Saturday, November 28, 2009

They're coming for your freedom

Changes in the wind
So you think sorting out recyclables into yellow bins is a hassle, and biking to work instead of driving is a big sacrifice?

You haven’t seen anything yet.

Like it or not, our lives will change in myriad ways as humans scramble to avoid a catastrophic rise in global temperature. (do not read the emails) Nowhere is that clearer than in Portland and Multnomah County, which recently adopted one of the nation’s most aggressive and comprehensive plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming.

Looming lifestyle changes will affect how you heat and power your home, how you get around town, even the food you eat and the products you buy.

When I think "lifestyle change" I think about choosing to eat differently, choosing to eliminate stress, choosing to drink less (or more). But it is about choice. This is different, these will be government edicts that the subjects of Portland must follow.

Since us stupid Americans can't seem to accept central planning for our own good, our benefactors in government have come up with a new reason to establish this time tested method of running a country: save the planet.

We know the planet is dying because the scientists who get funding from the government say it is. Again, DO NOT READ THE EMAILS.

12 comments:

Robin said...

It's all about control and revenue.

Take a carbon tax for example.

It's a tax that on the surface is designed to reduce greenhouse gases. However, who profits from the tax? The government.

As they say, follow the money.

MAX Redline said...

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. - H. L. Menken.

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.

DAVE01 said...

The government does not profit from the tax, clowns like Al Gore will profit. The government will say who profits from this scam. I bet it won't be you and me. It will be their friends and family who will profit, not ours. We will get the privilege to pay for it the rest of our lives.

TW said...

The most rational commentary regarding these allegedly "explosive" emails that the Miglavian wingnut contingent of the Republican Party is worked up about appears online in The Atlantic, by Megan McArdle, who writes:

I have so far seen no evidence of the kind of grand conspiracy that some critics have charged. Rather, to my mind this is about how real science (unfortunately) does sometimes get done.

Scientists are human beings. They react to pressure to "clean up" their graphs and data for publication, and they gang up on other people who they dislike. Sometimes they're right--there's a "conspiracy" to keep people who believe in N-rays from publishing in physics journals, but that's a good thing. But sometimes they're wrong, and a powerful figure or group of people can block progress in science.

I'd say that the charge that climate skeptics "are not published in peer reviewed journals" just lost most of its power as an argument against the skeptics. But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact. What I see is that the people who are the custodians of the currently dominant paradigm have an unhealthy ability to exclude people who might challenge that paradigm from expressing those views in important forums. Powerful scientists using their power to marginalize anyone who might challenge the authority of them, or their views, is sadly not uncommon in the history of science.

That doesn't mean their paradigm is wrong; rather, it means we need to be less romantic about the practice of science. No scientific consensus is ever as powerful as its proponents claim, because no scientists are ever as perfect as we'd like to imagine.

The more ardent defenders of the emailers are glossing over the fact that in some cases, they really seem to have behaved quite badly, and with less-than-stellar scientific integrity. But I have yet to see the makings of a grand conspiracy, rather than the petty bullying of the powerful over the weak, the insider of the outsider. I'll take the statements of this particular group of scientists with a little more salt in the future. But as far as I can tell, the weight of the evidence--and what we know about the history of the planet, and carbon dioxide--still seems to be on their side.


Interestingly, what the emails (which were retrieved illegally, Daniel, by hackers) DO reveal is that government is secretive, and that dissenting views are suppressed -- the hallmarks, basically, of eight years of Bush/Cheney, surely the most secretive administration in the history of the Republic.

Did you ever complain about this, Miglavs? No? Why not?

As always, your outrage is highly selective, reeks of hypocrisy and is thoroughly unprincipled.

Bobkatt said...

TW-that's the lamest excuse I've heard in a long time.

psychobob said...

Does TW..errrr...Poly want a cracker? You ruined an otherwise thoughtful post by parroting a tired old line.
By the way, it appears the Obama administration is trying to outdo the oft blamed previous administration in terms of violating privacy and being secretive. To paraphrase you, why aren't you complaining about that?

At any rate, what do American presidential administrations have to do with British scientific organizations? The emails are a small confirmation of what a lot of other (often ignored, ridiculed and blacklisted) scientists have been trying to say for years: the global warming scare mongers are deliberately ignoring or misrepresenting the data.

Anonymous said...

TW, you're raising an issue that the Miglavians are literally incapable of understanding how it applies to themselves: Hypocrisy. This is Miglavia. Things look ... um, different here.

Anonymous said...

Regardless of what they say or don't say, the emails to which Miglavs refers were obtained ILLEGALLY. It is interesting how Daniel "rule of law" Miglalvs doesn't object. What other crimes do you condone, Rule of Law Miglavs?

DAVE01 said...

I like how all you whiners keep saying that these emails and information were obtained illegally. Do we know that for a fact? Do we know that they were not leaked by some whistle blower? I think you global warming scare mongers are focusing on the wrong thing here. You are concerned about how the information was obtained, not what is in them.

The far greater crime was being committed by the people who falsified their data and then cried that the sky is falling so they could be in charge and tell me how to live. I like how we are now supposed to believe that scientific consensus is the rule of the day.

Scientific consensus is garbage. That is not how real science is performed. This global warming is junk science. In fact, man does typically better in warming periods. But don't let facts get in your way. By all means, use emotions and keep crying the sky is falling when in fact it is not. I think most of you people who are crying the sky is falling either have some financial interest in global warming junk science, you didn't take science in school and have no clue how real science is done or you failed science in school. Of course these are inconvenient truths. Get used to it.

If you want to live green and believe in fantasies, go ahead, just don't try to force your foolish fantasies on the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

I didn't make any claim one way or the other about the veracity of the emails, but one thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that they were HACKED ... which is, by definition, illegal. Can you imagine the shitstorm Miglavs would kick up if someone hacked into a computer at FOXNews? He'd call for a speedy trial and execution by beheading, probably. Miglavs has NO principles. None. Zero. He's a fucking fraud, and that's not whining, that's a statement of fact. The only one around here I see whining is Miglavs. He does it nearly every day. He calls it: "Daniel's Political Musings." It might as well be called "Daniel's Political Whinings." And he's going to whine the rest of his life about "illegal aliens," without ever giving it a rest. That's what he says. A life of whining. What a great future he has. What a guy!

dhughes609 said...

I'm tired of repeat Anonymous Posters using a "Miglavian World" argument. Why not just say "OLDTHINK" and then continue to comment about an issue? Maybe Daniel could link an askerisk defining what "OLDTHINK" means.(Another Webpage" Killing the messenger poorly reflects on any blog comment, and I will continue to read Daniel's take on the news whether on not others consider him OLDTHINK .