sábado, fevereiro 28, 2004

Eco-extremismos

A Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) publicou há dias um relatório apelidado "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking - An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science".

O referido relatório é, no mínimo, bastante crítico para a Administração Bush - como facilmente se deduz do título, aliás - e as conclusões podem resumir-se com razoável rigor na frase "the Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy".

A UCS é a mesma organização que aconselhava desta forma os seus membros sobre a forma como deveriam comportar-se ao serem entrevistados a propósito do denominado aquecimento global, num memorando distribuido em 1997:

"Stay on message. The message is simple [...] global warming is a serious problem [...] we must take action now to fight global warming.
Don’t confuse them with doubt. In other words, don’t talk like a scientist, with caveats and error bars. Emphasize the word consensus.
Don’t talk too much. So practice your soundbites and don’t get trapped into giving the reporter what he is looking for. Set your time limit in advance [...] so that you can terminate the interview before you are in over your head without appearing to be evasive [...] Your main purpose is to advocate, not to educate.
"

Esclarecedor.

Qualquer organização que receba tantos mais e maiores donativos quanto maior o medo que consiga incutir na população em geral tem sempre um íconezinho com um sugestivo título género "support our efforts" nas suas páginas, e a UCS não constitui excepção.

Donate, left-wing eco-extremists, donate!
"In North America the black bear was seen by [Samuel] Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."
Darwin, Charles; "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" (On the origin and transitions of organic beings with peculiar habits and structure)