UN begins to back off the fake AIDS epidemic.

U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic

The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement.

AIDS remains a devastating public health crisis in the most heavily affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. But the far-reaching revisions amount to at least a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long leveled by outside researchers who disputed the U.N. portrayal of an ever-expanding global epidemic.

The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year's estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV -- estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising -- now will be reported as 33 million.

Having millions fewer people with a lethal contagious disease is good news. Some researchers, however, contend that persistent overestimates in the widely quoted U.N. reports have long skewed funding decisions and obscured potential lessons about how to slow the spread of HIV. Critics have also said that U.N. officials overstated the extent of the epidemic to help gather political and financial support for combating AIDS.

"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way."
...
But in its role in tracking the spread of the epidemic and recommending strategies to combat it, UNAIDS has drawn criticism in recent years from Epstein and others who have accused it of being politicized and not scientifically rigorous.

For years, UNAIDS reports have portrayed an epidemic that threatened to burst beyond its epicenter in southern Africa to generate widespread illness and death in other countries. In China alone, one report warned, there would be 10 million infections -- up from 1 million in 2002 -- by the end of the decade.

Piot often wrote personal prefaces to those reports warning of the dangers of inaction, saying in 2006 that "the pandemic and its toll are outstripping the worst predictions."

But by then, several years' worth of newer, more accurate studies already offered substantial evidence that the agency's tools for measuring and predicting the course of the epidemic were flawed.
...
James Chin, a former World Health Organization AIDS expert who has long been critical of UNAIDS, said that even these revisions may not go far enough. He estimated the number of cases worldwide at 25 million.

"If they're coming out with 33 million, they're getting closer. It's a little high, but it's not outrageous anymore," Chin, author of "The AIDS Pandemic: The Collision of Epidemiology With Political Correctness," said from Berkeley, Calif.

The problem has long been that AIDS diagnoses in Africa/Third World have been based on symptoms. Symptoms that are also shared with a disease known as...well, living in the Third World.

I assume yet another "correction" to the "climate change" report and all those other "scientific" studies by the UN will be forthcoming.

Also, we're going to need a new "humanitarian" crisis soon. These other ones have just petered out too quickly.

I assume yet another "correction" to the "climate change" report and all those other "scientific" studies by the UN will be forthcoming.

I disagree. I think the only reason why the AIDS epidemic isn't as widespread as it was expected to be by this point is because of the UN's safe sex campaigns. Let's remember, the projections about the number of suffers of AIDS were made without including effects from those campaigns i mentioned.

To assume it "must only be" because of the UN's "safe sex campaign" ignores two things:
1. AIDS diagnosis in the Third World has been based on symptoms, which as I said are symptoms shared with living in the Third World. None of it was ever based on actual identification of AIDS.
2. The tendency for the UN and other "movements" towards alarmism and hyperbole. Just like the "climate change" cultists and their claim of 30 meter rises in sea level. No one would care to fight AIDS if it was under control, but if "millions are dying" people will buy phones of special colors to "fight AIDS". Just like if minor increases in temperature will lead to longer harvest seasons, affect droughts and help plants grow no one cares, but if New York and London are going to be "swept" away, we need to have a "green week" and turn off the lights in the studio.

isnt the reduction of AIDS meant to be a good thing?

It's not really a reduction...it's more of "it wasn't really as big as we thought it was" kind of thing.

To assume it "must only be" because of the UN's "safe sex campaign" ignores two things:
1. AIDS diagnosis in the Third World has been based on [b]symptoms, which as I said are symptoms shared with living in the Third World. None of it was ever based on actual identification of AIDS.[/b]
2. The tendency for the UN and other "movements" towards alarmism and hyperbole. Just like the "climate change" cultists and their claim of 30 meter rises in sea level. No one would care to fight AIDS if it was under control, but if "millions are dying" people will buy phones of special colors to "fight AIDS". Just like if minor increases in temperature will lead to longer harvest seasons, affect droughts and help plants grow no one cares, but if New York and London are going to be "swept" away, we need to have a "green week" and turn off the lights in the studio.

Better safe than sorry. While I can't argue that some didn't have AIDS, raising money to help these people certainly isn't a bad thing they can use all of the help in the world that we can give them. With the proper help we can transform these countries from third world countries to countries that can support themselves.

Climate change is a totally different story though. There is scientific, concrete proof of climate change. Nobody can deny that because we are all witnesses for example it was 8 degrees (celculous) here in Toronto on new years last year with green grass and buds on the trees. That's not natural. On the contrary to your point about AIDS, these changes aren't based off of speculation or symptoms but concrete proof.

When the money goes to bureaucracy and dictatorships instead of actually helping people, it is not a good system. We should figure out ways to actually help the people instead of funding "world governance". Not requiring them to live up to "First World" standards or imposing such ways on them would be a start.

There is scientific, concrete proof of climate change.

Of gradual warming temperatures, one would expect out of a "Little Ice Age", perhaps, but not of man being the cause of it.

for example it was 8 degrees (celculous) here in Toronto on new years last year with green grass and buds on the trees. That's not natural.

Except, it probably is. You and I may not be use to it, but that does not mean it is not natural. If we had lived here 1000 years ago, we would consider that "climate" to be unusually cold.

Also, as you well know, that anecdote is hardly proof or evidence of anything. The forecast for tommorrow is a high of 1, in 1966 it was 18. I remember a Christmas back in the 90s where it was around 21. Clearly evidence of the "global cooling" that had "scientific, concrete proof" in the 70s and early 80s.

these changes aren't based off of speculation or symptoms but concrete proof.

Ah, but the reasons behind the changes are for the most part entirely based off speculation. Correlation, even poor correlation is not causation.

When the money goes to bureaucracy and dictatorships instead of actually helping people, it is not a good system.

Can't argue that, it's entirely true. But if we can't trust the UN, Red Cross, etc. with our money, who can we trust?

Of gradual warming temperatures, one would expect out of a "Little Ice Age", perhaps, but not of man being the cause of it.

The problem is, we aren't coming out of an ice age

You and I may not be use to it, but that does not mean it is not natural. If we had lived here 1000 years ago, we would consider that "climate" to be unusually cold.

Global warming and cooling is natural, but not to the scale that we are seeing in today's world

Ah, but the reasons behind the changes are for the most part entirely based off speculation. Correlation, even poor correlation is not causation.

I completely disagree. The correlation between the pollutants, such as CO2 we are putting into the enviroment and the changes we are seeing are too much to deny for me or chalk them up to "well it could be wrong, so let's ignore it" mentality. This is the planet we are dealing with and we only have one chance to keep it healthy and one chance to live, better safe than sorry in this situation. Even if it is wrong.

You could win $125,000 to prove it: http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/

The problem is, we aren't coming out of an ice age

Yeah, we are. The "Little Ice Age".

Global warming and cooling is natural, but not to the scale that we are seeing in today's world

Um, there have been far greater changes in the past. Why else were there once vineyards in England? Why else was it once accurately called "Greenland"?

The correlation between the pollutants, such as CO2 we are putting into the enviroment and the changes we are seeing are too much

Correlation is not causation. In Al Gore's "shocking graph" temperature changes predate CO2 changes. In the postwar-1975 era, CO2 increased, but temperatures dropped. During the recession post-1975 CO2 dropped, but temperatures increased.

This is the planet we are dealing with and we only have one chance to keep it healthy and one chance to live, better safe than sorry in this situation. Even if it is wrong.

This is absolutely illogical. We are not more powerful than the planet, which by itself produces something like 98% of all CO2. It has had temperature changes throughout it's history, most larger than today. To suddenly assume the latest one is because we are gods of somesort and therefore we must destroy the western world's economy and keep the third world poor to "do something" is amazingly misguided. Many people reject the "war on terrorism" as something designed to allow some people to impose their agenda, but refuse to be skeptical about "global warming" hysteria.

We should take care to deal with pollution and develop new technologies to benefit humans, not because it harms the planet, which has a lifespan far longer than we ever will have and has numerous natural ways of dealing with our "pollution".

If I chart the number of left handed people in the world and global temperatures, you will find that in the last century both have increased. Should we "limit" left handed people? What about people who believe in "global warming"?

The argument is not "well it could be wrong, so let's ignore it", the argument is "lets make sure we are to blame and know how it is happening before we impose tremendous costs on humanity".

We should take care to deal with pollution and develop new technologies to benefit humans, not because it harms the planet, which has a lifespan far longer than we ever will have and has numerous natural ways of dealing with our "pollution".

So because our planet should live 1000s of years longer than us, that makes it okay to keep polluting it by not altering some facets of our way of life?
I don't think you would admit that we are to blame and can choose to make things better if it was stamped on your forehead...

There are costs to everything. You must weigh the costs and benefits.

The "plan" to fight "climate change" (i.e. rolling back the Industrial Revolution and banning it from where it has yet to happen) would be to the detriment of billions. The benefits would be basically nothing. The costs outweight the benefits by trillionfold.

There are benefits for us to clean up and try to limit pollution, develop new technologies. There is every reason to do these things to benefit ourselves, by having our water clean to drink, to not have garbage lying around our house, etc. The affect on the planet is miniscule, it has methods for dealing with things. We are simply not that important to it.

To believe that man is the entire cause of "climate change" and thus can stop it is borne of the same hubris that put man and Earth at the center of the universe. The "scientific consensus" begrudgingly admits if we rolled back the Industrial Revolution, the Earth would still be warming at the same rate.

"Climate change" is simply not a crisis, and should stop being treated like one. It wastes too many of our resources that could applied to actually doing things to better our lives.

The affect on the planet is miniscule, it has methods for dealing with things.

"Methods for dealing with things"?? I've seen you more thorough and detailed...

The "scientific consensus" begrudgingly admits if we rolled back the Industrial Revolution, the Earth would still be warming at the same rate.

I really haven't seen that. I do agree that mistakes have been made lately, with a few scientists being censored while trying to relativize the climate change effect, which is obviously unacceptable. But overall, there's no denying that the consensus on this phenomenon is completely justified, since it is more than well documented with facts that do not leave any room for doubt: our impact on this planet has been more negative during the last century than anytime before, and since we know exactly what we're doing wrong but we keep doing it anyway, the prospect is pretty grim. The climate would have never ever changed that much if all our industrial progress hadn't affected it so much.

Yes the planet will still be here when you and I are gone, but we do have the repsonsability right now to try to improve what we have control upon.

Yeah, we are. The "Little Ice Age".

Never seen any information on this. Ever. You think if we were it would be more widely known. Unless you can provided some proof of this from creditable sources, it means absolutely nothing.

Um, there have been far greater changes in the past. Why else were there once vineyards in England? Why else was it once accurately called "Greenland"?

You can grow Vineyards in England today if you wanted too, the growing season is just too short for it to be a worthwhile enterprise. Greenland was never actually green, it is named after an ancient Viking story.

Correlation is not causation. In Al Gore's "shocking graph" temperature changes predate CO2 changes. In the postwar-1975 era, CO2 increased, but temperatures dropped. During the recession post-1975 CO2 dropped, but temperatures increased.

CO2 levels flucuate, that can't be denied but is explained by the world's tilt. Seeing as there is more land mass in the northern hemishpere, there is more plant life to absorb the CO2, lowering the emissions. You cannot just compare two years, you have to look at the overall picture, and since the Industrial revolution, CO2 levels have gone well above natural and handleable levels. We are too blame.

This is absolutely illogical. We are not more powerful than the planet, which by itself produces something like 98% of all CO2.

True, but if the CO2 we output suddenly grows from 2% to 5%,10%,etc. that is too much for the planet to deal with and you will see the affects, some of which we are already seeing.

It has had temperature changes throughout it's history, most larger than today. To suddenly assume the latest one is because we are gods of somesort

therefore we must destroy the western world's economy and keep the third world poor to "do something" is amazingly misguided.[/quote]

The problem with today's temperature change is, we are not exiting from an ice age. An ice age lasts 100's if not 1000's of years. To assume that we are having an impact on the earth is 100% true. The earth was not designed to produce the things we are producing today such as cars, factory waste, and other pollution causing toys.

therefore we must destroy the western world's economy and keep the third world poor to "do something" is amazingly misguided.

Nobody is suggesting we blow up the economy. What is being suggested and undertaken is doing the business we are already doing in a more environmentally sensitive way. All that is being asked of people is too limit our pollution output, and really that is not so hard to do. Infact, by doing this, we actually improve the economy, it creates new secotrs, creating new jobs, which allows for more money to be introduced to the economy.

Many people reject the "war on terrorism" as something designed to allow some people to impose their agenda, but refuse to be skeptical about hysteria.

So because there are signs all around us that the enviroment is changing and a almost all (99.9%) research points to humans ans a key contributor we should ignore it? I disagree. Even if it isn't our fault, we should be trying our hardest to maintain the planet as it is because this is our home. If the environment radically changes, we could be out of a home and extinct. As the most advanced lifeform on this planet it is our job to protect it.

We should take care to deal with pollution and develop new technologies to benefit humans, not because it harms the planet, which has a lifespan far longer than we ever will have and has numerous natural ways of dealing with our "pollution".

Damn, you almost had it there. We do have to deal with our pollution and develop new technologies to deal with it. I also agree, we should still be looking at advancing for the greater good of mankind, but we have to balance the two. The technologies that we come out with from here should be environmentally safe. There is no reason with the technology that we already have that we can't produce safe technologies for the planet.

If I chart the number of left handed people in the world and global temperatures, you will find that in the last century both have increased. Should we "limit" left handed people? What about people who believe in "global warming"?

Global warming is caused by the thickening of the atmosphere with CO2 gases, the added CO2 is produced by humans through our pollution. Therefore the global warming, climate change is caused by us. Left handed people have nothing to do with this.

The argument is not "well it could be wrong, so let's ignore it", the argument is "lets make sure we are to blame and know how it is happening before we impose tremendous costs on humanity".

I'm sorry if it's too much to ask of you too turn off your lights or lower the temperature in your house 2 degrees. There is no argument in this case so only thing is "We are the most advanced lifeform, we cause the most pollution, let's correct our mistakes". Nobody is asking us to stop driving completely, too stop technology advancing, all that is being asked is for it too be done in a safe matter for our home planet. So if that means I have to wait 3 more months for a technology to come out so it's safe for the Earth, I'm willing to wait.

Nobody is suggesting we blow up the economy. What is being suggested and undertaken is doing the business we are already doing in a more environmentally sensitive way. All that is being asked of people is too limit our pollution output, and really that is not so hard to do. Infact, by doing this, we actually improve the economy, it creates new secotrs, creating new jobs, which allows for more money to be introduced to the economy.

doesnt getting rid of business and jobs that pollute remove jobs? and "Creating" new jobs merely means to replace jobs? i dont really get this argument point.

Nobody is suggesting we blow up the economy. What is being suggested and undertaken is doing the business we are already doing in a more environmentally sensitive way. All that is being asked of people is too limit our pollution output, and really that is not so hard to do. Infact, by doing this, we actually improve the economy, it creates new secotrs, creating new jobs, which allows for more money to be introduced to the economy.

doesnt getting rid of business and jobs that pollute remove jobs? and "Creating" new jobs merely means to replace jobs? i dont really get this argument point.

No. You don't need to shut down businesses that pollute, you just need to add safety precautions to them. Many factories used to just let any waste out into the air, by installing filters it cleans the dirty air and allows the business to stay in business. The jobs created come from the installation of said precautions such as the filters and other safety equipment.

Nobody is asking us to stop driving completely, too stop technology advancing, all that is being asked is for it too be done in a safe matter for our home planet.
...
Nobody is suggesting we blow up the economy. What is being suggested and undertaken is doing the business we are already doing in a more environmentally sensitive way. All that is being asked of people is too limit our pollution output, and really that is not so hard to do.

Um, maybe you should pay attention to the "climate change" movement?

Never seen any information on this. Ever. You think if we were it would be more widely known. Unless you can provided some proof of this from creditable sources, it means absolutely nothing.

http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8

since the Industrial revolution, CO2 levels have gone well above natural and handleable levels. We are too blame.

Except for, you know, the thousands of years in the past where they were far higher? We must be to blame for that too, despite not existing.

Blah, I can't respond to the rest of that garbage. Especially when things like this are said:

Therefore the global warming, climate change is caused by us. Left handed people have nothing to do with this.

(Note: You missed the point completely. Which was, once again, correlation is not causation.)

Temperature changes more extreme than today have always happened on earth. CO2 level changes also have. Man-made carbon emissions have increased thanks to the Industrial Revolution, but do not even correlate with temperature increases, let alone provide evidence they cause them. As I noted, from postwar to 1975 temperature dropped, during the post-1975 recession temperatures increased...and as just recently announced, temperatures in 2007 have dropped back to 1983 levels from the 1998 high. Despite ever increasing man-made carbon emissions.

If it cannot be proven that man is the entire reason for any so-called "negative" changes, why should it be used as justification to impose the long-awaited authoritarian ideals of these elites. There is greater correlation with solar activity and global temperatures. There are great benefits to warming of the climate. The "debate" is not over, without doubt and contrarian points.

The "climate change"/"global warming" myth has been revealed as a hysteria based on flimsy science and faking presentation of the information (The IPCC is of course, not a body of science, but one of politics), now it's being busted in a more public manner. The problem is, the rulers will never admit they were roped in by the hysteria.

Few people have yet really taken on board the mind-blowing scale of all the "planet-saving" measures to which we are now committed by the European Union.

By 2020 we will have to generate 20 per cent of our electricity from "renewables". At present the figure is four per cent (most of it generated by hydro-electric schemes and methane gas from landfill).

As Whitehall officials privately briefed ministers in August, there is no way Britain can begin to meet such a fanciful target (even if the Government manages to ram through another 30,000 largely useless wind turbines).

Another EU directive commits us to deriving 10 per cent of our transport fuel from "biofuels" by 2020. This would take up pretty well all the farmland we currently use to grow food (at a time when world grain prices have doubled in six months and we are already face a global food shortage).

Then by 2009, thanks to a mad gesture by Mr Blair and his EU colleagues last March, we also face the prospect of a total ban on incandescent light bulbs.

This compulsory switch to low-energy bulbs, apart from condemning us to live in uglier homes under eye-straining light, is in practice completely out of the question, because, according to our Government's own figures, more than half Britain's domestic light fittings cannot take them.

Government rushing into action over "crisis" almost never leads to good things.

As I lamented, it's weird. People will let a video of a rabbit cage in a backyard, and other strange claims in internet videos convince them the governments' story on 9/11 is incorrect. You can't turn around without tripping over someone who believes the "war on terror" or operations in Iraq are part of some sinister motive and that the government isn't telling the truth. But when the government claims we are all sinning and thus will destroy the world with our sins, they believe it without question, declare the debate over, shout down "deniers" and demand the government take away more of their liberty.

Goddamn it, I hate getting roped into this shit because everyone else is too retarded to mount any kind of reasonable rebuttal.

Quick and dirty, cause there's no way in hell I'm devoting more than 5 minutes of my time to this (thank God for Wikipedia):

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) statement adopted by their council in 2003 said:

There is now clear evidence that the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface, averaged over the entire globe, has been increasing in the past 200 years. There is also clear evidence that the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over the same period. In the past decade, significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the climate system and toward improved projections of long-term climate change... Human activities have become a major source of environmental change. Of great urgency are the climate consequences of the increasing atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases... Because greenhouse gases continue to increase, we are, in effect, conducting a global climate experiment, neither planned nor controlled, the results of which may present unprecedented challenges to our wisdom and foresight as well as have significant impacts on our natural and societal systems

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) statement [11] adopted by the society in 2003 affirms that rising levels of greenhouse gases will cause the global surface temperature to be warmer:

Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased since the mid-1700s through fossil fuel burning and changes in land use, with more than 80% of this increase occurring since 1900. Moreover, research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. It is virtually certain that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause global surface climate to be warmer.

The Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics endorsed the AGU statement on human-induced climate change:[12]

The Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics has endorsed a position statement on climate change adopted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Council in December 2003.

The American Astronomical Society has endorsed the AGU statement:[13]

In endorsing the "Human Impacts on Climate" statement, the AAS recognizes the collective expertise of the AGU in scientific subfields central to assessing and understanding global change, and acknowledges the strength of agreement among our AGU colleagues that the global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change.

Forgive the irony, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And just for fun:

With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no scientific bodies of national or international standing are known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

Beni it's not worth doing this over and over again because we are both going to keep disagreeing with each other but if want to keep denying what the scientific community world-wide has been saying, I can't stop you. We are responsible and you don't seem to want to admit it, so continue to pollute the Earth and kill the planet, one day when laws are stronger you will be forced to change and it's people like you that are going to prolong this procedure.

(thank God for Wikipedia)

Wikipedia + Activist politics = This becoming surprisingly accurate.

Goddamn it, I hate getting roped into this shit because everyone else is too retarded to mount any kind of reasonable rebuttal.

And you're a genius, right?

Right.

And you're a genius, right?

Right.

That's what my mom says. But seriously, if you read this thread, it should be pretty obvious that the attempted rebuttal's to benji's claims totally missed the mark. But I admit, I was a bit harsh, and retarded was not the right word to use in that context. I'm sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities.

Wikipedia + Activist politics = This becoming surprisingly accurate.

Oh, snap! That thing is SO SPOT ON! Wouldn't you know it, when I was scrolling through Wikipedia, all I got was child porn. Child porn everywhere! Certainly explains a lot.

OK Benji, you have seriously read too much Michael Crichton.

Oh, snap! That thing is SO SPOT ON! Wouldn't you know it, when I was scrolling through Wikipedia, all I got was child porn. Child porn everywhere! Certainly explains a lot.

What the hell, man? Why can't you argue about anything without insulting everyone? Why am I even posting this knowing I'm going to get yet another snarky, off-topic response? This is like the tenth thread you've ruined doing the same damn thing, talking about how everyone needs to be more like you instead of anything we were discussing before you chimed in.

If you love Wikipedia so much, then surely you must have stumbled across these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sc ... al_warming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming

Are you honestly prepared to tell me that you have irrefutable knowledge of human-caused climate change? It's far from the "done deal" you're presenting it as.

And I seriously can't believe your counter-argument was copying a couple of "statements" from precisely the same alphabet-soup organizations we're criticizing...

And you're a genius, right?

Right.

That's what my mom says. But seriously, if you read this thread, it should be pretty obvious that the attempted rebuttal's to benji's claims totally missed the mark. But I admit, I was a bit harsh, and retarded was not the right word to use in that context. I'm sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities.

If you think I'm offended at anything anyone says to me on a message board then I think you're the retard.