Unfortunately for my plot to milk my father's success for links, his opinions tended toward the controversial with regard to global warming. Whether or not you agree with the premise that global warming is a man-made phenomenon (a subject about which I will admit to being agnostic), there is enough information available to make a certain degree of skepticism warranted, particularly when one considers how profoundly a carbon-neutral economy will differ from our current one. Sadly, there is enough consensus now in the public opinion that to dissent is to find one's self taken for a fool, Bush apologist, or something similarly unpleasant. In my father's case, and in a stunning display of chutzpah, his unpopular opinions got him canned from his own blog.
Thankfully, he has started his own Shiny New Blog, Bit Tooth Energy (a mining term, I believe). He can make his own case for the science behind his skepticism there, and I invite you to head over. Science, as he likes to point out, is not an article of faith, but should be subject to scrutiny, and revision is in order when evidence is available to justify it. Agree or disagree, healthy debate is good for society, and for the creation of policy. In that light, I wish my father, and his new enterprise, well.
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hi, how can he be canned from his own blog? If it were his, couldn't he have simply canned all of the other posters?
ReplyDeleteCarbon neutral is a loaded term, sustainable and renewable energy, one in which we are not funneling money to middle eastern shieks, or find the need to strip mine West Va., regardless of the impact of global warming, is laudable enough on its own.
And I find the notion that a less carbon based economy as being somehow stone age to be pretty laughable. Labelling something a profound change doesn't make it so. There is so much waste than just a little bit of common sense can save tons of money. Do we really need central air? Do we really need to cool rooms we are never even in? Do we even need so many rooms? People bitch, oh but my house will be cluttered. Well, then stop buying so much junk that you need extra rooms to store them in. I live off the carbon grid, all of my electricity is supplied by windmills at La Ventosa, the rest by the sun.
You say debate is good, but not everything needs to be debated, at some point simple sense has to win out. Don't live on junk food, don't drink a quart of whiskey night, don't sleep around, don't smoke, etc. Are we going to debate these points just because debate is healthy?
Charo
Charo --
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love your work. Stay perky!
Next, one gets fired from one's own blog when one gets a whole bunch of fellow posters, and has someone else doing the editing and such, and they all agree that your input is no longer required.
And I agree that dissent for its own sake can be a canard. Sometimes reality is distinctly biased toward one particular viewpoint. However, it's my understanding of the science (admittedly, influenced by my father) that there is at least some evidence to support the hypothesis that global temperature change is a phenomenon independent of human activity. Scientific consensus can sometimes be wrong, and so it's important to continue to weigh evidence even if it doesn't support the prevailing viewpoint.