It never fails. When liberals take aim at CFACT, they never seem able to hit the crux of our issues or the underlying philosophy that freedom and technology are far better tools for curing what ails us than government control and regulation. Instead, they find faults with our funding, mechanics and our very gall for not submitting to the green orthodoxy.
Holly Lahd did a hatchet job on CFACT the other day. As usual for liberals who disagree with CFACT, she did not engage on the topics she disagrees with, rather she attacks the tone, methods, and mechanics of the group.
First off, Ms. Ladd doesn’t feel CFACT is good at advertising the group since she never personally saw anything. We are very sorry our dragnet of freshman recruitment, event postering, chalking, and tabling have eluded Ms. Lahd. Maybe this Daily columnist can only be reached via ads in the Daily, and we have stopped running Daily ads since we have discovered them to be the most expensive, while at the same time least effective, means of advertising our group. Who knew Daily ads were the extortionary price a group had to pay to avoid printed attacks.
Second, it is a shame that Ms. Ladd castigates our use of Southpark episodes as somehow childish and not becoming of a group engaged in serious issues. She ignores the ability of Trey Parker and Matt Stone to eviscerate the myths and orthodoxy around global warming, Al Gore, and the environment in general. They also do this in an entertaining manner that is appealing to a large audience – especially students.
Ms. Ladd was keen to point out CFACT’s trouble with the Student Service Fees Committee. For the first time in 5 years CFACT did have trouble, as did MPIRG. Both groups were cut in half – mainly for payroll issues – but MPIRG was rewarded a slight bump of 15 cents over CFACT despite being caught padding their attendance numbers. It must be nice to fabricate support for your events and be rewarded for it.
Ms. Ladd also encountered our secret weapon against nosy Daily reporters, an elevator that doesn’t work after 6PM to the CFACT office in the basement under US Bank in Stadium Village. This low traffic, expensive office is much preferable to the rent-free, high traffic, spacious offices given to cultural/liberal groups on the second floor of Coffman Union. Excuse me while I remove my tongue from said cheek.
Ms. Lahd omitted one group from her screed. The Daily (her employer) endorse candidates for partisan offices and takes positions on controversial issues. Now it attacks CFACT, which has a mere fraction of the Daily's budget. Ms. Lahd seems to like the option of not funding groups with which she disagrees. Why don't we make the Daily fee optional, the way the CFACT and MPIRG fees are?
Ms. Ladd almost touched on a substantive issue. She referenced CFACT’s support for the judicious use of DDT in Africa in order to protect people from the ravages of malaria, which kills over 1 million every year. Since the US and Europe forced a DDT ban on the specious science that DDT made egg shells thinner, over 30 million Africans have died of Malaria. South Africa ignored the ban and three years later reduced malarial deaths by 95%.
Often times when we disagree with an opponent we call them names. Ms. Ladd called CFACT ‘ideological’. What does it say about Ms. Ladd that she is willing to sacrifice the lives of 1 million Africans for thicker eggshells?
(Friday, 01 September 2006) Written by Craig Rucker
Much of the world does not enjoy the benefits of electricity, a sad fact given we have now entered into the 21st Century. But as CFACT policy analyst Paul Driessen points out, a new advancement in the field of nuclear energy offers promise to millions around the globe.
Read the article as posted in the Philadelphia News:
Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, recently wrote a paper for the AEI-Brookings on American’s reactions to the “catastrophic risks” of Terrorism and Global Warming. It’s an interesting read, and I will provide comments tomorrow.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901217
The title is a shorthand slogan for US foreign aid policy when it comes to Malaria control, and the possible solution to mosquitos who carry malaria. Because the USA forces largely African nations to forego the use of DDT (despite its proven effectiveness, and highly qustionable drawbacks), roughly one million Africans die of malaria each year.
Dr. Kelvin Kemm of South Africa recently visited numerous CFACT campus chapters and a congressional committee to discuss the tragedy of malaria. Author Paul Driessen won't shut up about the topic, and who can blame him? One very dumb policy results in the deaths of one million people every year - or to steal from Dr. Kemm - the equivalent of three Boeing 747's crashing to the earth every day!
But there is some good news coming from my alumni newsletter. University of Minnesota researchers have found that only a minority of mosquitos carry the malaria parasite and that most have built up evolutionary defenses against malaria (the bugs don't want it either).
The researchers also found that the mosquitos who lack a natural barrier agaisnt malaria are also highly susceptible to a common ground fungus that does no harm to humans. These researchers postulate that a solution could be spreading this fungus in the trouble spots. The fungus would kill off the malaria carrying mosquitos while leaving the resistant populations intact. After some time, natural selection would run its course and non-resistant mosquitos would simply disappear.
This solution is far more preferable than the quioxtic attempt to spray and kill all mosquitos, doesn't force all mosquitos to develop resistance to our pesticides, or force mass mosquito migrations. Also, unlike DDT, the pesticides the US does allow Africa to use are quite toxic and regularly kills a few humans who apply it.
This solution is quite promising and could possbily wipe out malaria in the next generation.
But in the time it takes to implement this plan, one million Africans will die every year. US policy makers should reconsider the use of DDT, especially now since the fungus gives us an exit window for the use of DDT.
Well, well. My old friend Forrest Mims III - editor of The Amateur Scientist who once was blacklisted by Scientific American because of his creationist views - is in the news again.
Mims, whose books on electronics (including the first ever book on personal computers, back in 1975) have sold over 7.5 million copies, also operates the USDA’s ultraviolet-B monitor site at Texas Lutheran University when he is not traveling the world speaking for NASA or any number of universities (including the University of the Nations in Hawaii).
This truly amateur scientist (his lone college degree, from Texas A & M University, is in government) has taken on the establishment yet another time. A while back, Mims was fighting the Texas state environmental regulatory agency and regional planners who wanted to include his county in an expensive automobile emissions testing program that was being planned for the San Antonio metropolitan area as a hedge against ozone exceedances. Mims’ arguments were so persuasive that the entire region opted out of the program, saving motorists time and money.
The story that got Mims onto front pages stems from his visit on March 3, 2006, to the annual meeting in Beaumont of the Texas Academy of Science, which this year honored University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert Dr. Eric Pianka as the state’s 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist. Mims became concerned first when the video camera operator was told not to make any record of Dr. Pianka’s speech (though the rest of the event was videotaped). His ears pricked when Dr. Pianka explained that the general public is not ready to hear what he was about to say - implying that he did not want his words to be made public.
According to Mims, Dr. Pianka began by condemning “anthropocentrism,” the concept that humans occupy a privileged position on the planet, and said that humans are no better than bacteria. He then said the earth will not survive without drastic measures because humans have far overproduced - then suggested that disease might be the most efficient means of rebalancing the planet. The Ebola virus, once spread through the air, could kill 90% of the earth’s people (though he did not note that Ebola victims suffer incredible pain as their internal organs are liquefied), but later added that we will need to kill off two-thirds of the humans just to deal with the oil crisis (he sees us as running out of fossil fuels).
What shocked Mims most, however, was that the audience stood and cheered and loudly applauded Pianka and his monstrous assertions - which included glowing praise for China’s one child policy. For the record, the founder and executive director of the Society for Amateur Scientists (publisher of The Citizen Scientist), Dr. Shawn Carlson, who is an evolutionist, echoed Mims’ concerns in a special editorial published on April 2.
Carlson first chided Dr. Pianka for failing to recognize humans as evolution’s most successful creation because of our ability to adapt our environment to our bodies rather than wait for our bodies to adapt to our environment. He then dismissed Pianka’s idea that diseases would be so successful in eradicating humankind, stating that virulent diseases burn themselves out by killing their victims too quickly. Natural selection, he says, creates less lethal varieties that do not kill their hosts before they can propagate.
Dr. Pianka, Carlson suggests, is fascinated with death (he even has written an online obituary for himself) and may well be suffering from depression. He admits to being a hermit (who spends lots of time with his herd of bison), but he is not, Carlson believes, merely an angry old man who is totally harmless. Well, HE may be harmless, but his ideas may not. What if some younger, more ambitious disciple who truly believes that humans are a cancer upon the earth decides to take action and has access to dangerous viruses (perhaps in a laboratory)?
Not surprisingly, both the media and other scientists have taken widely differing approaches to the Pianka-Mims flap [the two have exchanged numerous e-mails and not reached harmony, we are told by Mims]. The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise (Mims’ hometown paper) covered a more recent Pianka speech (given on March 31 at St. Edwards University in Austin).
Pianka admonished the audience that, “Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine,” after letting them know that “we’re looking forward to a huge collapse” of the world’s population. He also said, “Good terrorists would be taking Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire so that they had microbes they could let loose on the earth that would kill 90% of people.” The former is an airborne virus that already kills monkeys; the latter, which kills humans, is not yet airborne. And Pianka is making disciples - including a 21-year-old Texas Lutheran University student who now sees viruses as the best solution to human overpopulation.
The Austin American-Statesman, however, gives Pianka more of a pass, quoting him as saying, “I’ve found that it takes courage to tell people what they don’t want to know.” Someone, you see, had actually reported Pianka as a possible terrorist - perhaps a kindred spirit to the Unabomber or members of the Earth (or Animal) Liberation Front who have torched science labs, motor vehicles and dealerships, and housing developments. The paper even quotes Pianka jokingly hoping that, “Maybe it will help me sell a few books.” He does not seek destruction - though he does speak about it to get students to think about their lifestyles.
And we believe him. Eric Pianka may just be one of those unfettered academics who has no clue as to how his careless words might impact others. But he has allies and colleagues who equally think the earth is way overpopulated and that something must be done. Years ago, CNN founder Ted Turner posited that the earth’s ideal population would be about 250 million - less than HALF the number cited by Dr. Pianka. The idea that humans are “the cancer on the earth” is not new at all but has been a staple of the Deep Ecology movement for decades.
But let’s give Dr. Pianka the benefit of the doubt - that his doomsday speech is merely a warning that viral or bacterial plagues could wipe out huge numbers of people. [Mind you, African genocides have wiped out millions in very short order, and genocides elsewhere have been nearly as “successful” even without the added incentive that genocide is good for the planet. Just imagine what devastation might be unleashed by those convinced that they are doing their genocide for all the right reasons - including being ecologically correct!]
The fact is that, while human populations worldwide rose sharply during the 20th Century despite wars and famines and diseases, the birth rate in nearly every European nation (and others as well) has fallen far below the replacement rate and remains at all-time lows. Some nations, without immigration, would see their populations halved within a generation or two at current birth rates even though people are living far longer than in the past.
Another fact - just about everywhere, the linkage between increasing prosperity and lowering birth rate is a straight line or better. Thus it appears that the way to end the population surge is to improve living conditions for the currently poor - especially women. William Easterly reports in his brand-new best-seller The White Man’s Burden that birth rates have dropped significantly in areas of Bangladesh where a people’s health clinic has helped lower maternal deaths in childbirth and infant mortality - and that’s without major increases in wealth.
The University of Texas at Austin chapter of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow has invited both Forrest Mims III and Dr. Eric Pianka to speak at its April 26 meeting. If both come, we intend that the discussion be focused more on science than politics - including whether the earth’s population will (as the United Nations has predicted) rise to 9.5 billion or rather level out at about the current level (6.5 billion) - or even fall below that number without any “interventions” or natural “course corrections.”
I have always given great credit and respect to those who can carry on an intelligent argument past the second sentence before delving into insults and name calling. Even if I think the person is wrong, at least they know the issue and haven't just memorized a bumper sticker. They get my respect for their own knowledge and the viability of their position.
Last year CFACT hosted a series of Free Trade vs. Fair Trade debates. At one such debate, our Free Trader got his clock cleaned by the Fair Trader. It didn't change my mind - I'm still an ardent free trader - but it did make me realize that there are real and legitimate arguments for Fair Trade.
You'd think it would be easy for a group like CFACT to set up debates in the fevered swamps of Madison. In fact, almost every "progressive" idea eventually becomes law thanks in large part to the loud support these ideas get on campus. For example, Madison has instituted a smoking ban and has signed onto the principles of the Kyoto Treaty regarding global warming.
CFACT has been trying in vain for months to set up debates on both of these issues. In both cases, everyone who supports a smoking ban or believes Kyoto is needed has declined. We get various reasons, but the most popular - and obnoxious - is the declaration that "the time for debate has ended".
Wow... the condescension almost drips from that statement. The truth is, this is simply an artful way of saying, "I do not have the courage of my convictions". Or, "My ideas cannot withstand argument." Or, "My position is far too weak and completely unsupported by research." Or, "My position is based on hysterical emotions or personal preferences. Rational discussion would be counter-productive."
I'm amazed that these gutless wonders are unable to stand up to the arguments of a critic in such a friendly forum as Madison. It's not as if they are shy. After all, these same people have no problem screaming slogans on the streets.
But this points to a larger truth. If a person cannot support their stance in the face of dissent, that person's cause/stance/idea/program holds little value. This is as true for CFACT as it is for anyone else.
(Tuesday, 21 February 2006) Written by Nick Pongratz
Today the Supreme Court hears an interesting case which might refine the Clean Water Act. According to Bloomberg, the Army Corps of Engineers has prevented suburban Detroit condo developer Keith Carabell from improving his private property because the land is allegedly a wetland.
Under the Clean Water Act and subsequent court decisions, the Corps of Engineers has authority to grant or deny development permits on navigable waters and their tributaries and connected wetlands. Fine. But what if, as in the case of Carabell's property, the alleged wetland is not connected in any way to navigable waterways?
The Corps of Engineers has believed that it does indeed have authority over Carabell's property, which is completely surrounded by other developments and described by some as "a bathtub with no drain." If that's the case, then, couldn't they claim authority over every little swamp, ditch, and puddle in the country? Wouldn't state and local governments understand better how to protect such wetlands? Wouldn't private property owners know what is best for their own land?
In addition to relevant issues of states rights versus federal rights, this brings to light an interesting fact: individuals within the government have been responding emotionally to property development. In the course of hearing Carabell's application to develop his land, the government described the land as "one of the last forested wetlands in Macomb County." They are being sentimental about private property! Emotional responses to serious issues have no place in public policy.
Newswires have been buzzing with the news that American households had a negative savings rate last year, down sharply from the ten percent or higher average savings rate of the 1970s and rivaling the dismal savings rates of the Great Depression.
"Crisis of savings" is certainly a catchy headline. It makes Americans appear shallow, but also calls them to action in the face of looming retirement for Baby Boomers. It is clear that the media - in their greatest hour of omniscient altruism - believes that they know what is best for us. Namely, that Americans must put money in the bank, and they must do it today!
When one reads more deeply into the savings rate headlines, however, they will learn the media's dirty secret: that the savings rates they are spewing are much too simplistic to be useful. How can this be? After all, Americans must be saving less now... just look at all those credit cards, gas-guzzling SUVs, and big screen TVs.
Such arguments of consumer debt and bank savings accounts cloud the issue. When the media looks at "savings rates," they look solely at money that people put into savings accounts in banks. They do not take into account the increasing investments made by ordinary Americans. Thus, as Justin Thompson says, "... money in stocks, bonds, or real estate, is voided from the equation altogether." As can be inferred by this statement, investments that increasingly use IRAs, 401(k)s, and similar retirement financial vehicles are not included in the quoted savings rates.
As Alan Reynolds recently stated, if we are truly worried about a crisis of personal wealth, a much better number to observe would be additions to net household worth. This number measures assets (such as savings accounts, real estate equity, securities, etc.) minus debt (such as credit cards or mortgages).
Since the media claims we are in a crisis, one might believe that net household worth has been decreasing. Wrong! In fact, says Reynolds, net household worth has increased more than ten percent in the same one-year period that savings rates have decreased. At this point, many nay-sayers in the media fall silent for a moment as they consider recent headlines and then scream, "Housing bubble!" Yet real estate appreciation only contributed 20% to the increase in American net worth. Many factors are at work when considering the increase in net household worth.
Unfortunately for the media, these facts offer many non-marketable headlines: Americans are optimistic, with more Americans investing, and on average their investments are paying off better than a moldy savings account could ever yield (especially when accounting for inflation).
Shrill headlines regarding negative savings rates veil the happy truth: Americans are shifting from pessimistic savers to optimistic investors - we are becoming an ownership society.
In a world of smoking bans, Washington D.C.'s ban might have become the most hypocritical. As reported by the New York Times, Congress has recently exempted itself from D.C.'s forthcoming smoking ban, which will apply to bars, restaurants, and indoor workplaces. This exemption allows people to smoke in the Capitol, while the ban precludes private business owners from making that decision for themselves.
What do smoking Congressmen think about this? According to the article, "Not one smoker-lawmaker contacted for this article returned the call." Hmm... is it possible that someone feels guilty for their support of an obvious double-standard?
Congress has made it painfully obvious that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. It is shameful that small business owners have to be the ones to suffer.
TWIGWH is a semi-pronounceable acronym, and is a weekly feature of the CFACT Blog, exposing hilarious and ridiculous claims regarding global warming. Send us your thoughts, links, and protests at hysterics at cfactcampus dot org. NOTE: all submissions will be considered for public consumption at the CFACT Blog.
This week's hysteria: Global warming causes intense weather.
One thing we must remember, according to the greens, is that weather was rather mild before the advent of factories and SUVs. The greens will admit that there exist recordings of hurricanes and tornadoes throughout the ages, but many believe that since few hurricanes were recorded by ancient scholars, there truly were fewer hurricanes worldwide in ancient times. Besides, some might speciously claim, ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica show zero proof that "intense weather events" such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards even existed!
I posit the intense weather absurdity to highlight two truths: 1) intense weather has always existed, and 2) greens are irresponsibly using intense weather events as a means to scare the public into believing their pseudo-science.
It should go without saying that intense weather has always existed. However, any time a hurricane hits land, or a tornado tears up a trailer park, or a winter snowstorm causes the first class cancellations in 15+ years at UW-Madison, liberal environmentalists inform the public, "We're right again! [insert disaster here] is yet more proof of global warming!"
Weather events certainly appear to be escalating in intensity and quantity. But appearances can be deceiving. For instance, consider the fact that worldwide reporting of weather events has become much easier in the information age. In other words, reporting of weather events has escalated. Combine this with media's predilection for hyperbole, and it becomes difficult to turn on a TV or open a newspaper without reading about how the weather disaster du jour has been created by man-made global warming.
It should come as no surprise that greens have latched on to intense weather as proof of their environmental pseudo-science. Recent reporting has escalated, fomenting fear in the hearts of every American. Further, it is impossible to ascertain rates of individual intense weather events stretching back more than a few thousand years. So greens simply create their own weather scenarios, and irresponsibly pass them off as facts of what ancient Earth experienced.
The future certainly appears frightful when viewed through green-tinted glasses.
In other hysterical news:
The Olympic flame is causing global warming, even after Kyoto fanatics asked for the flame to be extinguished.
Did you know that ancient oceans were warmer than a hot tub? The hysteria in the article is the instant claim that future oceans will be even warmer. Funny that they would promote the doomsday scenario, rather than explaining the important fact is that the climate we're experiencing right now is much colder than it was at a time before SUVs.
Have you heard the new worst-case global warming scenario? I'd argue that the true worst case scenario is the entire Earth becoming a ball of molten rock and metal. Caused by evil gas-guzzling SUVs, of course.
I've been saying it all along: computer models that attempt to foretell future climate have no merit as scientific proof for global warming. This week it has gotten even worse for the models: they've been been based on inaccurate temperature archives. It'll be interesting to see if the global warming Chicken Littles will go back to the drawing board (or computer models, as it were).
Obligatory "George Bush is evil" article, this time coming from a disgruntled employee. I guess President Bush is truly evil if he's suppressing evidence that the world will end the day after tomorrow.
Who'd have guessed? It's actually butterflies that are causing global warming. In all seriousness, though, it's refreshing to finally see an article that admits that since the Earth's climate is such a complex system, it's pretty much impossible to know how any change will ultimately affect it.
Global warming will cause more wildfires in Australia. Global warming, and matches. Oh, and lack of firefighters. What's to blame? American SUVs.
