of the grow supply ads include CO2 systems. You don't have to go to the scientific literature, where there's less evidence than their should be because it is hard to get funding for CO2 research.
Re the Arsenic levels in water : we've got an interesting little thing going on in the UK at the moment. The Govt has agreed that water prices can be raised by up to 30 % over the next few years in order to cover the costs of bringing drinking water standards up to the new European Directive.
OK, you might say, what's wrong with that ?
Well, current drinking water standards are already higher than mineral water ones : that's right, fully 50 % of mineral water is dirtier than what we already have coming out of the tap.
It's just that sameold, sameold thing : opportunity cost. We can't have everything because we don't have enough resources. So we must prioritise, as Dean says, and there comes a point with just about anything where we can say " we're done, stick a fork in it, let's go do something more interesting ".
Just a thought : why are we really worrying about the last part per million of what is in drinking water when 90 % of the stuff we use is to flush crap straight back to the treatment plant ?
Tim
The world will get warmer. We'll adapt to it. That's the thing about people, they adapt. While the worrywarts rant and rave people adapt.
Nature doesn't care about your happiness. Nature works on the level of species. So learn to adapt or die.
Well, I don't really want to turn this into a "Right vs Left" discussion, but I do think that the nature of the debate on the environment is essentially the same as the nature of debate on many various other topics that fall into strongly ideological battlelines.
In short, what is "truth"? The right tends to quantify "truth" with facts and figures and correlations, whereas the left tends to adhere to the "truth" of feelings and convictions. Thus, if you "feel" the "truth" is that humans don't care enough about the environment, then all the facts and figures in the world won't sway your opinion in the slightest.
That's why Bush will always be AWOL to some people, why private gun ownership will always be dangerous to society, why higher taxes and more govt programs will never be recognized as a major drag on the economy.
That's why a moving story (factual or not) of one elderly individual having to choose between food or medicine will always matter more to some people than the reality of accurate economic models and employment rates.
But then, I guess everyone has that attitude to some extent. I don't look at my faith in Christ on much of a factual/provable basis (although I do base it on the fact that the Bible describes the nature of the fallibility of man more accurately than any other work I've ever seen...that's how I'm convinced it is Truth).
I'm only going to cast one glancing aspersion toward how this difference in the attitude of "truth" is shaping the debate on the nature of homosexuality, and that was just it.
nathan: I don't think that the conflict is as much between the left and the right as it is between utopians and, well, everyone else.
When utopians hear stories of elderly people forced to choose between food and medicine they immediately think "any kind of society that would allow this must be fundamentally flawed. it's a crime that this can happen while (insert rich person) can buy (insert expensive toy)! We must do something about this". In fact, when utopians here any story of any person being hurt in any way, their first reaction is that the reason why it happens is a fundamental problem with society, and their second reaction is to try to pass a law to make it not happen.
The rest of us realize that in any possible organization of society, some people will be hurt. For evidence, we use the entirety of human history, and every society ever constructed. We point out to Utopians that whatever magical society they want to build has already been tried, and already failed. To this they respond that it hasn't been done right yet, that if people were more enlightened, if the leaders were better leaders, if the followers were better followers, that things would work out right.
Sure it would. Not only that, but everyone would also have a pony.