Keith uses the foot&mouth epidemic to make the point that ignoring the
advice of "eminent experts" leads to desaster, and he draws an analogy
to Kyoto. However, both the FMD background and analogy is wrong:
The gov't decision to not use vaccinations was NOT based on veterinarian
or health considerations, but on the wish to continue animal exports.
(Vaccinations can suppress the disease but don't establish "disease-free"
status of the country.)
So the situation was not one of conflicting expert advice in the same field
(as you say is the case in the climate debate), but simply a case of
economic considerations overruling scientific advice and precautions.
Actually, the foot&mouth desaster can be used *in favour* of fast
climate action: Desaster results if short-sighted economic greed
is placed before scientific advice. As Dubya is doing with Kyoto...
> I haven't been saying that we should take no action on the IPCC report
> and the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that a worse catastrophe is likely.
Why then did you mention the super-volcano at all ?
Chris
