Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
- Samuel Johnson
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Authorities Tell Us To Stop Eating Meat
Do we really want a society where the authorities tell us what to eat, to think, what we can do with our bodies, our lives, our families and our communities? I fear that the authority personality lends to our leaders has overtaken the democratic foundation of authority being the will of the people.
Unfortunately people can be manipulated in the way they think and act by the kinds and amount of information provided on the subject at issue. For instance consider that when it comes to UFOs, cold fusion, nuclear power and the immigration debate, to take four contentious or incendiary examples, seldom does a proper debate take place nor even do the facts get a proper airing.
Equal time for each side is the cry of fair reporting but it isn't by any stretch of the imagination. The facts usually lend themselves to scientific analysis however any rational argument can be completely buried by the numerous false or misleading alternatives to doing so. 50% equal time to each side of these debates: 1) UFO remnants are kept hidden by the government; 2) Cold fusion provides an inexhaustible supply of clean energy; 3) Nuclear power is unsafe; and 4) Immigration should be cut to save the environment.
Without going into details the correct answers are: 1) There is no credible evidence for the existence of terrestrial UFOs; 2) Cold fusion has not been demonstrated in a repeatable experiment on any scale and there is no physical theory to support that is can be; 3) Nuclear power is produced by hundreds of fission reactors without giving off pollution or contributing to greenhouse gases; and 4) The contradiction that exploitation of resources should be reduced by cutting immigration is an inconsistent moral position and probably demonstrates racial prejudice since the majority of immigrants are Asian and African.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is an outcome of Ross Garnaut's Draft Report on Climate Change in order to implement the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and each of these present dreadful examples of weasel words. The ETS is just another name for a tax, the assumption of climate change and its impacts are givens, and the wrong implication that carbon is a pollutant, whereas carbon dioxide is an essential component of the food chain.
Without going into the details that can easily be found elsewhere on the web, I wish to make a few short and sharp points about the climate change agenda. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have produced dramatically different positions at each publication. This is often cited as a case of a scientific position being improved however the rapidity of change and fluidity of positions and the scarcity of data lead me to conclude that the authors themselves have low confidence in their own conclusions.
The film An Inconvenient Truth has been credited for raising the environment consciousness of many people however it has done so by misrepresenting the facts. The media that stands apart from the adulation directed at the film is to be commended because it is impossible for the people to participate in the debate and to make informed decisions if they are fed misinformation and when facts that are pertinent to the matter are disregarded by the authorities making those questionable assertions.
The theory of anthropogenic climate change is either right or wrong and if right may or may not itself have an impact on society however the incredible cost of trillions of dollars being mooted for global mitigation of the primary greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, surely may be better spent of other social projects such as alleviating poverty and disease in the third world.
Al Gore, Tim Flannery and Ross Garnaut are paraded in Australia as experts giving advice to the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister for the Environment, Penny Wong. However Richard Feynmen, warns his students and anyone else who asks for his opinion to distrust authority for the simple reason that authorities are often wrong. He implores us to explore on our own and to try and understand the facts so as to form our own opinion. His dissenting opinion of the causes of the Challenger disaster against the collegial consensus is a case in point.
Is the goal of the ETS when it is applied to agriculture to reduce the number of cows and sheep thereby promoting alternative food sources? In this case, the repricing will greatly affect the poor and middle class leaving the wealthy and well off the primary consumers of meat products. Is this a desirable and equitable outcome or should agriculture be excluded from the ETS?
Let's face it, if there is not a product substitute for affected products then the ETS is just another tax.
Unfortunately people can be manipulated in the way they think and act by the kinds and amount of information provided on the subject at issue. For instance consider that when it comes to UFOs, cold fusion, nuclear power and the immigration debate, to take four contentious or incendiary examples, seldom does a proper debate take place nor even do the facts get a proper airing.
Equal time for each side is the cry of fair reporting but it isn't by any stretch of the imagination. The facts usually lend themselves to scientific analysis however any rational argument can be completely buried by the numerous false or misleading alternatives to doing so. 50% equal time to each side of these debates: 1) UFO remnants are kept hidden by the government; 2) Cold fusion provides an inexhaustible supply of clean energy; 3) Nuclear power is unsafe; and 4) Immigration should be cut to save the environment.
Without going into details the correct answers are: 1) There is no credible evidence for the existence of terrestrial UFOs; 2) Cold fusion has not been demonstrated in a repeatable experiment on any scale and there is no physical theory to support that is can be; 3) Nuclear power is produced by hundreds of fission reactors without giving off pollution or contributing to greenhouse gases; and 4) The contradiction that exploitation of resources should be reduced by cutting immigration is an inconsistent moral position and probably demonstrates racial prejudice since the majority of immigrants are Asian and African.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is an outcome of Ross Garnaut's Draft Report on Climate Change in order to implement the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and each of these present dreadful examples of weasel words. The ETS is just another name for a tax, the assumption of climate change and its impacts are givens, and the wrong implication that carbon is a pollutant, whereas carbon dioxide is an essential component of the food chain.
Without going into the details that can easily be found elsewhere on the web, I wish to make a few short and sharp points about the climate change agenda. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have produced dramatically different positions at each publication. This is often cited as a case of a scientific position being improved however the rapidity of change and fluidity of positions and the scarcity of data lead me to conclude that the authors themselves have low confidence in their own conclusions.
The film An Inconvenient Truth has been credited for raising the environment consciousness of many people however it has done so by misrepresenting the facts. The media that stands apart from the adulation directed at the film is to be commended because it is impossible for the people to participate in the debate and to make informed decisions if they are fed misinformation and when facts that are pertinent to the matter are disregarded by the authorities making those questionable assertions.
The theory of anthropogenic climate change is either right or wrong and if right may or may not itself have an impact on society however the incredible cost of trillions of dollars being mooted for global mitigation of the primary greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, surely may be better spent of other social projects such as alleviating poverty and disease in the third world.
Al Gore, Tim Flannery and Ross Garnaut are paraded in Australia as experts giving advice to the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister for the Environment, Penny Wong. However Richard Feynmen, warns his students and anyone else who asks for his opinion to distrust authority for the simple reason that authorities are often wrong. He implores us to explore on our own and to try and understand the facts so as to form our own opinion. His dissenting opinion of the causes of the Challenger disaster against the collegial consensus is a case in point.
Is the goal of the ETS when it is applied to agriculture to reduce the number of cows and sheep thereby promoting alternative food sources? In this case, the repricing will greatly affect the poor and middle class leaving the wealthy and well off the primary consumers of meat products. Is this a desirable and equitable outcome or should agriculture be excluded from the ETS?
Let's face it, if there is not a product substitute for affected products then the ETS is just another tax.
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