We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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This is interesting. Excerpt:
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been “widely dispersed on the internet”.
Well, they will be now.
I have for a long time wanted to know not just about global warming itself, but about the alleged expert consensus concerning its man-madeness. This should stir up a good discussion.
There is a tendency among free marketeers to say that global warming is all nonsense, not for the good reason that they actually think it all nonsense, but because they see it being used to establish a world government, which they oppose for other reasons. And I am sure that many who insist on the reality of global warming and of its man-madeness do so because they want a world government, which they favour for other reasons.
Yet there is no logical reason why one should not be a free marketeer who believes in the reality of man-made global warming, or a world governor who thinks it is all hooey.
Personally I am a free marketeer, and a sceptic on global warming, in the sense of not being persuaded that it is happening catastrophically, or that it is man-made. Note: a sceptic, rather than a disbeliever. I am a global warming agnostic rather than a global warming atheist. (And I think the religious vibes of this debate are all too real. The Environment seems to have replaced God for a lot of people.) I genuinely want to learn more about this alleged horror, on the off chance that I might be able to climb down off the fence, in one direction or another.
Question, what measures should a free marketeer who believes for sure that global warming is taking us all to catastrophe, is man-made, and is reversible, favour?
I say: develop technology more. Let us all get a lot richer. Meanwhile, devise a technical fix for the damn thing. And then rattle a big tin and do it. All the while arguing about it in forums like this one, and on the internet generally. (Interesting how the internet is undermining unacknowledged bias in the specialist science media as well as in things like CBS.)
But then, I favour most of that anyway, even if global warming and its man-madeness are hooey.
With the price of crude oil holding over $50 per barrel, how long will it be before the more flexible parts of the Green movement start arguing that nuclear power is actually not such a bad idea after all?
I ask this question because it seems to me that Britain, like a lot of other western nations, could be facing a Californian-style energy shortage fairly soon. It goes without saying that such an issue is completely off the political radar right now.
Comment away!
What’s on your mind tonight? Global warming? Economic collapse? African poverty? Islamic terrorism? Demographic decline? Mass immigration? The rise of China? The fall of Europe? Avian flu? AIDS?
Well, none of that matters to me right now. I am content to float aimlessly in the warm bath of deep, spiritual joy that I have been immersed in since Saturday afternoon when I finally got to see my beloved Chelsea clinch the Premier League Title.
I have never been here before. The last time Chelsea lifted the crown was in 1955, several years before I was born. In my 37 years of devotion to this club I have known pain, disappointment, frustration, humiliation, exasperation and occasional (and infuriatingly short-lived) elation. The term ’emotional rollercoaster’ does not even come close.
Yet, on Saturday afternoon, all those years of hurt just seemed to melt away like April snow. My ‘ugly duckling’ team has grown into a beautiful swan and (for the moment at least) nothing else matters.
Colour me happy. Very happy.
Globalisation does funny things:
Former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff has been named international star of the year at the Bollywood movie awards in Atlantic City in the US.
He received the award because his shows, including Knight Rider, are among the most popular on Indian TV.
That is the BBC story. I also recommend this Reuters report on the event, which packs a lot of information into a small space. Such as, that:
Rani Mukherjee won the best actress award for her role “Hum Tum.”
What does Hum Tum mean? Is it a medical condition? Or is that the name of Rani Mukherjee’s character?
And I did not know that they have Bollywood awards in Atlantic City. What is that about?
Says Reuters:
The event was held in the old U.S. East Coast gambling resort of Atlantic City as part of Bollywood’s bid to be a global force in cinema.
Interesting. And I did not know this either:
Bollywood churns out around 1,000 movies a year but despite a fan base that extends to the Middle East, Europe and Asia, few movies make money and the industry is under financial pressure. Bollywood films have not had much commercial success in America.
But Shammi Kapoor, who was given a lifetime achievement award, said better technology was leading to more and better films. “They’re getting to be more topical,” he added. “They aren’t the happy, happy movies of yesteryear.”
Indians will soon be complaining that Bollywood is becoming a fifth column Frankenstein’s laboratory Trojan Horse turncoat snakepit of anti-Indianism that panders to the global market and apes its worst excesses.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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