So Kenny asked me which is a higher priority to me. Terrorism or the environment.
For me the environment is more important. It is a higher priority for many reasons. I will name several but only explain a few. More people will die from environmental reasons that from terrorism.
Economic, political, justice, health. I will address biodiversity in another post.
Let me take the last and most obvious one first. Clean air, clean water, clean soil.
Air pollution has been implicated in many health problems from various cancers and lung diseases, to asthma. This should be enough to make people want to clean up their act. More people will die from air pollution related problems then terrorism in the United States. Reduce pollution. Drive less, reduce coal and oil burning power generation.
Polluted water. Right now only about 3 percent of the earth’s water is fresh water. That does not mean it is drinkable, it means that it is not salty. I do not know how much of that is drinkable without significant water treatment. Water pollution not only impacts human health, but also plant health and animal health. Some of the pollutants in water are natural. There are water holes in the desert that are contaminated with arsenic. These are undrinkable even for plants and animals. Many pollutants are man made. Agriculture runoff, from fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are entering streams and rivers. Many rivers are used for fresh water. These polluted waters have to be treated before it is drinkable. Untreated water not only has more chemicals, but more parasites and other disease causing germs. Buy organic, don’t put harsh chemicals down the drain.
For the health reasons alone, we need to continue to protect and improve the environment.
I am going to blend the argument for economic and political reasons. I think they cross each other so much, there is very little to differentiate them. First let’s take a look at water. Water is the life blood of many wars and battles. I recently read an article about Darfur – you know that war torn, genocidal area? What set it off? It wasn’t just I hate you and you have to die. It was that the farmers were running out of water, and would not let the nomadic herders on their land anymore. Hmm, water is gone, economy is changing, war breaks out. That is an extreme case, or is it? One writer attributes a lot more localized wars and skirmishes to changing water resources. Here in the United States there are continued court battles over water rights. With the damming of the Colorado river, and exporting that water to California, the water rights battles only get fiercer.
The Aral sea in Kazakhstan is drying up. It is drying up because the central Soviet Government decided to divert water from Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, its feeding rivers, to dry areas in Uzbekistan to grow cotton. The sea's surface area has shrunk by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest lake, by 1998, it had dropped to eighth-largest. Over the same time period its salinity has increased from about 10 g/l to about 45 g/l. As of 2004, the Aral Sea's surface area was only 25% of its original size, and still contracting. What it has left behind is a devastating mix of toxic chemicals and economic impoverished people. The children who still live near the Aral sea have a significantly higher rate of kidney cancer. This is economic and political devastation caused by not protecting water.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
When your religion becomes the argument
I have seen several arguments against global climate change now that says the environmentalism is like a religion. One even went so far as to equate several mythologies to environmentalism. Each one of these commentators says that you can’t talk to environmentalists because it is their religion.
Ok, I won’t disagree to much with some of that, other then to say this. It seems to me that that is probably true on both sides.
I know of some people who will make a knee jerk reply based on who the speaker is. Some people cannot take anything Ted Kennedy says with out spitting out that he is a liberal looney. Others have the same reaction to George Bush – not the liberal thing but that he is bat-shit crazy. Others automatically discount anything governmental, or big business, or take you pick of enemies.
When this automatic reaction happens, you know you are going to be unable to change that persons mind. You might as well change the subject to something safe, like who is better: Cubs or Sox.
I have also made the observation that when some one says: “you need to educate yourself on this.” They mean that you better believe what they believe of the country, world, universe, is going to explode, or what ever.
My recent back and forth was with a guy who is absolutely positive that America is going to be over run with illegal immigrants who are evil criminals, “rapist, drug dealers, and gang bangers.” According to him there are nearly 10,000 illegal border crossing, get this, Per Day, and if we don’t do something about it, Al Qaeda will attack us again. Ok, I will just back away from the crazy nut.
10,000 per day, that would mean that the estimate 12 million undocumented aliens all came in over the last 3 years. I don’t think so.
The other problem I have with this is that this kind of rhetoric is blatantly racist. In one statement he said that the difference between “illegals and legals are that the legals will assimilate into our culture and the illegals won’t, they don’t learn English.” Ok that is the difference? Well tell that to the Polish guys who painted my house last year. Only the foreman spoke English, and they all had their green cards.
I know I have my knee jerk reactions. Environmentalism is one, protect the earth at any cost. Without clean air, clean water, and bio-diversity, we are screwed. Racism and political correctness are another. I will fight racism where I see it, and push for polite use of words when I can. So don’t try to argue with me on these – it’s my religion, or at least one of them.
I also know that there are just some topics you have to stay away from because the other person just won’t budge on it, so you might as well not even go there.
Ok, I won’t disagree to much with some of that, other then to say this. It seems to me that that is probably true on both sides.
I know of some people who will make a knee jerk reply based on who the speaker is. Some people cannot take anything Ted Kennedy says with out spitting out that he is a liberal looney. Others have the same reaction to George Bush – not the liberal thing but that he is bat-shit crazy. Others automatically discount anything governmental, or big business, or take you pick of enemies.
When this automatic reaction happens, you know you are going to be unable to change that persons mind. You might as well change the subject to something safe, like who is better: Cubs or Sox.
I have also made the observation that when some one says: “you need to educate yourself on this.” They mean that you better believe what they believe of the country, world, universe, is going to explode, or what ever.
My recent back and forth was with a guy who is absolutely positive that America is going to be over run with illegal immigrants who are evil criminals, “rapist, drug dealers, and gang bangers.” According to him there are nearly 10,000 illegal border crossing, get this, Per Day, and if we don’t do something about it, Al Qaeda will attack us again. Ok, I will just back away from the crazy nut.
10,000 per day, that would mean that the estimate 12 million undocumented aliens all came in over the last 3 years. I don’t think so.
The other problem I have with this is that this kind of rhetoric is blatantly racist. In one statement he said that the difference between “illegals and legals are that the legals will assimilate into our culture and the illegals won’t, they don’t learn English.” Ok that is the difference? Well tell that to the Polish guys who painted my house last year. Only the foreman spoke English, and they all had their green cards.
I know I have my knee jerk reactions. Environmentalism is one, protect the earth at any cost. Without clean air, clean water, and bio-diversity, we are screwed. Racism and political correctness are another. I will fight racism where I see it, and push for polite use of words when I can. So don’t try to argue with me on these – it’s my religion, or at least one of them.
I also know that there are just some topics you have to stay away from because the other person just won’t budge on it, so you might as well not even go there.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Kenny quotes David Freidman
Kenny Quoted: Environmentalism is in part a real argument, in part a religion, in part an aesthetic; the second and third parts make people too willing to accept the first.
Arnies's response: So do we automatically discount any argument based on religion or aesthetic?
Kenny Quoted: Which gets me to Mike's various queries about why I choose to align myself with the forces of evil and ignorance by expressing skepticism about the horrors likely to arise from global warming. Simply put, I am skeptical of conclusions that appear to go well beyond the scientific evidence, pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them.
Arnie's Response: So do we automatically be skeptical of arguments pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them? Or just arguements based on science pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them.
In either case, people should be automatically skeptical of religion, and anything tying religion and science. We should also be skeptical of anything anyone says in any argument because they have a reason to push it.
Arnies's response: So do we automatically discount any argument based on religion or aesthetic?
Kenny Quoted: Which gets me to Mike's various queries about why I choose to align myself with the forces of evil and ignorance by expressing skepticism about the horrors likely to arise from global warming. Simply put, I am skeptical of conclusions that appear to go well beyond the scientific evidence, pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them.
Arnie's Response: So do we automatically be skeptical of arguments pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them? Or just arguements based on science pushed by people who have reasons to want other people to believe them.
In either case, people should be automatically skeptical of religion, and anything tying religion and science. We should also be skeptical of anything anyone says in any argument because they have a reason to push it.
A response to a previous post
Go read this first.
http://redneckperil.blogspot.com/2007/03/cui-bono.html
Kenny Said: At any rate, the serious point underlying my silliness here is that rich Westerners who are out to save the environment have a nasty habit of grossly underestimating the degree to which their environmentalism is a luxury of the wealthy. They have a nasty habit of underestimating the very real human cost that comes from environmentalism-motivated restrictions on freedom and capitalism, the two great engines of the prosperity of the Anglosphere in general and America in particular – which prosperity is, ironically, the precondition for all the spare time that Western environmentalists have on their hands in which to promote environmentalism.
Kenny Said: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the foolish intellectual habits that are manipulated by the global warming propagandists, have a far more deadly potential than does global warming.
Kenny Said: We don’t have a nice long list of actual deaths and human misery directly attributable to global worming.
My first response to this is, ummm, yes we do. The severity of hurricane Katrina has been attributed to global warming.
My second response to this, is that pollution and environmental damage is not a rich westerners cause. I will cite two examples. I am sure you are aware of these examples. This is from our beloved Kazakhstan. The first is not a result of fossil fuels, but of the worst kind of environmental ignorance. I am sure you will use this as an example of how governments are bad, and I will agree. I will use this as an example of how not protecting the environment severely damages people – and poor people at that.
The Aral sea is a true environmental disaster. No it was not caused by global warming, It was caused by diverting water from the rivers that feed it in order to grow cotten in areas that should not grow cotten. There is a dead zone left after the Aral sea evaporated. It is not merely a lake that dried up, it is a land that cannot be used because of the pollutants that have precipitated out on the dry land that is left. Pesticide, herbicides, and many other toxic chemicals have left kids that lived around there with significantly higher rates of rare liver cancers. This doesn't even come close to describing the absolute devastation in that area.
The Caspian sea is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world. For more information see here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspenv.html (I am sure you will discount this because it is a government site though) The pollution is a direct result of the industry and oil extraction that is centered there.
Kenny Said: In defense of this position they trot out the argument that our dependence on foreign oil causes petrodollars to flow to various nasty people like the oily (in multiple senses) Saudis or murderous loonies like Chavez, and argue that we need to make the price of oil fall.
Kenny Said: At which point I observe that this is a first-rate reason to open up the continental shelves and Anwar to oil production...and do you know, it’s just astonishing to see how instantaneously my conversational compatriots cease to be concerned with the security risk posed by American dependence on foreign oil production.
This is an intellectually dishonest argument and you know it. In fact, most global warming proponents are very clear and very consistent as to their attitudes towards oil. I would like to see the price of oil and gas driven up so high that it forces people to stop driving cars and forces people to use public transportation more. There are many reasons to stop using oil. It is not intellectually dishonest to through as many of those arguments out to try and convince people to reduce using oil, and find alternative energy.
Only secondarily would I even mention that oil funds terrorist countries. First and foremost, oil is bad for the environment. The pollution attributed to oil including the destruction caused by extracting it, the extremely toxic waste created in refining it, the toxic byproducts of burning it. Huston Texas is one of the most polluted cities in the country – due to oil refining. Oh, wait, oil is good isn’t it?
Kenny Said: Something tells me most global warming fanatics would, even in the face of the it’s-okay-because-there-are-other-good-reasons defense…
Hmmm, Given that there are so many issues surrounding global warming. The more important issue is protecting the environment. Without clean air, without clean water, humans die. Global warming is one a smaller issue surrounding protecting the environment. Most people I talk to about global warming agree that the bigger protecting the environment is what drives them to push for using less oil, using less electricity, and reducing pollution and increasing alternative energy.
http://redneckperil.blogspot.com/2007/03/cui-bono.html
Kenny Said: At any rate, the serious point underlying my silliness here is that rich Westerners who are out to save the environment have a nasty habit of grossly underestimating the degree to which their environmentalism is a luxury of the wealthy. They have a nasty habit of underestimating the very real human cost that comes from environmentalism-motivated restrictions on freedom and capitalism, the two great engines of the prosperity of the Anglosphere in general and America in particular – which prosperity is, ironically, the precondition for all the spare time that Western environmentalists have on their hands in which to promote environmentalism.
Kenny Said: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the foolish intellectual habits that are manipulated by the global warming propagandists, have a far more deadly potential than does global warming.
Kenny Said: We don’t have a nice long list of actual deaths and human misery directly attributable to global worming.
My first response to this is, ummm, yes we do. The severity of hurricane Katrina has been attributed to global warming.
My second response to this, is that pollution and environmental damage is not a rich westerners cause. I will cite two examples. I am sure you are aware of these examples. This is from our beloved Kazakhstan. The first is not a result of fossil fuels, but of the worst kind of environmental ignorance. I am sure you will use this as an example of how governments are bad, and I will agree. I will use this as an example of how not protecting the environment severely damages people – and poor people at that.
The Aral sea is a true environmental disaster. No it was not caused by global warming, It was caused by diverting water from the rivers that feed it in order to grow cotten in areas that should not grow cotten. There is a dead zone left after the Aral sea evaporated. It is not merely a lake that dried up, it is a land that cannot be used because of the pollutants that have precipitated out on the dry land that is left. Pesticide, herbicides, and many other toxic chemicals have left kids that lived around there with significantly higher rates of rare liver cancers. This doesn't even come close to describing the absolute devastation in that area.
The Caspian sea is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world. For more information see here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspenv.html (I am sure you will discount this because it is a government site though) The pollution is a direct result of the industry and oil extraction that is centered there.
Kenny Said: In defense of this position they trot out the argument that our dependence on foreign oil causes petrodollars to flow to various nasty people like the oily (in multiple senses) Saudis or murderous loonies like Chavez, and argue that we need to make the price of oil fall.
Kenny Said: At which point I observe that this is a first-rate reason to open up the continental shelves and Anwar to oil production...and do you know, it’s just astonishing to see how instantaneously my conversational compatriots cease to be concerned with the security risk posed by American dependence on foreign oil production.
This is an intellectually dishonest argument and you know it. In fact, most global warming proponents are very clear and very consistent as to their attitudes towards oil. I would like to see the price of oil and gas driven up so high that it forces people to stop driving cars and forces people to use public transportation more. There are many reasons to stop using oil. It is not intellectually dishonest to through as many of those arguments out to try and convince people to reduce using oil, and find alternative energy.
Only secondarily would I even mention that oil funds terrorist countries. First and foremost, oil is bad for the environment. The pollution attributed to oil including the destruction caused by extracting it, the extremely toxic waste created in refining it, the toxic byproducts of burning it. Huston Texas is one of the most polluted cities in the country – due to oil refining. Oh, wait, oil is good isn’t it?
Kenny Said: Something tells me most global warming fanatics would, even in the face of the it’s-okay-because-there-are-other-good-reasons defense…
Hmmm, Given that there are so many issues surrounding global warming. The more important issue is protecting the environment. Without clean air, without clean water, humans die. Global warming is one a smaller issue surrounding protecting the environment. Most people I talk to about global warming agree that the bigger protecting the environment is what drives them to push for using less oil, using less electricity, and reducing pollution and increasing alternative energy.
My response to redneck perel's latest on global warming
For those of you new to this discussion, you should at least read this post first.
http://redneckperil.blogspot.com/2007/03/skip-this-post-if-youre-bored-with.html
Let’s start by where we agree. Africa is poor, deadly poor. Africa is also among the most corrupt and corrupted continents in the world. We also agree at least in part that people in many cases are bad. I think big corporations that put profits and the interests of shareholders over the interests of the public good are bad. You are absolutely convinced that there has never been a good government. I suspect that this is an over simplification of what we both believe and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, probably that many governments are bad, and many corporations really don’t care about the common good.
I think we agree that bringing energy to Africa is a good thing. We disagree on how to do it. You think that a centralized power grid is the way to do it, I think decentralized power is the way to do it.
You say that I “seem to me not to grasp the single most fundamental of all principles of economics: you can't have everything.” Well that isn’t true. I know absolutely you can’t have everything. In fact, you brought up Africa in the context of global warming as a ruse to my comment about how pollution has impacted the Grand Canyon. I will comment on this below.
The real question we have here is what are the priorities. This discussion we are having seems to be based on the idea that energy is the most important thing that Africans need. I suspect that if we listed out the top ten things that Africans need, energy might not be the top number one, and I bet we might agree on that.
I personally think that clean water is more important than having a refrigerator, as I suspect you do to. I think that having medicines that either prevent or treat some of the worst diseases Africans are dealing with, including water born parasites, polio, not to mention AIDs, are more important than having an air conditioner, as I suspect you do to. We probably agree that energy may be tied up in all of this.
You think that it would be cheaper to build nuclear plants, and coal burning electricity plants than to build solar panels and wind mills. It may be true that building a centralized energy infrastructure may be cheaper in the short run, but in the long run, it will be more costly than building solar panels and electricity generating wind mills that have little or no longer term fuel costs.
I suspect our disagreements are more based on our personal beliefs and priorities than anything else. You are a right of center libertarian that believes that free markets are a cure all for everything. I am a liberal Democrat that believes that the common good is not served by free markets, and that some regulation is required to make people – big business or individuals not screw the common good.
I mentioned the Grand Canyon in one of my previous comments to illustrate the effects of pollution. I thought, but I guess I am wrong, that we might have agreed that pollution is a bad thing. Let me explain. Air pollution that is caused by burning fossil fuels causes many diseases in humans, including but not limited to asthma, lead poisoning, cancers including lung cancer and liver cancer.
My father is a pediatric surgeon (retired now). He did a lot of work for Medicaid. One thing he noticed was that there were several kids coming in to the hospital with the same types of diseases – all coming from the same neighborhood. Four kids with liver cancer from this neighborhood, fifteen kids with juvenile diabetes from this neighborhood. He started mapping a some of the multiple occurrences of the more rare cancers, and very much higher levels of certain diseases. He found that there was a high correlation of these diseases to proximity of high polluting industries.
There is evidence that many chemicals in the environment cause infertility. There is a class of chemicals called endocrine disrupters. These chemicals interfere with the normal workings of the bodies functions. One set of chemicals called pthaltes interfere with estrogen. Pthalates are everywhere – in perfume, in nail polish, hand cream, in many cosmetics that have fragrance. They aren’t just in cosmetics, they are in a lot of things including some types of plastics. These chemicals have been cited for the rise in infertility. PCB may cause cancer, but that is not all it does. PCB also causes neural changes in kids. Sometimes it is not the dose itself, but when the dose is applied. As kids develop these chemicals cause changes in their bodies that may or may not cause cancer. Pthalates have been shown to cause shrunken testes in males for four or more generations.
Part of the reason I have jumped on the global warming bandwagon, is I see the correlation between the production of CO2 and other major pollutants. If we screw the environment, we screw ourselves.
Will free markets solve this? I doubt it, but I am sure you will educate me as to how you think it will.
http://redneckperil.blogspot.com/2007/03/skip-this-post-if-youre-bored-with.html
Let’s start by where we agree. Africa is poor, deadly poor. Africa is also among the most corrupt and corrupted continents in the world. We also agree at least in part that people in many cases are bad. I think big corporations that put profits and the interests of shareholders over the interests of the public good are bad. You are absolutely convinced that there has never been a good government. I suspect that this is an over simplification of what we both believe and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, probably that many governments are bad, and many corporations really don’t care about the common good.
I think we agree that bringing energy to Africa is a good thing. We disagree on how to do it. You think that a centralized power grid is the way to do it, I think decentralized power is the way to do it.
You say that I “seem to me not to grasp the single most fundamental of all principles of economics: you can't have everything.” Well that isn’t true. I know absolutely you can’t have everything. In fact, you brought up Africa in the context of global warming as a ruse to my comment about how pollution has impacted the Grand Canyon. I will comment on this below.
The real question we have here is what are the priorities. This discussion we are having seems to be based on the idea that energy is the most important thing that Africans need. I suspect that if we listed out the top ten things that Africans need, energy might not be the top number one, and I bet we might agree on that.
I personally think that clean water is more important than having a refrigerator, as I suspect you do to. I think that having medicines that either prevent or treat some of the worst diseases Africans are dealing with, including water born parasites, polio, not to mention AIDs, are more important than having an air conditioner, as I suspect you do to. We probably agree that energy may be tied up in all of this.
You think that it would be cheaper to build nuclear plants, and coal burning electricity plants than to build solar panels and wind mills. It may be true that building a centralized energy infrastructure may be cheaper in the short run, but in the long run, it will be more costly than building solar panels and electricity generating wind mills that have little or no longer term fuel costs.
I suspect our disagreements are more based on our personal beliefs and priorities than anything else. You are a right of center libertarian that believes that free markets are a cure all for everything. I am a liberal Democrat that believes that the common good is not served by free markets, and that some regulation is required to make people – big business or individuals not screw the common good.
I mentioned the Grand Canyon in one of my previous comments to illustrate the effects of pollution. I thought, but I guess I am wrong, that we might have agreed that pollution is a bad thing. Let me explain. Air pollution that is caused by burning fossil fuels causes many diseases in humans, including but not limited to asthma, lead poisoning, cancers including lung cancer and liver cancer.
My father is a pediatric surgeon (retired now). He did a lot of work for Medicaid. One thing he noticed was that there were several kids coming in to the hospital with the same types of diseases – all coming from the same neighborhood. Four kids with liver cancer from this neighborhood, fifteen kids with juvenile diabetes from this neighborhood. He started mapping a some of the multiple occurrences of the more rare cancers, and very much higher levels of certain diseases. He found that there was a high correlation of these diseases to proximity of high polluting industries.
There is evidence that many chemicals in the environment cause infertility. There is a class of chemicals called endocrine disrupters. These chemicals interfere with the normal workings of the bodies functions. One set of chemicals called pthaltes interfere with estrogen. Pthalates are everywhere – in perfume, in nail polish, hand cream, in many cosmetics that have fragrance. They aren’t just in cosmetics, they are in a lot of things including some types of plastics. These chemicals have been cited for the rise in infertility. PCB may cause cancer, but that is not all it does. PCB also causes neural changes in kids. Sometimes it is not the dose itself, but when the dose is applied. As kids develop these chemicals cause changes in their bodies that may or may not cause cancer. Pthalates have been shown to cause shrunken testes in males for four or more generations.
Part of the reason I have jumped on the global warming bandwagon, is I see the correlation between the production of CO2 and other major pollutants. If we screw the environment, we screw ourselves.
Will free markets solve this? I doubt it, but I am sure you will educate me as to how you think it will.
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