Global Warming – A reasonable starting point for discussion.
“I must confess up front that I am not smart enough to reach any informed conclusion about the subject; the scientific debates exceed my poor knowledge by several orders of magnitude. But I would be very much surprised to learn that you could dump unnatural chemicals into the environment, or natural chemicals in unnatural amounts, and not have any effect. To expect nature to handle a chemical it has never seen, or to rebalance chemicals it has already balanced, is to expect too much of the natural order. Of this I am sure: The burden of proof must rest on the polluters. Those who wish to use the air, the rivers, the ocean, and the land as public dumps should be forced to demonstrate, on sound evidence, that it will do no harm. Those who would limit such dumping do not have to prove a thing, other than that such dumping is not natural; it is up to the dumpers to prove that nature can take it. ” – John Médaille
http://distributism.blogspot.com/2009/12/distributism-and-global-warming.html
Monday, 21. December 2009 19:35
To say that the burden of proof lies on the polluters is a bit naive. What if I start juggling, and a well organized group of anti-juggling activists state that juggling causes prostate cancer in Burmese Alpacas half a world away. Do I, then, as a juggler, have the burden of proof that my juggling is harmless?
The burden of proof lies on the accuser. That is the only way to defend us for unjust accusers.
Also, to say that any amount of chemical being dumped must have an effect on the climate is ignorant. It’s all a matter of quantity and time. Yes, I believe adding a billion tons of carbon per square foot of the earth’s surface would likely have an affect on our climate. Adding one gram of carbon to the atmosphere per 1000 square miles likely wouldn’t. No one is claiming that industrial waste/pollution/etc. has no effect on the environment. The AGW skeptics merely say that we don’t have any evidence it is affecting the climate in any measurable way.
Yes, it’s better to not pollute, or to limit pollution. However, to use threat of violence impose such limits based on unproven science and scare tactics is foolish. A lot of companies are adopting such goals voluntarily because that is what their customers want. People are fine with paying a premium for products that at least claim to be “green”.
Tuesday, 22. December 2009 5:40
There’s no scientific framework that allows proving a negative, so the demand is impossible on top of being unfair. The best you could do is try to prove that harm was being caused, and fail.