Saturday, June 16

The President of the Czech Republic is an imbecile. He has drunk from the same well of insanity as Michael Crichton, and has declared environmentalism a threat to democracy.

What? Science isn't a democracy, you don't decide on what a theory should be on the grounds of which one the most people like the sound of. Reality has the only vote, and what is true is what will ultimately win. Scientists shouldn't have to keep their mouths shut to avoid making life difficult to politicians.

His statements against global warming are the same banal drivel that denialists come out with all the time. Global Warming can't be real because it doesn't *feel* real to him.

Yes, global warming is happening. It's not as bad as Al Gore says, true, and may even kill no more people than World War I and II combined, and merely spark a recession as bad as during the 1920s.

As for the idea that we should roll back the industrial revolution - no, we should go forward. Or does he believe that fossil fuels are of effectively infinite supply?

This is a case of market failure. The response of governments should be to promote energy efficiency wherever possible. Adam Smith himself said transport was the responsibility of the government, so the government really has the responsibility to make environmental transport policies - trains rather than lorries, say, and air freight including the environmental costs.

This isn't democracy. Far from it - it's taking the needs of the future population into account. You can't vote if you're not born yet, after all.

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