Friday, December 30, 2005

Formatting

So, I was reading the comments left on the Kyoto post, and the ideas are too good to languish on one of our back pages. Lets try to post stuff as threads on the main-page. I mean, have a new subject come up with a new title, and then the later posts that refer back to the first, will keep that title...people will have to read backwards, but they'll figure it out.
Also, Chad, your post is wonderful and intense, but it covers a lot of ground. It'll be easier to respond to (and I will get around to it soon) if you post one topic per post...And if you think instapundit is sarcastic, well, you're wrong. Go read the blog again. In fact, go to the front page and just keep scrolling. His blog is all links to other blogs, with an occaisional snippet from the post he links to. He's very even handed, even though he leans libertarian. If you want to know what the blogosphere is talking about, go read instapundit.

If you guys want to read some group blogs that work well, check out the Corner, from the National Review, or the Volokh Conspiracy. The first is a bunch of conservative pundits arguing with each other, and the second is a bunch of lawyers and law professors and some other people, I think. They're both good examples of intelectual group blogs, and how the conversation works...we don't have to work like them, but they do get about 10,000 unique visitors a day, so they're probably a good example in terms of format...

Thanks for joining the project, by they way. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Kyoto II

I'm responding to some of the comments left on my previous posts...

We are already using economic incentives to promote evironmentaly sound activities. Unfotunately, we use straight proscriptions and regulations much more regularly. I think that government incentives are a better way to get things done than allowing the government to use coercive force, but why are we turning to the government for this at all? If it's something that needs to be done, convince the people who will have to live with the consequences, not the government officials who will just make life harder for the rest of us.
True evironmental change will only come from a willing populace supporting environmentally friendly companies, and they will only spend the extra money if you can show them it's worth it. If you just use the government to force them, then every time a new technology that produces goods/services along with extra pollution comes along, or some new form of environmental harm is discovered, then you will need to have the government enact legislation against that too...and severe damage could be done in the meantime.
If you can convince the population that the environment is worth worrying about, then the sollution will be persued more vigorously than otherwise. If you can't convince the population that a healthy enviroment is so important, then why are you bothering to save their lives from environmental harm? Moreover, is it even right to allow the government to enact legislation that most of the population does not support?
The solution to polution will not be found with treaties. Any thing that will work in the long term will have to come from indiviuals changing their habbits, and nothing that governments do in the meantime will have any serious signifigance.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Evolution & the Patriot Act

First off, Ben, I like what you wrote about Kyoto and I think you're generally right on that. : )

A Pennsylvania district court logically decided that religion must be separate from public schools' curriculums, as a matter of separation of church and state. It's a victory for classical liberals in the country. As an afterthought, the judge could have drawn a broader conclusion: Why not outlaw the creation of truth through legislation? Around the world, less well checked and balanced governments use laws to create and/or remove scientific and historical truth from school curriculums. Commiting curriculums to science alone might be a more long-term solution.

Though, I'm really not sure what the public thinks on the matter. On the one hand, I remember a CNN poll a few years ago that found only 42% of americans subscribe to Darwin. On the other, there have been plenty of great editorials/speeches/arguments made recently that show that "intelligent design" theorists clearly break usually most, and sometimes all of the laws of scientific inquiry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method).

Read more on the court case itself here, and draw your own conclusion about its implications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

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Btw, Ben, I was looking for some topics to discuss....and here's what happened:

I clicked that link near the bottom called "TTLB," and I clicked on their #1 rated web log. There was some few sentences were so full of sarcasm is reference to pre-assumed prejudices, so I had difficulty understanding them. All I could say for sure was that that blog was suspicious and seemed unreliable.

http://instapundit.com/

I could have mistaken their words, but I think that they were claiming that 'because most people supported the Vietnam War despite protests, then most people do not care if George Bush spies on their home phone calls.'

There are many flaws in this argument. I would like to respond in a general fashion by attacking W.Bush's "War on terror." George Bush has said over and over again that "the terrorists hate freedom," and has used the argument that these "terrorists" pose such a deadly threat to us in order to break the first amendment, the Geneva convention, among other agreements and contracts. Again, there are so many overgeneralizations and false assumptions in W. Bush's ideology that I don't have time to address them all now. I'll say this:

John McCain's anti-torture, anti-degrading treatment amendment to today's military appropriations bill was passed. Bush and Cheney opposed it, but it was passed, by a wide majority in Congress, and with significant electorate participation. Moreover, there is now increasing debate about withdrawing from Iraq.

In the very least, this news shows that the electorate is not taking Bush's proclamations about the ever-present threat of evil, freedom-hating terrorists* dead seriously.

Stalin's "kulaks," hitler's "Jews," McCarthy's "communists" ... Many ambitious people in history have created an "evil" enemy class to scare others and boost their own ideology & power. W. Bush and his administration has employed this tactic for several years now, and the effect seems to be wearing off, just as it did after several years in all those other cases.

I predict that the American people will show resistance to havingtheir conversations spied on, and will not buy the same old "don't let the terrorists win!" argument. It's true, in the past, the ACLU has had only some support in opposing the Patriot act, but the renewal of this act has been becoming increaseingly difficult since its creation.

(This argument is predictive and not proscriptive, just to keep any commentators on the right track.)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Kyoto

I'm going to adapt a post from my other blog to get us started. It's all about Kyoto.

When thinking about the Kyoto treaty, remember that a Democrat president had the opportunity to have it ratified by a Democrat controlled senate, long before Bush came into the picture. Not doing so, was probably one of the best political moves that Clinton ever made. He was able to publicly support something that was politically beneficial for him, but he never had to give the treaty a chance to become law in America, and thereby he avoided the consequences of the treaty. He probably knew that the treaty either wouldn’t work, or would be bad for America. They way it was written, both things were true.

Kyoto isn’t working. The third-world continues to produce pollution at the same rate as before, and the rich countries of the world can only do so much more to control pollution than they are already doing. As technology continues to advance, we will produce far less waste, but it is the desire to find a healthier bottom line that will produce this situation, rather than just a strict desire not to pollute. Tony Blair, among others, has admitted that the treaty, as written, isn’t working, and that it’s not exactly America’s fault.

If we had been part of this treaty, it would have been bad for America. We are already beginning to use more environmentally clean technologies, and to crack down more would have hurt our economy. That by itself isn't really a good enough reason not to join the treaty. The fact that China (a country which uses technologies that produces far more pollution per unit of energy than we do) was not required to clean its act up is a far better reason to stay out. While we would have had to make extensive sacrifices for (not much) cleaner air, China (and other less annoying third-world dictatorships, along some good countries like India) would have had all the benefits of cleaner air and none of the responsibilities. That is assuming, of course, that the air got noticeably cleaner even with America participating, while China etc. did not. I don’t think that we would have had that much of an effect.

In principle, Kyoto is a good treaty. It uses market mechanisms to promote environmentalism, and those mechanisms are always more effective than simple limits or taxes. However, not including third-world powerhouses like China and India, and others, caused the treaty to miss the mark. Most of the rich countries in the world already use a lot of clean energy sources, and while it's good to convince them to use more, our time would probably be better spent cleaning up the third world. Giving them more efficient energy producing capability not only reduces pollution, but also helps provide more resources at a cheaper price, thereby making poverty more bearable, and less prevalent.

It is encouraging to hear that Tony Blair is already talking about the next round of Kyoto. He is saying that any second round needs to include technology sharing with poorer countries, along with limits on their production of pollution. It is much easier to develop a country with not much into a country that uses clean sources of energy, instead of converting an already developed country into something that is only marginally more efficient. It also has more and better returns, and is therefore more important and profitable to make the effort.

So what do you think, Gooch? Or Sean? Or the readers out there? Comments are open, and the thread can continue unabated, if we wish.

We're in business...

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

In the beginning.......there was Gooch