“The Council of Canadian Academies continues to rehash selected studies to further wind turbine development–and set aside wind turbine complaints as only a nuisance for public-health officials. Dismissing white papers as ‘grey’ and neighbors’ documentation of harm just adds to the number of wind-turbine victims…. Public health studies should not appear to be performed with blind eyes and deaf ears.”
This question was posed by the Council of Canadian Academies (CAA): Is there evidence to support a causal association between exposure to wind turbine noise and the development of adverse health effects? The answer given was that only personal attitude and annoyance resulted for those in direct proximity to wind turbines.
However, real people and real studies have been ignored to reach this conclusion.
The CCA supports the status quo for wind turbines by failing to recognize that wind turbines operating in quiet rural communities produce the most significant adverse health effects. …
Continue Reading“Many of the writers about ‘peak oil’ have moved on to ‘peak everything’ (Richard Heinberg) and ‘peak food’ (Paul Roberts). They apply the same flawed model that treats resources as static and ignores investment and innovation. This is especially telling since the model has failed so abysmally in the case of food and famine, as the record of Paul Ehrlich and his followers has shown.”
In his excellent book, Future Babble, Dan Gardner demonstrates empirically that the neo-Malthusians who have plagued us for the past half century have not only been egregiously wrong in their predictions; they have tended to insist that they were, in fact, correct, all contrary evidence notwithstanding. They accomplish this primarily by selective memory, such as greatly understating their original claims, or treating minor, regular difficulties (such as local famines) as confirmation of their apocalyptic visions.…
Continue Reading“New improvements promise to make the website even more interesting and useful. Dozens of new datasets have been added and existing datasets updated. Also, the website is now “responsive” and may be viewed and used more easily on mobile devices, such as iPhones, Androids and iPads. Moreover, the website is now optimized for all major browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Explorer.”
Evidence from academic institutions and international organizations shows dramatic improvements in human well-being. These improvements are especially striking in the developing world.
Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between the reality and public perception, including that of many policymakers, scholars in unrelated fields, and intelligent lay persons. To make matters worse, the media emphasizes bad news, while ignoring many positive long-term trends.
HumanProgress.org, a Cato Institute project with funding from the Searle and Templeton foundations, intends to correct misperceptions regarding the state of humanity through the presentation of empirical data that focuses on long-term developments.…
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