Go out and buy a gas-guzzler, right now. Drive around burning tons of petrol and enjoy yourself in the process. Better still, invest your money in smokestack industries that belch fumes into the atmosphere. Not only is there a prospect of making a healthy profit but you will also be contributing to a better world:
The world has become a greener place in the past two decades as a result of climate change, according to a major study published today.
As the climate has warmed, the Earth has become more lush and rich with vegetation, notably in the Amazon rainforests, according to a study jointly funded by the US space agency Nasa and the US Department of Energy.
In the Amazon, plant growth was limited by sun-blocking cloud cover, but the skies have become less cloudy. In India, where a billion people depend on rain, the monsoon was more dependable in the 1990s than in the 1980s.
So it appears that we are not destroying the planet after all. Nor are we ethically obliged to abandon our consumer societies or turn our backs on technology and progress.
Of course, a few of us were saying this all along but, amidst the whistling of different tunes, it is nonetheless instructive to actually observe the process of the juggernaut of received wisdom performing a 180 degree turnabout.
I predict that, within a few years, the whole notion of ‘global warming’ and its attendant primitivism will become every bit as laughable and discredited as the ‘Canals on Mars’.
Wasn’t there an article recently that the Sahara is receding? And the UN and NGOs missed it? More green on the pics from space?
This book changed my thinking on environmental issues forever.
It will be interesting to see what spin the green left puts on this one. I’m sure they’ll concentrate on the fact that this was a Department of Energy study and not an independent one, and the fact that human population growth far outstripped the vegetation growth.
But “conventional” “wisdom” would have told many people that of course the level of vegetation has gone DOWN, we’re destroying the earth, remember?
Have you not been keeping up? I thought it would be The Skeptical Environmentalist before I clicked on the link, and sure enough there it was.
I haven’t read it myself, but I know it was completely discredited some months ago when it turned out that a lot of the evidence presented was either incorrect or entirely fabricated.
Anyway it isn’t the amount of vegetation in the world that matters, it’s biodiversity, which is being lost at a dangerous rate. And more vegetation is not going to prevent climate change, rising sea levels, El Niño etc. All of these have a devastating effect on people’s lives. Their crops fail, then they get flooded and die of cholera. That kind of thing.
It’s nothing to do with the ‘green left’ – it’s a matter of science. No ecologist in their right mind believes that global warming doesn’t exist, or that human activity doesn’t have a massive impact on the environment. I don’t understand why you maintain these beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Like many Recovering Socialists, there are still many twinges within me of the old addictive and mentally destabilising disease, which have to be worked on constantly, not to suppress, but to challenge and confront.
One of the strongest used to be “greeness”, which not even doughty reading of Ayn Rand’s works on the New Left (eg: Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution) could fully destroy. It kept slipping away from my frontal assaults on it, and hiding in the shadows to hit me again when I was off-guard.
Until, like Kevin “Nepenthe” White, I read the fabulous The Skeptical Environmentalist. For any leftie-green Malthusian idiots reading this, who haven’t yet bonfired a copy, get one today. Try to free your mind, before that insatiable urge to scream hatred overcomes you.
This magnificent book also had the great side-effect of convincing me to ditch the Honda CBR, to get the excellent Honda CRV instead. And to think, I’m doing so much good for the environment in it, as well as staying dry in the rain! 🙂
What I really want though is a 4-litre dark-blue Jeep. But paying 85% tax on so much fuel, to help subsidise Gordon’s thievery even more, is just too much! $-)
The Skeptical Environmentalist is as solid a piece of popular science writing as you are likely to find. The hardcore greenies have been foaming at the mouth and trying to smear the author since it came out, but it has not been discredited or debunked in any seriousv way.
Although if you follow Chris’s links, you will find . . . oh, what’s that, no links to this comprehensive debunking. whaddaya know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2640057.stm
Chris,
Yeah right. A patently see-through smear attempt from a lot of disgruntled political opponents.
Besides, I don’t need Bjorn Lombok to know that enviro-mentalism is claptrap. I was saying that back in the 1980’s and I am still saying it now.
Hi Chris,
Oh dear, you do seem to have it bad. Let’s look at the following “proofs” for global warming:
Hmmm.
I think what you have here is the classic case of an unfalsifiable hypothesis. No matter what the evidence, it proves the theory.
BTW, which particular year would you like the climate to be set at? I’d like 1976. That was a lovely year.
The Earth’s climate has been changing every year for 4 billion years, getting much hotter, then much colder, then going through million year heatwaves, then million year Ice Ages, with the occasional Pre-Cambrian comet or large mexican asteroid along the way, to provide brief meteorological entertainment.
We’re also most likely currently in the middle of an Inter-Glacial period, between Ice Ages, so we’re either on the up slope, and this Inter-Glacial has yet to reach its warmest period, or we’re on the down slope, and we’re heading towards the next Ice Age.
We could even be on the very short cusp, and stable for a few years, or even at the end of the latest bout of Ice Ages, but on the balance of probability, this is unlikely. Whatever the case, the climate IS going to change, and there ain’t a damn thing you, I, or we can do about it. Get used to it.
It may get warmer, it may get colder, it may even stay the same for a few years. But against the wishes of socialists, who always greatly exaggerate the ability of individual men to affect the hostility of nature, or the development of society, and who want us back in some kind of primitive tribal stone age, it ain’t going to stay the same.
But the real problem with your hypothesis, is that no matter which way it does go, you will still shriek that it is the “fault” of global warming. Well, let’s get personal about this blame. It is the fault of the United States. No, let’s get really personal. It’s the fault of George W. Bush, the devil incarnate.
Even if on the absolute remote possibility, that you and your Malthusian idiot friends are right about global warming, and the puny human race is able to affect the long-term weather patterns of a 4 billion year old planet, and a helium decaying Sun, to make them warmer, as it spins through the dust clouds of the Milky Way, I say, Go global warming, go. What better way to prevent or delay the next Ice Age.
Oh, and I just love this (my italics):
“I haven’t read it myself but I know it was completely discredited some months ago when it turned out that a lot of the evidence presented was either incorrect or entirely fabricated.”
Oh dear. You know but you haven’t read it yourself? You completely believe the findings of someone else which just happen to coincide with your pre-established views? This reminds me of myself when I was an idiot Marxist too, but hadn’t actually bothered reading any Marx. How could I have been so stupid? Because, of course, by definition being a Marxist means you’re stupid. And presumably this discreditor is also completely unbiased? Have you got any references to them, which we can all read. I’m sure fans of Samizdata would love to see ’em! 🙂
I bet Bjorn Lomberg is quaking in his petrol-fuelled boots.
Kevin: “It will be interesting to see what spin the green left puts on this one.”
Chris: “…it isn’t the amount of vegetation in the world that matters…”
You’re not surprised by the results of this research? You knew all along that vegetation has increased, but that it doesn’t matter?
I think what it says is that we don’t know as much as we thought we knew about the effects of greenhouse gases on the biosphere. I think what it says is that perhaps the simple-minded, ersatz theories about the environment taught to schoolchildren ought to be reevaluated.
Chris: “I haven’t read it myself…”
Well, it’s $16.95 (used, in USD, plus shipping) at Amazon. If it’s so wrong-headed and biased, you can laugh at it and it won’t challenge your world-view.
Chris: “…I know it was completely discredited some months ago…”
I know some folks tried to discredit it.
Andy,
Your experience reminds me of an old joke. What is the difference between a capitalist and a communist? Well, a communist reads Karl Marx and a capitalist understands Karl Marx.
Your argument seems to be that if someone who doesn’t agree with Lomborg attempts to justify their opposition with a critique of his work, then their opposition makes this critique invalid. Very strange logic.
The ‘disgruntled political opponents’ are disgruntled because Lomborg has got it wrong.
I have had a quick look for comprehensive debunkings of The Skeptical Environmentalist and found very many of them.
For a brief one try this. Although because it comes from an environmentalist group, albeit a greatly respected one, you will undoubtedly dismiss it as predictable smearing from political opponents.
I’ll say it again: this is a scientific issue, not a political one.
Chris,
It most certainly is a political issue because enviro-cant often results in legislation and other government initiatives to ‘save the planet’.
Are you going to try to tell me that Greenpeace is not a political organisation?
And, by the way, the linked ‘debunking’ is not very convincing but, as stated above, I am not particularly concerned with Lomborg’s book.
And here is Lomborg’s rebuttal (.pdf format) to the WRI/WWF critique.
To comment on the political nature of environmentalism:
Part of my trouble with some of the environmental groups that operate is that their message has very little to do anymore with ecology or real-world solutions for the future or FACTS. Nope. The Marxism, the anti-Americanism, the anti-property/anti-electricity stances (I’m not making that up–my environmental science lab prof, who was crazy, was building a house which doesn’t use electricy and liked to talk about how bad “power” is), the foundationless rants that seem to come from outer space expose them. As far as I’m concerned, they completely undermine any points they might ever make with all the baggage that comes along with their protests.
Did you actually read the DCSD report Chris, or is this just argument from authority? The DCSD came to its conclusions on the basis of the Scientific American critique. Here’s Lomborg’s rebuttal to that critique (Lomborg has a version of this on his own site, but without the quotes from the Scientific American article, since they threatened to sue him if he didn’t take them down).
You might want to try reading both sides before coming to a conclusion, Chris. From what I can make out SciAm makes a couple of fair points, a tonne of ad hominem and selective quotation, and comes nowhere close to justifying its claims. It’s not the first time either. Scientific American has come close to losing all credibility with me.
Hi Chris,
Some great rebuttals there, from Bjorn. Maybe you’d like to check the original, to really get some serious rage going? Maybe you should before you slate him some more. Via the wonders of the Internet, invented by the American defence establishment to help free the world from socialist idiots, you can buy it from these two fine emporiums:
Marvellous. I might get some more copies for friends and family.
You, and all the other socialists, can try to shout down the truth, Chris, (or build iron curtains, or chinese firewalls, or cultural taboos) but you’re never going to shut it out completely.
BTW, does anyone know of any good 4-litre Jeep dealerships, in the South Oxfordshire area? 🙂
To be fair I do need to read the book, which is why I was pointing others to Lomborg critiques, and merely reporting the discrediting which I had heard about.
On another matter, I am getting increasingly concerned about this kind of thing:
You, and all the other socialists, can try to shout down the truth, Chris, (or build iron curtains, or chinese firewalls, or cultural taboos) but you’re never going to shut it out completely.
Samizdata is infested with people who are obsessed with socialism.
The real reason I am concerned is that you have found me out. Yes, I am plotting the overthrow of liberal democracy and its replacement with totalitarian control over every aspect of the lives of every person in the world. I am going to bring this situation about by means of the EU Constitution, the environmental lobby, and the evil Soviet-inspired monstrosity of the NHS. I have a hammer and sickle tatooed promintently on my forehead, and I am in the process of growing a big Stalin moustache.
Now if you’ll excuse me comrades, I’m off to put the finishing touches to my new gulag (part-financed by the European Union Regional Development Fund), into which all libertarians will be put.
You have seen through the façade and discerned my real motives. Well done.
Samizdata is infested with people who are obsessed with socialism.
Yes. Well spotted. Imagine that — and on a political forum, too.
Don’t look now, but I think the people at the London and South Counties Mouse and Rat Club are obsessed with mice.
Go get ’em, Tiger!
Drive that SUV — think of poor Estonia!
We had our coldest winter in 60 years this year.
But, according to the Science map, we’re greening up.
It’s the obsession that gets me. Anything, and I mean anything, which people either posting or commenting on this site object to is somehow linked to socialism. Bear this in mind and read the comments, and then see if you agree that this particular ideology is brought up far more often than is justified.
given that this is a libertarian inclined blog and that socialism and it’s variants are diametrically opposed to liberty, i’d say most folks here would agree that giving socialism a kicking is always justified
This is a political forum, Chris. It’s a libertarian political forum. The prevailing political system of the moment, especially in Europe, is socialism. Socialism is arguably the polar opposite of libertarianism.
Can we all hold hands and sing, “Duh!”…?
Hi Chris,
I think you’re being unfair to us. Sometimes we have gratuitous hippo pictures! 🙂
Hi David,
🙂
Rgds,
AndyD
Some of you might enjoy the Bullshit series by Penn & Teller. One of the shows was on Environmental Hysteria.
http://www.sho.com/ptbs/
(at some point I will need to attempt to use the code to post links and hope to not turn bright shades of red if I don’t get it right…)
Have you not been keeping up? I thought it would
You need to go to http://www.lomborg.com to see the rebuttal to Lomborg’s criticism. The so called ‘discreditation’ was protection of vested
interests (i.e. the bread and butter of environmental doomsayers). In actual fact it
has split the scientific community in two and Lomborg seems to be winning. The now famouse Scientific American ‘criticism’ was done precisely by scientists which Lomborg discredited (his book has over 3,000 footnotes and the most of the criticism has none) so was not impartial at all.
The criticism of sources is scandalous. It is true that many of sources were secondary sources but green environmentalists are always quoting statistics based on such secondary sources so the words pot kettle and black spring to mind.
You should read the book. He addresses all the issues you raised.
Well, personally I thought Chris’ EU funded gulag post was pretty funny.
Its just shocking, really. Plants breathe CO2, wo who would have thought that pumping CO2 into the atmosphere would cause the planet to green up?
In addition to Lomborg’s book, I strongly recommend Julian Simon’s books. Much of his writing is available on the Internet here:
Julian Simon
I particularly recommend “The Hoodwinking of a Nation” and “The Ultimate Resource”.
Chris,
That was a funny post…and yeah, I think you’re right…the socialism thing might be a bit overplayed, but come on, the gratuitous hippo images more than make up for it!
Now to the point. Science vs. Politics. This is in fact one of the annoyances in the global warming debate. Too much of the arguments, on both sides, are politically motivated. Truth of the matter is, science doesn’t know if global warming is even happening, let alone if it is the product of human endeavour. (I spelled that with “ou” for all of you Brits. 😉
This really shouldn’t be all that shocking…scientific knowledge is very precious and very, very difficult to gain. The Earth and it’s climate is an incredibly complex system and in all of our studies, it’s very difficult to identify a trend, even more difficult to identify an anomaly in the trend, and even much more difficult to establish causality once we have identified the anomaly.
Before you reach any conclusions, I’m not necessarily an enemy of the global warming hypothesis…but I don’t think that we know enough about it, yet, to make many decisions that assume it is fact when it is not.
Optimistically, even if global warming were the product of releasing deep carbon stocks into the atmosphere, it’s probably a very temporary (in the big picture) condition. The consumption of carbon-based fossil fuels will eventually decrease once the resources become more scarce and other sources of energy are used in replacement. (Ethanol, TDP reclaiming, Nuclear, etc.)
I do, however, think that problems with the environment should receive attention by libertarians. They (we — I consider myself one of them) are right in that a restoration of private property rights will help to a large degree. But, I do see some problems with this, particulary air pollution.
What are the prevailing thoughts on Pigouvian Taxes?
Andy,
Not for long, though. I am on to ‘Barbarella’ now. That’s bound to do the trick!
It seems that nothing will convince some people, on both sides of the issue, but name calling and claiming that anyone who supports a green agenda is a socialist or left-wing is just plain ignorant. And for those of you who have read “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, you should now read this Scientific American aritcle.
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/06/nclim06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/06/ixhome.html
I remember reading this a while back and thought it was interesting.,
I don’t worry about these global environmental issues. Humans are ingenious creatures, we can fix any problem when it arises.
These global apocalypse scenarios are a distraction from issues of local-level sustainable development ie sustainable profits for individuals and families.
Is there a good non-statist charity that deals with helping people set up small farms, manage their sources fire wood crops, prevent soil erosion etc?
Global warming is fodder for endless debate, mybe we can’t say with any certainty what the truth or consequences will be.
The Biodiversity issue Chris mentioned I find far more compelling. At no time (to my knowledge) in our planets history has one species had the power to exterminate whole species at the rate we are approaching today. Leaving aside the issue of what kind of world we leave our children, there are important potential benefits to our own species from promoting a diverse ecology – plants that can cure diseases etc etc…
I know some of you couldn’t give a toss about such matters, even suggesting that there is a value in preserving creatures that have not ‘evolved’ a way of avoiding the chainsawing of their habitat will doubtless be construed as ‘Gaia worship’ by some here. Still, I regret the wholescale destruction of species currently underway – I think the market system is failing us in this area and needs attention.
Oh Damn & I had my hols booked for a cruise
Humans are ingenious creatures, we can fix any problem when it arises.
I’m not sure if this was meant to be a serious comment but a book that deals very well with this issue is “The Ingenuity Gap” by Thomas Homer-Dixon. He examines whether the critical issues that face us today can actually be dealt with or if they are outpacing the solutions put forth by even the best of our thinkers.