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So much for "unanimous" - an inconvenient truth

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By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Al Gore's new movie on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," opens with scenes from Hurricane Katrina slamming into New Orleans. The former vice president
says unequivocally
that because of global warming,
it is all but certain that future hurricanes will be more violent and destructive than those in the past
.

...

With the official start of hurricane season days away, meteorologists are
unanimous
that the 2006 tropical storm season, which runs from June 1 through November, is likely to be a doozy.

(emp. mine)

Can you name a single hurricane from 2006? If not, don't be too hard on yourself -it's "the most tranquil season in a decade".

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002119.html

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Can you name a single hurricane from 2006? If not, don't be too hard on yourself -it's "the most tranquil season in a decade".

Response from Algore:

"It's much worse than we thought! Global warming has heated things up so much that existing meteorological assumptions are no longer valid making it impossible now for meteorologists to predict the weather! The hurricanes that
would
have formed this year had we not had so much global warming are now waiting to combine with hurricanes that form in future years in order to create superhurricanes so large that they will blanket the entire Gulf of Mexico and extend inland as far as Arizona! And, instead of lasting a mere day or so when they make landfall, these new superhurricanes will stick around for
weeks.
We need to declare a state of National Emergency NOW! The fact that there were no major hurricanes this year is
proof
that global warming is real and is a bigger threat to the United States than those relatively harmless so-called "terrorists" in the Middle East that everyone is getting their knickers in a twist over!

To quote Howard Dean: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!'
:lol:
"

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What is the "official" objectivist position on global warming exactly?

Is it that the science behind it is all wrong and that global warming (if it is occurring at all) is just the result of natural climate trends?

Is it that humans may be contributing to global warming but there is no real risk to humans?

Is it that humans may be contributing to global warming and there is a real risk, but the government is prohibited from intervening?

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1) There is no objective science behind global warming whatsoever. There are sundry supremely flawed "climate models" having very little connection to reality, and for every scientist preaching global warming, there are ten wondering what the hell he's going on about. Whether there is a consistent, long-term climate trend towards increased atmospheric/surface temperature is an open question, and, should such a trend be discovered, it's fundamental causes are not known. If such a trend exists, the cause may turn out to be human activity, but that such a trend does exist and that its cause is human activity are, at best, very questionable propositions with terribly little in the way of either legitimate basis or scientists' support.

2) There is no real risk to humans. People have successfully coped with natural disasters of all kinds, and progressively devised means of more and more efficiently dealing with and eliminating them. Global warming would be no different.

3) Any truly successful initiative against the detrimental effects of global warming, as mentioned in 2), would have to be devised and enacted by individuals.

I doubt there is an "official" Objectivist (note the capital O) position on global warming. But there is an official Objectivist method of determining its existence, properties, and means of affecting people: reason.

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What is the "official" objectivist position on global warming exactly?

Is it that the science behind it is all wrong and that global warming (if it is occurring at all) is just the result of natural climate trends?

It's not that the science behind it is wrong, but that it is not science at all.

Predictions of universal doom are interspersed with complaints of this kind. And nowhere, neither in this survey nor elsewhere, does one find any scientific evidence—no, not to prove, but even to support a valid hypothesis of global danger. But one does find the following.

"... some scientists," the survey declares, "like to play with the notion that global disaster may result if environmental pollution continues unchecked. According to one scenario, the planet is already well advanced toward a phenomenon called 'the greenhouse effect.' Concentrations of carbon dioxide are building up in the atmosphere, it is said, as the world's vegetation, which feeds on CO2, is progressively chopped down. Hanging in the atmosphere, it forms a barrier trapping the planet's heat. As a result, the greenhouse theorists contend, the world is threatened with a rise in average temperature which, if it reached 4 or 5 degrees, could melt the polar ice caps, raise sea level by as much as 300 feet and cause a worldwide flood. Other scientists see an opposite peril: that the polar ice will expand, sending glaciers down to the temperate zone once again. This theory assumes that the earth's cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born."

This is what bears the name of "science" today. It is on the basis of this kind of stuff that you are being pushed into a new Dark Age.

A horde of savages that would make Attila look civilized by comparison, has given the world a perfect concretization of three abstractions, which civilized men have taken with too foggy a tolerance: collectivism, which regards individual lives as of no value—the rule of force, which implements the whims of the subhuman—ecology as a social principle, which condemns cities, culture, industry, technology, the intellect, and advocates men's return to "nature," to the state of grunting subanimals digging the soil with their bare hands.
Edited by Bold Standard
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Certainly the state of the science has changed from when Rand wrote that (likely in the 70s or perhaps early 80s?) I am certainly no expert on climate, but from what I understand global warming is happening. The dispute is over whether it is caused by rising CO2 levels due to industrialization or general climatic shifts which have occurred long before humans arrived on the scene.

I guess my question is whether there are scientists that objectivists look to for guideance on this issue, and if so, which ones? It seems rather strange for a philosophy to take a position on a factual issue, so I am assuming that it must be because there is some scientific community support for the idea that global warming is a hoax.

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Certainly the state of the science has changed from when Rand wrote that (likely in the 70s or perhaps early 80s?)

Well, yes, but you said "'official' [O]bjectivist position," so I thought you wanted a quote from AR. The opinions of particular Objectivists on contemporary issues is not necessarily "officially" Objectivism, and strictly speaking, only the particular ideas advanced and condoned by Ayn Rand in her lifetime are "official" Objectivist positions, since Objectivism is "the philosophy of Ayn Rand."

Certainly the state of the science has changed from when Rand wrote that (likely in the 70s or perhaps early 80s?)

The top quote I gave was originally published in the January, 1971 issue of The Objectivist. The second was from the September 1974 issue of The Ayn Rand Letter.

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Certainly the state of the science has changed from when Rand wrote that (likely in the 70s or perhaps early 80s?)

Certainly it has NOT.

The ARI's efforts, and really even a cursory reading of these "studies" by "scientists" show that, just as Ayn Rand said back in the 70's... what these people are advancing isn't science at all.

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Certainly it has NOT.

The ARI's efforts, and really even a cursory reading of these "studies" by "scientists" show that, just as Ayn Rand said back in the 70's... what these people are advancing isn't science at all.

It just seems very bizarre to me. It is easy to understand why certain environmentalists would embrace a false science of global warming. What is not easy to understand is why the majority of academic research and government scientists would. Certainly I can see a bias, but not an intentional hoax.

That is why I asked whether objectivists looked to some specific cadre of scientists who were refuting the mainstream view. Because philosophers simply cannot debate science with scientists. There needs to be some hard science out there which disproves the global warming "hoax" that ARI must be using.

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Without even going into any "hard science" the attempts on the part of environmentalists to panic everyone into statism don't even pass the smell test on a superficial level.

For example, climate change has always occurred since long before evil human beings (those horrible demonic creatures the environmentalists keep hoping for "the right virus to come along" and wipe out) came on the scene or became industrialized. For example, the climate enjoyed by the ancient Greeks and Romans was a lot warmer than it is today. Here is an article about some of the more recent climate changes: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279o.html

So even IF the climate is "warming" it does not necessarily follow that it is caused by the capitalism and human freedom that the global warming fanatics essentially propose to replace with an especially bleak form of communism. Furthermore, a warmer climate is not necessarily a bad thing - it means that areas that are now not able to become agriculturally productive gradually would be.

I have read somewhere that some of the so-called evidence often cited to support "warming" is based on temperature readings taken at the same location over a prolonged period of time. Well, guess what? Temperature readings from a big city such as Fort Worth back in the 1850s probably ARE going to be cooler than those taken today simply because the location where that temperature is officially measured was out in the middle of the wilderness in the 1850s and is now in the middle of a sea of concrete and skyscrapers which does elevate temperatures in the immediate area a slight bit. Context is everything.

The other thing to keep in mind is the dismal track record of accuracy of these people. You may be a bit too young to remember this, Vladimir, but in the early 1990s there was a HUGE panic over the so-called "ozone hole" over the Antarctic which was supposedly getting larger and would eventually cause us to fry to death. Then, on the basis of a single airplane flyover and data gathering mission, they press then went all nuts over an alleged new ozone hole that was forming over the Arctic region - and the Leftist press was having little orgasms about the "ozone hole over Kennebunkport, Maine" (where the first President Bush had a summer home). Well, guess what? The data from that Arctic flight was flawed and it was eventually demonstrated that the ozone hole over the antarctic was NORMAL and has been occurring long before industrialization and capitalism came on the scene. The ozone is created by interaction with the sun - and during the winter months when the alleged "hole" exists, there is no sunlight. When the sunlight returns in the spring and summer, the hole repairs itself. One does not hear much about the ozone hole anymore - they got their mileage out of it and moved on to other things once its credibility was in jeopardy. So, yes there was a "hole" in the ozone - but it was natural and normal. Context is everything.

Back in the 1960s, the panic was that industrialization and capitalism was going to cause global cooling and we would all freeze to death. Since then, the same crowd has changed their minds and now its global warming.

I recall some Objectivist or another once pointing out that arguing with an environmentalist is like arguing with an old time communist. Back in the day before communists morphed into environmentalists and pretended to actually care about human standards of living, the communists would list 10 alleged facts and reasons why communism was better than capitalism. When one thoroughly debunked all 10 of them, the communist would completely ignore everything that was said and simply come up with 10 new reasons. The environmentalists are the exact same way.

Consider the actual and widespread environmental destruction that was exposed in the territories occupied by the old USSR when that tyranny fell - and then ask yourself why it is that the only solution advocated by environmentalists and global warming crowd is essentially another form of the same old communism.

Bottom line is that Leftists, like communists, lie. What motivates them, whether they will admit it to themselves or not, is a lust for absolute power. One cannot persuade people to surrender their lives and everything they care about and value over to universal slavery by means of facts and reason. To do so, one must twist the facts and deceive. The only time that Leftists appeal to facts and reason is if the facts just so happen to be convenient to whatever agenda they are pushing at the moment - and you can be damn sure that whatever "facts" they present are almost always completely out of context. For that reason, I take anything asserted by hard core Leftists with a grain of salt in the exact same way that I take anything asserted by someone I know by my own personal experience to be dishonest with a grain of salt. Of course, taking such people's views with a grain of salt does NOT constitute a proper refutation of them. But, on the other hand, one cannot merely assert: well, we should take them seriously because maybe this time they are being truthful. It is simply not possible to go around and spend time researching and refuting every assertion irrational and dishonest people attempt to put forth. In the case with the Left, it is necessary to do a certain amount of debunking because, unfortunately, such people dominate the mass media and large numbers of people by into their ideologically motivated distortions about a wide variety of issues.

Any time someone - I don't care how impressive their "credentials" are or how popular they are in upper West Side cocktail parties that staff at the New York Times and other media organizations frequent or how widely quoted they are in the media - makes some sort of assertion in order to allegedly support and justify depriving YOU of your freedom and your standard of living, your default reaction should be to automatically regard it as highly suspect. And if they do present supposed "facts" to back up their allegations, be on the lookout for them to have been presented to you very much out of their proper context. And if you don't have the time to spend researching and debunking the allegations, be darned sure that you are on guard not to allow them to influence your wider views when it comes to how you should live or vote.

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What is not easy to understand is why the majority of academic research and government scientists would.
Was that serious, or a joke? I really can't tell. Assuming that it was serious, if you can show me that it is a fact that the majority of academic research and government scientists embrace the religion of global warming, then I can show you why that is so.
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What is not easy to understand is why the majority of academic research and government scientists would. Certainly I can see a bias, but not an intentional hoax.

As David said, they lied about that, too. We have plenty of evidence of the fact that they're lying. Like how Science magazine categorically refuses to publish any article that disproves or undermines Global Warming. Many of them, in academic journals no less, openly publish the fact that they find it necessary to create a scare, regardless of the facts, because "people need to do the right thing for the earth, either way." (that's a paraphrase)

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It just seems very bizarre to me. It is easy to understand why certain environmentalists would embrace a false science of global warming. What is not easy to understand is why the majority of academic research and government scientists would. Certainly I can see a bias, but not an intentional hoax.

Let's assume for a second that it's true that a majority of academic research and government scientists endorse environmentalism. I think it's bizarre, too. I also think it's bizarre that the majority of academic and government scientists endorced racism in Nazi Germany. I think the reasons are similar (and it's no coincidence that the Nazis were extreme, fanatical advocates of environmentalism themselves). It is an easily verifiable fact that environmentalism is being used, and always has been used since it began as a movement, to increase the scope of government. In other words, it has been used quite effectively to gain power. Why would a government scientist be motivated to endorse environmentalism? Well, think--who picks these scientists? Who pays them? Who desides which projects will be funded and which won't? In any political system in which there is such a thing as "a government scientist," such corruption should be expected--the system is designed specifically for that type of coersive influence to exist.

But I don't think it's true that the majority of scientists embrace that view anyway. Most of the science I've seen debunking environmentalism is not even from Objectivist sources. The same type of people who debunk supposedly "scientific" claims of the paranormal, space aliens on Earth, voodoo, ghosts, Intelligent Design, etc, often debunk claims made by environmentalists as well. Environmentalism is on the same level as these others--it's only that it has more political muscle behind it, so its advocates are more visible in certain circles than the others.

You don't have to be a scientist to debunk alleged experimental evidence for the efficacy of psychics, for another example--a philosopher can do that, because the contradictions are blatant logical fallacies. Similarly, you needn't be a scientist to debunk the typical position of those who support global warming--assuming by "global warming," you mean the full position, with all of its premises, conclusions, and consequences (rather than some specific scientific evidence of some actual change in climate that might occur in some delimited period of time, as a mere observation, without all the causal coorelations, implications, and everything else claimed in the actual "global warming" position).

Because philosophers simply cannot debate science with scientists. There needs to be some hard science out there which disproves the global warming "hoax" that ARI must be using.
I think it's a little misleading to call it a "hoax," because that implies that its advocates don't actually believe that it's true. Although some of them might not believe it, and might be only using it as a Machievellian tool--many of them obviously believe it.
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Most of the science I've seen debunking environmentalism is not even from Objectivist sources. The same type of people who debunk supposedly "scientific" claims of the paranormal, space aliens on Earth, voodoo, ghosts, Intelligent Design, etc, often debunk claims made by environmentalists as well. Environmentalism is on the same level as these others--it's only that it has more political muscle behind it, so its advocates are more visible in certain circles than the others.

This is a very good point. There are plenty of people out there debunking environmentalism - but the general public that gets its news from the mainstream media rarely gets to hear about it. And when such information is published, it is either buried in the middle of an overall pro-environmentalist article or on an obscure page that does not generate much notice or subsequent conversation. But if someone who in any way can assert a claim to the mantle of science says something pro-envioronmentalist - well, gee, that is plastered all over the visible pages of the New York Times and distributed all across the country via their wire service and through other wire services such as Al-ap and Red Reuters.

For example, Ralph Nader's merry band of food fascists who have led nihilistic crusades against movie theater popcorn and fettucini alfredo (i.e. occasional treats that people enjoy) calls itself The Center For Science In The Public Interest. Science my ass. They are nothing more than a bunch of hippie nihilist food fascists - the same crowd that is trying to outlaw fast food and dictate to people what they may and may not eat. The fact that some of them may have gone to college and received union cards to call themselves "scientists" means nothing to me - they are still Leftists with a dangerous and wicked political agenda. But the press eagerly eats up everything they dish out in their may press releases and passes it on uncritically.

In many cases with the journalists, it is not even a matter of trying to put across a political agenda. Many are too lazy and some are not particularly bright enough to question it or investigate the matter further. And since the vast majority are already ideologically sympathetic, even if they are inclined to be fair minded, they have swallowed the kool-aid long enough that it often does not even occur to them that something put out by a Ralph Nader group might be suspect. It is much easier to simply regurgitate the press release and besides, wild apocalyptic assertions make for better headlines than a bunch of nerds saying that everything is actually ok. Plus it takes much more effort, technical knowledge and column inches to dissect a myth and educate people of the actual facts than it does to assert the myth in the first place - which does not make for good newspaper copy or easily fit into nice 15 second television sound bites. The general public, in turn, simply accepts whatever it is that the mainstream media puts forth uncritically - and thus the notion is planted in people's mind that science and reason is somehow on the side of the environmentalists when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

So the press is a major player in the propagation of the myths and so much of the distortion on the subject - which isn't surprising. This is the same crowd that attempted to use forged documents in order to influence the outcome of an election and bring down a US president. This is the same crowd that utterly distorted actual on the ground operations in both the Vietnam war and more recently in Iraq. This is the same crowd that resorted to filming automobiles that they deliberately caused to explode in order to put across their claims that they were unsafe. And those are simply the instances where they were caught - who knows what else they have managed to get away with over the decades. For that reason, I pretty much take anything I read in the mainstream media with a very healthy dose of skepticism, especially if the gist of what they are saying implies that my life and happiness should be sacrificed to the wishes of a bunch of statists.

Finally, observe that Lefitist are now trying to resort to intimidation and even calls for censorship in order to shut down the critics of global warming. Such critics are now called "global warming deniers" and are frequently equated with racists who deny that the Holocaust occured. Here is an article by a scholar out of India that briefly discusses this new trend and also gives a pretty good overview of the global warming myth as well: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/20...17300954060.htm If global warming is indeed backed up by facts and science - well, why on earth does the Left feel a need to go to such lengths to silence its critics?

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This is a very good point. There are plenty of people out there debunking environmentalism - but the general public that gets its news from the mainstream media rarely gets to hear about it. And when such information is published, it is either buried in the middle of an overall pro-environmentalist article or on an obscure page that does not generate much notice or subsequent conversation.

But there are exceptions to this. I've seen some interesting reports by John Stosell on the news show 20/20 debunking various claims from environmentalism (he includes statements by actual scientists, from my memory, but I don't know any specific names).

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