Τρίτη, Μαΐου 27, 2008

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming

After describing the main observations that make up the science around global warming, Freeman Dyson reviews two books about the subject: the first, "A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies"
by William Nordhaus, is an economist's approach that takes the science and projected damage as a given and concludes what are some of our best options for action. The second book reviewed, "Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto", is a wide exposition of the scientific and general debate around global warming. Both books seem very interesting, I think the conclusions in Nordhaus' book are especially worth noticing since they order some of our possible policy actions on a "avoid"/"achieve" scale.

But they miss the important point, according to Dyson, which is that environmentalism is becoming the biggest secular religion of all times (after declining socialism) with much to be admired with respect to past religions. But environmentalism, as a religion, has shown itself prone to some of the same maladies of other religions, mainly dogmatism and witch-hunting of it's members with differing opinions about our environmental condition.

2 σχόλια:

Dorotheos είπε...

"...environmentalism is becoming the biggest secular religion of all times (after declining socialism) with much to be admired with respect to past religions."

Sorry, I must have missed something... I thought that the pathological pursuit of profit and monetary power has been the established and "biggest" religion for quite a while now in the West, i.e. its main norm and values, conquering rapidly the rest of the (so called developing) world with financial globalisation and that it has cast aside and dwarfed so far any environmentalist movements. So far...

Chrysotheras είπε...

"...Sorry, I must have missed something... I thought that the pathological pursuit of profit and monetary power has been the established and "biggest" religion for quite a while now in the West..."

Yes, you've definitely missed a lot of goings on on the Eastern part of the globe. ...
Which planet you said you're from?....

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