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Galileo's head was on the block…

The Age’s Simon Castle examines the latest trend in environmentalist fundamentalism — the rhetorical move to turn skeptics into apostates, and the state into a medieval church:

Whatever your views on global warming, the term “climate change denial”, and the speed with which it has become part of everyday language, shouldn’t be welcomed. The term is reductive, as well as offensive in its connotations.

It encapsulates the way the environmental movement, for all its good intentions, is increasingly adopting the sanctimonious, hectoring and stifling attributes of organised religion. To question climate change today is to be cast as a denier of an absolute truth.

That people who used to be called “climate change sceptics” are now called “deniers” is quite deliberate. The aim is to suggest that climate change scepticism is somehow akin to Holocaust denial. The moral repugnance we feel for the latter, we should essentially feel for the former. The connection is subliminal mostly, but some commentators have been more than happy to spell it out.

British journalist Mark Lynas wrote: “I put (climate change denial) in a similar category to Holocaust denial — except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.” In Nuremberg-style trials, one presumes.

Guardian columnist and author George Monbiot wrote: “Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”

Closer to home, Margo Kingston wrote: “David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial. Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.

Such attempts at moral equivalence are deeply repugnant and, frankly, stupid. The murder of 6 million Jews happened; the worst consequences of climate change are yet to happen, and we can’t even say with certainty what they will be. To start judging people guilty for denying things that haven’t happened yet — for having contrary thoughts — is surely to trump Orwell’s nightmare vision.

It also corrupts the central tenet of science — that hypotheses are there to be tested; to be verified or falsified. As scientist Thomas Huxley said of his discipline, “scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin”. The overwhelming majority of scientists believe in man-made climate change. No argument from me. But when you read or hear that “the jury is in” on climate change, or the “science is settled”, alarm bells should ring. Science is never really settled. It can always be challenged. Science that isn’t open to challenge isn’t science; it’s more like faith.

And nothing so irks the fundamentalist faithful as a failure of the infidels to embrace their worldview — particularly after they’ve been instructed to do so by the elect.

Thankfully, calling for beheadings is a bit too crass for the finer leftist salons, so for now, intimations about re-education camps — or, failing that, gulags — will just have to do.

For the greater good, of course.

(h/t Oxblog)

69 Replies to “Galileo's head was on the block…”

  1. nnivea says:

    Where are the names and specialties of these “overwhelming majority of scientists who believe in man-made climate change”? From what published data set is this derived?

  2. Dan Collins says:

    Stupid Lollards. I’d say “burn ’em,” but that would emit too much CO2.

  3. John F says:

    What constantly baffles me is the fact if this consensus of scientists and pundits are so sure about their claims, why all the posturing? Why the insults and the columns and the Al Gore and the rock concerts and the incredibly tasteless comparisons to Holocaust deniers? If the science is that ironclad, GIVE ME THE SCIENCE! Yes, I’m not a climatologist, but I’m literate. Release these reports and papers and whathaveyou and I’m sure more people would be more willing to agree with and/or hear the man-made global warming thesis out. I’m confident that it’s better to present the argument calmly and rationally rather than discount and insult anyone who would disagree. I’m confident that while the general public may not be a group of experts who know everything about everything, they don’t like being insulted and bullied either. But hey, I’m not a scientist so what do I know?

  4. Squid says:

    The comforting thing is that for all their blather, our moral superiors have no stomache for anything stronger than legislation. And while that battle rages on (and who knows what may come of it), this nonsense about re-education camps is just silly 9th-grade lunchroom talk from the “popular” kids’ table.

    (Nice call on the title, btw. Budgie bangs a mean drum on some of those tracks.)

  5. DrSteve says:

    The National Post in Canada ran a really interesting series called, I think, “The Deniers.” A number of the articles focused on the flawed process and overt browbeating behind the IPCC reports. Think what you will about the climate change measures or projections — there’s some ugly stuff going on behind the scenes here. Goes back at least to Stephen Schneider and his fateful “So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have” statement to Discover magazine in ’89.

    Scientific progress is revolutionary. New findings shatter old conventions. The expensively-acquired human capital of thousands of scientific professionals is at stake here, and it looks like the Climate Change Establishment is getting a little reactionary in its middle age.

    I’m not a climatologist but I work with large intertemporal models all the time. That’s where my skepticism comes from. That and never seeing basic questions addressed when this stuff is discussed in the media. Do the reporters know the difference between estimation and simulation? Do they know what a confidence interval is? Do they know what overfitting is? Model training and calibration? Out-of-sample prediction? Do they know that in scientific literature we cite leading papers even when we disagree with their conclusions? Do they understand the sociology of scientific professions? Who funds research? Who controls career paths?

    If we looked at the degree of correspondence of, say, economists’ views on minimum wage legislation, there was a time when we’d have said there’s such an overwhelming “consensus” on this issue that we should abolish the minimum wage and have done with it. Then Card, Katz, et al. did their (flawed) NJ-PA studies and opened the whole discussion up again. All this discussion of consensus reflects a deeply mistaken understanding of the way science works.

    And a 2-time grad-school dropout shall lead them…

  6. RiverCocytus says:

    More and more every day I’m thinking science fiction was the requiem of the West. Like, our secular mythology that we have to live out.

    I would deny climate change just for the sake of skepticism. Have they forgotten the lesson of Hume? Truth is either transcendent or it doesn’t exist. The nature of God makes him (in my book) not a topic for skepticism. Miracles? Sure. Science? Definitely. There is a great confusion and flattening of thought, wherein the things which faith pertain to – the vertical, are confused with the things skepticism pertains to – the horizontal. The vertical is the nothing and the one and the infinite, and the horizontal is the material and the plural and finite. One discrete, the other continuous. When we take science on faith – a particular kind or all – we elevate horizontal things to the realm of the vertical things and overturn the table of reason.

    The medieval church had an excuse – ignorance led them to believe that things other than the vertical were vertical, like space, earth, sky, etc. But these people have no excuse. We know very well that heaven is not ‘up’ in the physical; nor is hell ‘down’ in the physical. It might be brighter up there and hotter down below, but we now know by science that we’re not talking about physical places, at least in the sense that we experience in daily life.

    If my head ends up in a noose because of this I’ll be glad for it. Funny how individuals are now charged for crimes which can only pertain to collectives – like Kings – Minority Report was quite prescient – pre-crime may now be a reality.

    If because I’m a denier of global climate change I am charged with possible crimes that might result because of my denial, then science is dead. And so is reason. And they say, the sleep of reason brings forth monsters.

  7. Paul Zrimsek says:

    Interestingly, Al Gore now says that the reason he didn’t do even more panic-mongering back in the day was that the scientists back then were what he’d now call denialists. Not that anyone would have guessed it based on what he was saying at the time.

  8. B Moe says:

    “The point of no return will be reached within 10 years, the former vice president says, and we cannot wait any longer to solve the crisis.”

    How can anybody take a statement like this seriously?

  9. BJTexs says:

    Wow, Diana.

    Thanks for opening up a can of whoop ass on my mellow this morning.

    Is this sort of thing going to be the essential “good” reaped by the EU, a cookie cutter crushing of free speech that is explained away as “different from other totalitarian speech restrictions beacuse, darn it, these are good for you?”

    Gaia help us…

  10. BJTexs says:

    “How can anybody with the least semblance of critical thinking skills take a statement like this seriously?”

    Fixed that for you…

  11. Chris says:

    It’s really amazing that it took the “carbon credits” fiasco to wake people up to the fact that modern environmentalism is simply nothing more than a celebrity-directed religious cult. These people have their own holy writs–Silent Spring and Earth in the Balance being the Old Testament, with An Inconvenient Truth being the New Testament–their own Holy Days in the form of Earth Day, Arbor Day, and the fatuous Ride Your Bike to Work Day, and their own prophets, seers, and revelators such as Al Gore, John Muir, and David Brower. The only thing that’s missing is the weekly calls to prayer, but when you label your opponents as the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, it won’t be long until the local Temple of Climate Change becomes a reality.

  12. Slartibartfast says:

    Any second now, Tim Lambert will show up and throw some scorn at you. And not sweet scorn, either; more like shell scorn.

  13. N. O'Brain says:

    “Guardian columnist and author George Monbiot wrote:…”

    Remember, the ‘Monbiot’ is the original derivation of the term ‘Moonbat’.

  14. N. O'Brain says:

    “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
    -Michael Crichton

  15. A fine scotch says:

    Chris,

    Good timing. Today is Ride Your Bike to Work Day here in the Denver MSA!
    http://www.cyclelicio.us/2007/04/denver-boulder-bike-to-work-day-2007.html

  16. Slartibartfast says:

    Speaking of Global Climate Change and suchlike, I found this comment over at Lambert’s intriguing, as a culmination (at present) of the thread:

    Eli:

    “Let us see. Biffra knowns that certain species significantly changed behavior ~1960-70.”

    As an aside, divergence problems have arisen for a number of species and studies in the relatively recent past haven’t they? The issue is not restricted to Briffa.

    “He knows that before that their growth followed temperature in a particular way.”

    How does he know this? The evidence that a given species was an accurate proxy would have to come from it being an accurate proxy now allowing for the induction to its past performance, right? His actual evidence is that it is not an accurate proxy now. How do you get from the evidence that at least some changes can render a proxy wildly inaccurate to that proxy having always been accurate and unchanging even when it was not being directly observed and is itself the evidence for conditions at the time? Paging Kierkegaard, I think we’ll be needing a leap of faith to patch this one up.

    “Does he use the post 1960 data?”

    Should he use the pre-1960 data is the more important question. Post-1960 data he definitely should not use if he wants to make the case that his tree species are good temp. proxies. OTOH, if he wants to objectively evaluate the worth of those species as temp. proxies, he should absolutely use post-1960 data as counter-evidence to his hypothesis.

    So, if you used trees as thermometers in the past, but there are known problems with doing so in the present, I’d conclude that you’d definitely want to have an explanation prepared for that apparent disconnect.

  17. Paul Zrimsek says:

    At any given moment, the point of no return is 10 years in the future, and the emergence of the overwhelming scientific consensus is 5 years in the past.

  18. Sean M. says:

    I’m not a climatologist but I work with large intertemporal models all the time. That’s where my skepticism comes from. That and never seeing basic questions addressed when this stuff is discussed in the media. Do the reporters know the difference between estimation and simulation? Do they know what a confidence interval is? Do they know what overfitting is? Model training and calibration? Out-of-sample prediction? Do they know that in scientific literature we cite leading papers even when we disagree with their conclusions? Do they understand the sociology of scientific professions? Who funds research? Who controls career paths?

    I would guess that the answer to most (if not all) of those questions is “No.”

  19. Slart, I am familiar with that boil on the ass of the internet.

  20. timb says:

    Can we now debate creationism vs evolution. I’m so glad you folks have a place to meet and discuss why the IPCC is so wrong…sort of sounds like the Scopes Monkey Trial to me. Maybe you guys can get Chris Horner from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming to be your William Jennings Bryan?

    I look at this as win-win. If the the US government can lead the rest of the world into solving this crisis, then we’ll save humanity untold instability and hardship. If you “skeptics” win, well, I’m in my 30’s and I never like winter in Indiana to start with. A nice summer home near the Hudson Bay sounds good, so I can avoid drought-stricken Indiana in the summer, but it’s not like my city will be inundated…Balmy winters and summers at the new “hottest” beach in North America? Like I said, win-win

  21. J. Peden says:

    “Wow, Diana” – dittos

    For an astounding disclaimer concerning IPCC predictions, see Roger Pielke on Kevin Trenberth’s recent statement on the Nature Weblog – Trenberth, “one of the Lead Authors of Chapter 3 the IPCC WG1 report” , whose statement Pielke quotes fully.

    Pielke summarizes:
    ” This is remarkable since the following statements are made [by Trenberth]

    1. ‘In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.’
    2. ‘None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.’
    3. ‘Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I [Trenberth] postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.’
    […]”
    Here’s the Pielke link again, in case my coding didn’t work: http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/06/18/comment-on-the-nature-weblog-by-kevin-trenberth-entitled-predictions-of-climate/

  22. Mr. Boo says:

    [quote]So, if you used trees as thermometers in the past, but there are known problems with doing so in the present, I’d conclude that you’d definitely want to have an explanation prepared for that apparent disconnect.[/quote]

    “Uh… uh… global warming?”

  23. BJTexs says:

    All right, ALL RIGHT!! Who forgot about the use of child proof caps on timmy’s meds? See what happens?

    BEACH HOUSES ON HUDSON BAY!!!!!!!

    Remember; a medicated timmy is a semi coherent timmy!

  24. McGehee says:

    Shorter timbot: BLASPHEMERS! HERETICS!

  25. Rob Crawford says:

    Can we now debate creationism vs evolution.

    Why? Are you a creationist?

    If the the US government can lead the rest of the world into solving this crisis…

    What crisis? Are you aware of the correlation between warmer climates and the flowering of human civilizations?

    Of course, there’s always the Bjorn Lomborg approach to the matter: it’s far more effective, cheaper, and humane, to make our priority the economic growth that would make the effects of warming minimal and tolerable, rather than making a ruinous — and probably futile — effort to squelch something that’s not necessarily the cause.

    Then there’s MY biggest beef. The proposed solution for global warming is the SAME solution that was proposed for the Coming Ice Age. I get the feeling the AGW Cultists are far more interested in imposing their Sole Solution to Everything than in any real problem.

  26. timb says:

    Actually, McGehee, it would be Luddites! Morons!

    And, my wonderful friend BJ, peep out Gregg Easterbrook’s nice piece on Global warming for the Atlantic a couple of issues back. If it gets warmer, then ipso facto, dunderhead (I say that with love), cold places will be warm. Here’s the article for you. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704/global-warming

  27. Fred says:

    Make sure you sell your parkas and boots, timb. Surely, you won’t need them once Algore’s predictions come to fruition, right?

    Idiot.

  28. Rob Crawford says:

    Actually, McGehee, it would be Luddites! Morons!

    Luddites? Are you really that ignorant?

    Luddites are those opposed to technology. I doubt they’re all that common among climate-skeptics. However, you’ll find metric shit loads among the AGW fanatics. They’re opposed to petroleum, nuclear, and coal; they’re opposed to modern standards of living. Hell, some of them have campaigned to end the chlorination of water!

    And given the results of their campaign against DDT on the spread of malaria… well, I think “morons” is a rather light term.

    If it gets warmer, then ipso facto, dunderhead (I say that with love), cold places will be warm.

    “Less cold” does not equal “warm”, at least not in the way we experience temperatures. For example, if temperatures at the South Pole Station in Antarctica were increased 10C degrees above their present readings, the highest temperature would STILL be -12C.

    Your “hottest beach in North America”, Hudson Bay, has a current mean summer temperature of 10-11.5C. That’s about 50F. If we grant that same 10C degree increase, to 21.5C, then that’s only 70F… not exactly beach weather.

    And keep in mind that 10C degrees is MANY, MANY times the increase that’s being predicted.

    A few quotes come to mind:

    “What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars fortell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

    “If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.”

    Given your clear ignorance and innumeracy, you might want to stop throwing around accusations of “luddism” and ignorance.

  29. J. Peden says:

    Well, the Scientific Method is not set in Law. Therefore, the IPCC does not have to follow it.

  30. timb says:

    Rob, do you need a global warming believer to bash in so much you intentionally don’t get jokes or did you give up your sense of humor?

    You know, Jeff fancies himself a bit of a comedian (I find him funny) and Dan certainly makes a few jokes, so why, when I make fun of you guys with light comedy, do you take things so fucking seriously. No, Rob, I didn’t mean Luddites in the Webster’s definition way (although I’m glad you learned a new word today); I meant them as folks who were resistant, violently so, to change.

    And, no, Rob, I don’t think the Hudson Bay is a current beach paradise or even a future one. But, for the sake of the joke of what the world will look like after we warm, I posited a warmer Hudson Bay.

    It’s times like this when I wonder why I don’t hang out at Daily Kos. You guys are supposed to be smarter, but somewhere you checked your mirth indicators at the door so you can beat up the unbeliever….

  31. happyfeet says:

    No more nuclear energy for California, so look forward to a decade of these bitches importing electricity from rather more far-sighted states and whining incessantly about how they’re getting screwed.

  32. J. Peden says:

    For an astounding disclaimer concerning IPCC predictions, see Roger Pielke on Kevin Trenberth’s recent statement on the Nature Weblog – Trenberth, “one of the Lead Authors of Chapter 3 the IPCC WG1 report” , whose staement Pielke quotes fully.

    Pielke summarizes:

    ” This is remarkable since the following statements are made [by Trenberth]

    1. ‘In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.’

    2. ‘None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.’

    3. ‘Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I [Trenberth] postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.’
    […]”

    Here’s the Pielke link again, in case my coding didn’t work: http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/06/18/comment-on-the-nature-weblog-by-kevin-trenberth-entitled-predictions-of-climate/

  33. Paul Zrimsek says:

    It’s times like this when I wonder why I don’t hang out at Daily Kos.

    Coals to Newcastle.

  34. Slartibartfast says:

    And given the results of their campaign against DDT on the spread of malaria… well, I think “morons” is a rather light term.

    What ARE the results of their campaign against DDT, again?

  35. J. Peden says:

    This link should give even the most zealous AGW alarmist pause. I’ve been trying to get a post up describing it further, but to no avail. So here’s simply the link:

    http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/06/18/comment-on-the-nature-weblog-by-kevin-trenberth-entitled-predictions-of-climate/

  36. J. Peden says:

    What are the current results of the Religious Environmentalists’ efforts to “save” us and Nature in the case of the Lake Tahoe fire?

  37. gahrie says:

    Just this week there was a scientist up in Canada warning about the coming of global cooling due to upcoming sun cycles.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285774,00.html

  38. A fine scotch says:

    When feeling the urge to reply to Timmah!, I would remind everyone about Major John’s advice regarding typing telephone poles.

  39. J. Peden says:

    Here’s a link which should give even the most zealous AGW alarmist pause. I’ve been trying to get a post up to describe it further, but to no avail. So here’s simply the link:

  40. BJTexs says:

    “A California law passed in 1976 bars construction of new nuclear plants in the state until the Energy Commission concludes that the federal government has found a proven way to store or reprocess spent nuclear plant fuel.”

    Stupidest. Law. Evah!

    “And, my wonderful friend BJ, peep out Gregg Easterbrook’s nice piece on Global warming for the Atlantic ”

    Just did. Same old same old based upon the so called simulations predicting carnage and such. What isn’t very clearly expressed amongst all of the dire floods/droughts is exactly what percentage of Global Warming is the result of an increase of 75 parts/million CO2 as opposed to any possible increases in solar radiation.

    Stop telling me all of the (simulated) horrible things that might happen and get a better grip on clearly showing me the causal relationships.

    And, with love, I say you are an idealogical putz. Now take your pills or you’ll start defending Edwards again and stain your pants.

  41. Rob Crawford says:

    Rob, do you need a global warming believer to bash in so much you intentionally don’t get jokes or did you give up your sense of humor?

    You were trying to make a joke? It’s so hard to tell, given the frequency with which your actual opinions are jokes.

    why, when I make fun of you guys with light comedy, do you take things so fucking seriously

    Because your sense of humor sucks?

    If you were trying to make a joke, well, my bad. It’s hard to tell when a self-parody is trying to be humorous, rather than just spouting in their usual way.

    No, Rob, I didn’t mean Luddites in the Webster’s definition way (although I’m glad you learned a new word today); I meant them as folks who were resistant, violently so, to change.

    So the people who aren’t trying to trash the world economy to avoid climate change are the ones who are “resistant, violently so, to change”?

    That’s why your jokes make no sense. They’re completely lacking in self-awareness.

  42. J. Peden says:

    Roger Pielke summarizes, and quotes fully, a recent statement by Kevin Trenberth on the Nature Weblog – Trenberth, “one of the lead authors of Chapter 3 the IPCC WGI report”:

    Pielke summarizes:

    ” This is remarkable since the following statements are made [by Trenberth]

    1. ‘In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.’

    2. ‘None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.’

    3. ‘Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I [Trenberth] postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.’

    […]”

    See Pielke and Trenberth at – climatesci.colorodo.edu – June 18,2007. Sorry, I can’t get a longer link to work.

  43. Lazar says:

    Whatever your views on global warming, the term “climate change denial”, and the speed with which it has become part of everyday language, shouldn’t be welcomed. The term is reductive, as well as offensive in its connotations.

    PC crap. Must not ‘be’ offensive, even if it’s true!

    To question climate change today is to be cast as a denier of an absolute truth.

    That people who used to be called “climate change sceptics” are now called “deniers”

    But doubt or criticism aimed solely at one side is not skepticism, it is gullibility // will to believe // confirmation bias.

    The aim is to suggest that climate change scepticism is somehow akin to Holocaust denial.

    Nice attempt at mind-reading here, and is this more PC to take a useful word off the table?

    The murder of 6 million Jews happened; the worst consequences of climate change are yet to happen, and we can’t even say with certainty what they will be.

    Science is largely about dealing with uncertainty, it is goal-oriented, and limited by time and technology. Circumstances… needs… science is pragmatic. No measurement can be made with certainty. Certainty is an illusion.
    What are the risks?
    What costs, what benefits?
    Scientific method are tools, not dogma.

    But when you read or hear that “the jury is in” on climate change, or the “science is settled”, alarm bells should ring. Science is never really settled. It can always be challenged.

    True, if he likes he can challenge evolution, the spherical geometry of our planet, and the general goodness of cookies, but I wouldn’t expect to be called a ‘skeptic’ or taken seriously.

    >And nothing so irks the fundamentalist faithful as a failure of the infidels to embrace their worldview — particularly after they’ve been instructed to do so by the elect.

    Thankfully, calling for beheadings is a bit too crass for the finer leftist salons, so for now, intimations about re-education camps — or, failing that, gulags — will just have to do.

    But anyone can play this game.
    Maybe environmentalism ‘is’ a religion.
    Maybe science ‘is’ a religion,

    Maybe denialism ‘is’ a religion.
    If so, so what?

  44. Lazar says:

    I would deny climate change just for the sake of skepticism.

    Would you try flying from a clifftop just for the sake of skepticism?

  45. nnivea says:

    “What ARE the results of their campaign against DDT, again?”

    After pressure from environmentalists, in 1996 the South African Department of Health removed DDT from its malaria control program. What followed was one of the worst malaria epidemics in South African history. The number of cases rose by over a thousand percent in only three years and the annual deaths from malaria rose ten-fold to over 460. In 2000, DDT spraying was reintroduced and within one year the number of cases fell over 80%. South Africa’s Department of Health recognizes that the most important factor in the control of malaria has been the use of DDT.

    On the Zambian Copperbelt, DDT was recently used in a malaria control program sponsored by one of the international mining companies. In an area that hadn’t had any malaria control at all since the early 1980s, the use of DDT reduced the number of malaria cases by 50% after just one spraying round.

    India – 750,000 down to 1,500 deaths one year after DDT was introduced in intradomiciliary spraying

    Guadalcanal – 1,800 cases/1,000 down to 40 cases/1,000 when the malaria control units of the US Navy began using DDT in control programs during WWII

    Sardinia – 70,000 cases down to 44 in 1945 after DDT was introduced by US forces

    Sri Lanka – 3 million cases down to 17 in 1963 after DDT introduced into control programs.

    There is an extensive literature base that documents the devastating effects the ban of DDT has had on malaria in developing countries.

  46. Hucklebuck says:

    Odd that the writer of the article, while trying to make a rationalist case, states the the majority of scientists “believe” in man made climate change. Scientific truth requires no faith, or “belief”, unlike religion. This new one in particular.

  47. The AGW skeptics want to debate the science, the AGW proponents want to call the skeptics names.

    We can see which is truly interested in science and which is interested in dogma, propaganda, and hysteria.

  48. Lazar says:

    Just this week there was a scientist up in Canada warning about the coming of global cooling due to upcoming sun cycles.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285774,00.html

    The leader of a group of Canadian scientists says global warming isn’t the biggest climate threat to the planet — global cooling is.

    Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre director R. Timothy Patterson writes in the Financial Post that core samples from the bottom of deep western Canadian fjords indicate climate change correlates to solar cycles of varying lengths — and show little correlation between climate change and carbon dioxide levels.

    … Tim Patterson?

  49. Lazar says:

    The AGW skeptics want to debate the science, the AGW proponents want to call the skeptics names.

    Skeptic is a name.

  50. Lazar says:

    Erm, Robin?

    Comment by Robin Roberts on 6/27 @ 10:19 am #

    Slart, I am familiar with that boil on the ass of the internet.

  51. Lazar says:

    Odd that the writer of the article, while trying to make a rationalist case, states the the majority of scientists “believe” in man made climate change. Scientific truth requires no faith, or “belief”, unlike religion. This new one in particular.

    The world is as it is. Our ‘truths’ are, to a rough approximation, how we believe the world to be. Science is about belief, and uncertainty, implication, extrapolation, best guesses, missing data, and imperfect predictions.

  52. B Moe says:

    “Science is about belief, and uncertainty, implication, extrapolation, best guesses, missing data, and imperfect predictions.”

    Al Gore said it, lazar believes it, that settles it.

    Don’t bother arguing with him, as soon as you get him in a corner he disappears for a couple of months then comes back with the same bullshit you already spent a day and a half dissecting. The fucking search engine ain’t working or I would just cut and paste the last time he was over here preaching his gospel.

  53. Pellegri says:

    Lazar, Paul Feyerabend would agree with you–which is why he proposed that science should be no more funded by governments than religions are.

    Considering the wackiness that’s evolved out of goreball warmening, I’m tempted to agree with him.

  54. Lazar says:

    Roger Pielke summarizes, and quotes fully, a recent statement by Kevin Trenberth on the Nature Weblog – Trenberth, “one of the lead authors of Chapter 3 the IPCC WGI report”:

    Pielke summarizes:

    ” This is remarkable since the following statements are made [by Trenberth]

    1. ‘In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.’

    In context: “In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable. But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.”

    2. ‘None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.’

    “The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle. For instance, if the current state is one of drought then it is unlikely to get drier”

  55. Merovign says:

    B Moe

    Don’t bother arguing with him, as soon as you get him in a corner he disappears for a couple of months then comes back with the same bullshit you already spent a day and a half dissecting.

    Truer words have never been spoken about the Telephone Poles. Even when they get verbose and post five or six times in a row, responding is just wasted energy.

    It’s really too bad, as there was a time long, long ago, before the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, I think, when people actually debated things and came to conclusions.

    Good times, good times.

  56. Lazar says:

    Al Gore said it, lazar believes it, that settles it.

    My what an impressive response.

    Don’t bother arguing with him,

    No don’t. Clearly I have incorrect ideology and am disturbing the teaparty / consensus. What would a skeptic do?

    as soon as you get him in a corner he disappears for a couple of months then comes back with the same bullshit you already spent a day and a half dissecting.

    How’s that global warming on Mars going? Is it peachy up there yet?

    The fucking search engine ain’t working or I would just cut and paste the last time he was over here preaching his gospel.

    Yes dear.

  57. Lazar says:

    Truer words have never been spoken about the Telephone Poles. Even when they get verbose and post five or six times in a row, responding is just wasted energy.

    So you have nothing to say… what a surprise.

  58. B Moe says:

    “Clearly I have incorrect ideology and am disturbing the teaparty / consensus.”

    Damn, son, that right there is some fucking world class projection! I just can’t ignore something like that!

  59. McGehee says:

    Nice attempt at mind-reading here

    Mind-reading you say?

    Pelley’s most recent report, like his first, did not pause to acknowledge global warming skeptics, instead treating the existence of global warming as an established fact. I again asked him why. “If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel,” he asks, “am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”

    Seems we skeptics aren’t the only deniers in this thread, Lazar.

  60. Slartibartfast says:

    After pressure from environmentalists, in 1996 the South African Department of Health removed DDT from its malaria control program

    Cites, please, on this and your other claims. It’d help if those cites weren’t bare, unsubstantiated claims made by ADSH.

  61. Merovign says:

    Lazar – I have plenty to say, just not to you.

    Because of what you are, judged by what you say.

    In other words, you have no interest in a substantive discussion, so I have no interest in you.

    EOL

  62. nnivea says:

    A few citations – there are more.

    Sharp BL, Ngxongo S, Botha MJ, Ridl F, le Sueur D. An analysis of 10 years of retrospective malaria daa from the KwaZulu of Natal. South African Journal ofScience 1988; 84:102-106

    De Meillon B. The control of malaria with special reference to the contributions made by the staff of the South African Institute of Medical Research. S Afr Med 1986; 76: suppl (11 Oct), 67-69.

    S. Bouwman H. Malaria control and the paradox of DDT. Africa Environment and Wildlife 2000; 8: 3-5.

    Sharp BL, le Sueur D, Wilken GB, Bredenkamp BL, Ngxongo S, Gouws E. Assessment of the esidual efficacy of lambda cyhalothrin :A comparison with DDT for the inadomiciliary control of Anopheles arabicnsis in South Africa. Am Mosq Control Assoc 1993; 9: 414-420.

    Hargreaves K, Koekemoer LL, Brooke BD, Hunt RI-I, Mthernbu J, Coetzee M. Anopheles funestus resistant pyrethroid insecticides in South Africa. Med Vet Entomo12000; 14:181-189.

    World Health Orgazation Manual on Practical Entomology Malaria. Geneva:VHO, 1975.
    Curtis CF. Restoration of maIaria control in the Madagascar highlands by DDT sprayLng. Am Trap Med Hyg 2002; 66:1.

    Vaughan Williams CH. Success of Insecticide Spraying in Controlling Malaria. S Afr Med ] 2003; 93:160.

    Sharp BL, Le Sueur D. Malaria in South Africa: The past the present and selected impiications for the future. South African Medical Journal 1996;88:83-9.

    Chris E Curtis. Should the use of DDT be revived for malaria vector control? Biomdeica 2002;22:455-61

  63. Lazar says:

    Mind-reading you say?

    Yes, the quote is quite clear;

    That people who used to be called “climate change sceptics” are now called “deniers” is quite deliberate. The aim is to suggest that climate change scepticism is somehow akin to Holocaust denial. The moral repugnance we feel for the latter, we should essentially feel for the former. The connection is subliminal mostly

  64. Lazar says:

    Lazar – I have plenty to say, just not to you.

    … and only to those who agree with you.

    Because of what you are,

    … a monkey in a tiara.

    judged by what you say.

    In other words, you have no interest in a substantive discussion,

    … rotfl.

    so I have no interest in you.

    Ok byeee.

  65. Lazar says:

    Lazar, Paul Feyerabend would agree with you–which is why he proposed that science should be no more funded by governments than religions are.

    In summary then… what was he trying to protect?

  66. tips says:

    Your site is a much needed addition to my life. THANK YOU!

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