Posted on 04/04/2009 8:38:28 PM PDT by neverdem
A lot of premises have turned out to be wrong lately. I'm not talking about evanescent bits of conventional wisdom, but about overarching assumptions that were widely shared across the political spectrum. For instance, before 1989, virtually all Sovietologists agreed the U.S.S.R. was highly stable. Before 2001, few Middle East scholars worried that America was vulnerable to a major terrorist attack. Before 2003, neocon hawks and French lefties agreed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Before 2008, few economists doubted the fundamental soundness of the U.S. financial system.
So at a moment when everything we once assumed is suddenly up for discussion, it's worth asking: what other big stuff could we be wrong about? I'm looking for issues where the received wisdom may be entirely correct—but merits a stronger dose of skepticism than it usually gets.
Nuclear proliferation is bad. It seems self-evident that countries joining the nuclear club—India, Pakistan, North Korea, maybe Iran—create a greater risk of catastrophic war or accidental launch. But in an influential paper, the political scientist Kenneth Waltz argued that nuclear rivalries help keep the peace because "they discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons." In this view, nukes are inherently defensive—and the countries that want them do so for good reason. Waltz argues that possessing nukes induces restraint and caution, causing irresponsible regimes to behave more responsibly. His argument is buttressed by another: you can't stop proliferation even if you try.
Climate change will be catastrophic. We all know civilization is doomed if we don't reduce carbon emissions, right? The physicist Freeman Dyson disagrees. Dyson doesn't dispute that human activity is causing warming. But he challenges the consensus that warming will be catastrophic. In a New York Review of Books essay, Dyson wrote that...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I guess that makes Bill Clinton and John Kerry French lefties, then.
He's half way there, anyway. It's a start.
“Climate change will be catastrophic. We all know civilization is doomed if we don’t reduce carbon emissions, right? “
That statement is bunk and easily shown to be so...
We increase Co2 by 35% in 50 years and the global temperatures changed by 0.4C. In 50 years.
It’s all hyped up based on models that are not panning out as reality.
So you say the Cubs will never again win the World Series?
Before the 21st. Century has ended, they will have.
The “global warmers” are tap dancing their asses off trying to hold their scam together. “Global cooling” became “global warming”. Now, “global warming” has had to morph into “climate change.” These jackasses are talking about THE WEATHER! And like a bunch of neanderthals, the weather has got them scared to death. Time for them to build something like Stonehenge for their Gaia and weather god ceremonies and leave the rest of us alone.
Maybe that Obama is “the One”?!!!LOL!!
I am 100% certain the link between CO2 and warming is complete BS.
Newsweak has worked to destroy this country. Never forget. Go to your local bookstore and shake out all the subscription litter cards and drop them in the mail for proce$$ing.
“Maybe that Obama is “the One”?!!!LOL!!”
yeah no kidding, just maybe they will realize it too someday, but I fear it may take a few smoking craters that used to be American cities to do it.
"Before the 21st. Century has ended, they will have."
May my grandchildren live to see it!!
Dear Jacob Weisberg, you are wrong about everything, including this question, which is full of arrogant propaganda even as you claim to be looking into your errors in fact and analysis.
First be humble, until then no one can correct you and you can certainly not correct yourself. How arrogant you are!
Want to bet?
Absolutely, as long as it’s not demeaned and degraded by involving wealth or money.
A bet. I will put a Cubs shirt in my casket just in case I need it.
What they are doing is moving from global warming to climate change to all pollution is bad. As the good book says there is nothing new under the sun and we are fixing to have the whole Rachel Carlson Silent Spring experience again. I think they will keep hammering the CO2 thing for the forseable future but use that as an entry into the whole man bad because he pollutes the planet thing once again.
That is exactly what many Republicans were doing on the campaign trail last fall. They drove me Nuts! "Well... we don't know if it's real... but let's just throw all this money at it anyway because the worst that can happen is we'll have a cleaner world."
ARGHHHHH!!!!
The bad thing about this whole scenario is that you cannot argue that pollution might or might not exist. When Newt Gingrich did his little public disservice announcement with Nancy Pelosi I knew that our supply of tomorrows as a free country had just taken a serious hit in the inventory department.
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