Professors of bioethics seem to be a breed of their own. NYU bioethics professor S. Matthew Liao is suggesting that the human body should be engineered to combat global warming. Now, Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne is demanding that heavy airline passengers, who cause an "environmental cost, as higher greenhouse-gas emissions exacerbate global warming", should pay more for their flights:
Is a person’s weight his or her own business? Should we simply become more accepting of diverse body shapes? I don’t think so. Obesity is an ethical issue, because an increase in weight by some imposes costs on others.
---
An increase in the use of jet fuel is not just a matter of financial cost; it also implies an environmental cost, as higher greenhouse-gas emissions exacerbate global warming. It is a minor example of how the size of our fellow-citizens affects us all. When people get larger and heavier, fewer of them fit onto a bus or train, which increases the costs of public transport. Hospitals now must order stronger beds and operating tables, build extra-large toilets, and even install extra-large refrigerators in their morgues — all adding to their costs.
---
Many of us are rightly concerned about whether our planet can support a human population that has surpassed seven billion. But we should think of the size of the human population not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of its mass. If we value both sustainable human well-being and our planet’s natural environment, my weight — and yours — is everyone’s business.
Read the entire article here
Maybe somebody should take a closer look at what professors of bioethics are teaching students these days. One has a feeling that something has gone seriously wrong in the academic ivory towers of this scientific discipline.
PS
This is what the same professor Singer thinks about abortion:
"we should recognise that the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being's life".
Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a woman against the preferences of the fetus. In his view a preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience the sensations of suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus, at least up to around eighteen weeks, says Singer, has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a woman's preferences to have an abortion; therefore, abortion is morally permissible.
Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[20]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."[
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
The proposed EU´s financial transaction tax - Another looming failure
Der Spiegel reports about another looming EU debacle:
European finance ministers are discussing a proposed EU financial transaction tax on Tuesday, but the bloc is hopelessly divided on the issue. Not even Germany and France's plan B, to only introduce the tax in the euro zone, has much chance of success. Key euro-zone members such as Ireland and the Netherlands are afraid of losing out.
It's being greeted as a breakthrough. When the 27 European Union finance ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday, they plan to discuss the introduction of a financial transaction tax in Europe. It's the first time that the issue has been on the agenda at such a meeting. Supporters of the tax argue that is evidence that the tax is making progress in its long journey through the EU's institutions.
Indeed, a certain amount of progress can be seen in the ongoing battle over a tax on financial transactions -- at least on paper. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU's two most powerful leaders, have made the issue a priority. And in September 2011, the European Commission presented a draft directive which foresees a financial transaction tax on all stock, bond and derivative transactions within the EU. The tax could come into force in 2014 -- provided all 27 EU members agree to it.
Therein lies the rub. There is little chance of such an agreement. Officially, supporters of the tax are still aiming for the "comprehensive solution," as the Commission's proposal is dubbed. But an agreement is already regarded as a pipedream. A whole row of naysayers, led by Britain and Sweden, are opposed to the tax unless it is introduced globally. They consider it to be detrimental to growth and fear that they will become less competitive on the international playing field if they introduce a tax. The unanimity principle applies to tax matters within the EU, so even a single veto would be sufficient to derail the plan.
Read the entire article here
The question is, is there anything at all in which the European Union has been succesful recently?
Can´t think of much.
Oh yes, there are actually a couple of "succes stories" coming out of Brussels:
The President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, receives an annual salary of EUR 300 000, plus EUR 50 000 in allowances to cover accommodation and entertainment costs; moreover, when his term of office comes to an end the Commission will award him a mega-allowance of EUR 190 000 per year for a full three years.
Does the Commission not consider that, particularly at a time when the whole of Europe has been plunged into financial crisis, there is an urgent need to bring down to an acceptable level both this princely remuneration, which is far higher than anything any European Head of State — or even President Obama — receives, and the Commission President's massive end-of-service payment?
WRITTEN QUESTION by Mario Borghezio (UEN) to the Commission (2010)
And the EU "president" Herman Van Rompuy, of course, enjoys the same conditions as the President of the Commission":
A basic salary of 138% of the highest civil service grade: that would be €24,874.62 per month (not including family and other allowances).
The President receives a chauffeured car and around 20 dedicated staff members. He also has a housing allowance, rather than an official residence which was considered "too symbolic". Likewise, the idea of a private jet was also rejected for being symbolic and, as one diplomat pointed out, a discrepancy in privileges between the European Council and Commission presidents may only fuel rivalry between the two.
The Express adds:
HERMAN Van Rompuy was anointed European Union president last night, scooping an eye-popping salary of £320,000. Herman Van Rompuy's massive pay package, revealed yesterday in leaked EU documents, will make him the highest paid leader in the Western world, earning more than US President Barack Obama.
The salaries menioned above were paid in 2009. Today both Van Rompuy and Barroso are even better paid.
European finance ministers are discussing a proposed EU financial transaction tax on Tuesday, but the bloc is hopelessly divided on the issue. Not even Germany and France's plan B, to only introduce the tax in the euro zone, has much chance of success. Key euro-zone members such as Ireland and the Netherlands are afraid of losing out.
It's being greeted as a breakthrough. When the 27 European Union finance ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday, they plan to discuss the introduction of a financial transaction tax in Europe. It's the first time that the issue has been on the agenda at such a meeting. Supporters of the tax argue that is evidence that the tax is making progress in its long journey through the EU's institutions.
Therein lies the rub. There is little chance of such an agreement. Officially, supporters of the tax are still aiming for the "comprehensive solution," as the Commission's proposal is dubbed. But an agreement is already regarded as a pipedream. A whole row of naysayers, led by Britain and Sweden, are opposed to the tax unless it is introduced globally. They consider it to be detrimental to growth and fear that they will become less competitive on the international playing field if they introduce a tax. The unanimity principle applies to tax matters within the EU, so even a single veto would be sufficient to derail the plan.
Read the entire article here
The question is, is there anything at all in which the European Union has been succesful recently?
Can´t think of much.
Oh yes, there are actually a couple of "succes stories" coming out of Brussels:
The President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, receives an annual salary of EUR 300 000, plus EUR 50 000 in allowances to cover accommodation and entertainment costs; moreover, when his term of office comes to an end the Commission will award him a mega-allowance of EUR 190 000 per year for a full three years.
Does the Commission not consider that, particularly at a time when the whole of Europe has been plunged into financial crisis, there is an urgent need to bring down to an acceptable level both this princely remuneration, which is far higher than anything any European Head of State — or even President Obama — receives, and the Commission President's massive end-of-service payment?
WRITTEN QUESTION by Mario Borghezio (UEN) to the Commission (2010)
And the EU "president" Herman Van Rompuy, of course, enjoys the same conditions as the President of the Commission":
A basic salary of 138% of the highest civil service grade: that would be €24,874.62 per month (not including family and other allowances).
The President receives a chauffeured car and around 20 dedicated staff members. He also has a housing allowance, rather than an official residence which was considered "too symbolic". Likewise, the idea of a private jet was also rejected for being symbolic and, as one diplomat pointed out, a discrepancy in privileges between the European Council and Commission presidents may only fuel rivalry between the two.
The Express adds:
HERMAN Van Rompuy was anointed European Union president last night, scooping an eye-popping salary of £320,000. Herman Van Rompuy's massive pay package, revealed yesterday in leaked EU documents, will make him the highest paid leader in the Western world, earning more than US President Barack Obama.
The salaries menioned above were paid in 2009. Today both Van Rompuy and Barroso are even better paid.
Greenpeace activists brainwashed at "direct-action" training camps
 |
| Greenpeace activists are brainwashed and trained at "direct-action" training camps |
Greenpeace, the darling of the liberal and leftist media, is spearheading its eco-fanatic anti-growth, anti-business agenda on all continents. Here are just a couple of recent examples:
Australia:
"Our strategy is to disrupt and delay key projects and infrastructure while gradually eroding public and political support for the [coal] industry. We urgently need to build the anti-coal movement and mobilise off the back of the community backlash to coal seam gas.”
This call to arms was in the Australian Anti-Coal Movement’s Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom document, exposed last week and met with wide condemnation by state and federal governments, the union movement and business. The aims of the anti-coal movement contained in the secret plan were reported as “severely reducing” coal exports by “some hundreds of millions of tonnes per annum” using disrupt and delay tactics.
New Zealand:
Actress Lucy Lawless and other Greenpeace activists last week boarded the drill ship Noble Discoverer in New Zealand before it left for the West Coast, where it will undergo cold-weather modifications. The activists were arrested Monday and charge with burglary.
U.S. :
Six activists from Greenpeace — including the head of its Charlotte office — face charges after a protest Wednesday morning in front of Duke Energy Corp.'s headquarters.
Just as a certain other wellknown international organization, also Greenpeace is brainwashing and and educating its activists at special "direct-action" training camps, like this one in Florida:
The camp was held this week at Camp Flying Eagle in the wilds of eastern Manatee County, near the headwaters of the Manatee River. There, about 60 activists from different organizations across the country camped in tents scattered throughout the property and attended classes and workshops from 9:30 a.m. until, sometimes, after 10 p.m.
---On a sunny afternoon this week, about two dozen campers donned helmets and harnesses and were taught the correct way to use ropes to climb. Not rocks or mountains, but the sides of buildings or other structures.
Elsewhere, activists were taught how to chain themselves to various objects and how to react when police arrive.
Down the river, a group was learning how to handle an inflatable boat.
All are skills that can be used during a ramped-up protest, courtesy of Greenpeace, perhaps the pioneer in such methods.
--
The direct-action training camp wasn't attended solely by Greenpeace members. Matthew Almonte, a 21-year-old junior at the University of South Florida, isn't a member, but he does want his voice heard. He figured the skills he was learning at the Greenpeace camp would help.
"I wanted to learn skills here that I can utilize in the real world," said the political science major.
He wore cumbersome harnesses with carabiners, nylon straps and other hardware.
His partner in the climbing exercise was Kathleen Riley, 20, of Tampa, who is in her third year at St. Petersburg College and a self-described activist. "I want to learn and take home a skill," she said.
Campers came from 22 states, said Joe Smyth, spokesman for Greenpeace. Some are environmental activists; others hail from labor movements. "There are Occupy members here, too," he said.
---
The six-day camp was free, though campers had to pay their own way to and from the site. Food — a vegan and vegetarian menu — was provided.
Read the entire article here
(image by wiki)
Monday, 12 March 2012
Criminals protecting each other
Today´s death toll:
In Syria, activists report that at least 47 people were killed in an attack by government militia in Homs
Syria´s criminal dictator Bashar al-Assad is defying international pressure to stop killing civilians. Assad is able to continue his crimes against humanity because of protection offered by other criminal dictators and authoritarians - Russia´s Vladimir Putin and China´s communist leadership.
The tradition of protecting each other, as long as there is no competition within each other´s sphere of influence, is wellknown in criminal circles all over the world.
It does not matter how well dressed they all are in their tailor made business suits - they still are nothing but thugs.
In Syria, activists report that at least 47 people were killed in an attack by government militia in Homs
Syria´s criminal dictator Bashar al-Assad is defying international pressure to stop killing civilians. Assad is able to continue his crimes against humanity because of protection offered by other criminal dictators and authoritarians - Russia´s Vladimir Putin and China´s communist leadership.
The tradition of protecting each other, as long as there is no competition within each other´s sphere of influence, is wellknown in criminal circles all over the world.
It does not matter how well dressed they all are in their tailor made business suits - they still are nothing but thugs.
New York University professor: Humans should be genetically engineered to combat global warming
This is what we have all been waiting for: Engineering the human body to combat global warming!
A must read article in the Atlantic:
This is how the lead author of the paper, S. Matthew Liao, professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University, explains some of the "solutions" presented in the paper:
One human engineering strategy you mention is a kind of pharmacologically induced meat intolerance. You suggest that humans could be given meat alongside a medication that triggers extreme nausea, which would then cause a long-lasting aversion to meat eating. Why is it that you expect this could have such a dramatic impact on climate change?
A must read article in the Atlantic:
The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED's, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient? A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series of biomedical modifications that could help humans, themselves, consume less.
This is how the lead author of the paper, S. Matthew Liao, professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University, explains some of the "solutions" presented in the paper:
One human engineering strategy you mention is a kind of pharmacologically induced meat intolerance. You suggest that humans could be given meat alongside a medication that triggers extreme nausea, which would then cause a long-lasting aversion to meat eating. Why is it that you expect this could have such a dramatic impact on climate change?
Liao: There is a widely cited U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization report that estimates that 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 equivalents come from livestock farming, which is actually a much higher share than from transportation. More recently it's been suggested that livestock farming accounts for as much as 51% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. And then there are estimates that as much as 9% of human emissions occur as a result of deforestation for the expansion of pastures for livestock. And that doesn't even to take into account the emissions that arise from manure, or from the livestock directly. Since a large portion of these cows and other grazing animals are raised for consumption, it seems obvious that reducing the consumption of these meats could have considerable environmental benefits.
Even a minor 21% to 24% reduction in the consumption of these kinds of meats could result in the same reduction in emissions as the total localization of food production, which would mean reducing "food miles" to zero. And, I think it's important to note that it wouldn't necessarily need to be a pill. We have also toyed around with the idea of a patch that might stimulate the immune system to reject common bovine proteins, which could lead to a similar kind of lasting aversion to meat products.
Your paper also discusses the use of human engineering to make humans smaller. Why would this be a powerful technique in the fight against climate change?
Liao: Well one of the things that we noticed is that human ecological footprints are partly correlated with size. Each kilogram of body mass requires a certain amount of food and nutrients and so, other things being equal, the larger person is the more food and energy they are going to soak up over the course of a lifetime. There are also other, less obvious ways in which larger people consume more energy than smaller people---for example a car uses more fuel per mile to carry a heavier person, more fabric is needed to clothe larger people, and heavier people wear out shoes, carpets and furniture at a quicker rate than lighter people, and so on.
And so size reduction could be one way to reduce a person's ecological footprint. For instance if you reduce the average U.S. height by just 15cm, you could reduce body mass by 21% for men and 25% for women, with a corresponding reduction in metabolic rates by some 15% to 18%, because less tissue means lower energy and nutrient needs.
Read the entire article here
PS
George Orwell could not have said it better! Welcome, Brave New World of eco-loonies!
Angela Merkel´s two great failures
We have said it before on this blog: Angela Merkel is a failed politician, in spite of still being rather popular in Germany and fairly highly regarded in many other EU countries.
This reason is quite simple: Merkel´s two most important projects - the energy transition and the rescue of the euro - are proving to be huge failures:
Germany's grand and ambitious aim of transforming itself into a bastion of green energy is now in jeopardy -- and, with it, the largest and most important project of Merkel's chancellorship besides the euro-rescue efforts.
Read the entire Der Spiegel article here:
PS
The fact that Merkel seems doomed to failure does not mean that the German opposition would offer better alternatives; no, a social democratic, or even worse, a green chancellor would be disastrous for Germany. Let´s hope that the next German chancellor will come e.g., from Bavaria, where the CSU people usually support traditional conservative values and policies that Germany, and Europe, are in need of.
This reason is quite simple: Merkel´s two most important projects - the energy transition and the rescue of the euro - are proving to be huge failures:
Germany's grand and ambitious aim of transforming itself into a bastion of green energy is now in jeopardy -- and, with it, the largest and most important project of Merkel's chancellorship besides the euro-rescue efforts.
Read the entire Der Spiegel article here:
PS
The fact that Merkel seems doomed to failure does not mean that the German opposition would offer better alternatives; no, a social democratic, or even worse, a green chancellor would be disastrous for Germany. Let´s hope that the next German chancellor will come e.g., from Bavaria, where the CSU people usually support traditional conservative values and policies that Germany, and Europe, are in need of.
Lord Lawson on his 80th birthday
Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher´s Cabinet, yesterday turned 80. The occasion gave the formidable Nigel Lawson an opportunity to write about why he embarked on a completely new career after leaving the House of Commons 20 years ago:
After leaving the House of Commons, writing my memoirs, and going on the customary ex-ministerial talk circuit, I observed increasing interest among our new leaders in the subject of global warming, aka climate change, and in particular in policies to combat this new and allegedly existential threat. So I decided thoroughly to inform myself about it. Having been Secretary of State for Energy 30 years ago, I had the advantage of some familiarity with at least one of the dimensions of this multifaceted issue.
It did not take long to detect all the signs of collective madness, of which fanaticism is one telltale symptom, and an absence of rationality another. So, at the age of 76, I brought out a book which, politically incorrectly, sought to bring the searchlight of reason to the subject. My book, which had the greatest difficulty in finding a publisher, proved surprisingly successful, no doubt because of its scarcity value.
Urged by enthusiastic readers to follow it up in some way, I did so by founding a think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. I had never had anything to do with think tanks before, nor felt the slightest inclination in that direction. But it has proved a considerable success, thanks in particular to the excellent full-time director I was able to find and appoint.
However, it still involves a considerable amount of work for me, and not simply in fund-raising, as a very hands-on chairman. It is, in fact, one of the few areas where there is a positive advantage in having an old man at the helm. Young scientists and young politicians feel obliged to keep their heads down and toe the line: research grants and promotion prospects are withheld if they do not. Anyone who dissents has to expect vilification. At my age and stage I am inured to vilification and, more importantly, I am able to speak truth to power, as they say, because my career is behind me.
There is another way, too, in which old age probably adds clarity and perspective. Part of the global warming madness is the conceit that we can know what the temperature of the planet will be, and where technology will be, in a hundred years’ time. The notion that the magic of computer models provides us with a reliable crystal ball is not science but one of the great superstitions of our age. The somewhat self-contradictory mantra of the warmists appears to be that, while the science is certain (which, in fact, in crucial respects, it is not), the consequences are highly uncertain, but bound to be bad; so we must fear the worst. This is simply irrational catastrophism, the explanation for which is most likely to be found in social psychology.
The idea that we can intelligently take major, and very costly, policy decisions now on the basis of what the world is going to be like in a hundred years’ time is arrogant folly.
Part of the problem is the degradation of politics which has occurred since my time. I refer to image-led politics, driven largely by the belief that this is what goes down best with the media. “Saving the planet” is a great image, and can readily be illustrated by sentimental nonsense about polar bears and the like. The fact that the policies it spawns are both intellectually incoherent and economically harmful is, nowadays, neither here nor there.
Another part of the problem is that the disastrous conventional wisdom on this issue is embraced by all three political parties. Over many years I have observed that when all three parties are agreed on something they are more than likely to be wrong. There is a very good reason for this. When an issue is not subject to vigorous debate it is not properly examined, and there are few surer sources of costly error than this. Margaret Thatcher, who believed firmly in the merits of vigorous debate, detested the very idea of consensus. She had a point.
The question is: Why oh why are there so few - if any - contemporary politicians of Lord Lawson´s calibre around today?
(image by wikipedia)
Urged by enthusiastic readers to follow it up in some way, I did so by founding a think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. I had never had anything to do with think tanks before, nor felt the slightest inclination in that direction. But it has proved a considerable success, thanks in particular to the excellent full-time director I was able to find and appoint.
However, it still involves a considerable amount of work for me, and not simply in fund-raising, as a very hands-on chairman. It is, in fact, one of the few areas where there is a positive advantage in having an old man at the helm. Young scientists and young politicians feel obliged to keep their heads down and toe the line: research grants and promotion prospects are withheld if they do not. Anyone who dissents has to expect vilification. At my age and stage I am inured to vilification and, more importantly, I am able to speak truth to power, as they say, because my career is behind me.
There is another way, too, in which old age probably adds clarity and perspective. Part of the global warming madness is the conceit that we can know what the temperature of the planet will be, and where technology will be, in a hundred years’ time. The notion that the magic of computer models provides us with a reliable crystal ball is not science but one of the great superstitions of our age. The somewhat self-contradictory mantra of the warmists appears to be that, while the science is certain (which, in fact, in crucial respects, it is not), the consequences are highly uncertain, but bound to be bad; so we must fear the worst. This is simply irrational catastrophism, the explanation for which is most likely to be found in social psychology.
The idea that we can intelligently take major, and very costly, policy decisions now on the basis of what the world is going to be like in a hundred years’ time is arrogant folly.
Part of the problem is the degradation of politics which has occurred since my time. I refer to image-led politics, driven largely by the belief that this is what goes down best with the media. “Saving the planet” is a great image, and can readily be illustrated by sentimental nonsense about polar bears and the like. The fact that the policies it spawns are both intellectually incoherent and economically harmful is, nowadays, neither here nor there.
Another part of the problem is that the disastrous conventional wisdom on this issue is embraced by all three political parties. Over many years I have observed that when all three parties are agreed on something they are more than likely to be wrong. There is a very good reason for this. When an issue is not subject to vigorous debate it is not properly examined, and there are few surer sources of costly error than this. Margaret Thatcher, who believed firmly in the merits of vigorous debate, detested the very idea of consensus. She had a point.
The question is: Why oh why are there so few - if any - contemporary politicians of Lord Lawson´s calibre around today?
(image by wikipedia)
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