A daily dose of philosophical food for your noodle!		NoodleFood : RSS Feed | via E-mail | Recent Comments | Archives NoodleCast : M4A via iTunes (MP3) | via Feed Reader | via E-mail Diana Hsieh : Rationally Selfish | PhiloFiles | Explore Atlas Shrugged OList Mailing Lists | FIRM | FRO | Secular Government

Monday, October 06, 2008 John Lewis FROST Talk in Denver: A Call to Action By Diana Hsieh @ 12:53 PM If you live in Colorado, I urge you to attend this Front Range Objectivism Supper Talk with Objectivist historian John Lewis. (Notice that an RSVP is required by the 13th.) Speaker: Dr. John Lewis Talk: A Call to Action: Understanding and Defeating the EPA's Plan for Environmental Dictatorship Date: Saturday, October 18, 2008 Time: 6:00 pm social hour (cash bar); 6:30-6:45 FRO Free Books For Teachers Auction; 7:00 pm dinner; 8:00 pm talk Location: West Woods Golf Club, 6655 Quaker Street in Arvada, Colorado Cost: $55.00 per individual, $30.00 for students RSVP by October 13th to Betty Evans via e-mail (betty@frontrangeobjectivism.com) or phone (303.421.7334). Please send your check to FROST c/o Betty Evans, 1140 US Hwy 287 STE 400-283, Broomfield, CO 80020. About "A Call to Action: Understanding and Defeating the EPA's Plan for Environmental Dictatorship" On July 11, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking-the outline of a national plan to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, a "pollutant" according to the U.S. Supreme Court. The EPA admits openly that, under this plan, the entire nation is in non-compliance, and will have to be controlled in minute detail by a maze of bureaucratic rules and procedures. The EPA has invited public comment on this plan, to which the speaker has replied with six reasons to reject these proposals categorically. This talk will consider why non-scientists should reject claims to an imminent global disaster, and why the true disaster facing us is our own self-created political destruction. This is a moral issue, and it is only by affirming a morality proper to man's life that we can preserve and defend our freedom as sovereign moral beings. To learn more before the talk, go to http://www.classicalideals.com/EPA_Ruination.htm. About John Lewis John David Lewis received his PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He is visiting associate professor of political science at Duke University. He has been a senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, and an Anthem Fellow for Objectivist Scholarship. A writer for The Objective Standard, his books are Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens, and Early Greek Lawgivers. If you haven't yet done so, I urge you to speak out on this issue. You can find out how to do so on John Lewis' web site. Here's the e-mail that I sent on Sunday: Dear EPA Administrator -- Re: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318 I am completely opposed to the rules outlined in this Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). These rules are incompatible with a free society: they would grossly violate our rights as Americans to life, liberty, and property. These rules are incompatible with science: carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a gas vital to life. These rules are incompatible with prosperity: business and industry will be strangled by them. Personally, I'm alarmed by the prospect of EPA regulation of the food supply. The government already does enormous harm by promoting demonstrably unhealthy foods -- particularly grains, sugars, and modern vegetable oils -- while doggedly opposing healthy foods like raw milk. More government regulation would only do more damage to the health and happiness of Americans. It would certainly be very bad news for me. Please -- in the name of American values -- reject these rules. -- DMH Diana Hsieh Sedalia, Colorado Labels: Activism, Environmentalism Share |    E-mail Diana Hsieh     PermaLink ()    Comments (New Page)   Subscribe to NoodleFood Blog Posts via Feed Reader   via E-mail Subscribe to NoodleCast Podcasts M4A via iTunes (MP3)   via Feed Reader   via E-mail

Comments
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 13:56:15 mst Comment ID: #1 Name: Patrick Reynolds E-mail: preynol(at)twmi.rr.com While I realize that carbon dioxide is the bubbly in champagne and soda pop, still, it is not beneficial or vital to human life. Too much carbon dioxide in the blood creates a condition called hypercapnia and can result in death. A person's metabolism produces carbon dioxide and the blood carries it to the lungs where it is exhaled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide http://www.ecureme.com/emyhealth/data/Hypercapnia.asp
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 13:59:42 mst Comment ID: #2 Name: Diana Hsieh E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog Patrick: Are you familiar at all with plants? They're the green stuff of the world. They're living, they need CO2, and yes, they're just a wee bit important to human life.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 14:40:20 mst Comment ID: #3 Name: idea Maybe Google can help http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html Project 10100 (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th") is a call for ideas to change the world, in the hope of helping as many people as possible. We have committed $10 million to fund up to five ideas selected by our advisory board.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 15:19:22 mst Comment ID: #4 Name: Patrick Reynolds E-mail: preynol(at)twmi.rr.com Still mad at me I see. No, I haven't forgotten about plants but with the position that man has the right to redo nature to suite his purpose - mainly by building cities and towns and shopping malls - and your position that environmentalists are trying to turn us into their slaves by protecting various parts of nature, I didn't think that plants were all that high on the list of concerns. It doesn't change the fact that I'm right regarding the harmful effects of too much carbon dioxide on humans.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 15:35:40 mst Comment ID: #5 Name: Paul Hsieh E-mail: paul(at)geekpress.com URL: http://www.geekpress.com As is true of many chemical compounds, there are undesirable medical effects from either too little CO2 or too much CO2 in the human body. The same is true of too much sodium (hypernatremia) or too little sodium (hyponatremia). CO2 is no different from sodium or many other compounds in this respect. Having too little carbon dioxide in one's system can cause problems just as having too much. But that is separate from the issue of whether CO2 as created by industrial processes is a problem and if so, is there any role for the government in regulating its output. Similarly, hypernatremia is a medical condition caused by having too much sodium in the blood stream, but that would have no bearing on whether the government should regulate a sodium-producing factory. Likewise, we properly excrete urea and other by-products of metabolism in our urine, and there is a legitimate medical problem if our kidneys failed and urea accumulated in one's blood stream. But that does not imply that any factory that produced urea must be regulated by the government. To go from, "X is a compound that one needs to excrete and would harmful if it accumulated in the human body" to "Therefore factories that produce X must be regulated by the government" is a non sequitur.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 15:44:58 mst Comment ID: #6 Name: Diana Hsieh E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog Yeah Patrick, you irritate me. You've given me no reason to think any better of you than I did a few days ago. In any case, you might wish to actually read what I wrote: "carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a gas vital to life." Did I say that carbon dioxide was necessary to human life? It is, but only indirectly. So your point about its effects on humans if excessive in the bloodstream is completely beside the point. In fact, it's so stupidly beside the point that it's irritating. And if you think that my opposition to environmentalism means that I don't give a damn about other living creatures, then think again. (Or, just think, for a change.) I care about nature insofar as it serves human ends, including recreation and study. For example, I care much more about the well-being my dogs, cats, horses, pastures, gardens, and houseplants than I care about you. They actually contribute something positive to my life. And while I'm so damn irritated, I might as well mention that you're one more strawman away from being banned from these comments. I don't have time for someone so unconcerned with basic fairness in argument as you've shown yourself to be.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 18:06:17 mst Comment ID: #7 Name: IchorFigure If Dr. Lewis' other talks are any indication it's probably worth the price. I've sent my comments in already and I'll probably see if friends or relatives would be interested. Dr. Lewis is also supposed to return to the Barry Farber radio show soon to talk about this. I'm unsure when though.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 20:05:58 mst Comment ID: #8 Name: Richard Watts E-mail: rw1963(at)earthlink.net Patrick, You said, "... carbon dioxide ... is not beneficial or vital to human life." Then when Diana showed in comment #2 that your assertion is false, instead of acknowledging this, you simply switched your argument to "It doesn't change the fact that I'm right regarding the harmful effects of too much carbon dioxide on humans." (And, by the way, so what? "Too much" water also has harmful effects on humans, most of the earth's surface is covered in the stuff, and people drown every day. But water is not a pollutant, and is beneficial and vital to human life.) Carbon dioxide certainly is beneficial and vital to human life. In fact, if carbon dioxide were eliminated from the atmosphere all life on earth would soon die. Further, the chemical process by which humans fuel their bodies with hydrocarbons and oxygen is possible because carbon dioxide is a reaction product of this process. If carbon dioxide did not exist, a human could not use oxygen and would not be able to live for even a few minutes.
	Monday, October 6, 2008 at 20:13:48 mst Comment ID: #9 Name: Richard Watts E-mail: rw1963(at)earthlink.net Bravo, Paul!
Post Your Comment
Name or Handle: E-mail: URL:   Remember Me   Comment:   No HTML is allowed. URLs will be automatically converted into clickable links. Commenters are welcome to clearly state their own views, as well as to criticize opposing views and arguments. Unjust personal attacks are not welcome. The NoodleFood comments are not a general discussion board. Do not post random questions or comments, except on the designated "open threads" posted on Wednesdays and Sundays. To weed out spammers: 5 plus 1 equals 4079895710408250012