At least one green is worried that Judge Neil Gorsuch, a potential replacement for Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, thinks courts should sometimes be able to rule against the advice of government experts.
Counterpoint: Gorsuch Could Make It Harder to Address Climate Change
Posted to Politics February 18, 2017 by Billy Corriher
Editor’s Note: For an alternative viewpoint, please see: Point: Neil Gorsuch Should be Confirmed to the Supreme Court
Judge Neil Gorsuch was not on President Donald Trump’s first list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Judge Gorsuch did, however, appear on a revised list just weeks after he wrote a controversial manifesto arguing that it should be easier for corporations and individuals suing federal agencies to have courts strike down regulations and overrule decisions by experts at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.
Anyone concerned about the health of our environment should oppose Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, his approach to reviewing regulations suggests that he could vote to limit the EPA’s ability to address climate change. And with the pace of climate change now reaching devastating levels, the planet simply cannot afford another justice who would rule for fossil fuel companies and against the EPA.
At the heart of Judge Gorsuch’s August 2016 manifesto is the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in a case known as Chevron v. NRDC. In Chevron, the Supreme Court ruled that if a federal law is unclear or vague, the courts should not overrule the interpretation by the agency experts that implement the law, unless the agencies clearly got it wrong.
The court’s Chevron ruling was a common-sense approach to judging voluminous, complicated regulations. In practice, this approach means that when the Clean Air Act is unclear, the scientists who decide what level of air pollution could harm human health should get the benefit of the doubt. In other words, judges — whose expertise is in the law, not environmental science or public health — should let agency experts fill in the blanks.
Judge Gorsuch, however, believes that judges like himself should have more power to overrule scientists and policy experts — making it much harder for those who draft regulations to do their jobs. Furthermore, if courts move away from Chevron, some judges might feel pressure to become experts on a range of technical topics, such as air quality regulations, banking fraud and patents. This is an impossible standard for any judge to meet.
…
Read more: http://www.insidesources.com/counterpoint-gorsuch-climate-change/
To their credit Inside Sources have also published an alternative viewpoint, an endorsement of Judge Gorsuch.
I like this judge. In my opinion, excessive deference to government experts is a big part of the reason why climate policy is so messed up. Government experts are human like the rest of us, and as subject to sloppy thinking, incompetence, and just being plain wrong as anyone else. When it comes to a court of law, government representatives should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other party.
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There are striking similarities between the way a court approaches an issue and the way science does – both use testimony amd evidence from various viewpoints in an attempt to get at the truth.
It will be interesting to see how the courts will deal with climate science. There is a precedent with the Bradford Hill causation factors used in medical health rulings on damages from treatments or hazardous work conditions.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/claim-fossil-fuels-cause-global-warming/
The big difference is in the treatment of “expert” testimony. Science takes no regard of the credentials or status of a practitioner, only his evidence and arguments. To the contrary, courts are likely to weigh up the proffered credentials of the opposing experts testifying, as their main method of determining credibility.
For this reason, I generally have little faith in the courts to make defensible decisions on matters of controversial science.
This is emphatically not true in the case of regulations put forward by the Administrative State. In fact, it is nearly the complete opposite. All “fact finding” is done at the agency level in what is referred to with a straight face as “notice and comment rule making.” The agency publishes a notice in the Federal Register. People who care send in their comments. The Agency responds to the comments and presses on. If the rule is appealed, it is appealed on the record made at the agency level. There is never any cross-examination of anybody. The Agency is the plaintiff, judge and jury, and the verdict is always to their liking.
At the appellate level, the Court defers to the agency’s interpretation of law. When it comes to agency scientific determinations, though the Courts apply “super deference.” Effectively, the Court says “we don’t know nothing ’bout no science, so we’re gonna do whatever those civic minded and pure-hearted bureaucrats say, unless it’s arbitrary and capricious.” If there are two conflicting scientific points of view, the Agency can pick the one they like and the Court won’t touch it. The theory of phlogiston would still prevail under this system. In other words, judicial review of agency scientific findings is like Bigfoot – people talk about it, but nobody has ever actually seen it, except in some grainy photographs from the Reagan Administration.
The Agencies know this, and so they frame as much of their agenda as possible as scientific determinations, knowing that doing so makes that position effectively invulnerable to challenge. Under this system, the Agencies have ratcheted up their claims of power and regulatory authority to ridiculous and Leviathan levels – the puddle in your back yard is subject to draconian EPA regulation under the WOTUS rule. Because “science.” See Sackett v. EPA. The only really effective checks are the conscience of the regulators – a joke – and the ballot box. Now that the voters have risen up against their administrative overlords, the regulators are in open and notorious revolt, when they are not tearfully whimpering at the onset of the long dark night of fascism. This will be an extremely bitter conflict for the duration of the Trump Administration. Scott Pruitt has his hands full, as Neil Gorsuch’s mother did in the Reagan Administration.
A Justice Gorsuch will pull this back a little bit, but only barely and incrementally.
Agree completely
Well said.
Say no more — you hit it ‘dead-center’. V. nice comment!
Normal judicial precedent for unclear or vague, especially when big government is pitted against citizens, is a decision for null and void.
Neither judges nor alleged experts should pretend they can interpret a law/regulation’s intent, especially when it negatively affects citizens.
The ‘Willis’ rule that should be operating is, first; Do no harm!
Any evidence of error on the part of an agency makes for “complete do-overs!”.
The old “where there is smoke, there is fire” adage works when evidence of any error or doubt exists.
Except that Sackett won – eventually.
“A Justice Gorsuch will pull this back a little bit” Maybe, just maybe between Gorsuch and Congress the Data Quality Act will receive some teeth.
President Eisenhower warned of 1984 type Government-controlled research; Think AGW: http://www.qando.net/2011/07/03/dwight-eisenhower-a-warning-from-the-past-concerning-science-and-government/
“And with the pace of climate change now reaching devastating levels, . . .”
No devastation in the real world. This is pure propaganda and fear-mongering, which is a very good reason that the EPA should be taken to task for new regulations that are too extreme or illogical.
The EPA holds to the principle that any level of mercury is too much, completely ignoring that mercury is in the environment naturally and that “the toxicity is in the dose.” With the EPA’s approach, their mercury regulations make sea air illegal and their ozone rules make our national parks in violation on a sunny day—plants release ozone.
Do not forget that these regulations are supposed to go to Congress and then voted up or down after it is examined and discussed. Most regulations in recent years from the EPA are illegal.
It was my understanding that the congress up or down vote articulated on descent only vote. In other words if an elected representative did not like/want a particular EPA new regulation, a NO vote would be cast. If 49% No’s were cast, the regulation passed into law. If 51% cast no, the regulation was heard on the floor. All the while 90% of these elected did not know what the regulation did or meant to say. Examination, unfortunately, is done by a small select group in some committee. Committee’s have become special-special Interest lobbyist for or against some Legislative process.
“And with the pace of climate change now reaching devastating levels”
Yes, I had a problem with that statement, too. My question: Where is this devastation happening?
And they assume too much when they claim they know “the pace of climate change”. We can’t even measure human-caused climate change, so how do they measure the difference between a moderate climate change pace and a faster climate change pace? Answer: They don’t, they just pulled that statement out of thin air. Like most of these studies do, it assumes too much, such as that human-caused climate change is happening now. They couldn’t prove it if their lives depended on proving it, but they assume it for their studies. Not the scientific method.
“My question: Where is this devastation happening?”
Like many other things going on these days, the “proof” is the repetition of “news” stories. Absurd.
“Although it takes a trivial amount of effort on the Gish Galloper’s part to make each individual point before skipping on to the next (especially if they cite from a pre-concocted list of Gallop arguments), a refutation of the same Gallop may likely take much longer and require significantly more effort (per the basic principle that it’s always easier to make a mess than to clean it back up again).“
Government input for the last eight years has been mostly based on political agenda than the truth or expertise, especially from rogue agencies like the EPA (which needs to be placed in a straight-jacket or put out of its misery).
“that it should be easier for corporations and individuals suing federal agencies to have courts strike down regulations and overrule decisions by experts at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.”
The leftist progressive judiciary use precisely that approach, although mostly in the social engineering realm.
I cite the most obvious recent travesty relating to President Trump’s immigration pause.
Pity CAGW wasn’t in court then .
What planet are these people on, with “the pace of climate change now reaching devastating levels?” Mars? This is 100% made-up stuff, and the BIGGEST job climate realists have to do now that this can be discussed, is to DEFEAT THE LIBERAL MEME that energy companies etc. WANT to pollute, destroy, impoverish, and “devastate.” We’ve been swallowing this shit for 50 years, ENOUGH already of the lies!
So according to left-liberals, these self-interested capitalist bodies are practicing what amounts to selfless evil? (e.g. We’re gonna destroy the world! [that we’re standing on] )
Riiiiight.
Equality before the law is one of the foundations of civilisation, democracy and modern society. And therefore it seems highly likely that the idea that some are “more equal than others” will lead us nowhere good.
We used to fish 50 years ago in the Animas River in Colorado in summer…it is so sad what has happened has destroyed all life forms in that river.
It will recover, maybe not in our lifetime tho…
Where do you people get your data? even “Trout Unlimited” disagrees. This website deserves better than poorly researched alarmism.
http://coloradotu.org/2015/10/dateline-durango-animas-after-the-spill/
“Lost among the “Orange River” pictures, the apocalyptic commentary with words like disaster, catastrophic, etc., and the hyperbolic ventilating about the impact to the fishery has been the good news: the Animas River has weathered the spill and the fishery through the Town of Durango is doing well.
If you didn’t know to look for very faint traces of iron residue, you wouldn’t even know we had this insulting event in early August. The Animas is back to its usual state of water quality. As to the fishery, there has been no fish mortality documented from the spill, while bug sampling by an aquatic biologist with Mountain Studies Institute indicates a still thriving population of mayfly nymphs and caddis pupa. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) had installed pens of fingerling trout in the Animas before the plume arrived – a canary in a coal mine, if you will. None of those fish died either. In the past few weeks we have seen Baetis, midges and Tricos coming off. CPW ran an electro-shocking episode after the “Spill” with the usual re-capture protocol and got essentially the same results as the year before.”
“Where do you people get your data?”
Out of their back passages?
@ur momisugly Doug,
And if this had been a private company that created the spill that same agency that states it is all well would bemoan the fact that this happened and it will never recover. Color me unimpressed that a government agency is covering for another government agency.
Trout Unlimited is hardly a government agency. If the river were void of “all life forms, they would speak up loud and clear.
“The bottom line is Durango is still a great place to visit and to be your base for fly-fishing outings.
– Buck Skillen, President, Five Rivers Chapter TU
The latest fishing report/forecast from Duranglers:
Except for some rain events the Animas has been fishing very well with solid Trico and midge hatches. Streamers have been effective as well.”
I’ll believe the report. Aquatic ecosystems are remarkably resilient. However, I really doubt the “no fish mortality”. That water was not survivable in its initial concentrations, and I do not believe that we could avoid all fish kills in that.
Government experts are often paid by government in some way or another anyway, so there’s more to this than I’m reading here. Government has spent decades funding only one point of view on the climate change issue, for example, so demanding that government only hear opinions it has already bought and paid for won’t really further anyone’s interests other than whatever government faction has been funding the development of the so-called expertise. So in that light, if someone is suggesting that experts must make their case before the court, and then allow the court to decide based on the strength of the argument and not on whether or not that person is an expert, I’m not really seeing a problem.
As soon as a government makes the assumption that more regulation is not, by definition, a good thing, then the onus of proof must be on those trying to bring in new legislation, to show that it is warranted, beneficial, and not excessively onerous.
For the climate obsessed law, justice, truth and reason are mere road bumps. All that matters is imposing their will on us taking our money and increasing their power.
When you think about the govt keep in mind that the govt has been involved in perpetrating the biggest lies and frauds:
Tom Nelson @tan123 24h24 hours ago
“evidence is emerging that the official climate statistics have been fraudulently altered all over the developed world” https://twitter.com/tan123/status/832928521924272128
Cut *** ALL *** money for politicized science.
No more money for the leftists and their climate deceptions!!!
“Furthermore… some judges might feel pressure to become experts on a range of technical topics, such as air quality regulations…. This is an impossible standard for any judge to meet.”
How hard can it be? After all, the author himself become an expert on climate change: “with the pace of climate change now reaching devastating levels…”.
“Experts” Should Sometimes Lose”
Silly me, I thought that was always a possibility.
No, government experts are infallible ex cathedra. There is no point checking what they do in a court. They can’t err. It is because they’re above the law.
Hold the Green panic over extreme weather folks as there’s a new kid on the block-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/comment-bill-gates-a-new-kind-of-terrorism-could-wipe-out-30-million-people-and-we-are-not-prepared/ar-AAn5gMy
Y2K, CAGW, climate change, extreme weather, coral bleaching, acid oceans, etc are soooooooo yesterdays panic people. Do try and keep up.
Oh noooo!
We’re nowhere near peak computer viruses then???
Remember all the deaths with Y2K? I wouldn’t want to go through that again. I couldn’t get to work for all the heaped up corpses.
Looxury looxury, I was the Y2K corpse at the bottom of all the heaped up corpses.
Here lies the body of the first Y2K victim.
Born 1996
Died 1922
Talking about how incompetent governments are – I was once asked to submit my company’s Y2K policy in a tender I was submitting for a government contract – in 2006!
From the article:
“It’s also true that the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus . . . or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu.”
Gene modifying equipment and procedures are getting cheaper/easier by the week and are almost totally unregulated (sometimes oversight is a good thing). While the non-governmental terrorist segment used to be a big bunch of dummies that were lucky not to blow themselves up, that is also changing by the week, so this point does have some merit.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glowgene/glowgene-create-new-lifeforms-by-mixing-up-dna
It never ceases to amaze me how so many pro-government types naturally assume that all we have to do to protect ourselves against bad guys, is for government to outlaw, or at least heavily regulate the tools used by bad guys.
Just as they believe that enough government regulations will keep guns out of the hands of bad guys.
Government regulations will keep gene-splicing equipment out of the hands of bad guys. Even when those bad guys are also governments.
Al-Qaeda cell killed by Black Death ‘was developing biological weapons’
An al-Qaeda cell killed by the Black Death may have been developing biological weapons when it was infected, it has been reported.
The group of 40 terrorists were reported to have been killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria earlier this month.
It was initially believed that they could have caught the disease through fleas on rats attracted by poor living conditions in their forest hideout.
But there are now claims the cell was developing the disease as a weapon to use against western cities.
Experts said that the group was developing chemical and biological weapons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/algeria/4294664/Al-Qaeda-cell-killed-by-Black-Death-was-developing-biological-weapons.html
Who are the experts and why are they always “shocked”, “Stunned”, “surprised” or “confounded”?
Exactly. If it’s always “worse than we thought” then by definition, the initial “thought” was incorrect. So why trust the revised “thought”? Maybe it will ultimately prove to be “better than we thought”, right? I thought so.
Just look at eggs, butter, wind turbines and public schools.
The experts have the answers, right?
Howsabout we rename it the Endemic Panic Authority and obviously it’ll need a new CEO…ahem?
Is a Judge not supposed to be impartial, listen to both sides of the argument and then make a decision on the facts as he/she has had them presented to him/her?
Or is that too old fashioned?
I guess nowadays it depends on ones party.
That’s so last century. In modern jurisprudence, the judge is supposed to decide what the right answer is, then figure out a way to distort the law and the facts in order to support the predetermined position.
The job of a judge is to rule on points of law, not make scientific assessments.
Whether climate scientists are right or not is irrelevant as far as the Supreme Court is concerned
Agreed, in principle, but when a law or regulation is vague, (and most of the are), it vests to much power in the agency that administrates that field. It’s the Barney Fife syndrome, given half a chance to flex their muscles some mid-to-low-level operative will go after somebody.
Chevron deference is a notion that the government “experts” are more “expert” than anyone else. In my reading Gorsuch’s position is that government experts are not more expert than anyone else, and they need to establish that primacy in the eyes of the judge. The notion of establishing an expert basis for statements made before the court is pretty common when dealing with an expert witness in any legal proceeding, so it is entirely consistent with the court’s responsibility.
– Is it not possible that many points of argument regarding laws and regulations are in the form of “IF” (the science”)/THEN (what action should be taken)?
It is perfectly reasonable in most instances to leave the first part, the science to the experts but have reasonable discussion as to how that finding translates into actionable regulation.
– The obvious exception is when it can be demonstrated to even lay people that the “experts” did not follow an acceptable process in coming up with their conclusion.
Specifically the SCOTUS said EPA was permitted to declare CO2 a pollutant if they determined it so in their perscribed endangerment process. They threw their own “finding and review” processes out the window and essentially said “If the IPCC thinks it’s dangerous, that’s good enough for us.” That in my mind is something that should be subject to litigation. They either followed the correct process or they didn’t.
This is a FAKE issue. Like FAKE news. This issue as absolutely nothing to do with a judge overruling a scientific opinion of a scientist. Nothing, zip, zilch!
The issue is over the authority to make regulations when the law is vague about authority to make regulations. This is 100% a legal issue. Gorsuch wrote something about how what is called the “Chevron deference” is a decision that should be revisited.
Now in sympathy to environmentalists the decision by the Supreme court rejected an environmental corporation’s lawsuit against an agency for making a decision to the benefit of Chevron. (it allowed an existing plant to get permits for new equipment that did not meet standards as long as the total emissions from the plant itself did not increase). There are a lot of cases like this. Recently the EPA has been more likely to be tougher rather than more lenient in those kinds of decisions.
Today more and more the decisions are extending regulatory authority over the regulated in vague situations (like CO2).
What is fascinating about this is the EPA Administrator that allowed the loosening of the noose on Chevron was Neal Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch, EPA administrator under Ronald Reagan.
Further Gorsuch’s reasoning was largely an acknowledgement that this would seem to be squarely in the province of judicial authority. By not hearing these kinds of cases or dismissing them was likely an abdication of judicial authority to interpret the law.
Another twist is that it is likely the “chevron deference” could see a lot of use under the Trump EPA. The Chevron case has been called “regulations made easy” and equally applies to “deregulating made easy” as in the original case.
The anti-Gorsuch people just don’t want Gorsuch because he is a conservative and all this is about is rallying the masses to that cause. Its a FAKE issue because it is not about overruling government experts in science or economics, its about overruling government legal opinions and legal experts regarding their legal authority. Need I say more?
Ah heck why not. One of the links in the above article argues that Gorsuch wants to make it harder for the EPA to address Climate Change. That’s FAKE too. All that would happen if Chevron is reversed would be the court might actually hear the case as to whether the EPA has the authority to regulate CO2 and certainly the Supreme Court is the best equipped to make that decision.
So here we have the anti-Gorsuch crowd doing exactly what they are slamming Trump for doing. . . .again. . . .namely questioning the political view point of judge or appeals court. LOL! Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
If you want to read a good article much better written than mine see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/24/should-chevron-be-reconsidered-a-federal-judge-thinks-so/?utm_term=.764297b0efd7
“So here we have the anti-Gorsuch crowd doing exactly what they are slamming Trump for doing”
If you want to know what a liberal is planning. Look at what he is accusing others of doing.
Exactly! Laws do not have to be scientific, and indeed most are the antithesis of science (feel good is not science).
The point to influence the laws is at the creation, not in the courts.
Correct.
As has recently been proven as per President Trump’s temporary immigration hold. …oh wait!
The government climate “experts” in Australia are extreme warmists – WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
Which is why Greens are panicking that their experts aren’t being listened to. They haven’t worked out that reliable electricity might help getting any message across for starters.
Gorusch seems like a good appointment from Trump. Possibly the most sensible act so far. He seems to be in the mold of Scalia. He will not be afraid to sand up to the president or anyone else to uphold the law and set aside personal preferences.
Experts should be listened to within their area of expertise. Doctors tell us about medicine, but they cannot tell us whether policy should be to promote healthcare over, say computer access. In other words experts must be used to quantify costs and benefits and determine on whom these will fall, but the same experts cannot decide which costs and benefits bundle we prefer.
Simple example, economists can tell us that progressive tax policy is distortionary. Yet we still prefer to bear those costs to promote some form of equality.
So we mus listen to experts but we don’t have to do what they say, as long as we do it with eyes open.
I should have read your post before writing mine. 🙂
Seaice!
the problem is some experts are conmen (refer to asbestos scam; link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/opinion/nocera-the-asbestos-scam.html).
The so-called Chevron Deference has very little to do with deference to an agency’s scientific expertise but with an agency’s legal opinion:
.
See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference.
And, I say calling CO2 a pollutant is extremely “unreasonable”.
Looks like the courts missed a big one there.
The interpretation of a statute often has a scientific basis, (or pseudo scientific basis). Look at EPA Title IX on Noise Abatement and Control. It’s couched in the notion that noise has psychological impacts, (I don’t disagree), but those impacts are equivocal, as is much of the field of psychology. In order to interpret that mandate one must make a “scientific” judgment of the psychological impacts, since the code itself says nothing about the temporal are physical nature, (frequency and dB), of the auditory stimulus. Subsequently, it almost always reduces to the notion of expert opinion in the interpretation of the statute or regulation.
The “experts” convinced the SCOTUS that CO2 was a pollutant. Imagine what a totalitarian state can do with that kind of ruling? Eisenhower saw from the inside just how dangerous “experts” can become, and the threat they pose a free nation.
?ssl=1&w=450
Climate “Science” on Trial; The Prophet Eisenhower Warned Us About Climate Scientists
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/09/climate-science-on-trial-eisenhower-warned-us-about-climate-scientists/
To make matters worse, the “experts” have become corrupted and now have become emboldened to the point where they feel free to manipulate the data to get the “expert” conclusion they desire.
Climate “Science” on Trial; Cherry Picking Locations to Manufacture Warming
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/a-tale-of-two-cities-cherry-picking-locations-to-manufacture-warming/
What the SCOTUS has to do is demand robust research from both sides, from disinterested parties, and from methods like double blind studies that don’t allow the conclusion to be reached in any biased manner. Once again, the SCOTUS was convinced that CO2 is a pollutant. You exhale air that is 40,000 ppm CO2. That makes humans polluters from the day they are born.
No. Mass v. EPA was not about whether CO2 is a pollutant. It was about whether the CAA gave the EPA the power to make such a determination. Because of the circular CAA definition of a pollutant as that which pollutes, the EPA could and did. The CAA needs amendment. SCOTUS cannot fix it.
ristvan
(In all seriousness) why not? They “fixed” the Obamacare law.
Sure looks to this finance guy like the court fixes some things and not others.
Javert Chip February 19, 2017 at 6:59 pm
SCOTUS did not fix Obamacare. They declared the so called “fair share contribution” for not having health insurance a tax. Roberts also stated that only Congress can change a a tax, not SCOTUS. It has been a failure on the part of the Congress to change that tax and no one else.
I doubt that Mr. Gorsuch is a Scalia – that is a fur piece to go. But we may hope. Scalia was a truly devout Catholic, one of his sons is a priest, his faith was foundational to his juridical approach. He did believe fervently in ultimate goodness, ultimate Truth. How he was able to engage his silly opponents as Ginsburg with true friendship was a measure of the man that few could achieve.
Agree Shawn. Gorsuch was whining about how judges are treated. I fear he might be a leftist wolf in sheep’s clothing some what like Rogers who gave us Obamacare originally.
Government experts? Oxymoronic
Following up on the above comment, therefore, it is quite appropriate for a Judge to second guess an agency when it attempts to provide a legal interpretation of a statute that is unclear.
In fact, I would say that is precisely a judge’s job, and that the Chevron Deference was, therefore, wrongly decided.
I wasn’t always of that opinion, but with age and experience, I have come to believe that agencies, no less than than other institutions and (many) individuals, will always try to maximize their reach and/or enforce their biases.
Indur
“…[W]ith age and experience, I have come to believe that agencies, no less than than other institutions and (many) individuals, will always try to maximize their reach and/or enforce their biases.”
You’re kidding, right? This realization actually required “age and experience”? What happened to common sense?
In any event, welcome to the world.
The Left is over about their efforts to “politicize” the SCOTUS by selecting only highly activist judges. What makes anyone think they won’t support the politicization of science and government organizations? The key word in this following quote is government expert.
Once again, Eisenhower warned us about the threat of government paid experts. And he had a front row seat.
Climate “Science” on Trial; The Prophet Eisenhower Warned Us About Climate Scientists
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/09/climate-science-on-trial-eisenhower-warned-us-about-climate-scientists/
The “experts” got DDT banned and countless Sub-Saharan Africans die each year.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/04/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives.html
Government “experts” at work:
The results were horrific:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/04/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives.html
This is a good example. DDT has costs and benefits. It is only experts who can inform us of the magnitude of these. There is great risk in listening only to those experts who quantify the costs and not those that quantify the benefits. The correct response is to listen to both sets of experts and then weigh the costs and benefits to decide policy. The wrong response is to try to trash the experts quantifying cost.
Yep, remember George Washington died because he was treated by the “experts” who used bloodletting to “cure” his sore throat.
On Sep 5, 1984, a whole bunch of experts said it was ok to launch the Discovery shuttle.
Javert Chip – The event you are referring to, was the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster:
http://www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
And the year was 1986. The Columbia was the first shuttle launched, in 1981 – and was subsequently lost during re-entry into our atmosphere in 2003:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster
http://www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaster/videos/engineering-disasters—challenger
Unfortunately, I remember both events, and what I was doing at the time I became aware of them, quite well.
One of my favorite bands have a song commemorating the inaugural launch of Columbia:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-004&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla&p=rush+countdown+video#id=2&vid=0854cc4bc64b2316eddbc7a7ccee9d6b&action=click
Just to get the information straight. And enjoy a musical interlude…
Respectfully,
MCR
You fail to mention bug resistance to ddt due to chronic overuse in agriculture. DDT is bad stuff and in the hands of farmers lost its efficacy anyway, whilst poisoning the environment, birds, fish, humans, the whole food chain. Even today DDT is detected in many people. How anyone can think this is ok is beyond me. More chemical bans need implemented in my opinion. What is the driving force? Health? Noooooh – money/profit/lazyiness, the likes of Monsanto.
Tell that to a mother that list a child to miliaria. A professor used to eat a teaspoon a bay in class to demonstrate how safe it was.
The money/profit Monsanto bit is so silly. DDT is dirt cheap to produce and, judging by its age, the patent expired long ago. Monsanto wants to make money, and they do it by selling their own patented pesticides, not patent-free old chemicals.
Neillusion
So, no cogent refutation of CO2islife’s statement “Since the mid 1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old”; just a smarmy, unsupported ad hominem about Monsanto profits.
I hope you have a clear conscious about those tens of millions…most less than five years old.
The claim that DDT is bad stuff has been refuted over and over again.
As usual the chemophobes refuse to listen.