I was visiting a discussion forum in a thread about "our dying rivers" when a fake skeptic tried to derail the discussion. One moment the character is claiming I misunderstood a claim made about Water Rights, the next it's:
"You're dancing about making vague claims with great certainty and dumping on anyone who questions your wisdom.
The idiot bilge"
Where upon my fake skeptic ("f.s.") pal quotes me:
"All American hubris towards our life sustaining biosphere in action."
~ ~ ~
"First honestly understanding what is happening upon our planet,
Then, consider the most cost effective ways to deal with it."
~ ~ ~
"But that isn't what the contrarian community has done..."
Maybe you can start with the curious case of Bjorn Lomborg and the underhanded attacks against him for doing what you suggest contrarians should do but never do. Mark Lynas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lynas
the Green reporter, does the deed here. "That's for all the things you say about the environment that are the complete opposite"
But serious underhanded attacks on Lomborg were committed by academics.
Lomborg's name or claims had never come up in that or any other thread - still suddenly the conversation is supposed to stop discussing the issues causing our rivers to be in such bad shape these days, in order to wrestle with Straw men and Red Herrings.
But then, having a bit of hyper attention syndrome, I'm often up for playing fetch the diversion and I've heard of Lomborg enough that I went off looking for information about him. It was another interesting learning experience and since the chap who made the above comments seems to never read anything I offer, I figure I'll reproduce my response {admittedly, with a little polishing and some additions}. Who knows maybe someone will read it here... besides there are many links to more informed sources regarding Professor Lomborg, his various claims and his flip-flops
