Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 2009

Costing a Whale

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LAST week the International Whaling Commission (IWC) met on the Portuguese island of Madeira and agreed that climate change is a threat to whales.   A decision on the Danish proposal for Greenland to hunt 10 humpback whales a year was postponed.  Australia’s Environment Minister was there and told the meeting that whale-watching is a growing industry worth more than whale hunting.  Ian Mott disagrees:

“THE claim, by Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, that whales are worth more alive than dead betrays a breathtaking level of economic ignorance and a dangerous penchant for simplistic, “Cargo Cult” panaceas.

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More Mosquitos in Colombo

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An outbreak of dengue fever in Sri Lanka has led to 151 deaths and is continuing to spread. To cover up its own responsibility for the erosion of public health care, the government has blamed ordinary people for the epidemic and imposed punitive measures on those who fail to comply with its regulations.  Read more here.

Rational Advice on ‘Carbon Act’ Censored

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ON Friday President Barrack Obama praised the House of Representatives for passing the ‘Clean Energy and Security Act’.  Everyone agrees that it’s far reaching legislation, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made mention of the event as a reason for Australia to hurry-up with its own emissions trading laws.  

The US Environment Protection Agency had one of its employees, Alan Carlin, critique the supporting technical documentation for the legislation.  Mr Carlin’s report advised that the scientific hypothesis on which the draft legislation is based is seriously flawed. He lists its failings as: [Read more…] about Rational Advice on ‘Carbon Act’ Censored

Defining the Sceptics (Part 5)

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ACCORDING to Raymond Harvey: The scientific sceptic, as opposed to the philosophical sceptic, is defined by rational inquiry — someone who investigates with a disposition to be persuaded.

THE Greek word skopein – from which the English word scope derives – means “to observe, aim at, examine.” It is related to the Greek skeptesthai, which means “to look out.” Skepsis and skeptikos are also both Greek and mean “to look; to enquire; to aim.”  Those are the etymological roots of the word sceptic.

Sceptic – or if you’re in the United States, skeptic, the difference purely one of form and not substance – has its origins in the Ancient Greek thinkers who developed arguments which purport to show that knowledge is either impossible (Academic Scepticism) or that there is never sufficient data to tell if knowledge is possible (Pyrrhonian Scepticism).

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