Crichton's "State of Fear" skewers conventionalized opinion on global warming...

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Orson, Dec 14, 2004.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Michael Crichton's latest techno-science novel skewers socialist science, environmentalists, and global warming advocates...
    http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/entertainment/10402427.htm


    In a sense, the novel merely amplifies and popularizes his view
    [http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html]
    that environmentalism is just a left-wing faith granted far too much respect and authority.


    But we know more about how to make people wealthy and its benefits than we do about the environment; the latter is simply more complex!

    Concludes Bjorn Lomborg, "n a curious way, global warming really is the moral test of our time, but not in the way its proponents imagined. We need to stop our obsession with global warming, and start dealing with the many more pressing issues in the world, where we can do most good first and quickest."
    http://opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/12/do1202.xml

    Yet when you point this out, one is - like Lomborg - attacked! Could it be that socialist global warming "science" corrupts people? The US does 90% of all such research, thru the government - and you think the hanger's on don't have biases and interests to protect?

    Then you ought to read Crichton!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 14, 2004
  2. Khan

    Khan New Member

    I don't really care if people believe in global warming and I'm certainly hoping it's not true. However, it is true that factories, cars, volcanoes etc are poisoning us. Smog isn't a theory.

    PS: An interesting read is Crichton's "Travels". He's a cynical bull in a spiritual china shop.
     
  3. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Re smog, this is in long-term decline in the US - despite the efforts of the NYTimes to misreport the matter of LA recently - and Reuters in a recent medical report.

    Wrote one learned critic about the Nov. 17th JAMA study: "The study’s reported increase in risk of 0.52 percent per 10 ppb of smog is laughably small — so small that it probably could not be reliably identified by the researchers.... The smog study’s reported increase in risk is less than 1 percent — 100 times less than a minimally reliable level.

    "This study, in reality, reported no association between smog levels typically found in U.S. urban areas and mortality.

    "What’s really going here is yet another example of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-funded ongoing effort to churn out one junk science-fueled alarm after another regarding air quality. The purpose is to grease the skids for the EPA to issue more stringent air quality regulations in the future...."

    What's to worry?

    -Orson
     
  4. Orson

    Orson New Member

    the hypocrisy continues: real life "imitates" Crichton's fiction!

    Now a science history professor's trying to re-assure of about our noble authorities in the Washington Post, "Undeniable Global Warming" (Dec. 26, 2004).

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html

    Editor-

    If professor Naomi Oreskes can write (in "Undeniable Global Warming") "the IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities," then she has obviously not read the IPCC report beyond the politicized executive summary. She deserves an "F" for failing to read her own sources: it's filled with caveats.

    Unless, of course, Oreskes simply chooses to mis-report the facts, ala Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" - in which case, contemporary scholarly ethics require us to applaud her superior example, following on the heels of Stephen Schneider's famous injunction "to offer up scary scenarios...and make little mention of any doubts we might have" (Discover, October 1989) for a good cause.
    [Full quote at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider]

    Well done!

    Mr. Orson Olson, environmental science,
    MSc graduate student
     

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