> If we acknowledge that the evidence was sufficient then to
> justify that warning we should acknowledge that comparable evidence
> today justifies a similar unqualified warning.
Which I suppose is okay with me, and I bet it's okay with Penn, too.
So, um, what were we talking about again? Oh, that's right: codswallop!
I'm really enjoying this book Dwayne pointed to. Here's a nice little taste:
--- This heated debate is fundamentally about numbers. How much energy could each source deliver, at what economic and social cost, and with what risks? But actual numbers are rarely mentioned. In public debates, people just say "Nuclear is a money pit" or "We have a huge amount of wave and wind." The trouble with this sort of language is that it's not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one 'huge' compares with another 'huge', namely our huge energy consumption. To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives.
Where numbers are used, their meaning is often obfuscated by enormity. Numbers are chosen to impress, to score points in arguments, rather than to inform. "Los Angeles residents drive 142 million miles - the distance from Earth to Mars - every single day." "Each year, 27 million acres of tropical rainforest are destroyed." "14 billion pounds of trash are dumped into the sea every year." "British people throw away 2.6 billion slices of bread per year." "The waste paper buried each year in the UK could fill 103 448 double-decker buses."
If all the ineffective ideas for solving the energy crisis were laid end to end, they would reach to the moon and back. . . . I digress.
The result of this lack of meaningful numbers and facts? We are inundated with a flood of crazy innumerate codswallop. The BBC doles out advice on how we can do our bit to save the planet - for example "switch off your mobile phone charger when it's not in use"; if anyone objects that mobile phone chargers are not actually our number one form of energy consumption, the mantra "every little helps" is wheeled out. Every little helps? A more realistic mantra is:
if everyone does a little, we'll achieve a little.
Companies also contribute to the daily codswallop as they tell us how wonderful they are, or how they can help us "do our bit". BP's website, for example, celebrates the reductions in CO2 pollution they hope to achieve by changing the paint used for painting BP's ships. Does anyone fall for this? Surely everyone will guess that it's not the exterior paint job, it's the stuff inside the tanker that deserves attention, if society's CO2 emissions are to be significantly cut? BP are also the creators of a web-based carbon absolution service, 'targetneutral.com', which claims that they can "neutralize" all your carbon emissions, and that it "doesn't cost the earth" - indeed, that your CO2 pollution can be cleaned up for just £40 per year. This has to be a scam - if the true cost of fixing climate change were £40 per person then the government could fix it with the loose change in the Chancellor's pocket!
Even more reprehensible are companies that exploit the current concern for the environment by offering "water-powered batteries," "recyclable mobile phones," "environment-friendly phone calls," and other pointless tat. ---
I don't know how good this guy's magic is, but his comedy is better than Penn's.
Read it today! http://www.withouthotair.com/
/jordan