Mary Ann Seighart reiterates the case for the Precautionary Principle in The Times.
She muses:
It is odd that the few remaining sceptics are largely on the Right. Conservatives should believe in conservation, in handing the world on in good shape to future generations.
The reason for this oddity can be found instantly by looking at Seighart's comments. Take this one from 'Ottorino'.
It's sad that people won't face facts (see all the rubbish above this entry), and think that the whole thing is a conspiracy. This is a fantastic opportunity to completely redefine the way we live and work. Accept the challenge and make it work : it's not that hard.
Which is exactly what worries conservatives: that a lot of not very clever people are looking for any opportunity to completely redefine the way we live and work, and AGW provides a 'fantastic' one.
10 comments:
It's not that hard? Is she serious?
But in all truth, we are redefining the way we live and work everyday. We're doing so through the marketplace. Can any 20 year old today relate to a world without cellphones & the internet? Cars are becoming more efficient and cleaner. Airliners are becoming more efficient and cleaner. Everything is. The best way to get to the small footprint that these true believers dream about is by going forward, not back.
Yes, but I'm fairly sure that isn't the kind of 'redefining' Ottorino has in mind.
A wonderfully cutting Peter Burnet comment, once again!
That phrase, 'changing the way we live and work', is something of a slogan for the environmental movement. Most of them really do want, at least partially, to reverse the effects of the industrial revolution. Environmentalism is a back-door to anti-capitalism.
Notice how environmentalists seem to direct so much of their angst against cars and air travel? The estimates I've seen say that transportation as a whole only contributes to 14% of human greenhouse gas emissions, and air travel only contributes to 5%.
A number of people in the environmental movement very much like the idea of social planning, a traditional left-wing notion. They dislike the personal independence which people have acquired from the motor-car and cheap air travel. Notice how the alternative they propose to fossil-fuel powered personal transport is not personal transport powered by an alternative energy source. Oh no, the alternative they prefer is fossil-fuel powered public transport: buses and trains.
It is odd that the few remaining sceptics are largely on the Right.
Why would it be odd that the political wing most associated with rationality and practicality would be more skeptical about a problem which hasn't yet been proven to exist ?
Besides, as a nation, America is highly skeptical, and the American population makes up roughly a third of those who both matter, and would be affected by any kind of warming-related curbs on behavior. ("Those who matter" and "those who would be affected" are basically the EU and the G8).
In my book, 1/3 isn't "a few".
Oro:
Maybe Sieghart was thinking of crunchy conservatives.
Gordon:
A number of people in the environmental movement very much like the idea of social planning, a traditional left-wing notion. They dislike the personal independence which people have acquired from the motor-car and cheap air travel.
Now you're really singing our tune!
Working really hard (okay, not really all that hard) to drum up some sympathy for you here, Brit. But you are the earnest young man who used to argue, on the Permanent Floating Darwin Bashing Thread, that (a) science was self-correcting; so that (b) laymen ought not to be allowed to second-guess it; particularly if (c) said laymen were obviously just trying to hang on to some comforting illusion, in the face of inevitable progress. If that line diposes of the Kansas Christers and their spiritual comforts, it's hard to see why it doesn't dispose of you and your material ones. Suck it up and learn to give thanks for your cold shower.
Are you like this in real life too, Joe?
It's very curious.
'A number of people in the environmental movement very much like the idea of social planning, a traditional left-wing notion.'
Yeah, all those lefty Poor Laws and such.
I coulda sworn that every damn sermon I had to listen to when I was a Catholic was about social planning. Hell, the Catholics wouldn't even let you pick your own movies.
Like what? Look, there is a kind of foolishness that clever people are prone to, the kind where you are surprised when you finally get what you've been asking for. Your bit of buyer's remorse over AGW is a mild example. So yes, that's annoying in real life, too.
Like a cross between the village gossip and Eric Cartman.
We all slip into ad hominems occasionally. You occasionally slip out of them.
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