How About Another Steaming Mound Of Bullshit From Nordhaus & Shellenberger?

[hatrack]

EDIT

For years, environmentalists have credited their strict and literal adherence to science for their successes, though not, notably, their failures. When environmentalism fails, it is invariably due to industry manipulation, the media's bias toward superficiality, the cowardice of politicians, public denial, and, most especially, the overall lack of deference in the United States to capital-S Science. For many environmentalists, Science is and should remain at the center of any politics aiming to overcome ecological crises. It is outside of history, society, and values. It is environmentalism's touchstone, the central criterion on which the value of environmentalism should be judged. But to believe that the sciences were behind the passage of environmental laws is a faith -- a scientism, not a science -- one that overlooks the specific historical and social conditions that gave rise to the ecological values.

The conventional wisdom is that environmentalists and global warming deniers like best-selling novelist Michael Crichton disagree over the value of the sciences. But both share most of the same beliefs about Science and the need for it to stay clear of values and politics. This statement -- "Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost" -- was uttered by Crichton, but it could just as easily have been uttered by most environmental scientists.

This faith in science is often accompanied by the antiquated view that there are facts separate from values and interpretations. But the fact that there is a strong international consensus among scientists that global warming is caused almost entirely by humans does not make it any less of an interpretation. Simply deciding what to study, and what kind of hypotheses to form, is a value judgment. The facts one chooses to give greater weight to in the case of global warming are deeply informed by one's values. The facts tell us that global temperatures have been rising over the last century. They tell us that human sources of pollution have probably been in some significant part responsible for those temperature increases. They tell us that global climate change and habitat destruction may be leading to the mass die-off of many plant and animal species.

But the facts also tell us that global temperatures have fluctuated wildly over the five billion years that the planet has existed; that there have been at least five previous mass extinctions during the history of the planet; that asteroids, comets, volcanoes, and ice ages have dramatically changed the climate and habitat at a planetary level; that the earth will very likely be here for billions of years after all traces of humanity have vanished from its surface; and that some form of humanity and human society will likely survive the ecological crises we face.

EDIT

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/09/break_through/index1.html

I hadn't heard they were working for Cato . . . or was it AEI?

[Systematic Chaos]

1. The link is worth clicking on, if for nothing else than reading the comments.

It's hard to believe something this patently useless would show up on fucking Salon fer Chrissakes. :(

[hatrack]

2. And the reader comments - many of which are screamingly funny - reflect just that.

I especially liked the posts along the lines of "If I wanted bad Slate-style journalism, I'd go to Slate."

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

3. I had actually resolved not to dignify that one with a link.

But I was amused to read that our real problem is that we just don't celebrate ourselves enough.
:eyes: