BWE
Posts: 1902
Joined: Jan. 2006
|
| Quote (Louis @ April 17 2008,12:26) | | Quote (BWE @ April 17 2008,17:24) |
Global warming exposes a relatively difficult issue for humanity. Not that many people could die, although that is a bit of a problem, but that resource management is in uncharted waters. The world that adam smith described and that Tocqueville illustrated had unlimited resources. Add to that the total lack of any kind of modeling capacity for natural processes and you get 19th century economics and politics (which carried over into the 20th).
As the serious scientific revolution got underway, people began to assume that science would fix any problems that might appear. New sources of nitrogen fertilizer made people laugh at 'Malthusian Doomsayers' while utterly missing the point that his model is a simple projection of simple factors and still works fine. Just that we found a new source of food. The graph still accurately describes what it intends to describe.
I've heard people laugh at the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" as if it were wrong. But it isn't wrong. No one has ever demonstrated it to my knowledge anyway. Economists still view the world as Adam Smith did, unlimited, for the large part. That carries over into politics through the idea of liberty and equality when applied to the pursuit of property. If property is unlimited, then free societies can claim equality while promoting free enterprise. If resources (property) are limited, then that claim runs up against the claim that those in power will have the duty of deciding who has to die if supplies run too short.
So when Skeptic claims a separation of the science and politics but misses the line, and you point out the line, I want to add that a blurry part probably does exist. As soon as the models use a finite amount of data to run, they are making a political statement with rather large consequences. Once we see resources as both interconnected and finite, the world stops being the free world of John Locke and Adam Smith.
Political boundaries are not mapped by watersheds for example. But Erasmus' speckled trout do matter. Indicators to the health of an ecosystem matter a lot when there are no new ecosystems to exploit. |
Dearest BWE,
Some things:
1) Oh I see, you want a serious discussion of a serious topic? Then why involve anything from Skeptic? He's ill informed, unintelligent and dishonest and to be blunt until he shapes up I'm just going to be unremittingly nasty to him. I don't care that he disagrees with something I've said or not, I care that he's a know-nothing fucknuckle with the intellectual gifts of a walnut and as such contributes nothing positive to any discussion. A fact demontsrated so frequently I'm surprised he remains. Contribution = 0, trollish wankery = lots.
The "truth" does not necesarily lie midway between two "extremes".
2) Oh you're still funny, just obivous and funny as opposed to more subtle and more funny. ;-) Try not to take that too hard. I know you're the sensitive type. (LOL I kill me, HOMOS etc)
3) Where have I ever said anything about a line between science and politics being unblurry? Are you as guilty of misrepresentation as Skeptic? ONLY KIDDING!The less certain things become the less easy it is to act on them appropriately, blurry is inherent in the system! Of course there are going to be numerous instances of bad decisions based on sparse/poor data. 'Tis the way of the world. Better data helps us minimise those occurences...or at least it's ONE thing that helps us minimise those occurences.
4) From the little economics I know about (and that really isn't much, IANAE) I'd have to say I'd agree with your assessment of the legacy of certain economic giants. I could be wrong about the history of it all. What I'm certainly not wrong about is that we have finite resources (in some case finite but very large resources that we have no hope of using up, sunlight for example) and we as a species are having such an impact on those resources and the environment because of the use of those resources that we need to find new solutions to certain issues.
For example, we know that fossil fuels will not last indefinitely, we know that there is not an infinite amount of oil, coal and gas. At some point we as a species are probably going to have to find a new source of energy. That doesn't involve hand-wringing or alarmist drivel (a la paranoid delusions of Skeptic) it involves hard work and sometimes even harder choices. It's quite possible that ONE of the choices we have in front of us, perhaps even one of the best choices, will involve us in the first world consuming a lot less, those in the second and third worlds developing using different, less polluting/resource heavy technologies. But this is hardly news to anyone informed about anything. This is the very basic, waffly crap that anyone should be aware of. The fact that there still exists a large number of morons who deny the basic facts (not politics, facts) for political reasons is disturbing to say the least.
So at the end I'm unsure what you want to discuss, the line between the science (what is going on) and the politics (what if anything we should do about it) of climate change is pretty obvious to me. I could find you examples that blur that line, but like I said, in every case they will involve one of two things: denail of the data or lack of data. I'm certainly not qualified to pontificate on the profound details of the economics, it's simply not my field, or closely related enough that I know enough about it to be useful.
Louis |
I involved skeptic's post because I thought it illustrated something.
| Quote |
- in 10-20 years we will see the results but for some it will be too late
- wars need to be replaced by diplomacy concerning limited resources
- money spent in Iraq could end global poverty (My personal favorite)
- money spent in Iraq should be used to build nuclear power plants (funny, money has never been an issue there)
- finally, some of this is opinion but the rest is undeniable...huh?
So, again, what is the problem? What is being denied and what needs to be addresses?
Is it CO2, ozone depletion, deforestation and extinction or poverty, war or nuclear power?
Seems like a political discussion to me and not one about the science of climate change. |
He conflates multiple issues that in fact do seem to run together. Science is political in the modern world. The Iraq statement is out of the blue to be sure but the idea that wars are not the same as they used to be and that co2 and deforestation relate to war in a new more dangerous way I think is pretty spot on. The problem is that while that isn't the science, that does flow from the science. This is a case where the science has direct political implications.
--------------
Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far
The Daily Wingnut
|
