Live Earth 7/7/07 gentlemen start your tivo

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!

Scientists are not, I repeat NOT in in overwhelming agreement about global warming. In fact it is split about 50%-50%. I just heard a clip on the radio yesterday about core samples they took from Greenland and discovered bugs and things in the ice cap from the last "global warming period". There is confirmed scientific fact that all the planets in the solar system have warmed up the same amount as the earth has due to increased solar activity. 1970 it was global cooling on the front cover of TIME magazine and the coming ice age. I am in Minnesota, and 10,000 years ago we were a mile thick glacier. Did man do that too? Dupes. Read a book or two that refutes global warming before "making" your decision. This is just socialism advocating it's cause.

Danlib1,

You are confused, making a simple category mistake. The relevant distinction is not between theory and fact, but between truth evaluable a proposition and a policy. Eugenics is a policy, like integration and space exploration. Global warming is a proposition: that the Earth is warming at a potentially dangerous rate due to human caused factors like dramatically increased carbon emissions. That claim may be true or false. Eugeneics is neither true nor false; it is either going on or not.

There is no theory/fact dichotomy. It may be your theories that there are three beers in your fridge and Oswald acted alone. Either may be true, either may be false. If they are true, they are facts, despite being theories. Einstein's special relativity theory is a theory, which may be true, and state facts. The theory of evolution is also a theory, and damn near every working biological scientist holds it. "Creationism" is also a theory, which almost no biologists respected outside of religious communitiies accepts. They are both theories. At most one states a fact. But it is no criticism of a claim to call it a theory, since even the best, most confirmed, useful, universally accepted theories are still theories --which may or may not be facts.

Global warming is either a fact or not, but it is a very widely held theory by independent and unbiased -- i.e., not in oil companies pockets-- scientists. But it is certainly a theory. Eugenics is noit a theory or a fact, and it is not anymore much practiced by humans on humans.

Zilla-- I am no expert on whether Glogal warming is actually occuring and alarming and all that. Indeed, I've been skeptical for a long time. But the evidence based on deep core ice samples from Antarctica Gore presents in the first half hour of his documentary is pretty compelling, going back way longer than the whole series of relative local coolings and warmings that have occurred since Homo Sapiens first appeared. If his evidence is at all good, whether or not we are causing these changes, we have never been around for anything like them. It has been consistent through all of this time that those making profits never accepted claims that they were doing so at the cost of the general good.

The resonance"deniers" makes with holocaust discourse is not unintentional; the cases are not identical, but that doesn't mean the resonances shouldn't be pointed up. Al Goreis no socialist(at least not in any sense in which a vast majority of Americans are not). And "socialist" is no epithetor anything like a univocal "cause". It represents a wide range of policy options recognizing the fact that private ownership of the means of productiion is not in all cases conducive to the public weal or justice. Free market uber alles is an unsubtle "doctrine", dead everywhere, and understandably, its advocates are defensive.