warm regards, amar.

My comment was a direct response to rhetoric about “the greatest civil rights issue of our time”, the current situation makes it seem that maximizing aggregate wealth (even if you believe that liberalization does that in today’s regime) does not translate to uplifting the poor, and hence can hardly be framed as such. (and this does not translate to a flippant claim that “recessions improve equality”).

Manju, as for Aiyar’s points, they are reasonable issues – both dems and republicans who need to get votes from the corn belt have consistently supported farm subsidies (McCain hasn’t had that issue since he is running from Arizona, and India is not competing for golf courses yet, I guess). However, Vinod’s extrapolation that ensuring human rights is clearly a negative is not necessarily justified, again, given the high disparity in wealth gain between rich and poor.

As for ethanol, Aiyar is dead wrong. The current incarnation McCain has started supporting it ever since he started trying to run as a national candidate in this election (he skipped Iowa in 2000 precisely because he would likely lose due to this issue) – in 2006,2007, and 2008 (as recently as 2 days ago). So there isn’t really anything to distinguish between the two candidates on this issue.

As for removing import barriers, again, this can disproportionately affect the lowest tier of American workers, and without investing in education and skill development, it seems like it could have a negative impact on them. The same is true in developing countries (not that Obama should be held responsible for the Indian govt not doing its job), but removing tarrifs willy-nilly without helping families or communities compensate can lead to devastating effects.

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

You are right folks, Swami Aiyar did not pen that edit in support of creationism. The Times of India did. Strike that one out.

Interesting. Got a link to that?

The danish Ministry of the environment is headed by a friend of Lomborg’s, so no surprises there.

Got a citation for that?

In any case the Consensus is one of those many minor groups that are given to making trivial pronouncements dressed up in profound robes. These groups have become the popular haunt of reactionary washed-outs who can’t bear the rigors of an academic institution – think Heritage foundation, Cato etc.,. Climate science is a scientific discipline, not some philosophical endeavor.

If you don’t agree with your opponents try to trivialise them or call them names, like Climate denier (shades of “Holocaust denier” anyone?) You are right that Climate Science is a scientific discipline and not some philosophical endeavour, and I hope people like Gore would understand that and progress to a cost-benefit analysis of proposals to combat climate change rather than drumming on proposals with tremendous costs to the life of people (especially in the 3rd world) with religious fervour.

You are right folks, Swami Aiyar did not pen that edit in support of creationism. The Times of India did. Strike that one out.

Interesting. Got a link to that?

The danish Ministry of the environment is headed by a friend of Lomborg’s, so no surprises there.

cookiebrown, it can be multi- or poly, ever since the seventeenth century, but the excellent sepia word application insists on a hyphen nohow. Point is, not all poly-multi- names are Tamil– take Mrinalini Oindrilla Devi Chattopodhyay. The problem in this country lies in achieving correct stress realization among the general public, especially where the names are perceived as pseudowords or, speaking really frankly, as pseudonyms.

Well, Rahul…what you did was detach his overarching philosophy from his specific examples and then accuse him of being essentaily an ideologue. The very next lines mention import barriers, subsidising dumped exports, curbing of the outsourcing of services to India, visa curbs and subsequent slowing of dollar remittances back to India.

Now, its true that these specifics are assumed to be good for India, and he does not bother to question that basic assumption, but if you think he’s wrong an those counts you’re free to counter.

Ya don’t think that Obambiden is leading because of the public’s irrationality and gullibility, just as Razib (and Bryan Caplan) says?

No, it’s because the collapse of the financial sector (and possibly the popular response) changed the media narrative on the campaign, generating more space for economic issues and less for identity-based fearmongering. That combined with the candidates’ different responses, the perception of opportunism in the choice of Palin by Mccain who is rightly or wrongly viewed as frightening as president, the overall electoral climate after bush, and a lot of other things. The public’s “irrationality” and “gullibility” have never been in doubt, but I think it was Bob Dylan who said that someone else said that you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time … at least when it comes to unsuccessful warfare, pocketbook issues, and reading people’s behaviors (people are quite good at picking up on liars, lack of warmth, etc. when given a fair chance)