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Originally Posted by stevo
when was conservation an issue? who's anti-conservation?
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What other possible goal could denial of global warming have but to continue current modes of production and consumption?
Incidentally:
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Originally Posted by Senator James Inhofe
Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there is scientific “consensus” of impending climatic doom as an excuse to ignore recent science. After all, there was a so-called scientific “consensus” that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.
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In the August 30th edition of
Skepticality magazine's podcast, astronomer Dr. Phil Plait talked about how, in the final vote on the rules for what defines a planet, less than 400 scientists voted. Most had left the convention by then. The point he made was that whether Pluto is a planet or not
isn't a scientific issue. It's just something for the media. In Phil's words -
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2...-its-a-planet/
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Originally Posted by Phil Plait
Which brings me, finally, to my big point. This is all incredibly silly. We’re not arguing science here. We’re arguing semantics. For years people have tried to make a rigid definition of planet, but it simply won’t work. No matter what parameter you include in the list, I can come up with an example that screws the definition up. I’ve shown that already, and I’m just warming up.
The problem here is simple, really: we’re trying to wrap a scientific definition around a culturally-defined word that has no strict definition. Doing this will only lead to trouble. Why? For one thing, it’s divisive and silly. How does a definition help us at all? And how does it make things less confusing than they already are? Charon is a planet? It’s smaller than our own Moon!
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My point is that Inhofe is betraying his scientific ignorance by citing non-issues like Pluto. It's really just rhetoric for him to paint the scientific community as fickle by bringing this up.