Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Why Aren’t There More Female Libertarians?

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“The thing about freedom is that its heights are limitless, and its lows are bottomless. Libertarians, I presume, look at that void and never consider that they will do anything but rise. And communalists, as the Research Institute dubbed the other end of the spectrum, probably look and are horrified by the many eventualities that could sink them. This is Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature: The strong snap up all the firewood and nuts and berries and whatnot, and the weak die starving and shivering in the cold.”[1]

This extract, from an article in New Republic entitled Why aren’t there more female libertarians, goes on to suggest that young white males can afford to embrace Libertarianism in a way that those more likely to fail in our society cannot.Virginia Postrel

There is a fundamental flaw though, in the argument as presented. The author, Nora Caplan-Bricker, assumes that there are not enough bits of “firewood and nuts and berries and whatnot,” to go around. The author presumably subscribes to the Malthusian catastrophe, etcetera.

In contrast, libertarians fundamentally believe that there is enough to go around, or at least that they will be able to gather enough to meet their basic needs.

Indeed, I’m yet to meet a libertarian concerned that humanity is about to run out of water, or energy.

Libertarians are not even concerned by overpopulation or anthropogenic global warming. Rather, libertarian believe in progress, and to quote Virginia Postrel they believe that today we have greater, wealth, health opportunity and choice than at any time in history.

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1. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115410/why-arent-there-more-female-libertarians

2. http://www.amazon.com/The-FUTURE-AND-ITS-ENEMIES/dp/0684862697

And the picture is of Virginia Postrel.

Against Collective Integration: Carl Jung

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In his review of the book ‘The Undiscovered Self’ by the psychiatrist and philosopher Carl JungCarl Jung, Maxwell Cynn suggests that:

“Dr. Jung noted that whenever individuals are pressed into a group an averaging effect occurs and part of the individual Self is sacrificed in order to fit-in to the norm of the group. We stop thinking in terms of Self and the group becomes our personae. The larger the group the more the individual suffers. He pointed to the Iron Curtain as a physical manifestation and symbol of a psychic schism within mankind.

He also warned that the freedom-loving West was not immune to the psychic infection of the communist Eastern Block, but rather more susceptible because of our free and open-minded societies. The fall of the Iron Curtain in modern times did not symbolize an end to the schism Jung described, but more ominously the acceptance in the West of collective ideals.

Jung’s words ring soundly today in our modern electronic society of larger groups, stronger connections, greater integration, and socio-political correctness. Our nationalism has turned to internationalism and our group has become global. Individualism is under greater assault today than at any point in history–Jung’s words live on in an almost prophetic sense. The Self continues to drown in a sea of collectivism.”

Ive been reading ‘The Undiscovered Self’ on my iPhone via Questia.com.

The Nature of Inclusive Climate Science

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Not so long ago, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, released a report about how it is now hotter, and that there is a 95% chance this has been caused by human activity.

This key finding was from just part 1 of a 3-part report. Part 2, is probably more relevant to those on the land as it will discuss “impacts” including how changes in temperature are likely to affect rainfall. Part 2 is not due for release until March 2014. Red gums flooding

But it is possible to get a sneak peek by reading some of the peer-reviewed papers that will contribute to the second report. According to one of these by a team from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CAWCR, which is a partnership between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, there may be an overall 1.8% decline in rainfall in the Murray Darling Basin [1].

[Read more…] about The Nature of Inclusive Climate Science

Open Thread

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Low tide, not global cooling.

[Photograph taken at Lammermoor Beach, Capricorn coast, recently]Lammermoor Low Tide

Hot Spot – Still Missing

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THE General Circulation Models that underpin the theory of anthropogenic global warming, have, for a very long time, since at least the 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (AR2), predicted that atmospheric warming would be most obvious as an observable hot spot in the troposphere. In particular, the climate models predict an increased greenhouse effect, a hot spot, about 10 kilometres into the atmosphere directly over the tropics. Screen Shot 2013-09-30 at 8.20.04 PM

Measurements from weather balloon radiosondes have found no hot spot. Satellite MSU sensors have found no hot spot.

So, should we toss out global warming theory? Not necessarily.

According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the apparent absence of a hot spot is because of likely errors in all the existing measurements of troposphere temperatures relative to the surface.

Now we have the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Have the errors in the measurements been found?

No comment in this report.

P.S. But no shortage of funds to look for the Hot Spot: according to published reports by the US government, the total Federal funding of climate change activities is greater than US$150 Billion since Fiscal Year 1993.

P.S.S. Image from Bob Carter’s book ‘Taxing Air: Facts & Fallacies about Climate Change’… visit http://www.taxingair.com. Click on the image for a larger/better view.