Renewable Revolution

Alan said "The environmental harm of something must be weighed against benefits or desirable effects."
By WHO, Alan? By WHO? Answer the QUESTION.

Society.

Your dancing is going to STOP right now.

What dancing? I've responded in detail to virtually every single sentence you have written, as you can see from my posts above. I note, meanwhile, that you are not responding to me; ignoring whole posts.

ONLY scientists can answer those questions because politicians ARE NOT OBJECTIVE.

I agree that the input of scientists is very important. They should have a very promininent place in policy issues. I am not satisfied with their present role. Scientists are not objective, either, but they come a lot closer than politicians.

DEFINE "desirable effects"!

I made a start in my post about DDT. One million malaria cases PER YEAR in Sri Lanka, prevented by DDT. Would you call that a desirable effect?

Are you saying the environmental laws passed because of the influence of the book  titled, "Silent Spring"  WERE NOT justified?

I don't know. They probably WERE justified (my gut talking). But I have not studied the specifics, so cannot say with confidence.

You know EXACTLY where I am going with this. And you DO NOT want to accept the premise that serious warnings of potential extinction by the scientific community are logical and reasonable.

By who in the scientific community? McPherson? His "work" (if you want to call it that) has been deconstructed and is taken seriously by only very few. It is possible that he is right, but it seems to be a very small likelihood.

So, you begin to hem and haw about the "evidence" of DDT. It was mostly BANNED, pal. So, OBVIOUSLY, we don't know what would have happened if they hadn't banned it. What a breathtakingly irrelevant question!

Actually, although it was banned, there was an "escape clause" in the ban such that under certain conditions it could be used.

I note that it is now being used again in Africa:

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/141150-african-countries-adopt-controversial-deadly-chemical-ddt-for-malaria-treatment.html
 African countries adopt controversial deadly chemical, DDT, for malaria treatment
 July 17, 2013
 snip
 Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, during the Abuja meeting, emphasized that the World Health Organization has cleared use of DDT in countries where mosquitoes are resistant to other insecticide, noting that the manner of usage is what matters.
 “Some countries are using them. In the health sector, it’s to be used indoors, not outdoors. It is the Agricultural sector that doesn’t need DDT. We are not here for rhetorics but to seek the way forward and the summit and African Union is primarily for that purpose,” he stated.
 Also, the South African representative reiterated that it is important for all African leaders to eliminate malaria in Africa, thus, queried why DDT comes under attack annually whenever it is raised as a means of eradicating malaria.
 “If we stop using it, we are sentencing our people to death. Every other continent used DDT to eradicate malaria, so why is our turn different in Africa?”
 He said that within five years, South African had a 600 per cent increase in malaria rate from 1996 when the country stopped using DDT.
 “We had no choice but revert to it. DDT must remain here until a more effective chemical is discovered. We want to emphasize that it must not be removed from our agreed agenda on how to eradicate malaria in Africa,” he said.

And what about the increased environmental awareness that book caused. Are you going claim that was an "overreaction"?

Some of it was. Some of it wasn't. It is a complex world we live in. There are reactions to things, and there are overreactions to things. Sometimes you don't know whether or not something is an overreaction until some years down the line (hence your embrace of the precautionary principle -- about which there is much to admire).

So you want to grasp at a few "DDT ain't that bad" straws. Look it up, pal.

I have, to some extent. DDT is both good and bad, like most things. I would love it if the good that DDT does were being done by something else (non-toxic and benign), so we could cease production and use of DDT forever. That would be a very good thing. But meanwhile, here we are. See above news item on DDT in Africa. Do you have a suggestion for Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu?  What would you suggest that he do? What would YOU do in his situation? You have many thousands of people dying of a disease that would be prevented by DDT. But you know that DDT is in other ways a very bad thing. What would you do? Seriously. Think about it. There is no easy answer.

School is out on what DDT does. I will not descend into minutiae and hairsplitting. If you think the book "Silent Spring" was "Exaggerating Extreme Outcomes" and therefore a "mistake", go away, NOW.

Thanks for the invitation. It looks like I'm going to have to do that, for several reasons:

1. First, your tone, your hot-headedness and borderline irrationality, are starting to get to me. I've been patient, carefully and calmly answering virtually every single thing you've written -- but without commensurate emotionality, accusations and so forth. And yet, you still cannot seem to settle down. You cannot seem to respond rationally to what I write.  Your behavior has been shrill, accusatory, short-tempered, rude and unreasonable. I am not offended by this, but I am disappointed. Whatever. I have no big investment in a particular outcome. I was hoping to come here and have a rational discussion, but it looks like that is not in the cards. It is OK. I am OK with reality. It is what it is.

2. Second, I have an extremely busy time coming up the next three weeks. Trip out of town, and employment-related stuff. So much stuff that I cancelled my gym membership for a month last night! (since I will not have time to use it).  For me, that is huge, because the gym is one of my main links to health and sanity. I look forward to getting back to the gym, mid-oct, but meanwhile I'm just too busy. And that includes too busy to write long, thoughtful, detailed replies here. The most I could do would be to stop in every few days and read, maybe post a few lines, something like that.

3. Third, I see that k-dog is in attendance. I came here to get away from people like k-dog, who I do not see as having anything useful to contribute, judging from past behavior.

4. Fourth, it seems that Ashvin is not actively following and responding on this thread, except for one 2-line post. That's important, because Ashvin is -- in my view -- one of the most intelligent and rational folks in this whole crowd. Without him, it feels like the total weight is on me. And given my upcoming life stuff (#2, above), that is way too much of a burden for me. Even if the #2 stuff were not happening, it would be too much for me, because I have a full life and many interests and activities. I cannot justify spending 10 or 15 or more hours per week, ongoing for weeks, engaged in conversation with what I PERCEIVE (maybe wrongly) to be a hotheaded, borderline-hysterical, borderline-irrational guy (see #1, above) (or guyS -- plural -- if the rest of the DD madhouse starts following us over here).

I trust that that explains my situation fully.

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Good luck, Agelbert. I believe that you are a good and sincere man, your concern for humanity is heartfelt and real, and your work on renewable energy and related matters is admirable.