Science and the Environment

[_Coggins7]

Words of wisdom from an early defender of both freedom and sound science at http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/pri ... .php?id=52



Science and the Environment



Dr. Dixie Lee Ray, scientist, recipient of the United Nations Peace Prize and former Governor of Washington State, is the author of the best selling Trashing the Planet, a common-sense book dealing with the contentious issues where science and politics overlap and where environmentalism moves from well-meaning idealism to counterproductive eco-terrorism.

R&L: With the world-wide decline of socialism, many individuals think that the environmental movement may be the next great threat to freedom. Do you agree?

Ray: Yes, I do, and I'll tell you why. It became evident to me when I attended the worldwide Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro last June. The International Socialist Party, which is intent upon continuing to press countries into socialism, is now headed up by people within the United Nations. They are the ones in the UN environmental program, and they were the ones sponsoring the so-called Earth Summit that was attended by 178 nations.

R&L: Did you have a specific purpose in attending the Earth Summit?

Ray: I was sent there by the Free Congress Committee, headed by Paul Weyrich. Fred Smith and I were sent down as observers, with reporters' credentials, so we could witness the events. One of the main organizers of the program, Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway was the assistant executive for the conference. She is also the vice-president of the World Socialist Party. When she was questioned by Brazilian reporters after her talk and asked if what they were proposing didn't have a peculiar resemblance to the agenda of the World Socialist Party she said, "Well, of course." That was reported in Brazil but not picked up by the American press.

R&L: Did you see a big influence by the radical environmentalists there?

Ray: Oh yes. No question about that, the radicals are in charge. One of the proposals that did indeed pass as part of Agenda 21 proposes that there be world government under the UN, that essentially all nations give up their sovereignty, and that the nations will be, as they said quite openly, frightened or coerced into doing that by threats of environmental damage.

R&L: Much of the current environmental movement is couched in terms of pagan religions, worshiping the Earth, goddess Gaia, equating the value of trees and people, animal rights, etc. Can you account for how this is accepted in the public forum, when traditional Judeo-Christian religious ethics are basically outlawed from policy making decisions? Do you think the general public is just unaware of the tendency to make environmentalism a religion?

Ray: I understand what you're asking, and I have to tell you, no, I can't account for it. It is not classified as a pagan religion. The so-called New Age activities and this are not called religions and therefore don't come under the prohibition of mingling church and state that we have in this country. It's almost as if nature worship were accepted without its being considered a religion.

R&L: One could argue that the decline of Marxism vindicates Thomas Jefferson's assertion that the less government does to the complex order of a national economy, the more likely it is that the economy will prosper and the liberty of its citizens will be secured. In the complex order of the environment, what things are appropriate for government to do in order to protect the natural workings of the environment and simultaneously secure liberty?

Ray: I think it's appropriate for the government to set standards. For example, to describe what is permitted in the terms of releasing waste products into the environment. I think that it's appropriate for there to be standards with respect to pollution of the air and the water and so on. I do not believe that the government is in any position to say exactly how every single business and every single activity shall reach those performances. The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented.

R&L: What is the role of property rights in the environmentalism debate?

Ray: There is a deliberate and quite outspoken attack on the whole idea of people owning private property. Mr. William Riley, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has said publicly on a number of occasions that he does not believe that people should have the right to own private property. To use his words, "The ownership of private property is a quaint anachronism." He has called for a repeal of the fifth amendment as it affects the right of private property. There are two laws that have been passed by the Congress that are being used to take property away from people. One is the Endangered Species Act, and the other one happens to be the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act has a section, 404, which allows the Corps of Engineers to regulate the water that is navigable. By a series of very twisted definitions, the Corps has adopted the idea, which the Fish and Wildlife and EPA are also following, that any body of water, or any moist land, anything that they can call "wetland" constitutes navigable water.

R&L: So this causes problems where land can't be developed?

Ray: Not only just that, but actually, they can take property away from, let's say a farmer, who has a farm pond and uses that to irrigate his land. This has in fact happened, and there is an enormous, country-wide movement being started of property rights proponents to oppose this, but it is very difficult to stop the momentum that the radical environmentalists already have.

R&L: The natural world operates on the principle that for some to live others must die, whether it is predatory animals killing for food, or plants dying as food of herbivorous animals, or micro-organisms dying to enrich the soil and feed plants. Yet much of the environmental rhetoric ignores or denies these processes and makes man guilty for sustaining his own life. Do you have anything to say on this topic?

Ray: I don't know how they can justify the position, because I can't understand their motivation. But what you have said is certainly true. Mankind is considered (by the radical environmentalists) the lowest and the meanest of all species and is blamed for everything. They fail to recognize the broad biological principle that organic material is constantly being recycled. Everything has a time of being--a birth, a life span, and a death. The organic material, as the laws of chemistry state, can neither be created or destroyed.

R&L: Could you describe the progress of environmentalism from its earlier days to the current radical, "Earth First!" type of activists? How did it so obviously drift so far to the left?

Ray: The only way that could have happened was for the misguided and false information, much of it very hysterical or dramatic, like the earth is warming and the ozone has a hole, and all that kind of thing-- could not have lead to the passage of laws and regulations that affect everyone's lives were it not for the cooperation of the press. It is the press that has taken these charges and accusations and blown them up without any kind of skepticism whatsoever--blown them into realities and treated them as if they were true. A simple example:

We have heard recently the charge that supposedly because of the chemical chlorofluoro-carbons that humans make for use as a refrigerant, that molecules of that substance get into the stratosphere, destroy the ozone, and therefore allow ultra-violet light to penetrate. We know that the greatest amount of flux in the ozone in the atmosphere is over the Antarctic, because the sun is down below the horizon during the Antarctic winter. This is background.

The charge is that the ozone is so destroyed that the amount of radiation coming through has caused cataracts in the wildlife--rabbits for example--and in the sheep in Patagonia, New Zealand, and so on. That was printed in the popular media without the reporters ever asking any questions about these so-called cataracts and the blindness.

Also, they were puzzled. They were able to contact some knowledgeable people in radiation, physicists who knew how much ultraviolet radiation was turning up near the South Pole and could not understand how that small amount of radiation could possibly cause cataracts. If it could, then seven out of ten people would be walking around with white canes.

Finally, one radio station in California, in Orange County, sent a reporter down to investigate. He went to Patagonia and saw that indeed many of the sheep and rabbits were blind. Not being a doctor, he didn't know the cause of blindness but was able to get the eyeballs of some the animals who died and sent them to the medical research laboratory at the University of California. They found no cataracts whatsoever. The sheep were going blind from an epidemic of pink eye, which is very common among certain types of wild animals and cattle. In fact, one of the best ways to treat pink-eye is a little exposure to ultraviolet light, which kills the yeast that causes it!

Reporters no longer ask for verification, thus they print charges no matter how outlandish they may seem, and once having done that, when the truth comes out, it's buried in the back page or never makes it on the air at all.

R&L: Clearly, we all have a vested interest in keeping the earth habitable, and in the Judeo-Christian tradition have what some call a "cultural mandate" to the environment, operating as stewards of God's creation. How can we develop an environmental ethic that does not compromise the dignity of man yet allows for environmental values? Can you think of something in your environmental work that would exhibit this integration?

Ray: I think people are going to return to sanity when they see how ridiculous many of these charges are, and how the predictions are not borne out. Look how often it's been predicted that the people of the United States are going to die of starvation. There have always been Jeremiahs and Cassandras who predict that the end of the earth is near, and that has a certain sort of cataclysmic appeal to people. But they soon recover, when they see that the predictions don't come true. I have confidence in people's basic common sense. Pretty soon they're going to get awfully tired of it. There was an article not too long ago where the author ended up by saying that people's "oh, shut up" was going to increase.

R&L: You have spoken about "junk science," how bits of scientific information are misused to cause panic and push policies that undermine liberty. The discussion of the ozone layer, which many scientists claim is not in jeopardy, or the "trend" toward global warming that just ten years ago was a "trend" toward global cooling are two examples that come to mind. How should policy makers react to science, and at what point is action necessary vs. waiting for more complete information?

Ray: We need to ask our policy makers and those we elect to office who are supposed to make decisions to give us the evidence of the facts that are behind the decisions that we make. We should be skeptical. We shouldn't accept things just because somebody says so.

[_Mr. Coffee]

Since when is a Marine Biologist qualified to render an scientific opinion on Climatology, Scooter? Let me guess, you daw "Doctor" in front of her name and didn't bother to do your research (again) to see what field her doctorate was in. What's even worse, is she was a very liberal democrat, so I guess that shoots down your retarded notion about there being some sort of Vast Liberal Conspiracy(TM) to promote AGL.

[_Jersey Girl]

Since when is a Marine Biologist qualified to render an scientific opinion on Climatology, Scooter? Let me guess, you daw "Doctor" in front of her name and didn't bother to do your research (again) to see what field her doctorate was in. What's even worse, is she was a very liberal democrat, so I guess that shoots down your retarded notion about there being some sort of Vast Liberal Conspiracy(TM) to promote AGL.

Are you saying there is no academic connection between marine biology and climatology? How so?

Jersey Girl

[_Mr. Coffee]

Are you saying there is no academic connection between marine biology and climatology? How so?

Marine biology is the scientific study of the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the ocean or any other body of water, and is a branch of biological sciences.

Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences.

The two are NOT the same, Jersey.

Let me put it another way. If your car broke down who would be qualified to tell you what was wrong with it, an Electrician or an Automotive Mechanic?

[_Jersey Girl]

Are you saying there is no academic connection between marine biology and climatology? How so?

Marine biology is the scientific study of the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the ocean or any other body of water, and is a branch of biological sciences.

Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences.

The two are NOT the same, Jersey.

Let me put it another way. If your car broke down who would be qualified to tell you what was wrong with it, an Electrician or an Automotive Mechanic?

Nowhere in my post did I say that the two were the same, coffee.

Are you saying there is no study of air/sea interaction or no weather prediction involved in marine biology?

Jersey Girl

[_Mr. Coffee]

Nowhere in my post did I say that the two were the same, coffee.

No where in either of my posts did I say that they were in no way related, Jersey. What I did say is that a Marine Biologist is not qualified to give the same sort of scientific opinion that a climatologist is. Now, are you done strawmandering the thread?

[_Jersey Girl]

Nowhere in my post did I say that the two were the same, coffee.

No where in either of my posts did I say that they were in no way related, Jersey. What I did say is that a Marine Biologist is not qualified to give the same sort of scientific opinion that a climatologist is. Now, are you done strawmandering the thread?

I dunno. Are you done blowing smoke?

Jersey Girl

[_Coggins7]

Coffee, stop grasping at straws in this manner, its makes you look just desperate. Anyone with a substantive scientific background, including anyone with a significant expertise in mathematics and statistical analysis, is qualified to critique many of the methodological components of AGW theory. No, they do not have a detailed knowledge of all the fine details of each other's disciplines, but they all speak the same basic language, which is the language of mathematics.

Ray was a well known and respected scientist and past president of the Atomic Energy Commission (and hey, what's a Marine Biologist doing in that field?).

I just think you have, as many believers in AGW, an emotional, psychological, and political investment in it that will take no prisoners and brook no toleration for stubborn facts or contrary evidence.

[_Mr. Coffee]

No, they do not have a detailed knowledge of all the fine details of each other's disciplines,

Precisely. This is why a climatologist doesn't write papers on the mating habits of whales and why Marine Biologists don't write papers on long term climate change, Scooter.

Ray was a well known and respected scientist and past president of the Atomic Energy Commission (and hey, what's a Marine Biologist doing in that field?).

Being the head of the AEC is a political appoitment, and like many political appointment, it's not what you know, but who.

I just think you have, as many believers in AGW, an emotional, psychological, and political investment in it that will take no prisoners and brook no toleration for stubborn facts or contrary evidence.

Which is why you've been nailed for pisspoor research, mindless political and religious cockknobery, ad hominems left and right, and refuse to ever acknowledge when you get called on it? You want stubborn, look in the mirror, Scooter. God himself could come down from the heavens and say "Scooter, they're right" and yoiu'd still blither on and post irrelevent and poorly sourced articles from corporate shill groups.

[_Coggins7]

Coggins7 wrote:
No, they do not have a detailed knowledge of all the fine details of each other's disciplines,



P

recisely. This is why a climatologist doesn't write papers on the mating habits of whales and why Marine Biologists don't write papers on long term climate change, Scooter.

But anyone who can do the math and understands statistical analysis can understand the methodological structure of such studies. Further, anyone who has deeply studied any of the earth sciences or natural sciences, and understands nature per se (such as geophysicists, physicists, geochemists etc.), can quite clearly see through the AGW scam from within their own disciplines--and many thousands have.


Coggins7 wrote:
Ray was a well known and respected scientist and past president of the Atomic Energy Commission (and hey, what's a Marine Biologist doing in that field?).

Being the head of the AEC is a political appoitment, and like many political appointment, it's not what you know, but who.

You're avoiding the issue here...



Coggins7 wrote:
I just think you have, as many believers in AGW, an emotional, psychological, and political investment in it that will take no prisoners and brook no toleration for stubborn facts or contrary evidence.

Which is why you've been nailed for pisspoor research, mindless political and religious cockknobery, ad hominems left and right, and refuse to ever acknowledge when you get called on it? You want stubborn, look in the mirror, Scooter. God himself could come down from the heavens and say "Scooter, they're right" and yoiu'd still blither on and post irrelevent and poorly sourced articles from corporate shill groups.

I've been out of High School far, far too long to keep this kind of thing up with someone of your kind with the concomitant extremely limited education and intellectual background you display in this discussion. I'll respond to your tendentious mangling of my other thread presently, and then, most likely bid you farewell as I save bandwidth for someone capable of a serious -- and at least marginally informed--discussion.

Oh, and by the way, your retreat to the standard leftist ("corporate shill groups") ad hominem circumstantial argument to explain away, without ever actually engaging the evidence, facts, data, and inferences you don't like, is an up front admission of intellectual bankruptcy that I'm happy to see you make. Precisely the same thing could be said (and has),about the massive quantities of government money that has driven AGW research for many years now as well as the corruption of the peer review process that became especially egregious in the case of Mann et al.