Okay, so I was having a mostly friendly conversation with a friend about Obama when it went to Global Warming…go figure lol. I for one don’t believe in it. He came back with questions I think is supposed to prove his point? There below as follows:
I am glad you are concerned about the environment.
I have six questions I’d love to get your thoughts on:
1.) Do you think that second-hand smoke can cause lung cancer or other health problems for non-smokers who inhale the fumes? Do you believe the research from the Tobacco Institute is unbiased, and therefore reliable regarding second-hand smoke?… See More
2.) Do you think that the Clean Air Act, which has helped reduce air pollution significantly in major cities, was a good thing? Or do you think that air pollution is not really a health problem, but rather, an aesthetic/appearance problem primarily?
3.) Do you think that the banned pesticide DDT was unfairly banned, and should be used to improve the health of people worldwide?
4.) Do you think that if asbestos was not banned in the construction of the World Trade Center…many lives would’ve been saved because it would have improved the structural integrity of the twin towers?
5.) Would you celebrate the death of a well-known and highly regarded scientist?
6.) Would you be critical of companies/corporations that have adopted environmentally-friendly practices? For example, Microsoft has abandoned the use of PVC in its packing materials. Good or bad?
BONUS QUESTION: Should we believe everything that lobbyists who are bankrolled by corporate America tell us?
Just curious what you think of the above.
Is this trying to prove his point????
Dawei
June 8, 2010 at 11:33 am
Well, those are all points that many deniers of global warming also tend to agree with. That second hand smoke and DDT are *completely* harmless, that environmental legislation is usually wrong, etc. Obviously these questions don’t have anything to do with global warming, but the correlations that your friend is implying are not entirely baseless. Number 4 seems a bit odd though.
If you’d like to discuss the science of global warming and your reasons for being skeptical, feel free to post another question about that. You’ll get plenty of insightful responses.
spk
June 8, 2010 at 12:20 pm
1) Yes. I get a headache smelling second hand smoke (Well, I get a headache smelling almost everything!)
2)The clean air act was a good thing… do you notice how much easier it is to breath when you’re out of the city?
3)The pesticide DDT was not unfairly banned. It was killing the Bald Eagle. And… well… the bald eagle couldn’t be our national bird if it was dead.
4)idk
5)Well, the birthday of one. We already get Darwin’s birthday off! He was born the same day (same year, too) as Abraham Lincon
6)Good…PVC kills more PEOPLE than sharks kill people.
BONUS QUESTION: no
I think he’s just trying to get you to change sides, without being too obvious.
Jeff M
June 8, 2010 at 12:40 pm
His questions seem to take the alarmists side in that everything listed was either questioned or lobbied against with the reality of the situation being on the alarmists side. Except the one concerning the celebration of a well known and highly regarded scientist. I’m not exactly sure if a denier has ‘celebrated’ though I’m sure this is an incorrect use of the word, this but in the climategate emails it is thought that the alarmists ‘celebrated’ the death of one of their proponents.
GibsonEssGee
June 8, 2010 at 1:32 pm
1. Vehicle exhaust fumes are probably more dangerous than 2nd hand cig smoke although if it’s dense I can understand the potential dangers of 2nd hand smoke. I’ve been at parties and pubs where you could breathe in and get a “hit”.
2. The Clean Air Act has proven itself to be justified. London for example no longer gets the killer smogs it used to get in the 50’s/60’s.
3. Annoyed about the banning of DDT. It was the active ingredient of the best cat flea spray (Nuvan Top).
4. Lack of asbestos would not have affected the structural integrity of the twin towers. They weren’t designed to withstand an impact from several hundred tons of aircraft.
5. No, why would you?
6. If a company changes it’s packaging it’s done on cost savings which may be cynically marketed as environmentally friendly.
Bonus : No.
linlyons
June 8, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Dawei has it right.
Those questions do not relate to global warming.
However, as you can see from a couple of the vigorous complaints, they do bother some folks who deny global warming.
If i had to guess, his intent was to see whether your opinion of global warming was just about that, or whether you followed the thinking on a number of issues that are commonly seen in those that deny global warming.
since you posted the question in the global warming section, one might presume that’s where your interests lie.
As you might suspect, i disagree with you.
Here’s a couple links that contain reasons that some folks who think global warming is not real often agree with, and why those reasons are incorrect.
As dawei said, feel free to post again to have more of a conversation on the subject.
http://scholarsandrogues.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/anti-global-heating-claims-a-reasonably-thorough-debunking/
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
http://www.ecohuddle.com/wiki/global-warming-myths <== Dana’s explanation is probably the best.
(of course, there is the question of views on Obama, but maybe one item at a time is enough.)
Moe
June 8, 2010 at 2:15 pm
1) There is no denying smoking is not good and second hand smoke in an enclosed space would also be detrimental. 2) Clean air a good thing, CO2 is not a pollutant, it’s not arsenic or cyanide either, 3) I don’t know anything about DDT but if it’s the only thing that will stop a plague of malaria carrying mosquito’s?, 4) asbestos wouldn’t have helped in the world trade center because as alarmist will point out George Bush blew the buildings up, 5) celebrating death of a scientist is the venue of the alarmist, 6) going green good, but not if done so in order to receive government handouts.
Since there is no real proof that CO2 is the primary reason for the warming it’s the belief of most alarmist that we should trust in the holy church of climate science because we aren’t smarter than scientist, except for the stupid scientist that have alternate theories, or want to look at the data that is being used to build the climate simulations.
Meadow F
June 8, 2010 at 2:29 pm
It’s interesting that your friend raises those specific points as it shows he has been reading pro-global warming websites which often seek to link the two. That he swallows their claims without questions shows, IMHO, an almost child-like naiviete.
The questions he asks are classic examples of where a genuine concern has been taken up by special interest groups and blown out of all proportion as part of a ’cause’. (I always think of their rallying call “Think of the children! Won’t *somebody* PLEASE think of the children!”.)
Your friend needs to study epidemiology, statistical analysis and analytical logic and reasoning if he wants to engage with such heavyweight matters.
To take just one example – passive smoking.
The man who first scientifically proved a link between smoking and lung cancer was Sir (Dr) Richard Doll (Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, Vice-President of the Royal Society, yada, yada, yada -this is a serious guy). He spent his entire adult life in researching and proving the link between smoking and ill-health. So, what did he have to say on passive smoking?
“”The effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t worry me.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3826939.stm
~ He doesn’t say there is NO link. But this expert of experts of the link between smoking and cancer states quite unequivocally that the risk is vanishingly small.
Then, in 2003, the British Medical Journal published the results of what was by far the most comprehensive study on passive smoking so far: Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98 by J. Enstrom et al. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
Its conclusion? [QUOTE]
——————————-
“Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”
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~ Again, note that the study does NOT say that there isn’t a link between passive smoking and lung cancer, but that the evidence for a causal relationship simply isn’t there.
What’s fascinating about this study is that it was commissioned and funded for years by the American Cancer Society, until the results started to become clear, at which point they pulled funding and tried to bury the study. Enstrom et al understandably did not relish the works of many years disappearing and sought funding from any source, eventually reluctantly taking funding from a tobacco company – see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_E._Enstrom and the scientist’s reply at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_E._Enstrom_in_his_own_words
This attempt to make the evidence fit the politics drew the following response from the editor of the British Medical Journal [QUOTE]
——————————
“Editor—Owing to the charged atmosphere surrounding the issue of passive smoking, our paper provoked strong reactions on bmj.com. The most disturbing reactions have come from the enforcers of political correctness who pose as disinterested scientists but are willing to use base means to trash a study whose results they dislike. They have no qualms about engaging in personal attacks and unfounded insinuations of dishonesty rather than judging research on its merits. The resulting confusion has misled many readers and diverted attention from the facts of the study.”
—————————-
~ Note that the editor of the British Medical Journal takes to task those who “pose as disinterested scientists but are willing to use base means to trash a study whose results they dislike”.
Of course, smoking is never good for your health or anyone else’s. It’s not that people say there is no risk at all from passive smoking, but the cold, hard scientific evidence does not prove a statistically significant causal relationship. This doesn’t mean that it’s okay to light up around children, for example, but facts are facts and this shows how they are twisted and misrepresented by special interest groups.
Your friend needs to think for himself a little more.
BTW, I am not a smoker.
.
Paul B
June 8, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I think he’s trying to get you to question the assumptions that government action is always wrong, and that the “common sense” answers can always be trusted.
His final question is drawing your attention to the fact that the anti-AGW theory spokesman and websites are Astroturf, not grassroot, and really a form of commercial advertising.
Logically, none of this has anything to do directly with the AGW question, but it does have a great deal to do with the attitudes that lead people (yourself perhaps included) to reject the scientific conclusion.
booM
June 8, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Sounds like he is trying to get you to stake out your ‘ist’ position-e.g. whether you’re an environmentalist or an industrialist. Judging from his ‘I’m glad you care about the environment’ comment’ I’d guess that the intent of the questions is not to prove his point but to put you in a postion from which it is harder to rebut his arguments. Common debate tactic, pretty transparent in this instance.
The only argument against environmental initiatives out of the ones in the questions that I haven’t heard offered is the asbestos ban linkage with the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Richard
June 8, 2010 at 3:28 pm
1. Of course it COULD, there are people who are allergic to chemicals in smoke. But it’s impossible to PROVE that it caused cancer in a particular person. That’s what the tobacco companies hung their hat on for years. And no the research from the Tobacco Institute shouldn’t be considered unbiased, but just because it’s from the Tobacco Institute doesn’t mean it should be discounted, as long as they are will to show ALL their research, data collections methods, assumptions etc. Just like research from people pushing AGW shouldn’t be discounted nor should it be taken as gospel. And just like the Tobacco Institute those pushing AGW should be show all their research.
2. Yes it has, and yes it was. And I supported it, we had a problem and we came up with solution to the problem.
3. No at the time there was decent research show that DDT was causing problems in the environment. Also DDT was losing its effectiveness, and we had replacements for DDT that cause less damage. But there is new research that DDT may not have been as bad as they said, so we might be seeing DDT again.
4. Maybe, but we’ll never know for sure, it would depend on how it was applied and what damage was done to the coating.
5. No I don’t celebrate anyone’s death.
6.) Would you be critical of companies/corporations that have adopted environmentally-friendly practices? For example, Microsoft has abandoned the use of PVC in its packing materials. Good or bad?
6. No it’s not up the companies/corporations to decide how they run their business. But if I don’t like what they are doing or if it raises the price too much then I will vote with my feet. So a business has many factors to consider with their customer hopefully being their main concern.
Bonus Question No we shouldn’t take anyone WORD about anything, we should require proof.