Global Warming: Opinions and Politics

Here's a fun article about humanity-denying Earth worshippers (sometimes known as environmentalists or greenies):

http://city-journal.org/2015/bc0223jw.html

The non-impact standard is a pervasive but irrational prejudice—irrational because it’s a neo-pagan faith that the earth is in effect an uncreated God, and a prejudice because it’s asserted dogmatically by those who profess it and taken for granted by a public unaware of being in its grip. The default position on environmental matters is “respect” for the planet. It tilts opinion to focus only on the harms of fossil fuels and technology, not their benefits. The bottom line is always the same: humans should minimize their impact on nature.

Alex Epstein’s book is a breath of fresh air in this polluted opinion climate. The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels shows why fossil fuels are good for human flourishing in general and good for the world’s poor in particular. Epstein is a true friend of the earth—an earth inhabited and made better by human beings.

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It's still a hoax. It was a brilliant get-rich-quick scam of the first order. Ill definitely give them that.

bamacon said:

It's still a hoax. It was a brilliant get-rich-quick scam of the first order. Ill definitely give them that.

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Really?

Bamaro said:

Really?

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If he's referring to the doomsday predictions, then I think he is more right than wrong. I don't think he's denying that climate fluctuates over time.

CharminTide said:

You're being extremely disingenuous here.

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Nope. I was round and know pretty well what happened.

CharminTide said:

The world reacted to the ozone layer fears in the 80s and enacted a global treaty (essentially every country in the world signed on) to eliminate CFC emissions over the coming years. As a result, it was announced in the early 2000s that depletion of the ozone layer was dramatically slowed and is now predicted to reverse to pre-1980s levels in the coming decades. This change was a direct result of global reaction toward this threat.

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Unfortunately, what you said isn't true.

What REALLY happened was simple: when Mt Pinatubo erupted and blew more CFCs into the atmosphere than all the aerosols combined......the world stopped believing it and the doomsday scientists simply shifted gears to global warming.

CharminTide said:

Tons of research and policy dollars were thrown at the HIV crisis. We have since developed excellent antiretroviral drugs that control the disease so well that someone abiding by their HAART therapy with an undetectable viral load actually has the same life expectancy as someone who is HIV-negative. The advocacy for proper sexual education (read: not abstence-only) and the distribution of condoms by schools and health organizations has decreased STI rates dramatically. You say these things aren't a problem now, but simply ignore the fact this is so precisely because we addressed these issues.

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I'm curious as to how you think giving antiretroviral drugs stopped an EPIDEMIC THAT WASN'T HAPPENING AMONG HETEROSXEUXALS, particularly since ARVs aren't even given until you've tested positive.

What happened was the entire thing was exposed as a fraud. The simple fact is that if you weren't a gay male engaging in unprotected sex or an IV drug user, you had next-to-no chance at ALL of EVER getting HIV. Yes, there's still - even today - the rare blood unit that has it, but there never was going to be a heterosexual epidemic with deaths in the multiplied hundreds of thousands.

CharminTide said:

You've pointed out two great success stories where humanity has acknowledged and faced man-made threats* and emerged victoriously. Had we ignored the ozone and HIV crises the way that many in this thread advocate we now ignore AGW, they may indeed have become insurmountable problems today.

* It's unclear how SIV jumped from primates to humans; many theories abound.

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No, I've pointed out two flat out hoaxes that made scientists billions in "research and development" and were based upon the weasel words "if current trends continue," which is a joke even to those asserting it.

And what happened when we pointed out there COULD NOT POSSIBLY be a heterosexual AIDS epidemic? We were all called science deniers.

Sound familiar?

Tide1986 said:

If he's referring to the doomsday predictions, then I think he is more right than wrong. I don't think he's denying that climate fluctuates over time.

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Yeah, we call it weather.

selmaborntidefan said:

I'm curious as to how you think giving antiretroviral drugs stopped an EPIDEMIC THAT WASN'T HAPPENING AMONG HETEROSXEUXALS, particularly since ARVs aren't even given until you've tested positive.

What happened was the entire thing was exposed as a fraud. The simple fact is that if you weren't a gay male engaging in unprotected sex or an IV drug user, you had next-to-no chance at ALL of EVER getting HIV. Yes, there's still - even today - the rare blood unit that has it, but there never was going to be a heterosexual epidemic with deaths in the multiplied hundreds of thousands.



No, I've pointed out two flat out hoaxes that made scientists billions in "research and development" and were based upon the weasel words "if current trends continue," which is a joke even to those asserting it.

And what happened when we pointed out there COULD NOT POSSIBLY be a heterosexual AIDS epidemic? We were all called science deniers.

Sound familiar?

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I was not aware that the possibility of a "heterosexual AIDS epidemic" was ever what made HIV research worth doing.

In other news...a consensus of scientists agree that everyone who has eaten a carrot will die...eventually. They may have died because they ate the carrots, then again, maybe it was because they were run over by a train.

cbi1972 said:

I was not aware that the possibility of a "heterosexual AIDS epidemic" was ever what made HIV research worth doing.

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It isn't, and you completely missed the point if you think that's what I was saying.

Thousands were gonna die, remember? AIDS affects "us all" because "any of us can get it." Which was never even close to being true. And now folks want to pat themselves on the back for stopping a manufactured epidemic that never had a chance of being true.

But there's a reason we spent gazillions more on AIDS than cancer even though cancer kills more people - and it isn't because folks were afraid of their gay neighbors dying of it.

selmaborntidefan said:

It isn't, and you completely missed the point if you think that's what I was saying.

Thousands were gonna die, remember? AIDS affects "us all" because "any of us can get it." Which was never even close to being true. And now folks want to pat themselves on the back for stopping a manufactured epidemic that never had a chance of being true.

But there's a reason we spent gazillions more on AIDS than cancer even though cancer kills more people - and it isn't because folks were afraid of their gay neighbors dying of it.

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You'll love this, then.

HIV Vaccine: How Close Are We?

Part 5 of 7: Latest Trials

The Latest Trials

In April 2013, one of the latest HIV vaccine studies, known as the HVTN-505 study, was ended. 2,500 people were recruited to be part of the study. A weakened cold virus called Ad5 was used to trigger the immune system to recognize HIV proteins.

The study was stopped when it was determined that the vaccine did not prevent HIV infection or reduce the viral load. In fact, 30 people on a placebo became infected with HIV, but 41 people on the vaccine became infected.

Although there’s no proof the vaccine made people more susceptible to HIV infection, earlier failure of Ad5 in the 2007 STEP study led some researchers to worry that anything that stimulated immune cells to attack HIV may increase the risk of HIV infection, due to the unique way HIV infection targets immune cells.

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