(no subject)
Two probably unrelated stories have caught my eye. First, Sweden's Pirate Party got 7.1% of the Swedish vote in the European elections the other day, putting it in fifth place. The Party's agenda is simply 'to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected' (h/t: Hilzoy). This is a bit excessive for me (no patents at all?), but media conglomerates have held too much sway over copyright law and that ought to change. More than that, it's the Pirate Party! How cool is that?
Second, Family First senator Steve Fielding has questioned the legitimacy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and global warming science generally:
Like most Australians, I've just believed that man-made carbon emissions are the major cause of global warming and up until now have not really looked at it in great detail," Senator Fielding told ABC radio yesterday.
"Then all of a sudden someone said, 'Steve, do you know that over the last decade carbon emissions are rising but global temperature isn't rising?' "
Senator Fielding said he wanted to find the real cause of climate change.
The intergovernmental panel, set up by the United Nations Environment Program, represents thousands of the world's top scientists who have spent years examining climate change.
Senator Fielding's newfound scepticism is a result of his trip to the US to listen to the Heartland Institute of Chicago, an organisation that is funded by the fossil-fuel industry. The organisation also believes public health campaigns against smoking are based on "junk science".
Ahhh, the Heartland Institute. You may remember them from such places as this post I wrote last month. Far be it from me to asperse Professor Senator Fielding's sterling intellectual prowess, but there seems some confusion to his view. He believes 'man-made carbon emissions' aren't responsible for global warming because 'global temperature isn't rising' - that is, because global warming isn't occurring - yet he wants 'to find the real cause of climate change'. And the contention that 'global temperature isn't rising' is nothing more than a 'tic canard that is easily refuted, based as it is on wilful, disingenuous ignorance of the statistical trends, and by extension statistics itself.
Presumably Senator Fielding is not ignorant of statistics. Or, at any rate, he's not ignorant of the statistics that matter most to him. Elected with less than 2% of the Victorian upper-house vote at the 2004 election (mostly because of preferences procured from an unsuspecting Labor), he needs all the support, financial and electoral, he can get. So he tries to obtain any support he can get from the 'tics. Unfortunately for him, his political mortality is harder to deny than global warming. But until the next election, he will remain a powerful legislator. Meanwhile the Pirate Party, with 7.1% of the Swedish vote, will never have any influence on the European Parliament.
(Senator Fielding, courting donors with his 'Cash-for-Trash' message.)
Second, Family First senator Steve Fielding has questioned the legitimacy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and global warming science generally:
Like most Australians, I've just believed that man-made carbon emissions are the major cause of global warming and up until now have not really looked at it in great detail," Senator Fielding told ABC radio yesterday.
"Then all of a sudden someone said, 'Steve, do you know that over the last decade carbon emissions are rising but global temperature isn't rising?' "
Senator Fielding said he wanted to find the real cause of climate change.
The intergovernmental panel, set up by the United Nations Environment Program, represents thousands of the world's top scientists who have spent years examining climate change.
Senator Fielding's newfound scepticism is a result of his trip to the US to listen to the Heartland Institute of Chicago, an organisation that is funded by the fossil-fuel industry. The organisation also believes public health campaigns against smoking are based on "junk science".
Ahhh, the Heartland Institute. You may remember them from such places as this post I wrote last month. Far be it from me to asperse Professor Senator Fielding's sterling intellectual prowess, but there seems some confusion to his view. He believes 'man-made carbon emissions' aren't responsible for global warming because 'global temperature isn't rising' - that is, because global warming isn't occurring - yet he wants 'to find the real cause of climate change'. And the contention that 'global temperature isn't rising' is nothing more than a 'tic canard that is easily refuted, based as it is on wilful, disingenuous ignorance of the statistical trends, and by extension statistics itself.
Presumably Senator Fielding is not ignorant of statistics. Or, at any rate, he's not ignorant of the statistics that matter most to him. Elected with less than 2% of the Victorian upper-house vote at the 2004 election (mostly because of preferences procured from an unsuspecting Labor), he needs all the support, financial and electoral, he can get. So he tries to obtain any support he can get from the 'tics. Unfortunately for him, his political mortality is harder to deny than global warming. But until the next election, he will remain a powerful legislator. Meanwhile the Pirate Party, with 7.1% of the Swedish vote, will never have any influence on the European Parliament.
(Senator Fielding, courting donors with his 'Cash-for-Trash' message.)