Here’s an excellent analysis of the anthropogenic global warming conspiry: Naming and shaming the AGW fraudsters. I’ve written before that this is not your traditional “smoke filled dark room” type conspiracy but more a conspiracy of shared values led by some willfully fraudulent people. Esr’s thinking along the same lines but breaks it down better. And yes, I agree those involved should be severely punished.
Keep in mind, this is by far not the first scam of this nature – we’ve had a climate scare roughly every 30 years since 1895. That’s not a typo: Eighteen ninety five. And then there are the other media-driven psuedo-scientific scares that crop up periodically, like the anti-vaccine scare that’s finally coming to an end, or the recent swine flu scare, or the bird flu, the tomato scare, nuclear energy, cyclamates… right down to the DDT demonization that has sacrificed the lives of millions to malaria. The bad science/media hype combo kills people, and there need to be consequences for that.
Don’t forget the “organic” craze.
Contrary to what a lot of folks think, “organic” or “all natural” doesn’t mean “we didn’t use pesticides”– it means “we only used pesticides of an approved nature.” For example, the guys in my folks’ home valley that spray for orchards love the organic guys– they spray five times as much, just dilute the chemicals to legally accepted “organic” levels.
Think about what happens when folks stop using antibiotics too soon, and you can see the major downside to THAT plan….
.-= Foxfier´s last blog ..Rifqa Bary =-.