Live Earth 7/7/07 gentlemen start your tivo

Hey, Eugenics is not a fact; it is a policy based on a fact about which all agree: selective breeding changes(and can thus "improve" characteristics of populations. But it's immoral in a big way as done on humans.

The scientific community is overwhelmingly in agreement about global warming as a great threat to the stability of our habitat. That doesn't mean they have solutions. But one good shot at a solution is to stop doing what apparently causes the phenomenon that seems so dangerous. I mean, duh.

To say Al Gore is on about this because he's bored, and to act like that discredits what he says, is a stupendously cynical ad hominem. Al Gore didn't make up the evidence, nor did the huge group of internationally prominent scientists who agreed unanimously that global warming is a fact and a scary one about which we should do something.

Besides, if the question is whose motives in characterizing the evidence and assessing the risk are more suspect, the answer is completely clear: big industry, oil, and the politicians they keep in office (and in their pockets), as well as the rich whose rich lives these make possible. Not Al Gore and a bunch of lab guys.

Oh also, the fact that it is hard to predict the weather 7 days in advance is NO INDICATION you can't predict long term trends. Lots of systems, maybe most, are just like that. The problem with the weather is that we happen to care a lot about a temporal range of it within which it is seems pretty stochastic.

It's ime to work on real solutions instead of just denying the problem. One preliminary step is getting out from under the influence of people in power (real or nominal political) who deny the problem.

This whole show was one big reminder how much crap in music is out there these days, oh and getting lectured on
"EARF DAY" by the "Black Eyed Peas" was priceless.

Well, agreed, Eugenics was not/is not fact. Neither is human caused global warming- it is a commonly accepted theory.

That's how the Scientific Method works. And to say my argument about weather prediciton is short sighted is to miss the point.

Fact is, the data from which global warming trends are extrapolated is sometimes suspect. Do I agree that these scientists are doing the best they can with what they have? Absolutely. Do I think the hand-wringing is premature? Absolutely.

One more thing- directed to Rnm4. When you accuse someone of "denying" global warming or lump these folks into the category of "global warming deniers", some may find that very offensive. Such descriptions of people who are justifiably skeptical of some of the science you readily accept cloaks them in the same moral garb as "Holocaust deniers".

The two are not remotely alike, and you may want to choose your descriptions carefully. How about "human caused global warming skeptic"? Not as pretty or cutting a sound bite, but far more accurate.

Audiotomb brings up an aspect of the push for environmental awareness that drives me crazy too. His example of efficient vs. inefficient ethanol production is spot on. Everyone is clamoring so hard for economic advantage and a share of the pork pie that policy makers quickly lose sight of scientific reality. The path Washington is advocating isn't going to do anything but drive up food costs and appease the agricultural lobbies. Even efficient methanol production with sugar cane is fraught with indirect costs, just look at the environmental mess big sugar has made of the everglades ecosystem. I'm a member of the Sierra Club because I feel legislative bodies need balanced lobbying, but half of what they advocate is pie in the sky and a denial of reality IMO. I suspect one aspect of the environmental movement that drives a lot of us crazy is the "I want my cake and eat it too" attitude, the refusal to recognize that nothing is free and that every choice has consequences. The great landscape photographer Ansel Adams advocated nuclear energy for years to the chagrin of his fellow Sierra club members. He was adamant that you had to accept that if we wanted to have electricity in abundance and reduced emissions, nuclear power was the best balance of benefit and risk. Unless something has gotten by me, France and England have used nuclear power without any Chernobyls or Three Mile Islands.

Another example is environmental groups refusal to consider diesel engine technology because they don't want to trade the problems of CO2 and low fuel mileage for the problem of increased particulates. European car makers have pretty well killed that objection in the last few years with new technologies, but the Sierra Club still carries on it's harangue against diesel engines.

If environmental advocacy would accept that every technology carries risks and rewards and the real course forward is to find the best compromise instead of holding out for the perfect solution (which will never arrive,) we might make some headway towards real progress.

In the spirit of the original posting…
Thoroughly enjoyed Joss Stone and with Angelique Kidjo, Crowded House, Jack Johnson, the Smashing Pumpkins, the Beastie Boys, and the Black Eyed Peas!
A great show with a great purpose.

Happy Listening!