The traffic light tendency: they call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit that they are really Reds. -- Lord Monckton
The presenter (Greg Craven) of the following video tries so earnestly to sell the Precautionary Principle to the fearful and gullible by employing a variation of Pascal's Wager. It appears he was too yellow to permit valid responses at the same site, as comments are turned off.
It was presented by YoYo, a Leftist commenter at Selwyn Duke's blog, and the following is my quick answer to it. I bet many of you can do better, and encourage you to try.
Yoyo, your video link purports to have arrived at "the inescapable conclusion of the worst that could happen." It uses a variation of Pascal's Wager, and simply tries to force feed the "Precautionary Principle" down the throats of some very gullible people.
And I'll quickly point out that it is also dead wrong.
Every one of the things that he listed in the No-No Box also belongs in the Yes-Yes box. It is albeit for different reasons.
With Yes-Yes, people who are aiming to control things will indeed cause the bad things Craven lists in Column B to happen in column A.
OTOH, there is little evidence we have any significant effect on whatever the climate will ultimately do. Therefore the alarmists have the burden of proving that we will be the cause of it. In this they have failed. Don't you see that is why videos like this one exists? They want the power, but they don't have the facts backing them, so they need the scare tactics and propaganda in order to be given the power or get away with simply seizing it.
So what it comes down to is the choice of letting a global governing system force restrictions on everyone that will bring not only large money costs, but reductions in healthcare, and in populations by starvation (like is going on in Zimbabwe right now), and increases in social unrest when people catch on they've been lied to. Everything that Craven frets over in the No-No scenario comes about because we will have really caused it if we fall for his Yes-Yes.
Worldwide, drastic reductions in population have already begun -- millions have starved due to the burning of corn as fuel instead of feeding people with it. And, of course, there are the draconian (inhuman really) "birth control" methods China has employed.
Need i remind you, Yoyo, that the collectivist philosophy of the radical left wound up systematically murdering 100 million people in the 20th Century living under Communist and National Socialist governments?
I know a great many on the Left can hardly wait for that sort of thinking to be running the world. Does that include you?
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Yeah, that's why I posted a series of follow-up videos to address that argument. See the "Patching Holes" series of 3 vids, or the "How It All Ends" series of 70+ vids. Dig a little further.
ReplyDeleteGreg Craven
Nice. Let's see you do a little digging, Greg. Tell me: How old is the thermometer?
ReplyDeleteProgressive always call themselves Green as if that were the light that guided them and not Red. Red for stop, and for blood, and for the horrors they have wrought time and again.
ReplyDelete"It appears he was too yellow to permit valid responses at the same site, as comments are turned off."
ReplyDelete--
Speaking of yeller, Pasc...
Well I'll get G Damned, Pasc printed my comments and the og is hiding?
ReplyDeleteRay, I deleted your post that was nothing but gratuitous name calling. That is against my rules.
ReplyDeleteYou can call me anything you like -- up to a point -- but I have a duty to my guests to delete your ad hominems.
It only has two modes, pasc, ignorance and ad hominem. When it fails to attract attention with it's utter stupidity, it tries ad hominem. Sooner or later it might pass the turing test, but I wouldn't hold my breath. My question for mr Craven is the same, if he's capable of having a reasoned debate: How old is the thermometer? I wonder if he even knows.
ReplyDeleteThat's the best you can do Mr. Craven? Write me a blanket comment "to address that argument."
ReplyDeleteThat looks like a form comment that you save around for all of your critics.
And exactly which of my arguments are you addressing? I'm sure my readers would be very interested in how you counter my argument that command-economic governments -- the type for which you are providing succor -- were responsible for 100 million murders last century.
Your response above didn't bother to provide even one substantive excerpt like you actually understood anything I argued.
Unlike others with whom I've had informative discussions, you're the first who was too lame to include even a single link to your argument you think is the most suitable. Throwing your whole "book" at me is as brainless as your video I criticized.
Thanks for proving my point Mr Craven.
Our budding videographer, Mr. Craven, is propagating pedantic self-reinforcement founded in generally-accepted myth. He admits anthropogenic global warming is not a certainty, but a risk. He admits that the degree of that risk is unknowable. However, he operates from the typical urban presumption that stopping human activity that MIGHT contribute to a POTENTIAL problem is NECESSARILY beneficial, because he presumes that to cease an activity is benign, that “Nature” will be just fine if left alone.
ReplyDeleteThere is a vast body of research and practice that shows said belief to be demonstrably in error. In fact, it is a virtual certainty that his preferred “take action” plan (to preclude human action that MIGHT influence Nature) is usually destructive to wildland habitat. The reasons are simple; the solutions are not, simply because the reality on the ground is wildly complex.
The planet does not care what it becomes, as contrary to popular myth, adaptive systems are not necessarily self-optimizing. Our condescending and fast talking “teacher” would profit to witness the hundreds of rangeland exclosures across the American West in which human activity is precluded yet the surface proceeds toward “desert pavement,” even after nearly a hundred years of “recovery.” He should get out and look at the massive riparian erosion due to “canopy preservation.” He should count species-density in fields commanded by introduced species. He should witness what happens to wildlife when predators multiply uncontrolled compared to lands managed by people. Hopefully, he is still capable of allowing reality to intrude upon his beliefs.
There are observable processes proceeding on wildlands on an enormous scale that are demonstrably destructive to plant and animal productivity and adaptability. Infestation by exotic species, succession subsequent to cessation of historic anthropogenic disturbance patterns, consequent erosion problems, all will continue if we do nothing to reverse them. These problems can require enormous labor and intimate site-specific knowledge to reverse. THEY DO NOT GET BETTER BY THEMSELVES, any more than we can abate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Fixing those problems takes labor, money, time, knowledge… IOW, investment by people.
Without excess capital, people expend their efforts in survival, not improving human and wildland conditions. So what does Mr. Craven advocate? Fewer people and more expensive energy along with a massive (and supposedly incorruptible) command and control bureaucracy, all to mitigate a POTENTIAL risk while ignoring destructive processes that are a virtual certainty. Despite nearly a century-long demonstration project in Russia, despite that most of the predations by robber barons in America extended their rapacious behavior via government land use control, or despite that socialized lands in Kenya dedicated to tourism emphasizing large predators destroyed wildlife populations and their supporting habitat, Mr. Craven advocates exactly that collectivist prescription because it serves HIS belief that HE and his National Geographic, Animal Planet, and Anthropogenic Global Warming deluded ilk know best what to do from the comfort of their collective urban hovels thousands of miles away. Never mind that the brainwashing in which he immersed himself serves primarily the economic interests of the very industrialists sponsoring his causes via their tax-exempt foundations, as long as he precludes human activity, he’s meritorious and can’t be held accountable for the outcome, despite the observable facts around him of which he is so ignorant as to be incapable of recognizing them.
Yeah, that’ll work.
"Ray I deleted your post"
ReplyDelete--
What about the oglits post right below yours? Isn't he name calling?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteStick to the issue at hand Ray, and forgo this useless drivel.
ReplyDeleteI'm one step removed from deleting both this comment to you and everything you have written on this entry.
Up to this point, Og's assessment of your performance on this thread appears pretty accurate.
Why don't you prove Og wrong? You have proven to have something other than stupidity in you when you haven't been drinking. Bring back Reaper.