🚀 go-pugleaf

Daniel Packman wrote:
> In article <Rx2Ad.1636811$SM5.132131@news.easynews.com>,
> Sam Stone  <sirian@mental.org> wrote:
> 
>>Daniel Packman wrote:
>>
>>>In article <hgWzd.1613562$SM5.130726@news.easynews.com>,
>>>Sam Stone  <sirian@mental.org> wrote:
> 
>  
>  
> [....issues of drilling in ANWR...]
> 
> 
>>So you're saying it can delineate a risk and cost structure but not 
>>measure cumulative cost/benefit?
> 
> 
> Yes. 

Good.

> Science can help us measure costs and benefits only to the
> extent they are measurable. We have to decide how much to weigh
> a given environmental cost (eg: X% visibility reduction, Y% loss
> of a species, N dollar decline in tourism) vs costs associated
> with not drilling (eg: Z% decrease in foreign oil dependence for 
> M years).

So it's of limited ethical value then, true?

>>I mean that is the crux of the global warming/pollution dilemma with 
>>fossil fuels vs. alternative energies...
> 
> 
>>The moral and the observable, part and parcel of a stew of probabilities 
>>yet to be successfully modeled in the long range.
> 
> 
> I wouldn't put it as a yes/no successful/unsuccessful problem.
> That denies the value in modeling that gets better each year.

That unseats the pseudo scientists who'd grab the eco-high ground and 
claim fossil fuels to be the root of all warming.

It appears then that science's ethical range is rather limited in scope, 
much as it was when the German ghouls advanced the study of hypothermia 
to later beneficial heights.

Much as we stumble now at the door of creating life in the lab and not 
the womb.