Burton's Law
Can I propose Burton's Law, a variation on Godwin's Law:
As a discussion about climate change grows longer, the probability of stating that China is building a new coal power station every week approaches one.
When used as a defense for not attempting to reduce climate change I'd like to also invoke the sudden death variant, where the discussion is finished immediately.
Posted by jospoortvliet at Mon Aug 13 20:42:10 2007:
Well, imho there are valid reasons to come up with that point, sometimes. For example, if you discussed it like this:
"we've got 1 billion to spend on it. Should we spend it in the Netherlands on cleaning the (already relatively clean) cars, or spend it on replacing the coal power stations in China"
Of course, beautiful in theory, as the latter would reduce the global pollution more. But of course again, in real life, this simply isn't how it works, thus I do agree with your last point: when this is used as an excuse to do nothing, it sucks. And those using that excuse should be punished ;-)
Posted by Karellen at Mon Aug 13 23:19:34 2007:
"we've got 1 billion to spend on it. Should we spend it in the Netherlands on cleaning the (already relatively clean) cars, or spend it on replacing the coal power stations in China"
Of course, beautiful in theory, as the latter would reduce the global pollution more. But of course again, in real life, this simply isn't how it works, thus I do agree with your last point: when this is used as an excuse to do nothing, it sucks. And those using that excuse should be punished ;-)
How about the snowclone of Godwin's Law:
"As any discussion grows longer, the probability of anything you care to think of being mentioned approaches one."
Or, as someone else once put it:
"The only way to violate Godwin's Law is to have an infintely long thread that doesn't mention Nazis."
Posted by iain at Tue Aug 14 00:16:37 2007:
Posted by Robin Munn at Tue Aug 14 06:07:17 2007:
"As any discussion grows longer, the probability of anything you care to think of being mentioned approaches one."
Or, as someone else once put it:
"The only way to violate Godwin's Law is to have an infintely long thread that doesn't mention Nazis."
What about using that in arguments where it's actually relevant?
"The Kyoto protocol ignores China and India. China is building a new coal power plant every week. Therefore, the Kyoto protocol is not effective at reducing global CO2 levels and something else should be looked at."
Now, if it's being mentioned in a different context:
"The sun is the cause of global warming, not CO2. Oh, and BTW, China is building a new coal power plant every week."
If that's the argument the person was making, then mentioning China would be completely irrelevant.
Posted by iain at Tue Aug 14 09:55:28 2007:
"The Kyoto protocol ignores China and India. China is building a new coal power plant every week. Therefore, the Kyoto protocol is not effective at reducing global CO2 levels and something else should be looked at."
Now, if it's being mentioned in a different context:
"The sun is the cause of global warming, not CO2. Oh, and BTW, China is building a new coal power plant every week."
If that's the argument the person was making, then mentioning China would be completely irrelevant.
iain: What, you were going to point out that China builds one coal power plant every week, but it was 10pm, you'd just had a gruelling 3h flight, and you had to turn straight back around and go walk the dog?
Posted by daniels at Tue Aug 14 09:55:54 2007:
Posted by Chris Samuel at Sat Aug 18 23:55:55 2007:
Your law is out of date already. :-)
One a week was true 18 months ago, the last report I saw from the BBC suggested they are now up to two a week now.
If they keep up that rate of increase they'll be building one a day by the end of the decade.
One a week was true 18 months ago, the last report I saw from the BBC suggested they are now up to two a week now.
If they keep up that rate of increase they'll be building one a day by the end of the decade.
