Bad News For The 'Hand-Wringers.'

PoliticalChic

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The Almanac of Environmental Trends covers seven major indicators of environmental progress including (1) Air Quality, (2) Energy, (3) Climate Change, (4) Water Quality, (5) Toxic Chemicals, (6) Forests and Land, and (7) Biodiversity. Examples of progress include:

·In general the U.S. has improved water use efficiency by about 30 percent over the last 30 years.

·Wetlands are now increasing in the U.S. after having declined for more than two centuries before the 1990s.

·Forestlands in the U.S. have been expanding rapidly over the last 30 years, and the global rate of deforestation appears to be steadily declining.

·The total amount of toxic chemicals used in American industry is steadily declining--a measure of resource efficiency.

·Virtually the entire nation has achieved clean air standards for four of the six main pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.

AEI - Papers


Maybe the sky isn't falling......
 
I wrote a paper in College about water quality that was not well received. Using government studies (1994 and 1996) I found that the water quality had improved in all areas except the Great Lakes, which stayed about the same.
 
The Almanac of Environmental Trends covers seven major indicators of environmental progress including (1) Air Quality, (2) Energy, (3) Climate Change, (4) Water Quality, (5) Toxic Chemicals, (6) Forests and Land, and (7) Biodiversity. Examples of progress include:

·In general the U.S. has improved water use efficiency by about 30 percent over the last 30 years.

·Wetlands are now increasing in the U.S. after having declined for more than two centuries before the 1990s.

·Forestlands in the U.S. have been expanding rapidly over the last 30 years, and the global rate of deforestation appears to be steadily declining.

·The total amount of toxic chemicals used in American industry is steadily declining--a measure of resource efficiency.

·Virtually the entire nation has achieved clean air standards for four of the six main pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.

AEI - Papers


Maybe the sky isn't falling......

Shouldn't that be, "Thanks to the hand wringers"? You've GOT to keep up the pressure or we'll go back to the bad old days of burning rivers and zero visibiity downtown streets. Think it can't happen? Look at all the play Atlas Shrugged is getting. Basically a feel good book for the "I'll do what ever I want crowd"!!! :eek:
 
I wrote a paper in College about water quality that was not well received. Using government studies (1994 and 1996) I found that the water quality had improved in all areas except the Great Lakes, which stayed about the same.

Did Old Rocks or Chris grade the paper???

Sadly and seriously, that "not well received" is the burden all of our children will have to face in the universities....

1. He said the evaluation of the SMU's political climate was based on several factors. Liberal SMU student groups outnumber conservative groups by five to one, and 84 percent of the school's faculty and staff who donated in the 2008 presidential election gave to Democratic candidates.
"We think that political contribution data indicates a political bias on the campus of Southern Methodist University," Listi said.
Liberal Bias at Home of Bush Presidential Library? | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth

2. At UC Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, a graduate teaching instructor who is a leader in the pro-Palestinian movement on campus has incited a nationwide controversy by trying to control the tenor of discussion in his class.
Snehal Shingavi, 26, a fifth-year graduate student in English, who will be teaching an undergraduate English class on "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance," in the fall included in his class description a "warning" that "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections." Students who are required to take the reading and composition course can choose from a menu of classes covering different themes.
Cramped speech at UC Berkeley / Teacher warns 'conservative thinkers' - SFGate

3. Professor Frank Kauffman had assigned Brooker, and her classmates, to write a letter to the Missouri Legislature expressing support for homosexual adoption. She refused to do so because of her religious objections and was charged with a "Level 3 Grievance," the most serious charge possible, and faced the possibility of having her degree withheld.
In addition, Brooker faced a 2 1/2 hour interrogation from an "ethics" committee, which asked her personally invasive questions such as "Do you think gays and lesbians are sinners?" and "Do you think I am a sinner?" (see coverage: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06103101.html )


On the bright side, I think it was Neitzsche who said "That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger."
 
The Almanac of Environmental Trends covers seven major indicators of environmental progress including (1) Air Quality, (2) Energy, (3) Climate Change, (4) Water Quality, (5) Toxic Chemicals, (6) Forests and Land, and (7) Biodiversity. Examples of progress include:

·In general the U.S. has improved water use efficiency by about 30 percent over the last 30 years.

·Wetlands are now increasing in the U.S. after having declined for more than two centuries before the 1990s.

·Forestlands in the U.S. have been expanding rapidly over the last 30 years, and the global rate of deforestation appears to be steadily declining.

·The total amount of toxic chemicals used in American industry is steadily declining--a measure of resource efficiency.

·Virtually the entire nation has achieved clean air standards for four of the six main pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.

AEI - Papers


Maybe the sky isn't falling......

Shouldn't that be, "Thanks to the hand wringers"? You've GOT to keep up the pressure or we'll go back to the bad old days of burning rivers and zero visibiity downtown streets. Think it can't happen? Look at all the play Atlas Shrugged is getting. Basically a feel good book for the "I'll do what ever I want crowd"!!! :eek:

If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.
 
The Almanac of Environmental Trends covers seven major indicators of environmental progress including (1) Air Quality, (2) Energy, (3) Climate Change, (4) Water Quality, (5) Toxic Chemicals, (6) Forests and Land, and (7) Biodiversity. Examples of progress include:

·In general the U.S. has improved water use efficiency by about 30 percent over the last 30 years.

·Wetlands are now increasing in the U.S. after having declined for more than two centuries before the 1990s.

·Forestlands in the U.S. have been expanding rapidly over the last 30 years, and the global rate of deforestation appears to be steadily declining.

·The total amount of toxic chemicals used in American industry is steadily declining--a measure of resource efficiency.

·Virtually the entire nation has achieved clean air standards for four of the six main pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.

AEI - Papers


Maybe the sky isn't falling......

Shouldn't that be, "Thanks to the hand wringers"? You've GOT to keep up the pressure or we'll go back to the bad old days of burning rivers and zero visibiity downtown streets. Think it can't happen? Look at all the play Atlas Shrugged is getting. Basically a feel good book for the "I'll do what ever I want crowd"!!! :eek:

If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.

Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.
 
Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

Millions dying from malaria is the result of poorly thought out regulation.

There is a reason that liberals are known as the kings of unintended consequences. Do you have any idea how many corpses can be laid at the feet of environmentalism?

Millions of dead as a result of a ban on DDT.

Millions dead due to the blocking of hydroelectric facilities in third world countries.

Thousands dead and counting due to unreasonable taxation on energy.

Tens of thousands dead and counting due to CAFE standards.

Millions dead and counting due to environmentalist's war on food blocking insectisides, irradiated food, blocking farmers and ranchers from use of their land, fearmongering genetically engineered food, and now using desperately needed food to make inefficient, higly polluting biofuels.

The pile of corpses that lies at the feet of environmentalism is larger than the pile of dead that lie at the feet of lenin, stalin, hitler, polpot, and mao combined and the numbers keep climbing every day.

Regulation for the sake of regulation without rational justification is nothing more than tyrany.
 
Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

Millions dying from malaria is the result of poorly thought out regulation.

There is a reason that liberals are known as the kings of unintended consequences. Do you have any idea how many corpses can be laid at the feet of environmentalism?

Millions of dead as a result of a ban on DDT.

Millions dead due to the blocking of hydroelectric facilities in third world countries.

Thousands dead and counting due to unreasonable taxation on energy.

Tens of thousands dead and counting due to CAFE standards.

Millions dead and counting due to environmentalist's war on food blocking insectisides, irradiated food, blocking farmers and ranchers from use of their land, fearmongering genetically engineered food, and now using desperately needed food to make inefficient, higly polluting biofuels.

The pile of corpses that lies at the feet of environmentalism is larger than the pile of dead that lie at the feet of lenin, stalin, hitler, polpot, and mao combined and the numbers keep climbing every day.

Regulation for the sake of regulation without rational justification is nothing more than tyrany.





Good post except for some of your numbers. Hitler gets credit for 6 million, Stalin credit for 50 to 60 million, Mao gets credit for 150 million, Pol Pot around 2 million. Altogether low end estimate socialists get credit for 208 million killed in the last century. Environmentalists havn't killed that many yet, but they're workin on it.
 
Good post except for some of your numbers. Hitler gets credit for 6 million, Stalin credit for 50 to 60 million, Mao gets credit for 150 million, Pol Pot around 2 million. Altogether low end estimate socialists get credit for 208 million killed in the last century. Environmentalists havn't killed that many yet, but they're workin on it.

I won't argue the point to strenuously, but you should consider that the ban on DDT alone, by some estimates, has resulted in 500 million to 900 million unnecessary cases of malaria since the ban was enacted. In the third world, malaria is, if not a death sentence, a crippling dissability for life.

Then consider that life expectancies for entire nations in the third world. There are entire nations whose life expectancies are between 30 and 49 years (and there are quite a few of them) because they live in a squalor of poverty, darkness, and completely unacceptable sanitation as the result of being denied electricity in the name of preserving their "pristine" environments. I don't know about you, but I believe every one of those deaths can be laid at the feet of the people who are denying them the electrical power that would change their lives. Those numbers alone far exceed 208 million.

And how many do you think have starved in the past few decades because of the green's war on food as described above and demand that desperately needed food be used for biofuel?

Do you really believe the pile of corpses resulting from environmental regulations and interference that drastically shorten lives numbers less than 208 million? Less than 400 million? Less than three quarters of a billion?
 
Shouldn't that be, "Thanks to the hand wringers"? You've GOT to keep up the pressure or we'll go back to the bad old days of burning rivers and zero visibiity downtown streets. Think it can't happen? Look at all the play Atlas Shrugged is getting. Basically a feel good book for the "I'll do what ever I want crowd"!!! :eek:

If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.

Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

My answer is that environmentalist should stick to Particulates, SOx, NOx, heavy metals, etc. Contaminants we know have an effect, and also have effective methods of treatment to render them inert. We also need to keep people out of the game who's only goal is to eliminate a given industry, not to regulate it. Finally regulations need to be kept simple, and come from only one source. If multiple agencies have a say in something, one takes the lead, and all paperwork flows through them, instead of what we have now, where you have to keep a staff of lawyers onhand to keep all your permits in order.
 
Shouldn't that be, "Thanks to the hand wringers"? You've GOT to keep up the pressure or we'll go back to the bad old days of burning rivers and zero visibiity downtown streets. Think it can't happen? Look at all the play Atlas Shrugged is getting. Basically a feel good book for the "I'll do what ever I want crowd"!!! :eek:

If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.

Then what's your answer?

Stop the hysteria. 60s era predictions never came true. Reasoned facts and reasonable policies have worked. As a specific example, water quality is quite reasoned but funding for continued water quality research and technology is now being cut in favor of Anthropogenic Climate Change research.

We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either.

But if the existing regulations worked why the constant need for new regulations?

It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

The results of what we have now are indisputable. Why do we need to do more?
 
Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

Millions dying from malaria is the result of poorly thought out regulation.

There is a reason that liberals are known as the kings of unintended consequences. Do you have any idea how many corpses can be laid at the feet of environmentalism?

Millions of dead as a result of a ban on DDT.

Millions dead due to the blocking of hydroelectric facilities in third world countries.

Thousands dead and counting due to unreasonable taxation on energy.

Tens of thousands dead and counting due to CAFE standards.

Millions dead and counting due to environmentalist's war on food blocking insectisides, irradiated food, blocking farmers and ranchers from use of their land, fearmongering genetically engineered food, and now using desperately needed food to make inefficient, higly polluting biofuels.

The pile of corpses that lies at the feet of environmentalism is larger than the pile of dead that lie at the feet of lenin, stalin, hitler, polpot, and mao combined and the numbers keep climbing every day.

Regulation for the sake of regulation without rational justification is nothing more than tyrany.

What about the positive results? Sure you can cherry-pick your data, but once again that's intellectual dishonesty. In whose hands do we leave ourselves, a government that we can vote out at our whim or unelected corporate leaders with no accountability to anyone but their shareholders? I'll take the first option, thank you. I refuse to go through life wearing blinders. :eusa_hand:
 
If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.

Then what's your answer?

Stop the hysteria. 60s era predictions never came true. Reasoned facts and reasonable policies have worked. As a specific example, water quality is quite reasoned but funding for continued water quality research and technology is now being cut in favor of Anthropogenic Climate Change research.

We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either.

But if the existing regulations worked why the constant need for new regulations?

It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

The results of what we have now are indisputable. Why do we need to do more?

Indisputable like AGW?!?! New conditions call for new regulations. Sure things have gotten better, but they wouldn't have with your attitude. What I really see in this is a call for a roll back. Then say good bye to to your "indisputable results".
 
If the hand wringers knew how to maintain status quo, it wouldn't be a problem, but like many people, they don't know when they have hit the "cool" line, and keep on going. Regulation goes from trying to create standards and procedures, and turns into a legal cover my ass game, where the paperwork takes precedence over the actual physical tasks.

Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

My answer is that environmentalist should stick to Particulates, SOx, NOx, heavy metals, etc. Contaminants we know have an effect, and also have effective methods of treatment to render them inert. We also need to keep people out of the game who's only goal is to eliminate a given industry, not to regulate it. Finally regulations need to be kept simple, and come from only one source. If multiple agencies have a say in something, one takes the lead, and all paperwork flows through them, instead of what we have now, where you have to keep a staff of lawyers onhand to keep all your permits in order.

I'm all for streamlining and efficiency. The problem I have with the OP is that the real agenda is to try and throw out the baby with the bath water.
 
Then what's your answer?

Stop the hysteria. 60s era predictions never came true. Reasoned facts and reasonable policies have worked. As a specific example, water quality is quite reasoned but funding for continued water quality research and technology is now being cut in favor of Anthropogenic Climate Change research.



But if the existing regulations worked why the constant need for new regulations?

It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

The results of what we have now are indisputable. Why do we need to do more?

Indisputable like AGW?!?! New conditions call for new regulations. Sure things have gotten better, but they wouldn't have with your attitude. What I really see in this is a call for a roll back. Then say good bye to to your "indisputable results".

So keep pushing for new regulations as a negotiating ploy? Is AGW really as catastrophic and are the methods to either mitigate or live with the change as clean water?
 
Then what's your answer? We know without regulation the status quo wouldn't be maintained either. It's easy to bash the system, but as PC showed in the OP, you can't argue with the results.

My answer is that environmentalist should stick to Particulates, SOx, NOx, heavy metals, etc. Contaminants we know have an effect, and also have effective methods of treatment to render them inert. We also need to keep people out of the game who's only goal is to eliminate a given industry, not to regulate it. Finally regulations need to be kept simple, and come from only one source. If multiple agencies have a say in something, one takes the lead, and all paperwork flows through them, instead of what we have now, where you have to keep a staff of lawyers onhand to keep all your permits in order.

I'm all for streamlining and efficiency. The problem I have with the OP is that the real agenda is to try and throw out the baby with the bath water.

How about cleaning the water instead of saying it needs to be taxed due to global warming?
 
What about the positive results? Sure you can cherry-pick your data, but once again that's intellectual dishonesty.

Pointing out some families who have lost their homes due to wetlands acts, or a few farmers who can't plant the back 40 because some cat tails are growing in a drainage ditch is cherrypicking. Pointing out hundreds of millions dead directly due to poorly thought out, unjustified regulation is not cherry picking. You claiming that regulation is good while ignoring the mountain of stinking corpses that have resulted from your "good" regulation, on the other hand, is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

In whose hands do we leave ourselves, a government that we can vote out at our whim or unelected corporate leaders with no accountability to anyone but their shareholders? I'll take the first option, thank you. I refuse to go through life wearing blinders. :eusa_hand:

I have pointed out hundreds of millions of dead due to thoughtless government regulation. Can you show me anywhere near that number as the result of corporate wrongdoing? You might be able to show me some polluted communities and maybe even a polluted county. Can you show me entire national populations dying as the result of industry? One must wonder by what logic you would place more trust in organizations who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in the past 100 years than you would place in organizations who may be responsible for the deaths of a couple of tens of thousands since the inception of corporate industry.
 
Indisputable like AGW?!?!

Still waiting for you to provide some hard, observed evidence that provides unequivocal proof that the activities of man are responsible for the changing global climate. Till you, or someone can provide any such evidence, AGW, or ACC, or Manmade climate disruption is hardly indisputable. Till you can provide actual observed proof, you don't even have a theory. At best, you have a piss poor hypothesis.
 
What about the positive results? Sure you can cherry-pick your data, but once again that's intellectual dishonesty.

Pointing out some families who have lost their homes due to wetlands acts, or a few farmers who can't plant the back 40 because some cat tails are growing in a drainage ditch is cherrypicking. Pointing out hundreds of millions dead directly due to poorly thought out, unjustified regulation is not cherry picking. You claiming that regulation is good while ignoring the mountain of stinking corpses that have resulted from your "good" regulation, on the other hand, is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

In whose hands do we leave ourselves, a government that we can vote out at our whim or unelected corporate leaders with no accountability to anyone but their shareholders? I'll take the first option, thank you. I refuse to go through life wearing blinders. :eusa_hand:

I have pointed out hundreds of millions of dead due to thoughtless government regulation. Can you show me anywhere near that number as the result of corporate wrongdoing? You might be able to show me some polluted communities and maybe even a polluted county. Can you show me entire national populations dying as the result of industry? One must wonder by what logic you would place more trust in organizations who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in the past 100 years than you would place in organizations who may be responsible for the deaths of a couple of tens of thousands since the inception of corporate industry.

You can't show me entire national populations dying either. That's just rhetoric and more evidence of your deep-seated intellectual dishonesty.
 
Indisputable like AGW?!?!

Still waiting for you to provide some hard, observed evidence that provides unequivocal proof that the activities of man are responsible for the changing global climate. Till you, or someone can provide any such evidence, AGW, or ACC, or Manmade climate disruption is hardly indisputable. Till you can provide actual observed proof, you don't even have a theory. At best, you have a piss poor hypothesis.

I've got logic on my side. Even if you can't show the temp going up at all, considering the properties of GHGs and their rise since the Industrial Revolution, how can you expect anything but warming, if the trend continues?
 

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