Category Archives: Science And Society

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Eco-Fascists

7 Comments

Why are they trying to ban incandescent bulbs? It’s got to be motivated by religion, because it’s both economically irrational, and tyrannical.

[Update a few minutes later]

Germany starts to come to its senses:

What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Well-connected to Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

Conclusion: climate catastrophe is called off

The science was hyped. The book started hitting the bookshops today and has already hit no. 1 on the Amazon.de list for environment books. Indications show that it will climb very high in the overall bestseller charts. It’s published by a renowned publishing house and is now sending shock waves through the German climate science establishment. The first printing will produce 20,000 copies. I expect they will sell out rather quickly.

Unfortunately, the lies and fraud in the service of the holy faith continue here.

[Update a while later]

Just in case people don’t realize the significance of this, this guy is the German equivalent of Britain’s George Monbiot.

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Weird

Am I Crazy?

65 Comments

I’ve been having this bizarre email exchange with someone who will remain nameless to protect the guilty, as a result of this much-commented post:

Him: I read your article about “Getting Religion out of Science Classrooms” after following the link from Instapundit.com and would like to have an intelligent discussion with you about this. I find your views on what constitutes “scientific” vs. “religious” to be inconsistent. Hopefully we could both benefit from an exchange of emails – but I won’t bother if you would just consider me an know-nothing. Maybe both of us will learn something. If I am wrong in my beliefs, I would like to find out by intelligent correspondence. Something with a little more light, less heat, than occurs on the blogosphere.

Me: I certainly have no reason to think you a know nothing, but I don’t really want to waste my time on a private discussion. I’d be happy to have a public one.

Him: The problem I have with a public discussion is that rarely is something learned. I think you’re sharp enough that I can learn something from you.

Me: I don’t understand why a public discussion will not instruct, but a private one will.

Him: I think I have some really good arguments for intelligent design. I think I have convincing arguments that there must be a God. Such arguments can’t really make it in a public forum because they get too interrupted by chaff. Arguments get better only when tried before true devil’s advocates. I see by your regular contributions that Glenn flags that you have not fallen for the delusion of liberalism.

Me: I don’t know what you mean by “liberalism.” I am a classical liberal (that is, I am not a leftist).

Him: Yet you have a very simplistic, childish view of ID.

Me: Was this supposed to persuade me that I should waste my time engaging in an intelligent private discussion with you? If so, it failed. Completely.

Him: Rand, sorry I offended you. I did learn something.

Me: And if I had told you that your views about evolution were “childish,” you wouldn’t have been offended? Perhaps you need to learn something about yourself.

Him: I don’t know. I have always been one who is so confident about my views that I like debate. I consider when someone calls my views “childish” to be an invitation to debate, not an offense. Sorry, just the way I am. I think in general people who feel they have the minority viewpoint that has not been given a fair shake take any attention, even negative comments, as a positive thing.

Me: If you think that calling someone’s views “childish” is debating at all, let alone doing so “intelligently,” then I have to say that you’re overconfident in your debating ability.

I think now I understand why he prefers to debate privately, though.

[Update mid afternoon]

For those in comments worried that I’m beating up on a kid, if I am, he’s impersonating a professor of physics.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Climate Change

14 Comments

A terrifying new book:

The fact that the media and popular culture and academia have veered from one panic-inducing disaster scenario to another one which completely contradicts the first one is funny enough in its own right. But reading The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age opened my eyes to an even more significant aspect of this serial crisis-mongering:

The “solutions” prescribed to solve both Global Warming and the looming Ice Age are exactly the same.

In both cases, proponents of the theory-du-jour say that in order to stave off disaster, we must reverse the march of civilization, stop our profligate use of carbon-based fuels, cede power and money from the First World to the Third World, and wherever possible revert to a Luddite pre-industrial lifestyle.

Gee, it’s almost like there’s a political agenda behind this stuff.

Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Florida Pythons

20 Comments

Wow, this has really become an ecological disaster:

In areas where the pythons have established themselves, marsh rabbits and foxes can no longer be found. Sightings of raccoons are down 99.3%, opossums 98.9% and white-tailed deer 94.1%, according to a paper out Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What if the stock market had declined that much? Think of the adjectives you’d use for that,” says Gordon Rodda, an invasive-species specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who published research in 2008 showing that Burmese pythons could conceivably expand across the southern portion of the United States.

“Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” says USGS Director Marcia McNutt.

I remember when we drove down to Flamingo, on Florida Bay, the only place in the world (I think) where alligators and crocodiles coexist, and seeing a family of raccoons on a hike.

At least they’re not endangered species. If they can figure out some way to exterminate the snakes, they could be repopulated in the Everglades from other regions. I suspect that the solution may be some kind of engineered tasty poison that only affects Burmese pythons, but we probably aren’t that far along in the tech yet.