graham wrote:Four response to Mid A 15's comments. I'd like to add that my responses to 2-4 are simply opinions added to the debate. My response to 1 is based more on what is a consistent misinterpretation of scientific research.
This is a slightly naive statement. Sorry MidA 15, i don't mean to sound rude and I'm not suggesting that you personally are naive. It's a commonly stated complaint, and there is some degree of truth to it. However, it's like saying you can't prove there is no God. It's circular reasoning and it gets us nowhere in terms of uncovering why climate change is occuring and how policy and research can stop or slow it. Climate change is occuring. There is an element of natural climate change to this. However, we know that the climate is changing at a rate faster than seen for some 5 million years. This cannot be explained by our current models of how and why climate change occurs naturally.
We know that global temperature increases have sped up since the industrial revolution, and we know that the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels as a result of human activity can explain this trend. There is a lot more solid research that suggests that human activity is speeding up global climate change. The potential global impacts of climate change would be catastrophic for many reasons. While human activity is probably not the sole factor causing global temperature increases, we are 95% sure that it is speeding it up and will push it further than would occur naturally. We also know that we can do something about it, so why wouldn't we? If people want to debate the research and suggestions of the scientific community, then fine, but the negative impact this has on policy makers should be recognized. When the benefits of restricting greenhouse gas emissions go beyond climate change and impact our day to day lives, for example clean air, as well as reducing our dependancy on limited resources such as fossil fuels, why should we even be debating this? It's happening people, and whatever the percentages of responsibility are, we need to be doing something about it.
2. Population Control, "Too many people in the world"
I shudder (not when you write them Julian
) when I see these words mentioned in an increasingly secular society as the logical conclusion is the devaluation of the sanctity of human life.
Ironically many of the disciples of population control also believe passionately in man made climate change. Coincidence?
I'm not so sure these two topics are that closely related in terms of cause and effect. For example, the United States is the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases yet ranks 144th in population density, well behind many third world countries.
The issue here isn't that the large number of people in the world is causing climate change. It's that the planet's resources can't sustainably support such a large population now, and certainly won't be able to once the full effects of climate change occur. I don't think anyone is devaluing the sanctity of human life; quite the contrary - human life (or any life) is so valubale that it shouldn't have to exist like battery hens in cages, which is likely to be what happens if population growth and climate change continue to occur at the rates they are now.
3. Medical Research
This is a difficult one. I think I draw a line at creating (then killing) a life to save another life by whatever means. This to me is eugenics under another name.
Define life......
As a scientist, I would argue that an embryo does not constitute life.
4. Sex Education
One could argue that the reason the UK has the problems it does is too much sex education rather than not enough.
Under age girls can obtain The Pill, the morning after pill and even abortions without parental consent believe it or not yet the problem persists and even worsens!
Maybe lessons in self respect for both boys and girls would prove more effective. They certainly couldn't do a lot worse in my opinion.
One could also argue that making contraception freely available does not alone constitute sex education. I quite agree that lessons in self respect would be quite effective. But surely this PART of sex education and not something different. People are going to have sex, whether you educate them about it or not, as Hendrik so elegantly put it. But sex education should be about giving them an understanding of actions and consequences, choices and options, so that they can make the most informed decisions possible.
Thanks for the responses Graham and no offence taken re the naive remark!
1. You are a scientist whereas I got grade 6 (a C in new money) in physics with chemistry "O" level in 1969. However I try to read widely to plug the gaping holes in my scientific knowledge and I've come across this chap Fred Singer who, to a layman, appears eminently qualified to speak on this subject.
In essence he is saying that man does not materially affect CO2 levels whatever he does.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/ ... 7&month=08
Knowing you have studied science to a high level your thoughts on this article would be interesting to read if you feel inclined to share them with us.
I would agree that it is in our interests to find alternative fuels as we seem to have an unhealthy dependence on importing fuels from parts of the world who are not our natural allies. If chip fat and the like can fuel vehicles then why not? I realise there are vested inerests in the oil industry!
2. My comments re the link to climate change and population control were based on another article I read where a scientist made a comment at a lecture that the best solution to climate change would be a virus that wiped out 90% of the human race. He apparently received a standing ovation!
If I can find the article again I will edit this post and either link it or copy and paste the relevant bit.
Here it is with a few other quotations:
“We are parasites. Nature would be much better off without us.â€
Rosemary Radford Ruether
“The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics ... we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.â€
Jacques Cousteau
....."The First Global Revolution, published by The Council of the Club of Rome, states that: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention ...The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." [1991, Pantheon Books, p. 115]
In the opinion of David Graber, a research biologist with the U.S. National Park Service: "Human happiness and certainly human fecundity are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true ... We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth ...Until such time as homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." [Los Angeles Times, Book Review Section, 22/10/89]
In the UNESCO Courier of November 1991, Jacques Cousteau wrote: "The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics - it is equal to the degree of development. One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshis ... This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it." ["The Population Controllers", New American Magazine, 27/6/94, p. 7.]
World-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist Eric Pianka, however, would find Cousteau’s formula timid and his figures miniscule! In a recent speech at the 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont (3-5 March 2006), Pianka condemned humans as "no better than bacteria" and told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of us need to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus in order to save the planet. After outlining the various alternative solutions in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he coldly stated that disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must die very soon if the population crisis is to be solved.
When he finished this talk urging the slow and agonising death by Ebola virus of 5 billion human beings, his colleagues burst out in sustained applause. "It wasn’t merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers," noted one appalled observer, Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy and chairman of its environmental section. "It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause."
In the ensuing question and answer session Pianka praised the police state that enforced China’s one-child policy, saying: "Smarter people have fewer kids." And his audience chuckled when he gleefully proposed that, "We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth." Five hours later, the Academy presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist, which bought more sustained applause from 400 people in the banquet hall. Mims said that the 45-minute lecture converted a university biology senior into a Pianka disciple, who then published a blog that seriously supports Pianka’s mass death wish. ["Meeting Doctor Doom", Citizen Scientist, 31/3/06]......."
3. An embryo may not be capable of self sufficient life but it has that potential in the womb. Is it right to "grow" a potential human being only to kill it? In my opinion no.
4. As the father of 3 daughters, although my own daughters received a reasonable sex education, some of their friends were told only of the availability of contraception and that was it. The premise was they'll do it anyway so just tell them about contraception. That to me is a cop out not sex education in the broadest sense.