What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

EDITORIAL: Goodbye to all that.

Over the years, this website and its Contributors have been regularly raked over the coals for supposed sins of the American Right, or of the Grand Old Party. Some of it is fair enough, as Internet sniping goes. But most of it amounts to some variety of concern-trolling, projection, or bigotry.

Chief among these regular arraignments are those handed down from the Court of the Environment. You see, since the writers at What’s Wrong with the World are clearly Right-wingers, they must be unforgivably skeptical of, among other things: (a) catastrophic man-made climate change; (b) green tech subsidies and encouragements; (c) the necessity to reduce the human population of world; (d) the projected peak oil calamity. Since they generally oppose high minded and well-intentioned efforts to use government to alleviate these problems, they must be guilty of the most awful compromise or even connivance with Big Business, in its design to deplete and contaminate the earth for profit.

As a matter of fact we are all skeptical of these things, but it is only unforgivable if being cognizant of fact and reality is an unforgivable sin. Because fact and reality cut hard against the Court of the Environment's premises.

Every last one of these propositions invites healthy skepticism of its rational basis.

When every latest weather calamity is instantly integrated into the sanctimony of climate change rhetoric, when either X or not-X can be attributed to the same cause (Colorado in a single season went from “permanent drought” to “historic floods,” both due, it was alleged by these activists, to the omniscient power of anthropogenic climate change), we can safely say that science has given way to politics and utopia. There are perfectly rational grounds for skepticism of climate science; and of the agitation of politics that has made this science its gospel, we can unreservedly say it has earned our mistrust. The models are not all cooperating either.

When nearly every scheme for “green” power costs considerably more than its boosters initially claim or fails to provide the promised jobs and revenue, we observe the exploitation of the gullible by high-minded cynics. The level of corruption that a truly enterprising free press might expose, digging through the recycling, green tech, and alt-fuel policies of this country, could be something remarkable to behold.

Here’s another fact for the Court of the Environment to consider. Moving world oil production from despotisms like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, to liberal democracies like America and Canada, means improvement for both (a) North American prosperity and (b) the earth's climate. Despotisms indulge and coddle horribly inefficient, unclean state monopolies; North America enjoys fruitful innovation alongside careful regulatory scrutiny.

In a word, the fracking and tight oil revolution is highly likely to be a boon for the environment, by effecting a worldwide shift toward cleaner fuel.

The best thing going in American political economy, is also among the more fashionable of anti-capitalist causes. The oil production transformations that will likely improve our world, economically and environmentally, are being dishonestly denounced and impeded, as a Leftist point of principle.

Meanwhile a Leftist in good standing can confess his coercive abortionist mentality, the mandated slaughter of the next generation, and hardly cause a media ripple, not long before China itself began loosening the screws (only a little) on that low and murderous cause. Leftists and other doomsayers of overpopulation are, more comprehensively that any faction in the world, truly living in the past. They are the most brassbound of reactionaries on human procreation.

Some of these debased souls feel they can expiate the anti-human evil of their “darker moments” by endorsing the social-democratic politics of hope and change. Hatred of humanity is made whole by pious affirmation of the bureaucratic process by which capital is compassionately extracted by strangers, and then idealistically redistributed by strangers to other needy strangers. This substitutionary atonement is rather lacking in drama or logic.

And of course the final morbid irony: No policy is more certain to extinguish social democracy, with its vast structures of generational wealth transfer, than mandated abortion. The welfare state is utterly dependent on human procreation: the full flowering of man’s reproductive cycle, where the younger generations are endowed by their elders with sufficient discipline, instruction and virtue, that they might lead productive lives of their own, depositing a portion of their earnings for the care and security of the perishing generations.

A sexual libertine confessing bloodlust toward the unborn, we might say, is the social-democratic analogue to Lenin’s capitalist selling the rope by which he will be hanged. Lawless sexuality, treating other humans as sexual toilets, enervates that education in virtue, self-denial, and learning, without which a productive life becomes impossible. As we have seen all too often, it leaves the younger generations sunk in lassitude, despair, bewilderment, ennui: poorly equipped for the productive lives that our welfare entitlements presuppose. There is a certain demonic logic in the furtive desire to let the abortionist finish them off.

Now of course, at W4 we favor murder prosecutions for all abortionists, utterly irrespective of the class of human being they undertake to snuff out; and we execrate those cynical conservatives who secretly tolerate the abortion regime on eugenic grounds. But we also suspect that when prominent libertines speak of “too many goddam people in the world,” they don’t have in mind prosperous white homosexuals from Chicago. Not even the President’s odious science adviser, we suppose, advocates forced abortions of environmentalists or coercive sterilizations of Harvard climate science professors. Eugenics long supplied a respectable veneer to some truly base and despicable prejudices. And when that veneer wore thin, many of these villains departed, with remarkable alacrity, for the cozy refinements of environmentalism, in order to recover their respectability.

Which brings us back to our main point: how thoroughly environmentalism has earned the suspicion of thoughtful and decent men; and how hollow rings the sanctimony of environmentalist rhetoric.

To conclude the defense of our hearty skepticism these modish causes, we will now adduce some additional liberal sources; and insist that any challenging commenter read through all of them. Readers should be aware that we’re happy to make an example of anyone who, disdaining to do his homework, imagines that shortcuts to snark are advisable.

AP: The secret environmental cost of ethanol policy. (Endorsed by Think Progress.)

Via Meadia: Life After Blue: America needs to stop eating its young.

The Atlantic: What if we never run out of oil?

Commenters are again urged to do their homework.

And then, having read all these articles, the bold commenter may go ahead and make whatever counterclaim he likes.

But the ignorant sanctimony of Leftists (and some paleos) on this subject is not going to be tolerated anymore. As Jonah Goldberg has astutely observed (eight paleoconservatives just fell out of their chairs), the moral case for health care reform is not an empirical case for Obamacare. Likewise, the moral case for proper stewardship of the earth is not an empirical case for the impostures, fiascos, prevarications, or iniquities inflicted on us by the agit-prop of Leftist environmentalism.

To disambiguate the matter further: commenters, whether of long-standing or of the drive-by class, are served notice that W4 feels itself under no obligation to waste time with arraignments from the Court of the Environment.

Comments (86)

Y'all wasted time with stupid Libs because they straw manned you?

Hmmmmmm, you gotta spend a little time correcting them, I suppose.

Thanks for making it explicit that you have no sympathies with conservative HBDers such as Half Sigma/Lion on their positions on abortion. I really commend you for that, although I still like reading about HBD.

Bang-up piece Paul, you're in great form today. Here's a small typo: "how hollows rings," should be "hollow."

The left reacts to HBD and Game writers with a ferocity that most tradcons have probably never even seen directed in their general direction. While they'd love to humiliate people like Lydia and Paul, I have no doubt many of them would quite literally like to see guys like Half Sigma and Roissy actually killed/suppressed at any cost.

That is a pretty odd turn for this thread to take, and, although nothing inappropriate has been said, and we "editors" appreciate your appreciation, Black Rose (W4 has always been very strongly pro-life), let me just say right now that this thread is *not* going to be allowed to be turned into an actual discussion of those chaps.

The manosphere gets a lot of negative attention because lefties sense that there is potential there. The message, whatever the merits, holds appeal for many men who find themselves adrift in a seemingly hopeless situation. HBD is much more under the radar. IMO it will never catch on, being too opposed to America's core values and having no obvious policy implications.

I'm not sure who the article is aimed at, but the biggest problem conservatives have vis-a-vis the environment isn't skepticism of global warming or green tech, things that excites well-informed lefties but most people couldn't care less about. Rather, it is the conservative tendency to oppose all regulations, even simple and well implemented ones, on the grounds that they introduce market distortions. Any given conservative may object that they don't do this themselves, but that's the perception they have to work with.

But we also suspect that when prominent libertines speak of “too many goddam people in the world,” they don’t have in mind prosperous white homosexuals from Chicago.

On the contrary, they almost always target whites. Just the other day I saw an article about how every American was like 30 Africans or some such. This usually provokes accusations that the left is anti-white, rather than trying to channel Margaret Sanger.

This is a very interesting link that I just received late yesterday, and I think relevant to the general point in the main post concerning environmental alarmism and its harms:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

Rather, it is the conservative tendency to oppose all regulations, even simple and well implemented ones, on the grounds that they introduce market distortions.

Which is ironic since libertarians actually support certain types of environmental regulations that conservatives tend to be skeptical about or oppose. For example, libertarians tend to support fairly strict liability on pollution that damages health or property. Conservatives tend to be skeptical about litigation because of their knee-jerk reaction that only liberals and whiners go for that.

"the moral case for proper stewardship of the earth is not an empirical case for the impostures, fiascos, prevarications, or iniquities inflicted on us by the agit-prop of Leftist environmentalism."

Hear, hear! Pleas for proper stewardship of Creation don't need specifically Leftist arguments any more than anti-statist theory needs Ayn Rand.

I would, however, like to see more substantive conservative engagement with environmental issues along the lines, say, of Scruton's recent book on the subject.


"Any given conservative may object that they don't do this themselves, but that's the perception they have to work with."

Yes, and unfortunately with a fair amount of merit.

On the contrary, they almost always target whites. Just the other day I saw an article about how every American was like 30 Africans or some such. This usually provokes accusations that the left is anti-white, rather than trying to channel Margaret Sanger.

Matt, I've read those kinds of articles as well, but in my opinion such occasional expressions fade into insignificance when compared with the very concrete support given by most on the left to concrete programs attempting to "alleviate poverty" in third-world countries by highly intrusive and often outright coercive government programs. There is a lot of documentation of this. More recently, as you say, we have seen some arguments to the effect that really we should be using population control on the "more expensive" Westerners. I seem to recall having written about one of those articles on here myself but don't have time to look it up. And that's odious as well, of course. But meanwhile, the same people who are writing those articles would howl loudly if those mean Republicans succeeded once again in blocking U.S. dollars from going to the UNFPA or if USAID ceased its support for the distribution of birth control in Africa, etc. You can say, probably with some truth, that this is because they are fools who believe what they want to believe and project a narrative onto Africa and China in which these programs are enabling female empowerment or some such nonsense. But the fact remains that they close their eyes and ears to evidence that these are actually coercive programs forcing or pressuring women to have fewer children than they would otherwise want to have. Moreover, the programs are successful because the governments are totalitarian and/or despotic (if that distinction is meaningful) and the women in question have *little* power and feel that they must cooperate. Functionally, the programs the leftists salivate over are having far more devastating effects on the freedom and reproductive health of non-whites in foreign countries, and the leftists keep supporting them in part because they truly believe that population control is a key to eliminating poverty.

Matt, please familiarize yourself with the New Atlantis essay on philanthropy and eugenics linked to just below the portion you quoted. Here is another: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust

As Lydia said, some occasional anti-Western antipathy is now and then expressed, but the bulk of the population control/eugenic agenda has been (often explicitly) racist.

Jason Peters touches upon a few things here that are worth thinking about. Warnings: Wendell Berry is called into play, and some of Peters' observations will be a bit rankling to both Left and Right.


http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2012/05/why-i-am-not-an-environmentalist

Well, if the name "Wendell Berry" is going to come up, then I'm not going to resist referring again to the article I linked above on the grave human costs of anti-nuclear alarmism. And that article is referring only to one aspect of nuclear alarmism--namely, a type of zero-tolerance policy for extremely low levels of radiation in, e.g., soil. This approach is not backed up by science and has negative consequences for the good of mankind, most recently in Japan, where fear of radiation is doing much more harm than radiation. There is a different (ahem) type of anti-nuclear alarmism, which is the hysterical opposition to nuclear power itself. Obviously, the two are linked.

Berry's older work seems mostly sound, but the man has made some really boneheaded remarks in recent years: just the sort of amalgam of imprecision and sanctimony that we're editorializing against here. Confident prediction, soon proven false, does not mix well with hectoring and lecturing and self-righteousness.

The sanctimony pooled with a thousand others like it, and lent impetus to political forces with real world consequences. Some of these have been more than mischievous, more than wrongheaded; they have been baleful and destructive of good things.

Actually, his strong opposition to nuclear power, including civil disobedience, dates back to the 1970's. That was what I was alluding to.

The astute observer notices quickly that a sanctimonious scold on environmental disputes is rarely pressed to answer for his wrong predictions or the policies that they (again pooling with other political forces) issued in. It hardly instills confidence in future predictions.

As a general rule, ask an environmentalist if they oppose nuclear fusion research. If they do, then they have no opinion worth considering for public policy. That's like saying "why yes, I do in fact oppose antibiotics research" during an outbreak of the plague.

"Berry's older work seems mostly sound, but the man has made some really boneheaded remarks in recent years"

No doubt. But imo the most valuable current running through his work is his never-ceasing insistence on seeing the "environment" as Creation, and thus, as gift. If one cultivates this attitude of seeing the world "sacramentally" it becomes impossible to support any treatment of it which is exploitative rather than stewardly.

In conservative history a strain of thought along these lines goes back to Weaver and Kirk (as something I read recently stated, there are passages in The Conservative Mind that sound like Aldo Leopold) but it has largely been lost on the Right. It has been picked up by the Left, of course, radicalized in the process, stripped of its theistic foundation, and become either pantheistic or atheistic.

The Left has maintained a desire to treat the Creation well, but without real reasons, resulting in one form of abuse, while the Right has given up the thing altogether in support of an extractive economy, resulting in another. While I have little hope that the Left will correct its errors, the Right at least has a current of its own thought to fall back on. Whether it will avail itself of this current is debatable.

NM, I'm afraid that what is left out of your philosophical discussion is the importance of empirical accuracy. If one "desires to treat the Creation well" but advocates policies that one thinks are helpful but that are in fact harmful, one is dangerous if let loose on public policy. The sort of think-tanks, etc., whom you might think of as having too "extractive" a philosophy are more often simply *right* on the science regarding whether x is harmful, how harmful it is, whether y will be better for the planet, and so forth. Also missing in your discussion is a robust notion of the importance of human well-being and flourishing generally. This is extremely important, because many of the options recommended by those who "desire to treat the Creation well" have high and grave costs in terms of human death, illness, and so forth. (Think DDT and African malaria, for example.) They are usually not willing to prioritize human health and life, either at all or sufficiently, in the hierarchy of goods and hence will treat as *absolute* requirements such policies as should rather be evaluated on prudential grounds, with "How many people are going to die of heat stroke, hypothermia, disease, etc., if we implement this policy?" as an extremely important consideration. Wishing to prove that they "see the world as a gift" or "want to treat Creation well," they are usually far too willing to dismiss such concerns as if they were merely the whining of spoiled children wanting luxuries at any cost to others rather than the sorts of urgent matters of the well-being of mankind which are the very proper concerns of grave statesmen.

I have never been impressed either by the empirical accuracy or by the legitimate concern for human life and proper well-being by *anyone* on the left in these areas.

Which was kinda my point about the Left, although not made directly enough, obviously. Their policies are based on a vague concern for "the earth" but without any substantial root that gives them the ability to prioritize values. (Berry, btw, has been quite critical of movement environmentalism in this regard.) Mere "desire" to treat the Creation well does not suffice.

"The sort of think-tanks, etc., whom you might think of as having to 'extractive' a philosophy are more often simply *right* on the science regarding whether x is harmful, how harmful it is, whether y will be better for the planet, and so forth."

Even if this is true, good science does not necessarily equate to good moral stewardship. As you well know modern science carries along with it few if any "oughts," and exploitation is exploitation, whether it's backed by good science or bad. While I certainly wouldn't be quick to trust PETA's pontifications on the inhumaneness of the poultry industry, I'd also be hesitant to accept the findings of a think-tank funded by Tyson and Perdue.


Even if this is true, good science does not necessarily equate to good moral stewardship. As you well know modern science carries along with it few if any "oughts," and exploitation is exploitation, whether it's backed by good science or bad.

I find those sentences really difficult to understand. If something is not in fact doing real harm, does it get defined as "exploitation" because people are doing it with the wrong attitude? Suppose that I'm not very environmentally conscious and I dig a harmless little hole in my own back yard for my own amusement. I don't think that becomes "exploitation" because of my intentions or attitudes. If the so-called "exploitation" is backed by _good science_ which shows that it is doing no serious or long-term damage, then to call it "exploitation" is just making stuff up in order to be a sanctimonious scold (to use Paul's wonderful phrase) about other people's alleged attitudes or intentions. If the demands *not* to do x are backed by bad science that tells us, falsely, that doing x is harmful to the earth, the land, the planet, the environment, or what-not, then those demands are foolish and should not be heeded. It really shouldn't matter to public policy if the people engaging in x allegedly don't care enough or something like that.

~~If something is not in fact doing real harm, does it get defined as "exploitation" because people are doing it with the wrong attitude?~~

I don't think we're talking about things that demonstrably do no harm, but things on which there is some question. And on those sorts of questions I don't see why corporate-backed science should be given any more credibility than that of the environmentalists, given the former's less-than-stellar track record on such matters (which is not to say that the environmentalists' is any better). Purveyors of exploitative practices can always find some sort of scientific support for their actions. It wouldn't surprise me if the coal companies tried to argue that mountain top removal mining is actually good for the environment.

To put it another way, having doubts about the Sierra Club's findings on a given issue should not require me to accept those of the A.E.I. (or vice versa).

Well, then, it was confusing to say

Even if this is true,

about my claim that the so-called "exploiters" often seem to have better science. You're now apparently advocating some kind of generic skepticism because everybody has an agenda. In my opinion, and many of the links and issues raised above and in the main post bear me out on this, the "exploiters" and "deniers" and "advocates of capitalist consumerism" and what-not have again and again turned out to have the better science, and the alarmists have had to quietly change their story or lie or ad hoc about whatever they were getting hysterical about last year. You can't disagree with that by vague references to an agenda or to not trusting AEI. Rather, you should do more specific homework, as the main post urges.

That's fair enough, NM, but I would make the important distinction that "corporate-backed" science--let's say, for example, studies performed by geologists funded in some part by the fossil fuels industry--often has the distinct advantage that bad data and inaccurate impact statements can carry big consequences for the people who are relying on it. That is to say, if the Sierra Club conducts a study, it is known a priori that it is advocacy research, and that the consequences to the Club are entirely abstract and political in nature, should they prove mistaken.

While no doubt an outfit like AEI engages in pure advocacy research, it is simply not true that this is the kind of research that the fossil fuel companies are relying on to determine whether they are running afoul of federal regulations, whether they will utterly befoul an environmental preserve, or whether there is actual gain to be had by engaging in massively expensive exploration and exploitation projects. If we're talking about "corporate backed science," mostly what we're talking about is real science, and the corporations involved are generally on the hook for serious negative consequences if the science they're relying on is worthless.

Environmentalists, though, are by definition devoted to a particular outcome and the consequences for being wrong do not usually entail any serious loss of carefully-deployed resources, neither are they likely to be sued for being wrong, and neither is their incentive structure remotely the same. There is this idea that corporations are spending billions of dollars on R&D so that researches will tell them what they want to hear, or more importantly, what they want the public to believe. It's just not the case, by and large, because being wrong means something much different for them than it does the Sierra Club.

Again, it would be very interesting to compare the number of times the position held by even an "advocacy" group (though I think that is somewhat inaccurate) like AEI has ended up being borne out by independent research and by the failed predictions of groups like the Sierra Club. I seem to recall a bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich...The "climate change" issue is yet another case in point.

~~I would make the important distinction that "corporate-backed" science--let's say, for example, studies performed by geologists funded in some part by the fossil fuels industry--often has the distinct advantage that bad data and inaccurate impact statements can carry big consequences for the people who are relying on it.~~

Yes, this is true, but large companies are often able to externalize such costs, shift them downstream, or bury them until later (i.e., the tobacco companies w/r/t to the addictive quality of nicotine.) One hopes that in such instances the piper will be paid eventually, but what gets ruined in the meantime? Is it really adequate to "let the market take care of it" when such rectifying may not happen till ten, twenty, fifty years down the road?

On demographics, what activists called overpopulation, every possible charitable judgment faints and slink away. Anyone who ever signed on with this faction's doomsaying is irretrievably suspect.

Let me ask those in this thread their opinion on something that I think is relevant to the topic.

Was the jury correct in this case? Were they partly correct? Totally incorrect?

On the myth of overpopulation, Paul, one of the strangest phenomena of the 20th century was the meek acquiescence in the alleged fact of looming overpopulation, which they presumably thought was supported by some kind of incontrovertible science, by otherwise very sharp and very humane thinkers who did not in any way accept the appalling "solutions" offered to this alleged problem by the secularists. Just two examples are, of all people, C. S. Lewis and Flannery O'Connor. The former refers to the idea that the earth has too many people and cannot feed them all as apparently an established fact repeatedly in his utopia-style space story _Out of the Silent Planet_. Lewis also affirmed in other writings what he implied there--namely, that the fact that we have too many people shows that something is wrong with the human sexual impulse. Too many people shows that there is too much sex going on which shows that the sexual impulse is fallen. His paradigmatically good characters on Mars avoid this problem by having sexual intercourse only for, if I recall correctly, two or three years of a couple's married life, which Lewis holds up as a kind of norm of continence which human beings cannot follow because of the Fall.

In a similar vein, O'Connor displayed impatience with any attempt to meet population control alarmism on empirical grounds. She believed that such empirical responses undermined the "spirituality" of the church's stance on contraception.

The Church's stand on birth control is the most absolutely spiritual of all her stands and with all of us being materialists at heart, there is little wonder that it causes unease. I wish various fathers would quit trying to defend it by saying that the world can support 40 billion. I will rejoice the day when they say: This is right whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding...

Again, what is striking about both of these is that they really don't seem to have felt any curiosity as to whether the population doom-sayers were talking through their hats.

Crude, I don't really see much relevance to the topic, but I think the verdict in that case was ludicrously wrong, a result of a pathological cultural drive to have some scapegoat for everything, including the harm caused by natural disasters.

No doubt. But imo the most valuable current running through his work is his never-ceasing insistence on seeing the "environment" as Creation, and thus, as gift. If one cultivates this attitude of seeing the world "sacramentally" it becomes impossible to support any treatment of it which is exploitative rather than stewardly...

The Left has maintained a desire to treat the Creation well, but without real reasons, resulting in one form of abuse, while the Right has given up the thing altogether in support of an extractive economy, resulting in another.

Even if this is true, good science does not necessarily equate to good moral stewardship. As you well know modern science carries along with it few if any "oughts," and exploitation is exploitation, whether it's backed by good science or bad.

I am not sure that I can buy into this notional distinction between "exploitive" versus "stewardly" treatment of nature, as if they were simply opposed.

Granted, Creation is a gift, not of our own making. But it is given to us mainly for OUR good, not simply for our "caretaking oversight". Our involvement in physical creation is primarily for the support and betterment of mankind, not as some neutral referee to impose a level playing field so everyone gets an equal chance. By golly, it is BETTER that smallpox cease to exist, and that there be billions of humans rather than trillions of rats. It is better for man that there be a rich, diverse, and functioning ecology, but (were we ever to figure it out) a well-functioning ecology that lacks flesh-eating bacteria is *for our purposes* a better thing, and the "for our purposes" actually DEFINES which one we ought to prefer in our stewardship.

So this "stewardship" is rightly biased in our favor.

When someone comes along and proposes a way to use ("exploit" is the term incorrectly biased) oil locked away underground that man for 5,000 had no use for, the mere fact of extracting and using it cannot mean that it violates proper stewardship. True and full stewardship would take note of, and consideration for, the whole impact that its use has, so far as it is given to man to see - but no further. Needless to say, then, one thing that proper stewardship cannot consider is "what uses will be precluded in the far distant future that we are giving up because we are using it now for fuel?" That's an invalid demand on stewardship, WE CAN'T KNOW what far distance uses might be precluded, so it is impossible to estimate whether the benefit to society as a whole today in using it may, or may not, outweigh it. An intelligent investor who can see a possible return on his investment by using his money right now in new venture X should not give up the opportunity on the off-chance that unforeseen opportunity Y might come around tomorrow - that kind of peering into the future is not given to man for his planning.

So, this means that the burden of proof on weighing whether using oil or uranium or cod for our benefit is better all things considered is on those who wish to close off or prevent our using something now. That is, the current or near term benefit is easily seen now, in order to establish that the TOTAL good is better served by not using it, the burden is on those who want it left untouched to establish that leaving it untouched is for the greater good of all concerned, and that the difference in goods is sufficiently large and sufficiently clear to make a public law about it. And, given our track record on the practical effects of technology and development, that's not really easy to do.

Crude, I don't really see much relevance to the topic, but I think the verdict in that case was ludicrously wrong, a result of a pathological cultural drive to have some scapegoat for everything, including the harm caused by natural disasters.

Here's what I think is relevant: in that case, the claim is that the scientists in question were making authoritative claims about the likelihood of an earthquake. People responded, largely by listening to scientists. An earthquake, contrary to the scientists' predictions, struck. They were sued and found guilty (at pending appeal, it seems.)

Now, a lot of that is going to hinge critically on what the scientists actually said. If they assured everyone 'This particular method for detecting an earthquake is without basis. There is no way to predict and earthquake.', that's one thing. If they said, 'The odds of an earthquake occurring in the area of time specified is very unlikely.' is another.

But if they said, 'There is not going to be an earthquake.' and they said this as if they had the knowledge to know this, and then an earthquake occurred? Then I'm sympathetic to their being sued. Every bit as much as I would be to a homeopath being sued for saying 'These pills will cure your cancer.' when they ended up doing no such thing.

Now, if a scientist or group of scientists argues, 'Global warming is taking place. In 10 years we're definitely going to face disaster X as a result. So, we should enact policies A, B and C to counteract it.', and then A, B and C doesn't come to pass, and even disaster X doesn't come to pass, I don't regard penalizing the scientists as unthinkable. At least not if they are making claims of certainty or near-certainty, wielding their scientific authority expressly.

Crude, the article says the following:

At the controversial meeting, one of the defendants, earth scientist Enzo Boschi noted the uncertainty, saying a large earthquake was "unlikely," but saying that the possibility could not be excluded. However, a press conference that followed saw another telling citizens there was "no danger."

So it would seem that there's some uncertainty, and in any event I see no reason policy makers would not be even more accountable. At any rate, it is not immediately obvious to me that it would always be crazy to hold scientists personally liable for making the kinds off claims you're talking about. But I'd have to think about it.

Sage,

So it would seem that there's some uncertainty, and in any event I see no reason policy makers would not be even more accountable. At any rate, it is not immediately obvious to me that it would always be crazy to hold scientists personally liable for making the kinds off claims you're talking about. But I'd have to think about it.

Like I said, it turns heavily on what precisely was told to people. 'Unlikely, but unable to be ruled out.' and 'You're safe, this won't happen.' have one heck of a gulf between them. I can't be sure based on what I'm seeing, so I qualified it a bit.

And I think there's a difference between the policymaker and the scientist, particularly on global warming issues. The policymaker is going to end up relying on the authority of the scientist in many cases, at least officially. I suppose a politician making statements of definite doom or whatever could in principle be the same problem, but one of the practical issues is that right now, 'scientists' are (though this seems to be lessening) regarded as pure authorities whose predictions aren't sullied by biases or non-scientific motivations, etc. And it seems like a win-win for them politically: declare the certainty of X if policy A is/isn't passed. If their predictions don't come true, 'Oops. Oh well, science is never certain - that's what makes it great!'

Supposedly, ten years ago or so, we were told that snow would be a thing of the past by now. I wonder if such a prediction would have been confidently made if there was a possibility that, if there was snow ten years later, they'd have a price to pay.

They're trying to lock them up in prison for manslaughter. This isn't even just a civil suit. No, it's crazy.

I see now where you're going with this, Crude, but I would never advocate locking up global warming alarmists and scientists for manslaughter, much as I consider them to be hysterics at best and charlatans at worst, and infuriatingly irresponsible thought I consider their policy proposals to be. What I _do_ think ought to happen to, say, the East Anglia scientists are the usual penalties for academic malfeasance and falsification of data--loss of tenure, loss of job, inability to get jobs, general academic pariah-hood. If they really believed that that would happen, they wouldn't have falsified their data. Other than that, alarmism we shall have always with us, and it becomes a case of caveat lector. That's what an informed citizenry and the power of the vote is supposed to be all about. If our "rulers" try to enact policies based on pseudo-science, we should throw them out.

Lydia,

I see now where you're going with this, Crude, but I would never advocate locking up global warming alarmists and scientists for manslaughter, much as I consider them to be hysterics at best and charlatans at worst, and infuriatingly irresponsible thought I consider their policy proposals to be.

Manslaughter? No, especially since we're taking about more or less the opposite: predicting doom that actually does not come to pass. I'm talking about any penalties at all. Official penalties. Legal penalties. And not merely penalties for making claims, but for making particular types of claims, citing scientific certainty and scientific authority beyond what is reasonable, and then having said claims turn out to be bunk.

Now I agree that loss of tenure, loss of job, inability to get jobs, general academic pariah-hood, etc, is ideal. On the other hand, notice that last one, because I think it's key. As near as I can tell, you're telling me that we should let academics self-police themselves. Does that at all seem like a good idea?

The problem here is not with mere alarmism - I'm not suggesting that should have automatic criminal penalties. I am talking, specifically, about scientists and science. I am not convinced that the solution here is to rely on the academic community to keep their own houses in order.

I think I see what Crude is getting at. For violations against the virtue of telling the truth, there is no particular general reason to "keep it (the penalties) within the family" of scholars and what-not. People who abuse the right to speak have always been subject to penalty by society. Some of those offenses are punished not just by finger-pointing, shame, etc, some are legal penalties: slander, libel, and fraud have legal penalties in both monetary fines and (for fraud) possible prison time. Or yelling "fire" in a crowded theater "just for fun".

But the bar for offenses against truth that are illegal rather than just shameful must be set fairly high. A person cannot be levied with legal punishment for merely incautious phrasing. A scientist's statement that "causes harm" would have to be clearly beyond merely inept ways of saying something. As for fraud, the bar must include something of intent, even if only a malicious disregard for the truth in some sense.

The problem here, I think, is that in many areas of study it is easy for a conclusion to be consistent with the a current recognized body of thought, but the entire "recognized body of thought" on the subject goes along with an assumption that most of the scientists understand as being part of the background, but the layman does not. The scientist isn't going to spend 3 hours (or days) going over all of his assumptions for a simple press conference so that he isn't misunderstood. And there are many other ways for a scientist to be not-malicious in stating a thesis more firmly than the REALITY warrants. Yes, scholars of all stripes need to be careful about the differences between what they know and what they think (we all do), but there are lots of lapses of carefulness that should not be crimes.

I think most scientists, e.g., "climate scientists," are ideologues rather than liars. Some are liars (e.g., the ones involved in Climategate). The scientific community enforces adherence to its ideology by making pariahs out of the wrong people, which results in the existence of people who aren't true ideologues but cowed into not challenging the orthodoxy. All of these are very serious pathologies that would make a real scientist like, say, Richard Feynman spit nails. But they aren't, and shouldn't be, criminal. Let's not forget the incredibly distortive effect of government activity in all of this. After all, the IPCC isn't just run by some think-tank out there. There certainly would be more than a modicum of chaos if we had less advocacy "science" funded by government, and indeed less science and academics funded by government altogether, fewer panels, fewer bureaus, and so forth. But as the dust cleared it would, I believe, allow the marketplace of ideas to function more as it ought, penalizing empirically falsified and irresponsible theories in natural ways as people vote with their feet. I bet there are plenty of parents out there who, secretly or openly, would prefer to pay the thousands of dollars in tuition they plan to pay to send their college-age child to a college that does _not_ teach a lot of this nonsense, that teaches more sensible but less "orthodox" idea, which the parents themselves suspect strongly to be true. But where is such a school to be found, and will the kid be able to get a job after graduating from one? Again, the whole thing is a mess but it is a mess in no small part because of too much government, not too little.

Lydia,

All of these are very serious pathologies that would make a real scientist like, say, Richard Feynman spit nails. But they aren't, and shouldn't be, criminal.

Okay. Then how do you deal with it? How do you discourage it? Yes, I am very well aware of the dangers of getting government involved, and it's not as if I can't right away see the potential for abuse here. Maybe opening scientists up to civil suits would be better? Maybe there's another alternative altogether?

But as the dust cleared it would, I believe, allow the marketplace of ideas to function more as it ought, penalizing empirically falsified and irresponsible theories in natural ways as people vote with their feet.

The problem isn't just 'empirically falsified theories'. What about with empirically sketchy but not quite falsified claims? Think about evolution. How many times have you seen scientists define it in such a way that makes it either trivial (change over time) or impossible to really test, but entirely possible to continually update, change, or manipulate or the like? I just saw another update from Lenski's lab, which would be interpreted as a problem (to say the least) for some of the grander claims of mainstream evolutionary theory in a reasonable world. Yet that's not happening.

I'm not sure that hoping people will make rational choices in some idealized 'marketplace of ideas' that would in principle obtain if... what? I actually don't know how you intend to promote said marketplace of ideas, especially when that marketplace is subject to all kinds of social and political gaming.

And just to throw this out - I more and more suspect that one reasonable solution (or part of a solution) for these problems isn't 'better schools' but 'no schools at all', at least at the academic level. We live in an age where we can carry around literally libraries filled with books on our internet-connected wireless phones, or where we can view videos and lectures online for practically nothing. Why do we need most of these academics again?

Tony,

I suppose what I'd drive home here as far as point goes is that scientists should, ideally, always be stressing the uncertainty of science, the possibility of being wrong, especially in areas where their understanding of something is largely theoretical at best. But to emphasize the possibilities of failure, the limits of their enterprise, is to rob a lot of them of the authority they want to have (and the authority political figures need them to have to make use of them.)

Lydia:

Again, the whole thing is a mess but it is a mess in no small part because of too much government, not too little.

Crude:

I actually don't know how you intend to promote said marketplace of ideas, especially when that marketplace is subject to all kinds of social and political gaming....We live in an age where we can carry around literally libraries filled with books on our internet-connected wireless phones, or where we can view videos and lectures online for practically nothing. Why do we need most of these academics again?

Crude, I suspect that Lydia is saying if you get government out of the business of claiming to educate, and even out of the business of "promoting" people going to college by paying for some or all of it, you will reduce the politicisation. And reduce the amount of effect the schools have.

Just from general principles, while education is generally a good thing for a man and for the society that the man contributes to, having the government doing the educating means having the government decide what kind of education to give him. It's unavoidable. If we think that government cannot possibly be trusted with that decisive power, we would have to get government out of the academic world. Obviously that would entail getting rid of public (state-run) universities. Would it also imply ditching grants and gov-backed student loans? Not necessarily, but it is true (to a lesser degree) that imposing qualification constraints on these will, again, put the government in the driver seat on the schools. And this will be, if not a primary cause of the political gaming of science, at least a feeder tributary to it.

I think it is a mistake to allow government to become the crutch on which parents universally rest to give their kids a basic grammar school education, the parents in order to exercise their proper authority of oversight MUST ask and consider what kind of education is best for their child, and must have the freedom to reject one that is put in front of them. School vouchers or tax credits would seem adequate mechanism, perhaps with virulent scholarships. The only reason I would suspect any difference in selecting and paying for college-level schooling is that (unlike for grade school) if parents have not themselves gone to college, they will be less likely to discern what is a good or bad college.

Tony,

I agree entirely with your estimation of education, at least as I understand it. I think part of the problem is that this goes beyond formal education. Scientists and 'science' generally are lionized in the media, with scientists made out to be experts who have the answers to all kinds of questions and problems - including problems that may well not exist, or questions that science can't really answer or address (or, at the moment, which are only grasped in the faintest ways.) I think this is the case even with the education aspect removed, though anything that eliminates some parts of academia would, I think, be a step in the right direction.

Let me try to take this on terms someone with a libertarian mindset may be able to appreciate. I think even the harder libertarians will agree that if a product does not perform as it was advertised or promised to perform, restitution is in order. If a businessman sells me an engine guaranteed for 5 million miles of typical use, and it only lasts 300k miles of typical use, and I'm now an aggrieved party who can expect him to pay a penalty. Now, I recognize right away that this gets into hazier areas - 'Did he say it was guaranteed for 5 million miles, or that it could last as long as 5 million miles?' etc, etc. But still, there's the possibility of fault there. 'False advertising.', etc.

So then I look at scientists - even 'a consensus of scientists' - advertising all manner of threats of harm based on their forecasts (and we're talking near-term forecasts, the sort of things we can expect to live to see), and doing so while entangled with politicians and interest groups who are trying to advance an agenda. I see claims of certainty, of 'this is a fact now', and in the case of global warming we're dealing with 'facts' that are meant to motivate countries to spend billions, even trillions, of dollars. Now imagine if we actually spent that money and, oops, it turns out that the statements of 'fact', that the previously expressed certainty, was bunk. Things were more complicated than the scientists realized (oops, how'd that happen), or things didn't pan out the way they insisted they would. Why shouldn't they pay a penalty for that? And I mean a real penalty, one enforced by law, as opposed to the vague hope that maybe academia will police itself?

Keep in mind, it's not exactly difficult to avoid making this error. It would simply mean scientists always take care to speak as they should - in terms of theories that may turn out to be wrong, in terms of confidence based on limited amounts of data, based on theories and experiments that may or may not be extremely limited in terms of scope, or may or may not be reasonable to extrapolate. We always hear that one of the great things about science is the doubt that's built into it, but the doubt goes away extraordinarily quick the moment the topic becomes politically important. Here's a way to reintroduce it.

As always, anything that involves the government is subject to all kinds of abuse. I do not want the government overseeing science - hell, I don't even like academia overseeing it. But as above, I think we're edging into an area where, if we were dealing with a businessman selling a product, even some libertarians would agree that legal penalties should be enforced. With the case of the scientist, we're just dealing with someone giving away a product for free. (Which, as I understand it, still doesn't get you off the hook if it fails to perform, or causes harm.)

I just want to go back and applaud strongly something Tony said above, which is more central to the issue of the main post than a discussion of how to stop public policy prescriptions on the basis of bad science or over-hyped science. Tony responded to the use of the term "exploitative" regarding the use of natural resources like this:

Creation is a gift, not of our own making. But it is given to us mainly for OUR good, not simply for our "caretaking oversight". Our involvement in physical creation is primarily for the support and betterment of mankind, not as some neutral referee to impose a level playing field so everyone gets an equal chance. By golly, it is BETTER that smallpox cease to exist, and that there be billions of humans rather than trillions of rats. It is better for man that there be a rich, diverse, and functioning ecology, but (were we ever to figure it out) a well-functioning ecology that lacks flesh-eating bacteria is *for our purposes* a better thing, and the "for our purposes" actually DEFINES which one we ought to prefer in our stewardship.
So this "stewardship" is rightly biased in our favor.
When someone comes along and proposes a way to use ("exploit" is the term incorrectly biased) oil locked away underground that man for 5,000 had no use for, the mere fact of extracting and using it cannot mean that it violates proper stewardship. True and full stewardship would take note of, and consideration for, the whole impact that its use has, so far as it is given to man to see - but no further. Needless to say, then, one thing that proper stewardship cannot consider is "what uses will be precluded in the far distant future that we are giving up because we are using it now for fuel?"

This is extremely important. There are Christians who don't actually worship Gaia or anything who nonetheless are extremely leery of a human-centric approach to these issues and who will casually use phrases like "exploitation of creation" or what-not without remembering that, properly speaking, oil reserves are inanimate matter and are not the kind of thing that can be "exploited" (as human beings can be exploited). In other words, such terminology is inherently anthropomorphic and confusing.

Crude, I actually agree that less higher education would be much better on many of these matters. But the last thing we need is making legal causes of action against bad science. Right now, no particular person even has standing to sue the climate-change ideologues, and rightly so. It's easy to see how our entire Anglo-legal concept of standing is against the idea that scientists can be sued for promulgating poor science, even if the indirect policy effects of that poor science are bad. (Actually, people _can_ die as a result. For example, AGW hysteria encourages policies which discourage air conditioning which causes death by heat stroke for vulnerable individuals who cannot get air conditioning. But this does not create standing to sue the AGW scientists under Anglo law, and again, rightly not.) I can tell you this much: We can be *morally certain* that any move in that direction would be used in *precisely the opposite* direction from the one for which you are suggesting it. Indeed, the leftists have already made tentative suggestions of that kind. For example, calling those who question AGW "deniers" is a deliberate attempt to liken them to Holocaust deniers, at which point they would (I believe) be only too happy to suggest that they be treated legally as Holocaust deniers are treated in Europe. Or the "science educated politics" movement is an attempt to block political candidates who don't toe the line on AGW, Darwinism, etc. There is already something of a movement to force conformity in empirical science, and it's coming from the other side. Were they to succeed in getting the infrastructure in place for that, it would *instantaneously* and *by intent* be used to reinforce precisely the sort of bad science orthodoxy we are concerned about.

Lydia, the attempt to rule certain kinds of research conclusions a priori unethical--say, concerning the effects of same-sex "parenting" on children--is an American precursor to a phenomenon already more advanced in some Western countries. As a prudential matter, it's hard to argue that we should be encouraging the criminal prosecution of scientists considering 1) the increasingly totalitarian liberalism of Western societies, and 2) the reigning status of empiricism, which pushes every field of inquiry to at least claim be indistinguishable in kind from the natural sciences.

The really sad thing is that it's pseudo-empiricism, because the attempt is to squelch contrary empirical results. I don't want to create a threadjack, but since Crude brought up Darwinism, I will say that the increasingly hysterical defense of it from any empirical, evidential criticism and the attempt to rule such criticism "religious" and hence out of bounds is part of the same phenomenon.

Interestingly, in philosophy there is a similar kind of faux intellectual bullying going on by way of the increasingly popular "philosophical" claim that one should defer to the majority view of one's peers and especially to the views of those one regards as smarter than oneself--dressing up both the bandwagon fallacy and the argument from authority as sophisticated philosophical positions. This is increasingly being used to defend naturalism and prevent any young philosophers from wandering off the reservation.

Lydia,

Crude, I actually agree that less higher education would be much better on many of these matters. But the last thing we need is making legal causes of action against bad science. Right now, no particular person even has standing to sue the climate-change ideologues, and rightly so. It's easy to see how our entire Anglo-legal concept of standing is against the idea that scientists can be sued for promulgating poor science, even if the indirect policy effects of that poor science are bad.

I'm not suggesting mere 'legal causes of action against bad science'. Investigate and advocate whatever you like. Accept whatever theory you wish. I'm talking specifically about one thing: confident predictions, backed by the authority of science. Tell me that you think homeopathy can possibly be beneficial in medical treatment, and I have little problem with what you're saying. Tell me that this homeopathic treatment shall certainly or is 99.9% likely to cure cancer, and alright - if it doesn't, we're going to have a problem. In fact I believe similar laws like this are in place for medicine and health products already.

Now, again - I'm not so naive as to believe getting the government involved would solve things automatically. Nor do I trust the government to have the necessary finesse to craft such legislation and NOT do inane things. The problem I'm having here is that your alternatives don't seem workable. In fact, they don't even seem like alternatives, so much as statements of ideal situations that would be awfully nice but which we don't have any chance of ever seeing take place, or even of making terribly much progress on. I don't think vying for orthodox universities is a serious alternative. I've seen it tried, say with the Ave Maria experience of Monaghan. I think that went a long way towards demonstrating exactly how problematic such a route is.

Here's where I think you and I differ. We both agree that academia is a problem, indeed a source of many of the problems we see in the OP. But when time comes for solutions, I think you have a habit of thinking in terms purely of ideals. For instance, what I'd like to see established are price controls for any public university, and any university that's receiving government funds. Some academics love the concept of price controls, artificial price inflation and deflation for all manner of goods and services. Well, I'd happen to love to see that for any public university. I think a 5k price ceiling for a 4-year degree would be an ideal limit, don't you? All in the name of providing quality education to as many people who wish to have it. Of course, you and I know just what effect this would have on most universities. It would solve a lot of problems, and I think something in this direction would actually be feasible to accomplish politically. But I also suspect that you'd dismiss it immediately because, even if it were attainable (it may well not be, due to pork concerns and other things), you'd regard the whole thing as socialism and therefore a terrible idea.

I'm not saying the idea of suing scientists is a clear winner, by the way. I recognize the possible problems, even if I think the intellectual justification is stronger than you say. But what I'm usually after in these conversations is a clearer idea of a way to move forward, even hypothetically, on these issues. Something we can do, or call for, that would be likely to lead to some short term success which we could build on. Not just painting a picture of an ideal or better society with little route to get there.

In fact I believe similar laws like this are in place for medicine and health products already.


Only for product advertising. Not for the private statements of individuals, not even doctors. Your doctor can take the cancer medication and hype it however he wants as his professional opinion to you as his patient, even if what he's saying is complete baloney.

Nor is there any way to extend the legal structures involved in advertising health products to global warming advocates or advocates of peak oil hysteria or population control or what-not, because those are not products, not being sold to the public, and hence not subject to the regulation of accurate advertising bureaucrats or laws.

And "cause of action" is the technical term necessary for lawsuits. It's a little odd. You recommend things but don't (no offense) seem to know much about the underlying types of legal structures that would be involved.

Lydia,

Nor is there any way to extend the legal structures involved in advertising health products to global warming advocates or advocates of peak oil hysteria or population control or what-not, because those are not products, not being sold to the public, and hence not subject to the regulation of accurate advertising bureaucrats or laws.

I wasn't advocating 'extending those laws' as if we could do so without actually coming up with and passing legislation - an act which, I already said, is anything but a panacea, and carries its own risks. But intellectually, they share some important points in common. I'd question the reasoning that would conclude that claims about a product must meet certain standards of performance, operation and scientific certainty (when such claims are made), but automatically rule out as entirely non-problematic statements made of scientific certainty. That would be akin to saying that printing 'Orange juice cures all cancers!' on an OJ label is rightly illegal, but a scientist telling cancer sufferers that science shows orange juice cures all cancers hasn't crossed any lines worth considering. I don't think it's so clear.

And "cause of action" is the technical term necessary for lawsuits. It's a little odd. You recommend things but don't (no offense) seem to know much about the underlying types of legal structures that would be involved.

That's why everything I suggest is loaded with qualifications, explanations of my reasoning, acknowledgment of blind spots that I'm aware of and areas that I'm honestly in the dark about. No one could fairly suggest I'm presenting myself as Crude, Legal Expert Extraordinaire - or worse, that I should be such in order to give my (rightly qualified) opinions on legislation and law. Not that I'd think you were trying to silence discussion on such intellectually paltry grounds. I know you're better than that.

Besides, so long as we're talking about the intersection of science and law, Judge Jones took it upon himself to decide what was and wasn't 'science' in the eyes of the law - and there was no shortage of people who celebrated that ruling, lawyers and legal professionals included. Now, obviously there's a tremendous gap between that travesty and going on to penalize scientists for making certain predictions in the hopes of promoting political legislation, and their predictions turning out to be false. Jones would probably choke rather than even think about the idea I'm exploring. But, travesty or not, it happened and it's relevant, so there we go I suppose.

But, travesty or not, it happened and it's relevant, so there we go I suppose.

Well, no. It *was* a travesty, so there we don't go. If you see what I mean.

~~So this "stewardship" is rightly biased in our favor.~~

Agreed.

~~True and full stewardship would take note of, and consideration for, the whole impact that its use has, so far as it is given to man to see - but no further.~~

Yes, and this is generally where the breakdowns happen. When too much emphasis is placed on potential future ramifications nothing gets accomplished. But it is when not enough attention is given to potentialities, for speed's or efficiency's or profit's sake, that exploitation occurs.

Strip mining/mountain top removal mining is exploitive in that it is done with very little, if any, regard for local ecologies, only for the efficient extraction of coal. Forests and topographies are destroyed, watersheds are damaged, local flora and fauna, as well as human living patterns are disrupted, etc., for the sake of speed/scale/profit.

Animal factory farming is exploitive in that living creatures are not treated humanely in either life or death, but are instead viewed as inanimate "units," and thus not used in a way that accords with their natures. What would be viewed as animal cruelty when done on a smaller scale, is excused on a larger because of expediency.

Agricultural factory farming is exploitive in that little consideration is given to long term soil health, erosion, the effects of run-off, etc., largely for the sake of agri-business profits. It is assumed that everything can be fixed with chemicals, but the effects of long term use of fertilizers and pesticides are generally not seriously considered.

~~That is, the current or near term benefit is easily seen now, in order to establish that the TOTAL good is better served by not using it, the burden is on those who want it left untouched to establish that leaving it untouched is for the greater good of all concerned, and that the difference in goods is sufficiently large and sufficiently clear to make a public law about it.~~

I do not believe that the question is between use and non-use most of the time, but rather between methods of acquisition and subsequent use. Stewardship does not imply non-acquisition and/or non-use (the error of many environmentalists) but rather wise acquistion and use (a lack of concern for which is, unfortunately, often the error of the Right).

Yes, and this is generally where the breakdowns happen. When too much emphasis is placed on potential future ramifications nothing gets accomplished. But it is when not enough attention is given to potentialities, for speed's or efficiency's or profit's sake, that exploitation occurs.

Or just plain stupid foolishness. Not sure I would use the term "exploitation" for it, since the problem with the usage is, often, not that the thing gets used but that the usage fails to take into account the goods of other people who ought to be part of the consideration. In some sense it is exploiting those other people, but that may not be the best term for capturing what's going on.

Strip mining/mountain top removal mining is exploitive in that it is done with very little, if any, regard for local ecologies, only for the efficient extraction of coal. Forests and topographies are destroyed, watersheds are damaged, local flora and fauna, as well as human living patterns are disrupted, etc., for the sake of speed/scale/profit.

I can go along with that conclusion, as a reasonable stance. I would raise questions about it, but I believe they can be answered, such as: who is the proper person(s) to decide whether X amount of damage to the soil or watershed is, or is not, worth the gain from Y resource thus acquired? Such questions presume that there is a possible level of gain that WOULD make it worth the cost, and other levels that would not.

Here is a funny note to the end of the hurricane season:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/11/25/2013-atlantic-hurricane-season-wrap-up-least-active-in-30-years/

What I find interesting is that it is not just the superficial view that the "climate change" stance is discommoded by such a tranquil season - after all, weather is not climate, we know that - but rather that the scientists were ALL wrong in their predictions about the severity of the hurricane season. Every one of the models was off by a large, large margin. We know that day-to-day weather is too subject to variation to adequately predict 15 days in advance. And day to day weather differs from climate in that climate is not as subject to variation. So, something in the middle, a long-range prediction of something in between day to day "weather" and "climate" should be, well, MORE predictable than day to day weather, and less predictable than climate, shouldn't it? But they got it badly wrong. Which means not merely that their models are just incomplete, but that the models are incomplete in ways that they didn't even suspect yet.

Good point, Tony.

The good news is that, despite the impositions and follies discussed here, the larger trends are encouraging. Even with the usual posturing and mendacity by which a given weather calamity (the awful cyclone in the Philippines) is integrated into the sanctimony, the agitators can't get much done:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/11/21/climate-talks-hit-a-new-low/

"who is the proper person(s) to decide whether X amount of damage to the soil or watershed is, or is not, worth the gain from Y resource thus acquired? Such questions presume that there is a possible level of gain that WOULD make it worth the cost, and other levels that would not."

Another valid question is, who is receiving the gain? I'd be willing to bet that not only do the coal companies reap an immense "reward," but that they also have an inordinate amount of input into answering the question you ask above (with, of course, the permission/collusion of government). This goes beyond the fox guarding the henhouse. It's more like paying the him to design the coop's security system.

I can't help wondering, NM, if you have ever in your life looked at some previous instance of environmentalists claiming that x causes terrible harm to the Earth or that we're running out of y and changed your mind on the basis of the evidence. Because there have been plenty of such instances to choose from. You seem to prefer to do everything in the abstract.

I was much struck reading a pretty much self-avowedly communist novelist (whom I actually often like as a novelist) when she wrote a mystery novel that touched on British coal mining in the early 1950's. Her thesis was that extremely destructive deep-digging, earth-moving coal mining was actually _good_ and _necessary_ because it "got the coal out" and left the ground more level afterwards for possible building and so forth than previous shaft-mining practices. I couldn't help thinking how styles change. In her book, anyone who opposed the extremely ugly ripping up of the land (often taken under eminent domain from private property owners) by a nationalized coal industry was some kind of selfish, right-wing opponent of progress. I cannot imagine that later men of the left would have agreed with her on that, but it just gave me such a sense of how much of this goes by fashion more than by actual empirical evidence.

I don't generally believe what the environmentalists say without digging into it myself. But in the case of certain things that I've seen the results of first-hand, it's a different story.

My take on climate change is that A) it is occurring, and B) that we are probably contributing to it to a significant degree. The views on both extremes -- that we are the primary or only cause of it, on the one hand, or that we have had no effect whatsoever, on the other -- seem farfetched, and their purveyors largely politico-economically motivated.

Well, NM, I think the scientific outcomes lean way, way more in the "we are having virtually no or no effect on it" direction, and therefore that position is not implausible. I suggest you stop being motivistic and, as you say, dig into it yourself. The results of late years simply are not bearing out the AGW thesis, and the AGW purveyors are being forced to fudge and even outright misrepresent their own data. One of the links provided in the main post points this out.

Aristotle: "One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."

As the Atlantic article made crystal clear, the problems don't fold neatly into a conservative narrative in any way. With the obvious exception of natural gas being captured the liquids drilled for are far dirtier than Saudi crude oil and require much more refinement. It is the chemicals being pumped into the ground which are legally considered trade secrets that I have noticed receives the most hostile reactions from liberals, not the mere existence of the procedure called fracking. As the article also explains, fracking is supposed to be a bridge to a cleaner energy source but so far that other source hasn't materialized. But I am truly thankful you are convinced all green tech is a scam ignored by a lazy or corrupt media. Every time a media conspiracy theory is launched a liberal angel gets her wings.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

Finally, if Savage meant a word of it he would have brought up the subject of overpopulation later and would be promoting his mandatory state solution, but he didn’t really mean it so he isn’t. I mean the name of the festival was Dangerous Ideas, so you imagined he would refuse to be controversial and play the wallflower?

"I suggest you stop being motivistic and, as you say, dig into it yourself."

I've read quite a few articles on the subject from various points of view and it seems to me that the truth lies between the outliers, probably leaning more towards a significant, but limited human contribution. It does us no harm to be aware of this. No, the world is not going to end in 50 years due to global warming, but neither is the worldwide economy going to come to a grinding halt if we make efforts to lessen our carbon emissions and other pollution. There are scaremongers on both sides here.

I suggest you read Scruton's book. He gives what is imo a pretty balanced view of the thing, and while he's a bit more sanguine about market-based solutions than I am, at least he realizes that there are ecological problems that need dealing with, and that some of them are in fact caused or contributed to by market forces.

Step2, the Aristotle quote is so devoid of context it amounts to a non sequitur. But it is certainly true that the sexual disorder and sterility of Western peoples is a major cause of poverty and crime.

As I'm sure you're well aware, estimating the environmental impact of various extraction methods consists of much more than the mere purity of the raw material. Have you ever examined, for instance, how much Saudi oil production efficiency is lost to the necessity of cooling all their facilities? North American production is more efficient and cleaner despite the dirty raw materials.

Paul:

I regret meriting the label "execrable" in your view. Though I have seldom commented, I have for years enjoyed reading your work. After each article of yours, one always looks forward to the next. The wait is usually too long.

A white nationalist and Roman Catholic Chestertonian Thomist -- indeed, a Roman Catholic Thomist who did not know that he was also a Chestertonian until W4 taught him the meaning of the word! -- I have nothing to tell you about HBD and eugenics that you have not already heard. W4 is one of the few forums that will give white nationalists a fair hearing, after all. This is much appreciated.

Regarding overpopulation, though unsympathetic to Leftist views in the matter, I still feel that the mathematical nature of the exponential function -- by which unconstrained biological populations will grow -- has something consequential to tell us. Malthus was right, as time will tell. But you have heard this, too.

Suppose however that I did have something new to tell you today. How would I demonstrate first that I had indeed read though the reading you have assigned, per your explicit request?

It is a good reading list, by the way. I have read through it. I especially appreciate the article about "methane hydrate" deposits.

Unless you are tolerating abortion (i.e., not pro-life) out of cynicism (i.e., despite knowing that it's an abomination), I don't think the "execrable" label fits. Given that no loyal Roman Catholic can not be pro-life, and that no Chestertonian can be a cynic, I suspect you have easily evaded that particular barb in our editorial.

I still feel that the mathematical nature of the exponential function -- by which unconstrained biological populations will grow -- has something consequential to tell us.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as an unconstrained biological population. The concept is useful as instructional tool, but constraints would seem to be a constant for all biological life as we know it. In any case, the editorial in no way denies "that the mathematical nature of the exponential function ... has something to tell us." What it argues strongly against is, rather, a massive mistake of empirical estimation, by which an hoary alarmism with a whiff of the 70s masquerades as current scientific consensus. Jon Last's book on demographers is a must-read. Have you heard of the petty barbarities that childless Japan has plunged into? Step2 defends Savage for being provocative in his presentation of dangerous ideas; we denounce him not only for the evil of those ideas but the profound and culpable error of fact upon which he bases them. There are not, in fact, too many people in the world; there are very likely, quite soon, to be rather too few.

Thanks for reading, though. Methane hydrate sounds like some nasty stuff, but packing quite a bit of potential. We wish the Japanese well in trying to extract cleanly.

I'm afraid there are many reasons to believe that Malthus was wrong, as time will tell. The thing is, one does sometimes wonder why people _do_ believe such things, especially now, when the fact that population doesn't grow unconstrained and exponentially is becoming increasingly evident.

NM, I will eat my hat if Roger Scruton has made any serious attempt to take into account or grapple with evidence _against_ the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. I read Scruton on various subjects six-seven years ago or so, and he never, ever, ever struck me as someone who did his homework. Doing empirical homework on whether x is really so bad as we're told simply was not his forte. It wasn't even what people liked him for or recommended him for. Even in areas such as legal issues surrounding the end of life in the US and the UK (about which I do claim to know something), his factual ignorance and his willingness to write eloquently but ignorantly was simply staggering. The same in the area of home schooling. He was happy to apply, of all things, Hegelian philosophical modeling to home schooling (I am not making this up) without appearing to know the first thing about home schooling. If you happen to have a *recent* (I stress that word) article by Scruton in which he takes into account and responds in any detail whatsoever to the evidence that temperature over the last ten years does not appear to be conforming to the predictions of those advocating AGW, feel free to link it.

By the way, Howard J. Harrison, various specific Malthusian predictions have already been falsified ambulando, by time. There were quite a few of these in the 1970's, from predictions of imminent worldwide famine to the bet I mentioned above between Ehrlich and Simon concerning resource scarcity. With a worldwide graying population, this is not exactly a good moment to be saying, yet again, that Malthus will be proven right by time.

Of course, one could make Malthusianism unfalsifiable by always saying that any _particular_ prediction doesn't get at the true essence thereof, or something of that sort. But that would be very boring.

I know of no articles by Scruton along those lines, which isn't to say they don't exist. I'm going simply by his book.

Accurate, imo, review of same:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/roger-scrutons-green-philosophy

That review indicates that the book is very typically Scrutonian, both in the good and the bad senses. It seems to me that the review confirms my conjecture that Scruton is not, in the book, engaging with the *empirical* issues pro and con, even as far as they were known in 2012. (As of 2013, we have the IPCC's own graphs showing its own predictions to have been quite wrong.) Which was kind of my point.

By the way, one really cannot come to a justified conclusion about an empirical matter merely by taking some kind of "middle road." After all, both the position that blood-letting is of *no* medical value and that astrology has *no* reliable predictive force are "extreme" positions on the topics of blood-letting and astrology. Both also happen to be true. Nothing will do but doing some legwork, and at this point, we have the global warming advocates themselves scratching their heads (no, not "corporate paid" researchers) at the way that the data are not adding up. That needs to be paid attention to.

Direct replies from both Paul and Lydia are an unanticipated honor.

Lydia writes:

[T]his is not exactly a good moment to be saying, yet again, that Malthus will be proven right by time.

Fair enough. I suppose that I do not mind choosing a poor moment to say it.

Too unimportant to command a public audience, I do not especially expect anyone to listen, though. Not to me. After all, events are bound to unfold, whether I have echoed Malthus by predicting them or not.

I cannot speak to Ehrlich and Simon. Born in 1967, a little too young to remember the Population Bomb panic, I vaguely gather that the conservative consensus on Ehrlich and Simon today is this: that they were successful self-promoters who, like the priests of Baal, made their fortunes before events contradicted their forecasts. Their type is common enough. I would cast Malthus however in Elijah's role.

I specifically had in mind Gregory Clark's staid but fact-packed 2007 book A Farewell to Alms. I find Clark convincing. That's all.

Mr. Harrison, I cannot help wondering what solutions Clark or most who agree with his theories are likely to propose and just how palatable they are, or should be, to any sincere Roman Catholic or even any sincere Christian. For example, eugenically motivated population control efforts among those cultural groups and/or races who are the Darwinian "less fit," likely (per Clark) by their unchecked procreation to bring us back to a world in which human life is nasty, brutish, and short, would seem, shall we say, a natural outgrowth his theories, based on summaries. Which would indeed merit the label "execrable" as stated in the main post.

~~By the way, one really cannot come to a justified conclusion about an empirical matter merely by taking some kind of "middle road."~~

Tru dat. But if an examination of the data prompts one to find both extremes wanting, one has no choice but to take a position between them. This position, of course, need not fall directly down the middle between the two.

Mr. Harrison,

As the resident Christian human biodiversity expert around here, I share your enthusiasm for Clark's book. But that doesn't mean I share in your willingness to countenance eugenics or even share the idea that such ideas make wise policy. Rather, I think if we recover an older ideal, the notion of working for the common good -- a society that values those who work in blue-collar jobs and a society that elevates the family to a position of public policy importance (i.e. no government support for single mothers anymore) then I think your concerns about dysgenics would fade.

We would also need to re-think our foreign aid programs and stop sending money to African countries that squander our aid and traps them in a cycle of dependency:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123758895999200083

Since the Sub-Saharan Africans are the only ones on the planet reproducing beyond replacement rates (in large numbers) this would have the salutary effect of helping to restore population balance in that part of the world.

No family planning, abortion, or other nasty anti-Christian public policies are necessary!

Since the Sub-Saharan Africans are the only ones on the planet reproducing beyond replacement rates (in large numbers) this would have the salutary effect of helping to restore population balance in that part of the world.

That's a bit of a poser, Jeff. Are you thinking that U.S. foreign aid has been _encouraging_ higher birth rates in countries that receive it? I suppose one might argue that that is the case, but it seems rather conjectural. All the more so since U.S. foreign aid has for many decades come tied to population control programs by USAID and other U.S. government and UN organizations. An argument worth considering could be made that the net effect of Western foreign aid efforts in these countries has been to reduce population growth rather than otherwise.

Aside from the sheerly empirical question as to whether U.S. aid is resulting in greater or lesser population growth in poor countries, there is this, which all Christians should be moved by: Beneficial, laudable actions can result in the continued existence of more people. For example, medical help in third-world countries that lowers infant mortality and maternal death at childbirth will also, one would think, counter Malthusian effects of infection and so forth which might otherwise "restore population balance." Myself, I'm all in favor of lowering infant and maternal mortality. The fact that such an effort, if successful, will, all else being equal, result in the existence of more Africans does not, and should not, disturb me one whit.

Lydia,

Sorry for any confusion. Let me be clearer: everywhere in the world that living standards have improved significantly (i.e. beyond subsistence levels) we see birth rates decline. Paul's mention of Last's book on demographics has the details. I suspect this has (partially) to do with lower infant mortality and maternal death at childbirth -- both very good things. So while I would have no problem with the result of these two successful efforts leading to total fertility rates of 5 or 6 children per couple in Africa, this would be unheard of -- modernity seems to lower fertility everywhere whether we as Christians like it or not.

So my comment simply assumed that as we help these African countries become economically more healthy, we should start to see total fertility come down, like it has everywhere else around the world.

Gotcha. In other words, if U.S. aid is having an upward effect on African fertility, it's only via the _very_ indirect route of keeping Africans poor and dependent and stifling the potential for genuine African development. If genuine African development and economic independence occurred, then likely, based on other countries in the modern world, fertility rates would drop anyway for voluntary and (hopefully) healthy reasons. I'll buy that.

Lydia,

As usual, you are clearer and more eloquent than I can ever hope to be! Incidentally, where development is occurring in a more organic and market-friendly manner (whether in Africa or Asia) and Christianity is strong we see healthy above-replacement fertility rates -- rates the West should frankly be interested in emulating (e.g. 2.41 in Protestant African Botswana and 3.10 in Catholic Asian Philippines).

The editors put me at a disadvantage in courtesy. That three of them have addressed my remarks at all is, as I said, an unanticipated honor. Please call me Howard. The nom is de plume, anyway. (In the unlikely event that my true name and address interested the editors, I should be pleased to forward it to Paul through back channels.)

I find nothing with which to disagree in Jeffrey's remarks, nor any fault in them. Please let me subscribe.

I find much to admire in Lydia's eloquence, but unfortunately not in her views.

The fact that such an effort, if successful, will, all else being equal, result in the existence of more Africans does not, and should not, disturb me one whit.

Official statistics (for what they're worth) report the black rape of a white woman in the United States every fifteen minutes -- which is to say that such a rape has probably occurred while you were reading this thread. On present trend, the white women of the future, on both sides of the Atlantic, have rather more to fear of such handling than do the white women of the present. White men if subjugated can at least expect the comparative, Gibbonesque mercy of being put to the sword.

When blacks choose to abort their babies, their choice is a monstrous crime against nature. It is not however a crime against me and mine. I am not a generic expression of some universal, anti-Thomistical spirit, but am the specific soul God has made me to be. Subsidiarity prevails. If my active efforts to prevent blacks from aborting their babies today must lead all too surely to black rapes of white women eighteen years hence, then it is not clear to me that my active efforts were right.

Is it clear to you?

Race brings many other troubles than the aforementioned, of course, and enough blame to go around on all sides. There is of course miscegenation, as well, the offspring of which are children of God and are hardly to blame. I have however never sought to apportion blame. Who is to blame is not the point. The point rather is this: the prudential balance between evils tilts heavily toward subsidiarity.

Two of my six children (to be clear, all six being natural offspring by a single wife) are daughters. In my opinion, far too many white fathers are confused as to where their responsibilities and loyalties lie. I prefer not to be. White fathers that harm my people concern me more than do black mothers that harm theirs.

The race war is tragic but real, as old an evil as Cain's against Abel. Though one prefers de-escalation to hot combat, I will not surrender.

Howard, I'm afraid our famed courtesy will not continue, at least not in your view, if you continue at this rate. Nor do you agree with Jeff as much as you evidently think you do. For example, this comment of his shows that he does not agree with you about the world's being a better place with fewer Africans in it. He said:

So while I would have no problem with the result of these two successful efforts leading to total fertility rates of 5 or 6 children per couple in Africa,

Where subsidiarity comes into play in contradicting my comment about having no problem with lower infant mortality rates and more Africans is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps you were assuming that, in endorsing medical efforts to help Africans, I was per se endorsing either U.S. government efforts or, specifically, federal government efforts? On the contrary, I intended nothing at all about *who* is spending the money to save African babies from dehydrating to death or their mothers from dying in childbirth. My libertarian-ish sympathies as well as my Christianity lead me to prefer that it be privately funded Christian missionaries who preach the gospel of Jesus Christ at the same time that they give material help, all the while unencumbered by government stipulations against "proselytism." There is nothing remotely contrary to "subsidiarity" in such charitable efforts. No one is asking anyone to starve his own children in order to bring help and the gospel to foreign lands. Indeed, I've gotten myself in trouble on this blog already with one ardent commentator when I opined that pregnant missionary wives shouldn't be risking the lives of their children in an effort to reach remote tribes, because their first duty is to the safety of their own little ones. However, if strong young men, privately funded by philanthropists, go to Africa and save mothers and children from death, I applaud this and am undeterred from applauding it by the fact that their efforts mean the existence of more Africans.

And quite honestly, I think it utterly odious that anyone would *oppose* such efforts on the grounds that (on apparently racial grounds) it will, allegedly, mean more rapists existing in the world. Good grief.

Nor is such a view consistent with Christianity in any way, shape, or form.

When racialists start jibbing at any exercise of foreign charity or foreign missions whatsoever on the grounds that this is, somehow, bad for "one's own" (we have had such commentators here before), they are not in line with either the Great Commission or Christ's words to "do it to the least of them." I notice that Christ did not say that we should refrain from helping the "least of them" if doing so might mean the later existence, down the line, of more people of such-and-such a race, when that race is not our own, and when we have decided that that race produces such-and-such a percentage of rapists.

I think at this point I will be justified if I tell you that such unequivocal comments are, sorry, unwelcome here.

Since abortion is the murder of an innocent child, all those who recognize that fact and see its moral importance (which should include anyone claiming to be a Chestertonian and a sincere Roman Catholic!) should applaud the rescue of children of any race from murder most foul. This includes male babies in Harlem, by the way, or sub-Saharan Africa, or anywhere. It hardly saves one's pro-life or Catholic credentials merely to avoid, say, actively promoting the murder of the innocent if one simultaneously urges others to sit back and do nothing to prevent it, in hopes that only the "bad races," allegedly the producers of future rapists (!), will be the victims of this present heinous crime. "Hey, let's not run Crisis Pregnancy Centers in the wrong part of town or try to save African babies. It's not (cough cough) that we should actually *support* abortion, but, y'know, maybe if we make no active efforts to stop it among those people, there will be fewer rapes eighteen years from now, if you know what I mean (wink wink)."

Chesterton would probably have challenged anyone promoting such views to a duel.

Howard,

Let me just add to Lydia's excellent comments the following: the way in which we as a society should deal with the problem of rape (I should add that while I'm quite sure there are a disproportionate amount of black on white rapes, I don't believe the figure you cite for their number -- there is just no way it is that high) is to civilized young men and punish those who cannot be civilized. If this results in so called "disparate impact" then so be it. I am interested in how I can make a better America for all my fellow citizens, including my black countrymen.

As far as I can tell, no one here purposely asked to be drawn into this particular discussion -- neither I, nor Lydia, nor anyone else present. For what it's worth, I do not feel that Lydia has tried to understand my point; but since she has no obligation to understand it, I cannot complain.

Notwithstanding, I must accept Jeffrey's correction of my statistics, which I gave in good faith but which it seems I had from an unreliable source. John Derbyshire assembles the right numbers, properly backed by U.S. Justice Department statistics (which this time I have explicitly taken the trouble to follow to their original source). The Justice numbers are bad enough, but not as bad as I said. Moreover, even the Justice numbers, such as they are, lack the look and feel of reliable data, so who knows what they mean?

With this correction, please excuse me from further discussion. I'm out. I'm sorry that I ever got in. Lydia can have the last word if she likes, with my compliments.

The race war is tragic but real, as old an evil as Cain's against Abel. Though one prefers de-escalation to hot combat, I will not surrender.

No one is asking you to surrender. If you are ever present in the face of racial violence, respond appropriately. Since black violence is often many-on-one that means feel free to respond with far more force than you normally would in the face of a one-on-one attack. In some states, many-on-one attacks are black letter of the law justifications for the use of lethal force.

Mike, please, please. I'm all in favor of self-defense, and I endorse getting concealed-carry and responding with necessary force for defense of oneself and defense of those innocents also present. However, the less said about Howard's overall views, or encouraging him to keep articulating them, the better. It's good that he has bowed out for the time being, and I have no intention of making any "last word" statement per his offer.

Lydia,

Like it or not, but we are approaching a low-intensity race war. Howard is correct to that extent. As whites become less of a majority and even a minority in some areas, it will only get worse. With no majority group large and dominant enough to impose a cohesive norm, it'll be a matter of when, not if, we become balkanized in many parts of our country. A disturbingly large part of the black community is prepared for that and even firing the first shots.

Ironically, it will probably be people like Howard who, one the excrement hits the oscillating device, end up making the US safe again for your daughters.

Mike: Drop it. Thanks.

Y'all seriously crack me up some times.

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