Originally Posted by
BLPOG
Put me firmly in the "let's shut this sucker down" camp.
Now I'm sure I'll be flamed for that opinion, just as I was the last time I expressed it regarding what would normally be a PPB thread (although I was proven right about ten minutes later for that one). Let me offer two reasons in support of my view.
First, this thread is not just a discussion of science, or of the efficacy of certain private actions in their effects on environment or climate.
It's explicitly a public policy thread starting with the first post, as soon as fuse mentioned "[lobbying] your municipal government."
Second is a more general point about the nature of explicitly or borderline-PPB board discussions. Many comments contain embedded assumptions that do not appear "PPB" for one who doesn't challenge them, but for anyone who would - whether on the basis of fact, or opinion/values - the form of the challenge in a reply will appear as being obviously PPB/against forum rules.
As a brief example, let me offer (an abbreviated version of ) a challenge to the "98%" consensus figure that is often cited and misrepresented. The origin of the figure is a pair of papers by John Cook. The 97% figure is a fraud, and you can verify that using his publicly available paper and his publicly available data for the survey responses. It takes about ten minutes do so, and only requires a computer and the ability to do some basic arithmetic. If you want links or page numbers or anything, PM me and I'll reply later.
That is a challenge on a verifiable point of fact, but where do you think the discussion would go from here, if I pursued that point or ones like it? I have to wonder how pre-registered predictions of my views on the subject, colored by that challenge, would compare to my actual views.
This post is the only one I'll make in the thread. I do think the DBR community has interesting things to discuss on the topic, and I think it's possible to have PPB-adjacent threads that are within the rules. I don't think they're adjacent when policy is brought up in the first post.