The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
The book opens with a photograph of a stone hand ax and a computer mouse. Both fit the human hand. The stone tool was made by one person for their own use. Thousands of people made the mouse and no one of them knew how.
Finding a quotable quote is a challenge because all 359 pages are exciting and pithy. This is an antidote to the ever-popular doomsaying. Pessimism has been an easy sale for hundreds of years. Predictions for the end of the world transcend religion and take on mathematical precision during the very Industrial Revolution that disproved the claims.
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
by Matt Ridley (Harper, 2010).
“If this goes on…” by 2030, China will need more paper than Earth produces… we will run out of petroleum (of course)… we will be crowded, starved, polluted, ignorant; and the few survivors will be poorer than dirt to the end of their days. True enough, says Ridley. But the big “if” never obtains because the world is constantly changing, improving, getting better. “If this goes on…” fails because “this” never “goes on” but in fact is altered by something unexpected. Yes, there are dark ages, plagues, famines, and wars, but generally, since the invention of trade about 18,000 years ago, our lives have gotten exponentially better. Taking a word from Austrian economics, Ridley calls this “the great catallaxy.”
From the petroleum for the plastic to the software driver, each person did one thing; and it comes to you in exchange for the one thing you know how to do. The maker of the hand ax enjoyed nothing they did not get for themselves. (Among homo erectus including Neanderthal, it seems that both males and females hunted by the same methods.) The hunter-gather was limited to their own production – and so could not consume very much. We enjoy unlimited access to the productive work of others. Each of us has, in effect, hundreds of servants; and would be the envy of any warrior, peasant, chief, or king for our cheap, easy, and sanitary lives.
Each chapter begins with a graphic showing the exponential improvement in life span, health, prosperity, and invention. Another one shows the hyperbolic fall in homicides and yet another shows the dramatic decline in US deaths by water-borne diseases. Ridley examines barter and trade (“the manufacture of trust”), the agricultural revolution, urbanization, and the invention of invention. Each turn of the page overturns a common assumption. Just for instance, shopping for locally produced food more often results in less efficient use of petroleum; and, of course, it penalizes farmers in poor countries.
Ridley supports his claims with citations found at the back and linked to the page on which the assertion is made or fact is asserted. That said, it is important to keep your calculator handy.
The prolific Viscount Matt Ridley has several blogs. Here is his biography on his "Rational Optimist" site:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/biograph...
Finding a quotable quote is a challenge because all 359 pages are exciting and pithy. This is an antidote to the ever-popular doomsaying. Pessimism has been an easy sale for hundreds of years. Predictions for the end of the world transcend religion and take on mathematical precision during the very Industrial Revolution that disproved the claims.
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
by Matt Ridley (Harper, 2010).
“If this goes on…” by 2030, China will need more paper than Earth produces… we will run out of petroleum (of course)… we will be crowded, starved, polluted, ignorant; and the few survivors will be poorer than dirt to the end of their days. True enough, says Ridley. But the big “if” never obtains because the world is constantly changing, improving, getting better. “If this goes on…” fails because “this” never “goes on” but in fact is altered by something unexpected. Yes, there are dark ages, plagues, famines, and wars, but generally, since the invention of trade about 18,000 years ago, our lives have gotten exponentially better. Taking a word from Austrian economics, Ridley calls this “the great catallaxy.”
From the petroleum for the plastic to the software driver, each person did one thing; and it comes to you in exchange for the one thing you know how to do. The maker of the hand ax enjoyed nothing they did not get for themselves. (Among homo erectus including Neanderthal, it seems that both males and females hunted by the same methods.) The hunter-gather was limited to their own production – and so could not consume very much. We enjoy unlimited access to the productive work of others. Each of us has, in effect, hundreds of servants; and would be the envy of any warrior, peasant, chief, or king for our cheap, easy, and sanitary lives.
Each chapter begins with a graphic showing the exponential improvement in life span, health, prosperity, and invention. Another one shows the hyperbolic fall in homicides and yet another shows the dramatic decline in US deaths by water-borne diseases. Ridley examines barter and trade (“the manufacture of trust”), the agricultural revolution, urbanization, and the invention of invention. Each turn of the page overturns a common assumption. Just for instance, shopping for locally produced food more often results in less efficient use of petroleum; and, of course, it penalizes farmers in poor countries.
Ridley supports his claims with citations found at the back and linked to the page on which the assertion is made or fact is asserted. That said, it is important to keep your calculator handy.
The prolific Viscount Matt Ridley has several blogs. Here is his biography on his "Rational Optimist" site:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/biograph...
The shooting down of green/carbonista propaganda is one of my pet topics (you may have noticed).
" Just for instance, shopping for locally produced food more often results in less efficient use of petroleum; and, of course, it penalizes farmers in poor countries."
On the RebirthOfReason site there is discussion of Ridley's example of the time spent on lighting for reading. The right way to put together capital and operating costs is not always apparent, it was not to Ridley, but the theme is still correct. I was pleased to see your comment joshed (as we call it).
The big theme is the improvement in the human condition over time. Is it due to capitalism or to technology? When did trade, and the conscious storing of items of value, start? It was very early in human development, in fact animals store. When did technology start? Tool use has been seen in animals. So without having to choose one or the other, do technology and capitalism enhance each other? This theme is developed at length here by DBH. I suggest, yes, and there are other human characteristics and behavior that promote progress, some of these appear to be contradictory like cooperation and secrecy.
Once these thoughts on the social order began to change - due in no small part to the likes of St. Augustine who codified the Catholic religion which espoused the sanctity of the individual, expounded a moral code embodied in the ten commandments, openly encouraged inclusion of all peoples (different from the Jews who pretty much kept their religion and philosophy within their small community), and advocated peace and living in harmony with one another. And which would be further expanded by the thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas, who codified the natural law that is the basis of the culture that underlies Capitalism. Whether one wants to accept Christian theocracy, it cannot be refuted that it provided the foundational basis for Capitalism to flourish.
I'm not sure how religion made its way to this post, but if we are going to say Aquinas was as instrumental as Locke to Capitalism-that's not true. We might as well say Islam should be credited with Capitalism since they preserved the Greek and roman texts which are the basis of the Renaissance at a time when the Christians were burning every text they could get their hands which did not agree with their philosophy-including that very library in Alexandria.
Locke provided the moral framework for capitalism, not christianity, which can only be credited with creating the dark ages.
"John Locke was raised in a believing household and retained an appreciation for Puritan themes his entire life. Kim Ian Parker’s The Biblical Politics of John Locke describes his intense and lifelong fixation on holy writ. During an age of extreme religious passion and partisanship, John Locke came to his position of religious tolerance through much effort. It was not Locke’s initial reaction to the question of religious liberty, but a conclusion he assumed after much thought and exposure to other ideas, as well as real-life experience. Locke was also deeply religious, considering himself a Christian, and undertaking a lifelong study of theology and biblical commentary."
So one could say that the moral foundation that Locke had as a consequence of being a religious person shaped and formed his other thinking. Thus, even if I were to wholeheartedly agree with you about Locke (and I don't disagree that he was a major influence), I can also say that Christianity was a 2nd order influence - and perhaps even a primary influence if one rightly assumes that it was the morality of Christianity that directly was embedded in the philosophy of Locke.
To suggest any relation between capitalism and christianity is to disregard all evidence and logic, but that is fine because Christians have faith.
More on the Dark Ages and the evils of Christianity; note how christians burn books that contradict with their point of view and how they kill people who disagree with their point of view - sure that is about individualism. http://www.hermes-press.com/DAtruth.htm
I ask you to show me the theology of Christ that would support those actions. You cannot, because it does not exist. You want to confuse the actions of men with a theology of God. That is the fundamental problem with your analysis.
Find "Ayn Rand's Letter to Reverend Dudley." (It was an eBay item years ago and widely argued within Objectivist circles. Some denied its authenticity, but it stood up.) Rand said that Christianity was the first religion concerned with improving the individual. I think that that may be arguable: Buddhism has the same concern. Also, Confucianism is ambiguously a "religion" and a "philosophy." All of that is a quibble.
What remains essential is that Ayn Rand challenged 2500 years of tradition, in ethics, of course, but more deeply in epistemology and metaphysics.
I have had personal experiences - in so-called ESP, for instance - that I cannot prove to another (skeptical) person. They remain true to me. I cannot deny them. So, if someone has "experienced" God I have to accept what they say about that as being true for them - and unprovable to me.
On the other hand... I have measured the acceleration due to gravity, as have millions of high school and college students in basic physics courses. It is knowable, repeatable, testable, teachable, and transferrable. It is not arguable. Religion is arguable because no standard of proof exists.
You might be one heck of a nice guy; and Torquemada might have been a real jerk. Neither of those meets the standard of objective knowledge. And for Ayn
Rand, that was the crux of the problem:
"I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows." -- Ayn Rand.
If one starts from a premise that God made mankind and imbued him with free-will so that he is able to choose between good and evil then it follows that absolute proof would not be provided.
It is important to differentiate the Dark Ages from the Middle Ages. The bright line separating them was the reign of Charlemagne. Objectively not much had changed, but subjectively, their WORLD VIEW had. Alcuin of York was an advisor to Karl der Grosse. Adelbard of Bath, Gebert of Aurilliac (who studied under the Moors and brought learning to the West) became Pope Sylvester II.
The Number One Problem in Christian liturgy is Easter: reconciling the lunar and solar calendars so that they knew he first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring. They knew to expect the Second Coming and so they projected Easter out hundreds of years... and their predictions were wrong by half a day by 1350...But they knew that and they devised new theoretical models (more epherents).
They suggested "impetus" in physics. It was not correct, but it was better than the ephemeral tendencies of Aristotle. They knew that Saturn is about a billion miles from the sun. They knew that. And when they got the astrolabe from the Arabs they were overjoyed.
Alchemists isolate new "elements" such as antimony; and they differentiated "sulphur" from other "earths". It was not the atomic theory, but they were lightyears ahead of the Romans.
We have brandy - brandywine: burned wine - because they sought the essence (spirit) of the substance and distilled it, seeking the quintessence. The word "gas" comes from "ghost" because the "spirit" was isolated and identified.
You may laugh... but in a few generations, scoffers will put down Feynman for his "half advanced" diagrams.
You seem to accept Ayn Rand's "For the New Intellectual" without critical reflection or investigation. I did, too, for many years. However, while researching the Great Medieval Fairs of Troyes - and publishing an article about them - I discovered a world of splendor not appreciated by doctinaire Objectivists. Would I want to live back then? Of course not! But neither would I want to live in 1914 with its diphtheria and typhoid and polio and people who did not shower every day.
“Christianity was the first school of thought that proclaimed the supreme sacredness of the individual. The first duty of a Christian is the salvation of his own soul. This duty comes above any he may owe to his brothers. This is the basic statement of true individualism.”
-Ayn Rand, Letter to Reverend Dudley
Thus, the saving of one's soul (the soul being the ultimate ownership of oneself) is akin to egoism.
Your understanding of Christianity is just wrong. The whole basis is that God created man with free-will. It ours to choose how to live our lives. He merely identifies that there are consequences for those choices. Atheists seem not to want to acknowledge the consequences, which, in my opinion, leads to the ultimate evil - myself over all others.
How do you figure that Christianity gave us the dark ages? Seems to me it was the Goths who took advantage of the moral decay of the Romans (brought on by moral relativism due to a lack of a significant moral code - yes, Constantine turned to Christianity, but the moral decay throughout the roman empire had caused too great a decline brought on by excessive deficit spending - sounding familiar?).
Have you read Augustine or Aquinas? Regardless of what you think of what they believed, you cannot say that they were without reason.
For how this pertains to capitalism, see my response to K above.
The Ten Commandments antedate capitalism by 5000 years. They nonetheless have a lot to do with trade and commerce, being a fragment of the Code of Hamurabi. Marriage is all about property - in every society. Commandments One through Ten: "Thou shalt not break a contract."
What is a COVENANT? What is the Ark of the Covenant? What was God's Promise to Noah? What was the deal that Jesus offered: "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life." It is a bargain, an open offer to the public, like a tradesman's Welcome Mat.
Personally, I do not believe that the universe had a creator, but culturally, I understand and appreciate bountiful fruit of the the deep roots of Sumeria.
To condemn them for not being "capitalists" is to condemn them for not having Newtonian mechanics.
In my State, Western Australia, we have the usual roads, schools, airports, etc. of good quality, taxes are high, there is big State and Federal debt.
Five hours to our north is Singapore where they have roads etc. the schools and airports I know to be of top rank. Among the differences are,
1. Singapore has low taxes, and 2. positive net worth, not net debt.
(Confirm - government is a net investor, not a net borrower!)
They have a President, a mainly ceremonial position on the European style but with a special task, to oversee the national reserve investment fund, the President has the duty and power to reject profligate government bills. A previous President made a complaint, having the duty to protect the fund, he wanted to know how big it was. He asked Treasury, the answer was- Request declined, your job is to make sure it is not squandered, you do not need to know the size. That information is limited to Treasury who know what their job is and they do it.
The system appears to work well. It breaks the rules about transparency we think are important. How does it work? It could be linked to a part of the Confucian ethic - personal integrity, this means you delegate and trust to respected and competent officials who will perform their duties in the same way supervised or observed or not. The senior people in the Singapore public service are well paid, there could be a saving from not having to double up on checking supervising watching and spying on good people.
I cannot see it working here, but worth a thought.
I think Kaila was thinking about Trade Secrets, which generally inhibit the progress of technology, but certainly can help the company with the trade secret.
I will post of the IP errors separately.
Open Source
I am convinced that Mr. Ridley’s poor research on patents and intellectual property is due to his infatuation with the open source movement. On page 356 he opines that genetic research will soon go open source. He is so excited about open source that he eventually suggests a Marxist’s open source utopia – “Thanks to the internet, each is giving according to his ability to each according to his needs, to a degree that never happen in Marxism.” P. 356
The open source movement has been a dismal failure. Its biggest success has been to extend UNIX (LINUX) to personal computers, other platforms, and add new features. Open source has mainly extended existing technologies, much like the incremental invention that can be expected from large companies. The open source movement deludes itself into believing they are fighting some sort of David versus Goliath battle against large corporations and the patent system. The reality is that open source developers are giving large corporations, such as IBM, their efforts for free and weakening the bargaining power of technical personnel. The open source movement plays right into the hands of large corporations and other large institutions, by weakening the property rights of developers in their work. It should be no surprise that open source has been an abysmal failure, since this exactly the situation most of the world lived under until 1800. Before modern patent systems, new inventions were rare and the return for the invention was often controlled by a trade guild. The members of the trade guild profited equally, meaning there was little incentive for the inventor to spend time creating. Per capita income of the world before 1800 had been stagnant for millennia. Where modern patent laws were adopted around 1800, incredible increases in per capita income occurred. Mr. Ridley trumpets this progress throughout his book. In areas without patent systems, we see stagnant growth in per capita income. For instance, Japan’s per capita income does not take off until they copy the US patent system in the 1860s.
It is unfortunate that this excellent book is disfigured by the author’s irrational infatuation with the open source movement. This infatuation causes the author to embrace the logical contradiction that increases in population density increase economic growth and also causes the Malthusian trap (decreases in economic growth). It also causes him to reject the solution to the Malthusian trap, which is the recognition of property rights in inventions.
5) The book states that a number of inventions were never patented, p. 264, such as automatic transmission, Bakelite, ballpoint pens, cellophane, cyclotrons, gyrocompasses, jet engines, magnetic recording, power steering, safety razors and zippers. While it is possible that the first version of some of these inventions were not patented, all of these inventions were subject to numerous patents. This can be easily verified with a simple patent search. For instance, there are at least 20 patents and probably hundreds of patents on automatic transmissions. The same is true of ballpoint pens, gyrocompasses, jet engines, magnetic recording, power steering, safety razors and zippers. A simple internet search shows that chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944) invented and first patented the synthetic resin that we know as Bakelite in 1907.[1] Jacques E Brandenberger was granted patents to cover the machinery and the essential ideas of his manufacturing process of the new film (cellophane).[2] The assertions of no patents for the zipper is also easily shown to be incorrect. Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine received a patent in 1851 for an ‘Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure’ (zipper).[3]
6) The book argues that the Wright brothers, enforcing their patent on airplane control surfaces, supposedly shut down the airplane industry in the US. This is the typical propaganda of open source community. First of all the Wright brothers were building airplanes, so the industry was not shut down by enforcement of the patents. Second stealing other people’s property is not shutting down industry, it is shutting down theft. We would not say that someone stopped the harvest of wheat, because they did not let someone else reap the wheat they planted on their land.
7) The patent thicket argument is repeated by Mr. Ridley to suggest that patents inhibit advances in technology. A number of papers[4] have shown that there is no empirical evidence for the patent thicket argument and that the logical analogies on which it is based are flawed. For more information see Intellectual Property Socialism: Part IV USPTO Takes Aim at Inventors.
8) Mr. Ridley further demonstrates his ignorance of patents by repeating the concern that the US Patent Office was issuing patents for human genes in the 1990s, p. 265. What the Patent Office did and does was issue patents on “isolated genes.” This is similar to patents on things like isolated forms of vitamin B12, which was patented. For more information see Gene Patenting Debate Continues.
9) The book also mistakenly calls a patent a “temporary monopoly.” A patent is a property right, just like property rights in land, houses, cars, etc. The logical basis for patents is exactly the same as other property rights. Property rights are based on Natural Rights, which states that since you own yourself you own the product of your labor (physical and mental). For more information see The Myth that Patents are Monopolies.
The book has numerous other errors about intellectual property. For instance, it states that intellectual property is not like other property, because it is useless if you keep it to yourself, p. 262. This statement is nonsense. The Coca Cola formula is not shared and this is the only reason it has any value. A patent to an invention (legal title to an invention) only has value if there is some ability to exclude others from using it – as opposed to knowing about it. If everyone can make a laser without pay royalties, then it may have value to the world but it has no differential value to the inventor. Patents are derived from exactly the same philosophical basis as real property. Namely, Locke’s theory of Natural Rights. For more information see Scarcity – Does it Prove Intellectual Property is Unjustified? Below are a list of some, but not all, of the book’s errors related to patents:
1) The book then states that people get rich by selling each other things and services not ideas, p. 263. What are authors, professors, engineers, scientists, really selling? Authors are not selling books, they are selling ideas that just happen to be embodied in books. The Kindle proves this. The Kindle does not allow the user to buy a book, but to buy the ideas in a book. Professors are either selling the teaching of ideas or just an expensive way to bore students. Engineers are selling a service, which encompasses ideas not the paper (digital ones and zeros) on which it is written. Most companies do not make money manufacturing things, they make money with inventions (ideas) that are implemented in things. When a company only sells things with no (new) ideas in these things, then their profit margins are extremely narrow. One of the limitations on growth has been this Luddite refusal to allow inventors to specialize in inventing. This book’s premise is built on the division of labor, but the author rejects this idea when it comes to inventing.
2) Mr. Ridley also seems to be confused between the spread of information related to inventions and the legal right to use that information to build an invention. It is a major goal of modern patent systems to spread information about inventions so that they can be used by other people to build other inventions. In the U.S. we built patent depository libraries to spread the wealth of information in patents (before the internet). Patents encourage people to share the information associated with their inventions instead of keeping them a trade secret. Countries without patent systems tend to invent mainly things that can be protected with a trade secret. (See Switzerland before they adopt a patent system) As a result, other inventors do not get learn from these inventions and the rate of technological progress is inhibited.
3) The book perpetuates the first mover advantage alternative to patents. Xerox had the world’s greatest first mover advantage in plain paper copiers, when it agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit in 1975 by giving away its patent portfolio. Its market share went from almost 100% in plain paper copiers to 14% in just four years. The first mover advantage is a fairy tale.
I found out about this book from a review on the "Rebirth of Reason" website. (See here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Books/...). There, one of the frequent contributors cited this from the book:
Time you would have to spend working, in order to earn an hour's worth of reading light (and the ancillary benefits that reading brings to mankind)
--1750 BC (sesame oil lamp): over 50 hours
--1800 (tallow candle): over 6 hours
--1880 (kerosene lamp): 15 minutes
--1950 (incandescent light bulb): 8 seconds
--Today (compact fluorescent bulb): less than 0.5 seconds
I replied there:
Nonetheless, it is important to see through the razzledazzle. Ridley presents the same information twice in two different formats. First, how much light an hour of labor would buy; then, how long you would have to have worked to have earned the equivalent of an 18-watt compact fluorescent reading light for one hour.
In the first case, he offers for 1750 BCE, 24 lumen-hours. A lumen is about 1/12 of a candle (.079). So, one hour of labor then would buy you about 2 hours of reading light. ... but not the 18 watts of a modern fluorescent lamp. (A lumen is about 1/700 of an effective watt of spherical light -- .00147 -- so 18 watts is like 12,000 lumens.). I agree that we get more light - incredibly more - but the presentation of numbers does little to illuminate the subject. A modern lamp gives the same light as 1000 candles, but you would never put 1000 candles in one place just for reading.
More stunning to me is the growth in fractional machines: fractional horsepower motors and fractional watt lamps. My internet modem is showing six lights, each less than a candle (maybe a lumen; maybe less) and all of them not generating but the merest fraction of the heat. My neighbor just finished edging his lawn with a fractional horsepower engine. Back in the 1950s, we had hand scissors for that. Not only did it take longer, but did not do as nice a job.
I also understand this as contrary to the retreatists who preach self-sufficient farming. No such thing could exist, but the drive for it is the reduction of your living standard, hopefully no worse off than a medieval serf - who in fact benefited from a lot of trade and commerce in a society where people were named Smith, Carpenter, Tanner, and (generally) Prentice...
If you want to sprinkle your social chat with positive endorsements of modern times, get this book and memorize a few facts. Life is great now.
Optimism is a nice idea. Being real/reasoning/rational about the facts of an issue is a better exercise.
The earth has a definite mass. That means there’s a finite limit to resources. Additionally, we are at about 8 billion on the planet, and increasing.
It’s been well documented that there’s a correlation between increased industrial activity, the increase in Global CO2 concentrations, increase in Global Warming, and associated effects.
Indeed, technology can mitigate factors. But there's still the fact of finite limits.
Ayn Rand chose to be unreasonable and not safe about the correlation between smoking and lung cancer. She paid with that unreasonableness with her life.
We have only one Space Ship Earth. Best to play it safe with this asset. For our children and children’s children.
Harry M
1) We were told in the 70's that we were going to be suffering through an ice age - now we are told that we're going to be suffering global warming. The science is not "settled" and even scientists disagree about what is happening with our climate - and certainly have not come up with conclusive evidence as to what is causing it.
2) The "smart" people said in the 70's that we needed to conserve our oil because we would run out within 30 years. We know are producing more than ever.
3) Finite? We have untold numbers of ways of extracting energy, some we've not even discovered yet. We do not make optimal use of nuclear energy. Since e=mc^2, Einstein showed us that we have considerable amounts of energy to generate - and that doesn't necessarily need to come from our own earthly resources, we can always capture space debris or mine the moon or other planets.
4) Who says that we only have one "space ship earth?" There has recently been identified an earthlike planet only 500 light years away.
5) You "greenies" believe in your "religion" so deeply that you will use any means necessary to enact your religion. Data doesn't matter, since the ends are more important. You discredit the ingenuity of mankind to come up with solutions. You prevent viable options because you have issues with the solution not even related to the solution itself, but as an irrational fear stemming from nuclear weapons.
I love this phrase, at one time I was going to use it myself in a presentation but wisely left it out.
What it suggests is 'Consider future generations'. Sounds legit.
What it really means is, 'Do as I say as
I know what is best for future generations.
I know what is best for you,
and you do not'.
Global Warming
Man made global warming or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the latest hoax being thrust upon us by Environmentalists, who I have already shown, have a very poor track record.
Deaths Caused by Global Warming Hoax
The United States is spending about $10 billion a year on Global Warming research. http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/28/the-b... I think it is safe to say that at least $100 billion has been spent worldwide on Global Warming over the last decade. It costs about $20 to provide infrastructure for clean water for one person. According to WHO, 30,000 deaths occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions. Most of these deaths are children under five years old. That is over 600,000 deaths per year because of poor water infrastructure. If the $10 billion being wasted on Global Warming research were instead applied to water infrastructure, this could save 50 million lives. The Global Warming Hoax has cost the lives of at 6 million people.?
How AGW Advocates Have Lied
“The latest data released by the Met Office, based on readings from 30,000 measuring stations, confirms there has been no global warming for 15 years.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...
It is well known that the main driver of the temperature on Earth are the variations in the amount of solar energy the Earth receives. “Experiments at the CERN laboratory in Geneva have supported the theory of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark that the sun — not man-made CO2 — is the biggest driver of climate change.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...
The biggest greenhouse gas is water vapor – over 95%, but you never hear about this from AGW advocates. http://www.creators.com/opinion/walter-w...
“Natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.” http://www.creators.com/opinion/walter-w...
Below, IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -UN) Experts comment on the IPCC, which is the group at the UN that has been saying a consensus of scientist s “believe” in Global Warming http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/1...
Dr Vincent Gray: “The (IPCC) climate change statement is an orchestrated litany of lies.”
Dr. Lucka Bogataj: “Rising levels of airborne carbon dioxide don’t cause global temperatures to rise…. temperature changed first and some 700 years later a change in aerial content of carbon dioxide followed.”
Dr Richard Courtney: “The empirical evidence strongly indicates that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is wrong.”
Dr Eigil Friis-Christensen: “The IPCC refused to consider the sun’s effect on the Earth’s climate as a topic worthy of investigation. The IPCC conceived its task only as investigating potential human causes of climate change.”
Goal of AGW
The goal of AGW is to kill capitalism and as a result kill millions of people. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace explained.
(Environmentalism today is) more about globalism and anti-capitalism than it is about science or ecology….
The Environmental Movement is Anti-Human – Pure Evil
“Ultimately, no problem may be more threatening to the Earth’s environment than the proliferation of the human species.”
— Anastasia Toufexis, “Overpopulation: Too Many Mouths,” article in Time’s special “Planet of the Year” edition, January 2, 1989. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-di...
“Today, life on Earth is disappearing faster than the days when dinosaurs breathed their last, but for a very different reason….Us homo sapiens are turning out to be as destructive a force as any asteroid. Earth’s intricate web of ecosystems thrived for millions of years as natural paradises, until we came along, paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. Our assault on nature is killing off the very things we depend on for our own lives….The stark reality is that there are simply too many of us, and we consume way too much, especially here at home….It will take a massive global effort to make things right, but the solutions are not a secret: control population, recycle, reduce consumption, develop green technologies.”
— NBC’s Matt Lauer hosting Countdown to Doomsday, a two-hour June 14, 2006 Sci-Fi Channel special. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-di...
“My own doubts came when DDT was introduced. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem.” http://jiminmontana.wordpress.com/2012/0...
Dr. Charles Wurster, one of the major opponents of DDT, is reported to have said,
“People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this (referring to malaria deaths) is as good a way as any.” http://jiminmontana.wordpress.com/2012/0...
“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal,” Turner stated in 1996.[1]
A leading environmentalist, Dr. Eric R. Pianka advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth’s population by airborne Ebola in front of few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science who rose to their feet, and gave him a standing ovation.[2] Dr. Pianka attempted to deny this, but the evidence was overwhelming including his student evaluations.
Environmentalism is a Religion – and that religion is anti-human
DBHalling:
Reason/Rationality is the hallmark of Ayn Rand's philosophy. That's what this listserv is about.
Environmental Science is mainstream issues in Science. Check that out in any College/University Science library. Additionally, your written opinions about human population are outrageously irrational
Your written assertion that "Environmentalism is a religion--and that religion is anti-human" is irrational/unreasonable.
Why are you on this listserv being irrational/unreasoning?
Harry M
Perhaps of more direct relevance to the interests of this site are the political statements of the founders and supporters of the global warming carbon change movement, some are quoted in DBH's long post. There are many more, some are acknowledged with pride, they should be retracted with shame.
To say that environmental science is mainstream in science is not a good statement. The current carbon global climate fad is not science at all but politics. It is mainstream in current political thinking by the current government class, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
An obvious formula for success-
unless governments get more power, raise more taxes, spend on do-goody but useless projects, lets a rich idle class of guilt ridden looters and parasites feel good,
there will be disasters etc.
Specifically, I'm not interested in the few, far out opinions expressed.
The American Assn for the Advancement of Science is the basic American scientist Professional organization, That includes all Scientific subjects. 166 years old, 127,000 worldwide membership. AAAS has held a position of man made climate change since 2006.
http://whatweknow.aaas.org/
Additionally, NASA has taken the position of Man Made Climate Change.
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-conse...
They back up that position with hundreds of Scientific Organizations around the world that concur.
Those organizations include:
Am Med Assn
Am Inst Physics
Am Chem Soc
Am Inst Biological sciences
Am Pediatrics Assn
Am Soc Microbiology
You can keep the fringe opinions
Harry M
Harry M
Nasa has been caught multiple times fudging data and this has been pointed out by their own scientists.
The AMA is a political organization with hard left tendencies. They provide no credibility. I think the same can be said of the Am Ped Assn.
Most of the original scientists on the first IPCC have said AGW is nonsense or overblown.
Science is not about consensus or authority it is about facts and logic. When one side consistently lies about the data (facts) you can be assured they are not interested in science.
The position/consensus papers of these organizations are all based on Scientific Research Results that recent Global Climate Change is Man Made
To be specific.
Harry M
For the so-called authorities it is not so easy.
They can look at any of the global temperature graphs and see a flat line from ~1997 to now. Yet human industrial activity has not flatlined, CO2 emissions continue. China makes solar panels to sell to us but build many and large coal power stations for their own needs, Germany is switching back to coal after realizing that solar and wind cost big money but produce negligible power. The organizations previously called scientific but which are now political, may well worship their models which cannot be used for anything else being so hopelessly wrong and poor at matching nature.
What they do is-
step up the rhetoric, call what was 60% certain to be now 80% certain, and they call for contrary opinions to be ignored or suppressed, and
concoct even more far fetched fantasies, my favorite is the story that
from year 1997, the heat has gone directly to the ocean depths where it cannot be measured or detected.
A blind eye is turned to the well known observed and quantified variations and patterns in radiation emitted by the sun.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman