I received a link from Amazon today touting a new book by Michael Hanlon:
Humankind is not doomed, we may be around for millions of years yet. We have already survived one of the most extraordinary planet-wide catastrophes - the Ice Ages. … The subject of the book is very much in the news at the moment - will we be wiped out by climate change, war or pestilence? Hanlon is saying something different, that the species will survive as the planet changes around us. This different point of view is refreshing, and some sections of the book are very controversial, which should get the attention of the media. Not only is humankind not doomed, but that we may be around for millions, if not hundreds of millions of years. We have already survived one of the most extraordinary planet-wide catastrophes - the great Ice Ages. Equipped with the simplest technology, Homo sapiens sailed through the great glaciations, and profited from them.
Except that the “news at the moment” isn’t simply “will we be wiped out by climate change, war or pestilence.” It is do we want to survive in such a world and what can we do to avoid these things?
The premise of the book is a red herring.
How many anti-capitalist climate change deniers do you know? Do they even exist? I presume there are at least some out there but the only deniers I personally know are also ardent advocates of market economics. Go through a list of prominent sceptics and you also invariably find within it a little club of market economy advocates.
Maybe they subconsciously realise what many don’t want to talk about; that climate change has happened under the market economy’s watch.
A rather unsettling story from the Independent today:
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.
I find it incredible that we’ve allowed ourselves to get to this point while continuing to use the same bankrupt ideas, the same leadership and the same greed-fueled economic system that got us here in the first place.
A pediatrician traces the rise of the anti-vaccine movement that falsely linked thimerosal with autism and turned parents away from the most lifesaving medicine in history.
Wakefield’s research was secretly bankrolled by a personal injury lawyer whose clients were suing MMR makers. Wakefield himself was given close to a million dollars to prove that the MMR caused autism. He had filed a patent for a new MMR vaccine at the same time he was doing his research. Upon learning this, Lancet retracted his paper, and he was charged with professional misconduct in 2005. If he is found guilty of misconduct, he will never practice medicine in the U.K. again.
The last nail in the coffin came in 2007 … Wakefield’s former research assistant testified that his discovery about the MMR vaccine was, in reality, the result of contaminated lab equipment and that Wakefield knew this about but ignored it. In other words, as Offit writes, “Wakefield had crossed the line from ill-conceived, poorly performed science to fraud.”
Eleven studies now show that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism (the most recent just came out). Six have shown that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism; three have shown thimerosal doesn’t cause neurological problems. Studies showing the opposite, like Wakefield’s, use flawed methods, have serious conflicts of interest or have been conducted in animals whose results can’t be extrapolated to humans.
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