by James Marusek
(I would like to thank Mr. James Marusek for sending this to me and allowing me to publish it. Jim is retired from the U.S. Department of the Navy, a Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. He is also the publisher of a fascinating web site that is really worth exploring, IMPACT. You may wish to read the articles in the following link The Legacy of the Environmental Movement, which you will find to be extremely well done. RK)
There is a lot of talk these days about the legacy we will leave our children and our grandchildren. When I stare into the immediate future, I see a frightening legacy caked in darkness and famine. Instead of intelligently preparing, we find ourselves whittling away this precious time chasing fraudulent theories. We have a decade to prepare, but have a misguided sense of direction and urgency.
Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars. Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system. As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature. These periods of quiet sun are referred to as a Grand Minima. The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) are examples.
During a Grand Minima the Earth begins to slowly cool. The start of the planting season is delayed and in the fall early frost limits the harvest. Earth’s abundant bounty is put on hold and starvation takes its ghastly grip. Historian, John D. Post, referred to the last Grand Minima, the Dalton Minimum, as the “last great subsistence crisis in the Western world”. With the cold came massive crop failures, food riots, famine and disease.
Several scientists including David Hathaway (NASA), William Livingston & Matthew Penn (National Solar Observatory), and Khabibullo Abdusamatov (Russian Academy of Science) have forecasted that the sun may enter a Grand Minima a decade from now in Solar Cycle 25. A few scientists including David C. Archibald (Australia) and M. A. Clilverd (Britain) have warned this might even begin in Solar Cycle 24. We are at the transition into Solar Cycle 24 and this cycle has already shown itself to be unusually quiet. The number of spotless days (days without sunspots) during this solar minimum appears to be tracking 3 times the typical number observed during the last century (Solar Cycles 16-23).
There are some in the U.S. that urge us to follow Europe’s lead. On January 13, 2009, the European Parliament adopted a regulation dramatically restricting the number of pesticides allowed. This move is based on the precautionary principle and on junk science. According to Dr. Colin Ruscoe, chairman of the British Crop Production Council, "If farmers are forced to stop using certain products, crop yields would halve. There would be such huge losses in the yields of potatoes, carrots, peas and parsnips that it would become uneconomical to farm them." Is this the kind of lead we should be following? Europe is also leading in another area - in its opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops. In Europe, environmentalist have driven fear into the hearts of their citizens by labeling GM food as “Frankenfood”. In our country, we have been using GM crops for almost two decades without any ill effects. GM crops hold the promise of helping us survive the next Grand Minima by offering crops that can grow under extreme weather conditions. North American is currently a leader in this technology. Should we follow Europe’s lead and ban GM crops? And in ten years from now when the next solar cycle begins, if the sun goes quiet, who will comfort the starving children who cry out in the middle of the night for a small piece of bread? These will be our children. So what legacy will we leave behind?
_____________________________________
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Some Resemblance to Reality
by Rich Kozlovich
Science fiction writers are an interesting lot. They do seem to have an innate ability to see farther into the future than most. They can take seemingly innocuous trends and extend the potential effects of these trends beyond the horizon. Forty some years ago I read a science fiction short story that dealt with the concept of risk mitigation.
As the story went, there was some scientist on another planet who created robots whose sole purpose was to keep people safe. Although this scientist's motives were of the highest order, his creation got away from him. Naturally, these robots had difficulty determining what exactly "safe" meant, and interpreted their programming far beyond anything he had intended or wanted. They extended risk mitigation to a computers logical extreme and stifled all activity.
They increased in number and eventually discovered the Earth. They started out quietly by creating an automobile that was called (if I remember this correctly) the Everlasting Car. Safe, efficient, cost effective wouldn’t rust (that was a big deal in the 50’s and 60’s), and they were, most importantly, very inexpensive. Soon they put all other car companies out of business. This gave them enormous capital and credibility and they soon took over more and more of mankind’s responsibilities.
There was to be no war, no dangerous jobs and no risk to mankind of any kind. Naturally everyone thought this was a great idea. Everyone was to be safe! Except that the robots would be the ones to determine what constituted "safe". Since these were robots with computer brains, “safe” became extreme, and now this “great idea” wasn’t so great anymore….but it was too late. They now controlled every aspect of human life.
The state of New York has banned total release aerosol cans because some idiots blew up their houses with them. I am sorry that people do stupid things….it is unfortunately part of what it means to be human. It is unfortunate that homes have been destroyed and extremely unfortunate when someone is hurt. I have to ask though; over the whole of this country; in how many houses has this happened over the last 60 years? I would bet that the number is remarkably low compared to the number of aerosol cans sold.
Although I have used them I've never been a big fan of total release aerosols, but when these products are removed from the market, “for our own good”, are we not now depriving responsible people of the ability to control pests in their homes. Are they all that effective? I don’t think so, but they do have their place and people should have the choice and option to use them or not as they please.
Risks are definable and there are charts that list risks. Approximately fifty thousand people are killed on the nation’s highways every year. Between ten and fifteen thousand children are hurt by lawn mowers each and every year. Each and every year approximately three million adolescents will contract a sexually transmitted disease and thousands drown every year. These are very high on the risk charts and yet we find it necessary to ban total release aerosol cans.
Our view of risk has been molded by misinformation through a corrupt media. We worry unendingly about theoretical risks regarding genetically modified foods, food additives, hormones in milk, electromagnetic radiation, fluoride and chlorine in our water and most importantly, pesticide residues on our fruits and vegetables. These have been shown to be extremely low on the risk charts.
Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. In reality we live longer, healthier and more satisfied fulfilling lives than ever in human history. In 1945 the world’s population amounted to two billion people, and it took thousands of years to attain that number. During the time when modern chemistry came into its own, mankind’s numbers grew at an unprecedented rate, with people living longer to boot. The greenies constantly spew out all forms of claptrap about how dangerous chemicals and modern living are; and yet if all that they claim was true; do we really believe that we would have increased the world’s population to over six billion in less than 75 years?
Make no mistake about this. The patterns of history will repeat over and over again. Starting with the Progressive movement of Teddy Roosevelt, which laid the ground work for Woodrow Wilson's (whom historians call the first Fascist president)massive government programs, which was the basis for FDR’s New Deal (same people and programs as Wilson’s with different names), to Nixon’s massive regulatory factories at EPA, OSHA, and the Wildlife Service enforcing the Endangered Species Act, we see that very same extreme computer like mentality. We know best! Only we can protect you from yourself! Perhaps they really are from another planet.
We need to stop emoting and start thinking. That starts by reading something besides the lava flow of misinformation put out by the EPA and the green movement. I would like to recommend the book "Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals", by the American Council on Science and Health.
_____________________________________
Science fiction writers are an interesting lot. They do seem to have an innate ability to see farther into the future than most. They can take seemingly innocuous trends and extend the potential effects of these trends beyond the horizon. Forty some years ago I read a science fiction short story that dealt with the concept of risk mitigation.
As the story went, there was some scientist on another planet who created robots whose sole purpose was to keep people safe. Although this scientist's motives were of the highest order, his creation got away from him. Naturally, these robots had difficulty determining what exactly "safe" meant, and interpreted their programming far beyond anything he had intended or wanted. They extended risk mitigation to a computers logical extreme and stifled all activity.
They increased in number and eventually discovered the Earth. They started out quietly by creating an automobile that was called (if I remember this correctly) the Everlasting Car. Safe, efficient, cost effective wouldn’t rust (that was a big deal in the 50’s and 60’s), and they were, most importantly, very inexpensive. Soon they put all other car companies out of business. This gave them enormous capital and credibility and they soon took over more and more of mankind’s responsibilities.
There was to be no war, no dangerous jobs and no risk to mankind of any kind. Naturally everyone thought this was a great idea. Everyone was to be safe! Except that the robots would be the ones to determine what constituted "safe". Since these were robots with computer brains, “safe” became extreme, and now this “great idea” wasn’t so great anymore….but it was too late. They now controlled every aspect of human life.
The state of New York has banned total release aerosol cans because some idiots blew up their houses with them. I am sorry that people do stupid things….it is unfortunately part of what it means to be human. It is unfortunate that homes have been destroyed and extremely unfortunate when someone is hurt. I have to ask though; over the whole of this country; in how many houses has this happened over the last 60 years? I would bet that the number is remarkably low compared to the number of aerosol cans sold.
Although I have used them I've never been a big fan of total release aerosols, but when these products are removed from the market, “for our own good”, are we not now depriving responsible people of the ability to control pests in their homes. Are they all that effective? I don’t think so, but they do have their place and people should have the choice and option to use them or not as they please.
Risks are definable and there are charts that list risks. Approximately fifty thousand people are killed on the nation’s highways every year. Between ten and fifteen thousand children are hurt by lawn mowers each and every year. Each and every year approximately three million adolescents will contract a sexually transmitted disease and thousands drown every year. These are very high on the risk charts and yet we find it necessary to ban total release aerosol cans.
Our view of risk has been molded by misinformation through a corrupt media. We worry unendingly about theoretical risks regarding genetically modified foods, food additives, hormones in milk, electromagnetic radiation, fluoride and chlorine in our water and most importantly, pesticide residues on our fruits and vegetables. These have been shown to be extremely low on the risk charts.
Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. In reality we live longer, healthier and more satisfied fulfilling lives than ever in human history. In 1945 the world’s population amounted to two billion people, and it took thousands of years to attain that number. During the time when modern chemistry came into its own, mankind’s numbers grew at an unprecedented rate, with people living longer to boot. The greenies constantly spew out all forms of claptrap about how dangerous chemicals and modern living are; and yet if all that they claim was true; do we really believe that we would have increased the world’s population to over six billion in less than 75 years?
Make no mistake about this. The patterns of history will repeat over and over again. Starting with the Progressive movement of Teddy Roosevelt, which laid the ground work for Woodrow Wilson's (whom historians call the first Fascist president)massive government programs, which was the basis for FDR’s New Deal (same people and programs as Wilson’s with different names), to Nixon’s massive regulatory factories at EPA, OSHA, and the Wildlife Service enforcing the Endangered Species Act, we see that very same extreme computer like mentality. We know best! Only we can protect you from yourself! Perhaps they really are from another planet.
We need to stop emoting and start thinking. That starts by reading something besides the lava flow of misinformation put out by the EPA and the green movement. I would like to recommend the book "Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals", by the American Council on Science and Health.
_____________________________________
Saturday, January 24, 2009
"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."
By Rich Kozlovich
We are an industry that is beset with an overwhelming need for regulations. How did all of this come about? It is bad enough when government bureaucrats make all sorts of demands, but now we are hiring our own bureaucrats to create regulations that will eventually be more egregious than the governments. Recently I commented on Frank Andorka’s blog “One More Thing”, (which I have added to my blog role) regarding these organizations that are setting up standards for companies to become “green” certified. I would like to share those comments with some additions.
We need to go back to 1933. “In May and June of 1933 the Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration as a key measure in a program of national recovery from the depression. NRA demanded that business, though its trade associations, establish codes of fair trade practices which had provisions for minimum wages, determine the number of hours per week an employee could work, insure fair prices for and industry and prevent “unfair” competition within an industry.” (It might be noted that economists now believe that this, along with other such programs extended and worsened the Great Depression)
“The belief was that if an industry couldn’t produce a code acceptable to the NRA administrators that they would impose one of their own.” SCOTUS found this to be unconstitutional two years later. However, the “Trade Associations Industry” as we know it today was created.
“Some believe that the short-lived NRA proved to be a blessing for the pest control industry, because it fostered a national organization which led a mixed assortment of rat catchers and exterminators from novitiate to professional status in a relative short span of years.” This was true, but all of our trade associations (not just pest control) are designed to be handmaidens of government compromise and a easy and efficient way for those with agendas to implement regulations that could never have passed muster if they had been submitted to a vote.
“The Federal Register, which lists all new regulations, reached an all-time high of 78,090 in 2007, up from 64,438 in 2001.” I have some questions.
Those 78,090 pages only cover federal regulations. That doesn’t even begin to cover local and state regulations. The last figure that I read was about 10 years ago which stated that all of these regulations cost each family in America between 10and 15 thousand dollars a year. Do we really believe that cost is worth it?
Let us not lose sight of reality….regulations are a way around Constitutional protections for those with an agenda. The Fourth Amendment says that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Fifth Amendment says among other things that, “No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Yet we are forced to allow regulators to enter our businesses and search through the building (inspect) and go through our records (inspect) to see if we have committed some technical violation. Can anyone explain to me how calling a “search” an “inspection” changes the Constitutional standard? No policeman or investigator in the country can do that without a warrant.
To be Green is to be irrational and misanthropic! This leads me to ask some questions.
We are an industry that is beset with an overwhelming need for regulations. How did all of this come about? It is bad enough when government bureaucrats make all sorts of demands, but now we are hiring our own bureaucrats to create regulations that will eventually be more egregious than the governments. Recently I commented on Frank Andorka’s blog “One More Thing”, (which I have added to my blog role) regarding these organizations that are setting up standards for companies to become “green” certified. I would like to share those comments with some additions.
We need to go back to 1933. “In May and June of 1933 the Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration as a key measure in a program of national recovery from the depression. NRA demanded that business, though its trade associations, establish codes of fair trade practices which had provisions for minimum wages, determine the number of hours per week an employee could work, insure fair prices for and industry and prevent “unfair” competition within an industry.” (It might be noted that economists now believe that this, along with other such programs extended and worsened the Great Depression)
“The belief was that if an industry couldn’t produce a code acceptable to the NRA administrators that they would impose one of their own.” SCOTUS found this to be unconstitutional two years later. However, the “Trade Associations Industry” as we know it today was created.
“Some believe that the short-lived NRA proved to be a blessing for the pest control industry, because it fostered a national organization which led a mixed assortment of rat catchers and exterminators from novitiate to professional status in a relative short span of years.” This was true, but all of our trade associations (not just pest control) are designed to be handmaidens of government compromise and a easy and efficient way for those with agendas to implement regulations that could never have passed muster if they had been submitted to a vote.
“The Federal Register, which lists all new regulations, reached an all-time high of 78,090 in 2007, up from 64,438 in 2001.” I have some questions.
• Does anyone really believe that government regulators believe there are too many regulations?
• Does anyone believe that no more will be passed?
• Does anyone believe that some should be eliminated?
• Why then do we need to impose our own regulations on ourselves?
• Would someone tell me what regulations are not already covered under Common Law?
• If they are already covered under Common Law, why then is it necessary to have so many?
• Why do they keep increasing?
Those 78,090 pages only cover federal regulations. That doesn’t even begin to cover local and state regulations. The last figure that I read was about 10 years ago which stated that all of these regulations cost each family in America between 10and 15 thousand dollars a year. Do we really believe that cost is worth it?
Let us not lose sight of reality….regulations are a way around Constitutional protections for those with an agenda. The Fourth Amendment says that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Fifth Amendment says among other things that, “No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Yet we are forced to allow regulators to enter our businesses and search through the building (inspect) and go through our records (inspect) to see if we have committed some technical violation. Can anyone explain to me how calling a “search” an “inspection” changes the Constitutional standard? No policeman or investigator in the country can do that without a warrant.
To be Green is to be irrational and misanthropic! This leads me to ask some questions.
Question - Why do we keep failing to realize that there is no way to appease the greenies?
Answer –It is either a matter of complacency, or because of incredible short sightedness and we keep thinking that we can benefit from this stuff.
Question - Why do we want to be green?
Answer – It isn’t just because we have been misled, which we have; it’s because if feels good! We get to go along to get along. We get to be lauded and praised for being on a higher moral plane than our peers.
Question – Is it a failure of information?
Answer - Not for those who have been reading more than just the newspaper. The amount of information on any given subject today is almost staggering. There is no excuse for not knowing all sides of a subject. Everything we are told, everything we see on the news, everything we read in the newspaper or on the internet should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality.
Question - Is it a failure of intelligence?
Answer – Yes and no. Some just can’t grasp what is really happening. Others refuse to grasp what is happening. Those who do grasp the entirety of it all are either appeasers or adversaries.
Question - Is it a failure of courage?
Answer - _____________________________Fill in the blank.
Setting up outside non-governmental organizations who will sit back and determine whether we meet some sort of arbitrary standard for “green” (or anything else for that matter) is an invitation for more and more intrusive behavior and demands to jump through unnecessary hoops to appease these private “for hire” bureaucrats. Eventually each will, in order to appease the greenies, compete to see who can be the most oppressive in their demands. Once certified, you will have to keep making changes to maintain that certification. That is what regulators do. Whether they work for the government or they are “regulations for hire” regulators. They create regulations…because if they don’t….they aren’t necessary and they would have to go out and get a real job.
This is a Paraphrased quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero (who didn't really say this by the way) (106-43 BC):
“An industry can survive those who are foolish and careless. It can survive the overly ambitious, but it cannot survive those who attack an industry and what it stands for from within. The activists are more to be desired because they present themselves as the enemy at the gate. Although they may use deceit and cunning they are known because they carry their banner openly.
No matter how formidable they may be they cannot be as serious a threat as those who wear the garments, speak the language and share the customs of those within an organization while secretly working that which is harmful. They rot the heart of an industry, undermine the pillars of support and infect the industry with their treason to the point that those who see clearly and understand what is really going on are left standing alone.
That industry will no longer be able to resist those who would destroy it. Can any crime be feared more?”
When we adopt these programs, whether it is through a private “non-profit” group or through some government agency, or through our trade associations we are just like the Trojans dragging the horse into their city. We become enablers to those who would destroy us.
______________________________________
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
In Defense of Science -
(I would like to thank Mr. Roy Tucker for his permission to publish his commentns. Mr Tucker was a member of the Memphis Astronomical Society, received a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Memphis State University (now The University of Memphis). He received his Master's degree in Scientific Instrumentation from The University of California, Santa Barbara and a was graduate student for three years in Planetary Sciences at The University of Arizona. RK)
by Roy Tucker
It has been my experience that serious discussions should be preceded by definitions of important words that will be used in those discussions so that all of the participants will be using those words with a common understanding of their meanings. I have found that many disagreements have originated from people using the same words but with differentunderstandings of their meaning.
Science
Definition from the Random House College Dictionary - "Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world". This word is derived from the Latin, "scio scire scivi or scii scitum, to know, understand" (Cassell's Latin Dictionary). The most successful acquisition of this knowledge has been through the application of the Scientific Method. Generally, this method consists of the following steps:
(1) Observation of a natural phenomenon.
(2) Clear statement of a hypothesis that may perhaps explain that
phenomenon.
(3) Development of a test to disprove or falsify predictions based upon that
hypothesis.
(4) If the hypothesis is disproven, go back to step one or two. If repeated
efforts to disprove a hypothesis fail, then it may possibly be correct.
A hypothesis that stubbornly refuses to be disproven may even be dignified by calling it a "theory". To assert that anything is a "fact" or "proven" is very risky. Consider the example of Newton's "Laws of Motion". Repeated experiment and successful use of these "laws" in mechanics and the description of the motion of celestial bodies gave physicists, engineers, and artillerymen great confidence that the velocity of a body was a simple function of the force applied to it and the duration of that force. Newton's laws became accepted as a proven fact. That is, until Einstein began to ponder what happens as the body's velocity began to approach the speed of light. According to his 'hypothesis', it is the momentum of an object that increases as long as a force is applied to it. Newton's Laws are but the low-speed approximations of Einstein's relativistic expressions. Is Einstein's Theory of Relativity a fact? Is it proven? Not if some experiment in the future falsifies it and leads to an even better understanding of how the universe works.
My education has been in science and engineering. I have a great reverence for the Scientific Method because I know the history of how humanity has laboriously, painfully gained the body of knowledge upon which our civilization is founded. The Scientific Method has been our most powerful tool in learning how the universe works. There is one very important thing required of those who would seek knowledge by means of the Scientific Method and that is honesty. If one cannot report the results of observation accurately, how can ignorance be dispelled? How can a hypothesis be falsified?
Climate science has become politicized. People who profess to be practitioners of science are using the authority of their offices to assert that "the debate is over" and "the science is settled" when it never is in the proper conduct of Science. People who claim to be educators of the public dismiss inconvenient facts and propagandize in support of the "politically correct" dogma.
In the January 16th CCNet, Dr. David Appell, who describes himself as a "science writer", suggested that readers of CCNet might find his article, "Climate change: The last, final problem", of interest. Indeed I did. I consider it an excellent example of the environmentalist propaganda pervading the media these days that seeks to persuade scientifically unsophisticated readers that anthropogenic global warming is absolutely a fact and we must all sacrifice our hopes and dreams to "save the planet" from a hellish future. It was quite a remarkable screed, a recounting of all of humanity's alleged environmental sins, totally devoid of any real discussion of scientific issues or comparison of competing explanations of climate variability. This is a continuing pattern since Dr. Appell has also written in defense of the thoroughly discredited Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" temperature curve and has claimed that the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age were localized events.
Let us compare two of the current competing explanations of climate variability: Anthropogenic Global Warming as the result of human combustion of fossil fuels and the Svensmark hypothesis that suggests solar activity and the galactic cosmic ray environment modulates cloud formation in the lower atmosphere and therefore the earth's albedo. "In astronomy albedo is the ratio of the light reflected by a planet or satellite to that received by it. Editor"
In its early documents, the IPCC asserted that solar activity is of no significance in determining earth's climate and has concentrated on claiming that increasing levels of CO2 raise the temperature of the earth by reducing the radiation of thermal infrared energy. Computer models have been concocted that supposedly support this hypothesis. These computer models are tremendously simplistic compared to the complexity of the actual climate system of the earth. They do not reproduce some of the very robust oscillatory variations of the earth's climate such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the El Nino - Southern Oscillation. If they are run backwards, they fail to accurately reproduce past climate states. They predict a warming of the equatorial mid-troposphere but such warming is not seen. Those who argue in favor of the AGW hypothesis use the output of these models as if it was real data and ignore the actual measurements from satellite microwave radiometers which show no warming at all in spite of the increasing abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Svensmark's hypothesis
says that as solar activity declines the interplanetary magnetic field weakens and galactic cosmic rays penetrate more deeply into the inner solar system and eventually into the lower atmosphere of earth where they produce cloud-seeding ions. These ions promote a greater abundance of clouds, raising the earth's reflectivity and reducing the warming of the surface of the earth by sunlight. Solar activity has been falling in recent years. Today, the 19th of January, a small sunspot was seen near the sun's equator, an indication that it may be a remnant of the old Cycle 23. If so, then Cycle 23 is 19 years old. Long cycles precede weak cycles, suggesting continued low solar activity. The interplanetary magnetic Ap index is the lowest that it has been in many years and the neutron count from cosmic rays has increased as expected. The earth's temperature has been either steady or declining for the past eight years. Based upon the data, there is more falsification of the AGW hypothesis than of the Svensmark solar activity hypothesis.
Dr. Appell, the above is an example of real "science writing". I have presented an explanation of the Scientific Method and I have presented information about two conflicting hypotheses in an effort to educate the readers so that they may make better decisions. Any presentation of "Gloom-and-Doom" has been with regard to the politicization of Science and is indisputably a valid concern. I encourage you to return to the practice of science writing instead of environmental propagandizing. You would better serve your readers.
It has been my experience that serious discussions should be preceded by definitions of important words that will be used in those discussions so that all of the participants will be using those words with a common understanding of their meanings. I have found that many disagreements have originated from people using the same words but with differentunderstandings of their meaning.
Science
Definition from the Random House College Dictionary - "Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world". This word is derived from the Latin, "scio scire scivi or scii scitum, to know, understand" (Cassell's Latin Dictionary). The most successful acquisition of this knowledge has been through the application of the Scientific Method. Generally, this method consists of the following steps:
(1) Observation of a natural phenomenon.
(2) Clear statement of a hypothesis that may perhaps explain that
phenomenon.
(3) Development of a test to disprove or falsify predictions based upon that
hypothesis.
(4) If the hypothesis is disproven, go back to step one or two. If repeated
efforts to disprove a hypothesis fail, then it may possibly be correct.
A hypothesis that stubbornly refuses to be disproven may even be dignified by calling it a "theory". To assert that anything is a "fact" or "proven" is very risky. Consider the example of Newton's "Laws of Motion". Repeated experiment and successful use of these "laws" in mechanics and the description of the motion of celestial bodies gave physicists, engineers, and artillerymen great confidence that the velocity of a body was a simple function of the force applied to it and the duration of that force. Newton's laws became accepted as a proven fact. That is, until Einstein began to ponder what happens as the body's velocity began to approach the speed of light. According to his 'hypothesis', it is the momentum of an object that increases as long as a force is applied to it. Newton's Laws are but the low-speed approximations of Einstein's relativistic expressions. Is Einstein's Theory of Relativity a fact? Is it proven? Not if some experiment in the future falsifies it and leads to an even better understanding of how the universe works.
My education has been in science and engineering. I have a great reverence for the Scientific Method because I know the history of how humanity has laboriously, painfully gained the body of knowledge upon which our civilization is founded. The Scientific Method has been our most powerful tool in learning how the universe works. There is one very important thing required of those who would seek knowledge by means of the Scientific Method and that is honesty. If one cannot report the results of observation accurately, how can ignorance be dispelled? How can a hypothesis be falsified?
Climate science has become politicized. People who profess to be practitioners of science are using the authority of their offices to assert that "the debate is over" and "the science is settled" when it never is in the proper conduct of Science. People who claim to be educators of the public dismiss inconvenient facts and propagandize in support of the "politically correct" dogma.
In the January 16th CCNet, Dr. David Appell, who describes himself as a "science writer", suggested that readers of CCNet might find his article, "Climate change: The last, final problem", of interest. Indeed I did. I consider it an excellent example of the environmentalist propaganda pervading the media these days that seeks to persuade scientifically unsophisticated readers that anthropogenic global warming is absolutely a fact and we must all sacrifice our hopes and dreams to "save the planet" from a hellish future. It was quite a remarkable screed, a recounting of all of humanity's alleged environmental sins, totally devoid of any real discussion of scientific issues or comparison of competing explanations of climate variability. This is a continuing pattern since Dr. Appell has also written in defense of the thoroughly discredited Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" temperature curve and has claimed that the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age were localized events.
Let us compare two of the current competing explanations of climate variability: Anthropogenic Global Warming as the result of human combustion of fossil fuels and the Svensmark hypothesis that suggests solar activity and the galactic cosmic ray environment modulates cloud formation in the lower atmosphere and therefore the earth's albedo. "In astronomy albedo is the ratio of the light reflected by a planet or satellite to that received by it. Editor"
In its early documents, the IPCC asserted that solar activity is of no significance in determining earth's climate and has concentrated on claiming that increasing levels of CO2 raise the temperature of the earth by reducing the radiation of thermal infrared energy. Computer models have been concocted that supposedly support this hypothesis. These computer models are tremendously simplistic compared to the complexity of the actual climate system of the earth. They do not reproduce some of the very robust oscillatory variations of the earth's climate such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the El Nino - Southern Oscillation. If they are run backwards, they fail to accurately reproduce past climate states. They predict a warming of the equatorial mid-troposphere but such warming is not seen. Those who argue in favor of the AGW hypothesis use the output of these models as if it was real data and ignore the actual measurements from satellite microwave radiometers which show no warming at all in spite of the increasing abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Svensmark's hypothesis
says that as solar activity declines the interplanetary magnetic field weakens and galactic cosmic rays penetrate more deeply into the inner solar system and eventually into the lower atmosphere of earth where they produce cloud-seeding ions. These ions promote a greater abundance of clouds, raising the earth's reflectivity and reducing the warming of the surface of the earth by sunlight. Solar activity has been falling in recent years. Today, the 19th of January, a small sunspot was seen near the sun's equator, an indication that it may be a remnant of the old Cycle 23. If so, then Cycle 23 is 19 years old. Long cycles precede weak cycles, suggesting continued low solar activity. The interplanetary magnetic Ap index is the lowest that it has been in many years and the neutron count from cosmic rays has increased as expected. The earth's temperature has been either steady or declining for the past eight years. Based upon the data, there is more falsification of the AGW hypothesis than of the Svensmark solar activity hypothesis.
Dr. Appell, the above is an example of real "science writing". I have presented an explanation of the Scientific Method and I have presented information about two conflicting hypotheses in an effort to educate the readers so that they may make better decisions. Any presentation of "Gloom-and-Doom" has been with regard to the politicization of Science and is indisputably a valid concern. I encourage you to return to the practice of science writing instead of environmental propagandizing. You would better serve your readers.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Coming Green Tsunami
by Nancy Videdo
As a record breaking cold front envelops the United States, another front is picking up steam in Washington D.C. The 'global warming' front.
Despite the record-breaking extreme cold that is freezing the Midwest and dropping temperatures close to 50 below in spots, the incoming Obama administration continues to appoint, enlist and enable global warming warriors in the highest echelons of government.
In opening remarks at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State on Tuesday, Hillary promised that she would shape foreign policy that would fight climate change. “At the extreme it threatens our very existence. But well before that point, it could well incite new wars of an old kind over basic resources – like food, water and arable land.”
Like her long time colleague Rahm Emanuel, Hillary knows how to make the most of a crisis, either real or manufactured. With her old slogan 'for the children' worn from overuse, Hillary has jumped aboard the global warming bandwagon, astutely recognizing that labeling an issue or policy 'green' will virtually ensure speedy passage and unlimited funding.
Ditto for the nominations of Lisa Jackson to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Nancy Sutley to be chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. Jackson tells the committee that cutting emissions of toxic chemicals and pollution that contribute to global warming will be among the new administration's top environmental goals.
Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be U.S. energy secretary, said Tuesday that he will tackle the threat of global warming by seeking a cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which would require power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to buy and sell pollution permits to spew global warming emissions. Translation: redistribution of wealth from wealthy countries to poor countries.
Even GOP Governors have signed on to the green agenda, urging their congressional colleagues to start the new Congress with unprecedented dedication to addressing global warming.
The green tsunami is about to sweep America. The chairman of a key committee promises to move “quickly and decisively” to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.”
Bureaucrats at the EPA are chomping at the bit, eagerly paving the way for more regulation over ever increasing segments of the economy by seeking to have water vapor classified as a pollutant. This would result in government control over such common activities as watering the lawn, or using a hot tub or swimming pool. Even breathing.
Imagine, the government could soon regulate any conceivable activity under the rubric of either harming the environment or endangering national security.
Taking a cue from the Feds, cities across the nation are eagerly anticipating the imminent green tsunami, with Madison, Wisconsin leading the pack. Currently under consideration in Madison, are new zoning regulations – needed to fight climate change, doncha know.
These onerous new restrictions include limiting waterfront development in the name of water sustainability, limiting fast food restaurants in the name of public health and limiting private parking option, in favor of public transportation. Virtually anything may now be 'eliminated' under the heading of saving the earth. And the public is buying it.
If news doesn't fit the new green template, its simply not reported by the American media. Like the news that a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science suggests that the earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age.
Or the Belfast Environmental Minister, who recently stated flatly that "Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases"
Or President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the European Union's new figurehead, who believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the EU to a Communist state. Just so.
Also swept under the rug is the credible and serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.
Three years ago, it was estimated that, if passed, the Kyoto Treaty would cost every American app $7,500.00, one of the reasons it wasn't even considered by the Senate. The present day costs involved to fight this imaginary foe are quadrupling as we speak. What do we get for this money? We'll never know, as the results and/or outcomes are impossible to calculate. Can you spell unaccountable?
The subject of global warming is a complicated one, with valid arguments on both sides. It should be cause for alarm, however, that the government, the media, academia and world elites are all speaking in one voice, with no dissenting viewpoints allowed.
Another cause for alarm is the fact that all the proposed solutions to this faux crisis just happen to coincide with every issue dear to liberals: i.e.: more government, more regulation, wealth distribution, population control, and global governance.
The 'global warming crisis', as it is being used today, is the perfect vehicle to impose Soro's goal of a one world government. Virtually any liberal policy may now be enacted, in the name of Mother Earth. And unless someone starts fighting back, America may very well end up as green toast.
Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Article may be reprinted, with above attribution
As a record breaking cold front envelops the United States, another front is picking up steam in Washington D.C. The 'global warming' front.
Despite the record-breaking extreme cold that is freezing the Midwest and dropping temperatures close to 50 below in spots, the incoming Obama administration continues to appoint, enlist and enable global warming warriors in the highest echelons of government.
In opening remarks at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State on Tuesday, Hillary promised that she would shape foreign policy that would fight climate change. “At the extreme it threatens our very existence. But well before that point, it could well incite new wars of an old kind over basic resources – like food, water and arable land.”
Like her long time colleague Rahm Emanuel, Hillary knows how to make the most of a crisis, either real or manufactured. With her old slogan 'for the children' worn from overuse, Hillary has jumped aboard the global warming bandwagon, astutely recognizing that labeling an issue or policy 'green' will virtually ensure speedy passage and unlimited funding.
Ditto for the nominations of Lisa Jackson to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Nancy Sutley to be chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. Jackson tells the committee that cutting emissions of toxic chemicals and pollution that contribute to global warming will be among the new administration's top environmental goals.
Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be U.S. energy secretary, said Tuesday that he will tackle the threat of global warming by seeking a cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which would require power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to buy and sell pollution permits to spew global warming emissions. Translation: redistribution of wealth from wealthy countries to poor countries.
Even GOP Governors have signed on to the green agenda, urging their congressional colleagues to start the new Congress with unprecedented dedication to addressing global warming.
The green tsunami is about to sweep America. The chairman of a key committee promises to move “quickly and decisively” to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.”
Bureaucrats at the EPA are chomping at the bit, eagerly paving the way for more regulation over ever increasing segments of the economy by seeking to have water vapor classified as a pollutant. This would result in government control over such common activities as watering the lawn, or using a hot tub or swimming pool. Even breathing.
Imagine, the government could soon regulate any conceivable activity under the rubric of either harming the environment or endangering national security.
Taking a cue from the Feds, cities across the nation are eagerly anticipating the imminent green tsunami, with Madison, Wisconsin leading the pack. Currently under consideration in Madison, are new zoning regulations – needed to fight climate change, doncha know.
These onerous new restrictions include limiting waterfront development in the name of water sustainability, limiting fast food restaurants in the name of public health and limiting private parking option, in favor of public transportation. Virtually anything may now be 'eliminated' under the heading of saving the earth. And the public is buying it.
If news doesn't fit the new green template, its simply not reported by the American media. Like the news that a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science suggests that the earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age.
Or the Belfast Environmental Minister, who recently stated flatly that "Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases"
Or President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the European Union's new figurehead, who believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the EU to a Communist state. Just so.
Also swept under the rug is the credible and serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.
Three years ago, it was estimated that, if passed, the Kyoto Treaty would cost every American app $7,500.00, one of the reasons it wasn't even considered by the Senate. The present day costs involved to fight this imaginary foe are quadrupling as we speak. What do we get for this money? We'll never know, as the results and/or outcomes are impossible to calculate. Can you spell unaccountable?
The subject of global warming is a complicated one, with valid arguments on both sides. It should be cause for alarm, however, that the government, the media, academia and world elites are all speaking in one voice, with no dissenting viewpoints allowed.
Another cause for alarm is the fact that all the proposed solutions to this faux crisis just happen to coincide with every issue dear to liberals: i.e.: more government, more regulation, wealth distribution, population control, and global governance.
The 'global warming crisis', as it is being used today, is the perfect vehicle to impose Soro's goal of a one world government. Virtually any liberal policy may now be enacted, in the name of Mother Earth. And unless someone starts fighting back, America may very well end up as green toast.
Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Article may be reprinted, with above attribution
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"Just Say No" To Oil Revenues?
(As always, I thank Mr. Dreissen for allowing me to reprint his work. RK)
by Paul Driessen
Plummeting stock and housing prices have triggered a painful recession, America’s worst job losses since 1945, and trillions in lost national wealth.
California is grappling with a $42-billion budget deficit. That’s more than the GDP of 112 countries. Maryland, Virginia, New York and other states likewise face billion-dollar budget shortfalls.
Congress and the White House want a $1-trillion “stimulus” for the banking, auto and steel industries, roads, bridges and ports, and “worthy” projects like water parks, parking garages and fitness centers.
They also support expanded renewable energy programs that will require tens of billions in subsidies and tax breaks – but provide intermittent electricity and deliver only 5-15% of their “rated capacity” during peak summer demand periods.
Many states have oil, gas, coal uranium and other energy and mineral resources, within their borders or off their coasts. Development would produce critically needed energy, reduce oil and gas imports, create millions of jobs, and generate trillions of dollars in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues, to help pay these bills.
California could nearly double its offshore oil production within 12-18 months, without installing a single new platform, by using directional drilling technology to bore more wells from existing platforms.
But environmentalists vigorously oppose development. Many states increasingly restrict exploration and production. The US Senate is considering bills that would place more energy prospects off limits. Many legislators want a permanent lock on billions of barrels of oil beneath Alaska’s North Slope and America’s Outer Continental Shelf – despite support for drilling by two-thirds of voters.
Onshore, the usual justification is speculative or exaggerated impacts on wildlife, habitats and groundwater from drilling and production. Offshore, the most common rationale is the infamous oil blowout that occurred forty years ago this month, off Santa Barbara.
That spill is the only one in over 45,000 US offshore wells where significant amounts of oil reached our coasts. And it never would have happened, if it weren’t for the incompetence of a few federal regulators and oil company officials.
The guilty well was being drilled into brittle, highly fractured rock formations which sit atop a more stable zone that holds billions of gallons of gooey crude oil, mixed with natural gas under high pressure. It’s the same oil that’s been seeping out of the shallow formations and washing up on California beaches since long before Spanish explorers used it to waterproof their galleons.
But having drilled several wells without incident, company officials requested a waiver from normal regulations. Unbelievably, it was granted. The drill crew was allowed to install minimal well casing – steel pipes that go into well bores to prevent blowouts.
When oil and gas began to erupt out of the deep drill hole, the crew’s quick response stopped it only temporarily. Because the casing didn’t go deep enough, the pressurized goo surged into the brittle rocks, creating huge gashes that sent gushers of oil out around the platform. For six days, favorable winds kept the oil slick offshore. Then the wind shifted.
Oil inundated Santa Barbara’s gorgeous beaches. Thousands of sea birds died, along with seals and countless other marine animals. The anti-oil environmental movement was born.
Thankfully, dire predictions of permanent damage were wrong. Bird, crab, lobster, seal and other populations soon rebounded. Under the platform, the magnificent artificial reef ecosystem returned.
Enormous mussels, scallops and barnacles again cover the huge scaffold that holds the production platform above the waves. Gorging on shellfish, and having to move mere inches for their next meal, starfish grow to three feet across. Oriental carpets of white, pink and lavender sponges and sea anemones create firework displays of color, while crabs scamper about and thousands of mackerel, sardines and other fish cruise by.
I know this, because I’ve been there, up close and in person, in scuba gear, beneath that very platform and a dozen others in the Santa Barbara Channel and Gulf of Mexico. I joined biologists, wrote professional papers, and produced a documentary film about these towering steel reefs.
Even more important, the technologies, regulations and enforcement programs have changed. Today, instruments monitor temperature and pressure in wells 24/7. Blowout preventers, pipeline shutoff valves and other devices on or beneath the sea floor control the flow of oil and gas. Offshore operators conduct regular accident training and safety exercises. The efforts have paid off.
In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pounded the Gulf of Mexico’s 3,000 drilling rigs and production platforms. Over 200 were damaged or destroyed. But virtually no oil or gas escaped.
In fact, according to the US Minerals Management Service (where I used to work), oil companies produced nearly 12 billion barrels of oil from OCS leases between 1980 and 2007. Only 102,000 barrels were spilled: 3,780 barrels a year, on average. That’s a 99.999% safety record.
By contrast, natural seeps like the ones off California leak 620,000 barrels of oil per year into US waters. America’s oil industry has a pollution record 164 times better than Mother Nature’s!
And producing more US offshore oil has an added bonus. It means there is less seepage, and thus less oil in our oceans and on our beaches.
Our energy policies should recognize these facts.
America has been held hostage far too long by anti-oil ideologues and foreign “oiligarchs.”
Keeping our vast resources off limits won’t convince consumers to slash petroleum use. We will just import more, and be ever more indebted to foreign powers. (At $50 per barrel, imported oil costs the United States $235 billion per year; at $140 per barrel, we send $650 billion annually overseas.)
Oil prices are low at the moment, because world demand is down, due to the global recession. We could keep them down, by prolonging the recession – an unpalatable option. Or we can help keep prices at tolerable levels, by developing the domestic oil and gas that we have in abundance, but politicians, courts and greens for too long have told us we can’t touch.
We need the energy, jobs and revenues that offshore (and onshore) oil and gas development can provide. We can no longer afford to “just say no” to domestic petroleum, during the long transition to future energy technologies that we cannot begin to envision – any more than even Jules Verne could have foreseen the wondrous energy and other technologies that creative minds have made a reality today.
That’s the kind of change we can believe in. The kind America needs.
_____________________________________
by Paul Driessen
Plummeting stock and housing prices have triggered a painful recession, America’s worst job losses since 1945, and trillions in lost national wealth.
California is grappling with a $42-billion budget deficit. That’s more than the GDP of 112 countries. Maryland, Virginia, New York and other states likewise face billion-dollar budget shortfalls.
Congress and the White House want a $1-trillion “stimulus” for the banking, auto and steel industries, roads, bridges and ports, and “worthy” projects like water parks, parking garages and fitness centers.
They also support expanded renewable energy programs that will require tens of billions in subsidies and tax breaks – but provide intermittent electricity and deliver only 5-15% of their “rated capacity” during peak summer demand periods.
Many states have oil, gas, coal uranium and other energy and mineral resources, within their borders or off their coasts. Development would produce critically needed energy, reduce oil and gas imports, create millions of jobs, and generate trillions of dollars in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues, to help pay these bills.
California could nearly double its offshore oil production within 12-18 months, without installing a single new platform, by using directional drilling technology to bore more wells from existing platforms.
But environmentalists vigorously oppose development. Many states increasingly restrict exploration and production. The US Senate is considering bills that would place more energy prospects off limits. Many legislators want a permanent lock on billions of barrels of oil beneath Alaska’s North Slope and America’s Outer Continental Shelf – despite support for drilling by two-thirds of voters.
Onshore, the usual justification is speculative or exaggerated impacts on wildlife, habitats and groundwater from drilling and production. Offshore, the most common rationale is the infamous oil blowout that occurred forty years ago this month, off Santa Barbara.
That spill is the only one in over 45,000 US offshore wells where significant amounts of oil reached our coasts. And it never would have happened, if it weren’t for the incompetence of a few federal regulators and oil company officials.
The guilty well was being drilled into brittle, highly fractured rock formations which sit atop a more stable zone that holds billions of gallons of gooey crude oil, mixed with natural gas under high pressure. It’s the same oil that’s been seeping out of the shallow formations and washing up on California beaches since long before Spanish explorers used it to waterproof their galleons.
But having drilled several wells without incident, company officials requested a waiver from normal regulations. Unbelievably, it was granted. The drill crew was allowed to install minimal well casing – steel pipes that go into well bores to prevent blowouts.
When oil and gas began to erupt out of the deep drill hole, the crew’s quick response stopped it only temporarily. Because the casing didn’t go deep enough, the pressurized goo surged into the brittle rocks, creating huge gashes that sent gushers of oil out around the platform. For six days, favorable winds kept the oil slick offshore. Then the wind shifted.
Oil inundated Santa Barbara’s gorgeous beaches. Thousands of sea birds died, along with seals and countless other marine animals. The anti-oil environmental movement was born.
Thankfully, dire predictions of permanent damage were wrong. Bird, crab, lobster, seal and other populations soon rebounded. Under the platform, the magnificent artificial reef ecosystem returned.
Enormous mussels, scallops and barnacles again cover the huge scaffold that holds the production platform above the waves. Gorging on shellfish, and having to move mere inches for their next meal, starfish grow to three feet across. Oriental carpets of white, pink and lavender sponges and sea anemones create firework displays of color, while crabs scamper about and thousands of mackerel, sardines and other fish cruise by.
I know this, because I’ve been there, up close and in person, in scuba gear, beneath that very platform and a dozen others in the Santa Barbara Channel and Gulf of Mexico. I joined biologists, wrote professional papers, and produced a documentary film about these towering steel reefs.
Even more important, the technologies, regulations and enforcement programs have changed. Today, instruments monitor temperature and pressure in wells 24/7. Blowout preventers, pipeline shutoff valves and other devices on or beneath the sea floor control the flow of oil and gas. Offshore operators conduct regular accident training and safety exercises. The efforts have paid off.
In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pounded the Gulf of Mexico’s 3,000 drilling rigs and production platforms. Over 200 were damaged or destroyed. But virtually no oil or gas escaped.
In fact, according to the US Minerals Management Service (where I used to work), oil companies produced nearly 12 billion barrels of oil from OCS leases between 1980 and 2007. Only 102,000 barrels were spilled: 3,780 barrels a year, on average. That’s a 99.999% safety record.
By contrast, natural seeps like the ones off California leak 620,000 barrels of oil per year into US waters. America’s oil industry has a pollution record 164 times better than Mother Nature’s!
And producing more US offshore oil has an added bonus. It means there is less seepage, and thus less oil in our oceans and on our beaches.
Our energy policies should recognize these facts.
America has been held hostage far too long by anti-oil ideologues and foreign “oiligarchs.”
Keeping our vast resources off limits won’t convince consumers to slash petroleum use. We will just import more, and be ever more indebted to foreign powers. (At $50 per barrel, imported oil costs the United States $235 billion per year; at $140 per barrel, we send $650 billion annually overseas.)
Oil prices are low at the moment, because world demand is down, due to the global recession. We could keep them down, by prolonging the recession – an unpalatable option. Or we can help keep prices at tolerable levels, by developing the domestic oil and gas that we have in abundance, but politicians, courts and greens for too long have told us we can’t touch.
We need the energy, jobs and revenues that offshore (and onshore) oil and gas development can provide. We can no longer afford to “just say no” to domestic petroleum, during the long transition to future energy technologies that we cannot begin to envision – any more than even Jules Verne could have foreseen the wondrous energy and other technologies that creative minds have made a reality today.
That’s the kind of change we can believe in. The kind America needs.
_____________________________________
Friday, January 16, 2009
Green fanatics vs. genetic science
(I would like to thank Mr. Jackson for allowing me to reprint his article. RK)
Gerard Jackson, of BrookesNews.Com
Gerard Jackson, of BrookesNews.Com
In Mary Shelley's chilling tale Dr Frankenstein creates a monster out of body parts, which, according to the Hollywood version, becomes a beastly killer completely out of control. Latching on to this vision green cultists malevolently labeled genetically modified food as "Frankenstein foods", conveniently ignoring the fact that we have been genetically altering our foodstuffs — including livestock — for thousands of years.
As expected, a number of green-sympathizing journalists joined this reactionary crusade, some of whom relied on Dr David Suzuki's Altered Genes. Reconstructing Nature: The Debate as a prime information. Although this book was published about ten years ago it seems that like Rachel Carson's grossly dishonest and very lethal Silent Spring Suzuki's book keeps being recycled by half-witted intellectuals.
The underlying theme of Altered Genes is so obvious, even when the author tries to conceal it, that the discerning reader can easily express it in a single sentence. A relentless hatred of capitalism! This tendentious work masquerades as a scholarly attempt to debate the dangers of genetic engineering. Unfortunately, of the many things missing from the book, debate and scholarly intentions are the most prominent.
Suzuki's introduction set a tone from which the book did not waver. Using the tactic of giving a dog a bad name to justify shooting it, he resorted to historical fiction in which genetics was blamed for the rise of eugenics that culminated in the horrific experiments of Josef Mengele. In fact, the origins of the Nazi euthanasia program and Mengele's experiments had their beginnings in the victory of positive law over the rule of law.
Euthanasia was rationalized in Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, a book published in 1920 and written by Karl Binding, a famous law professor, in collaboration with Dr Alfred Hoche. Even though the authors were social democrats their views were welcomed by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, it still took the destruction of the rule of law to make possible the despotic rule of the jackboot and its consequent horrors. Genetics played no role whatsoever in this atrocity, despite Suzuki's views.
The rest of the book is no better. Fourteen authors condemning markets and the wickedness of profiting from genetic engineering; warning us against the perils of "genetic pollution" and the menace of the unknown; railing against the alleged potential horrors of genetic engineering; the greed and dishonesty of multinationals, especially Monsanto; the injustice of intellectual property rights in genetically engineered organisms; the danger of allowing multinationals the right to patent and market their genetically altered products. (No wonder it reads like a political tract). Yet the authors failed to provide a shred of genuine credible evidence that warranted their dire predictions or justified what amounted to a ban on genetic engineering.
Regardless of the word debate in the title, debate was the last thing on the authors' minds. They made no genuine concessions to genetic engineering; they stressed only 'facts' and allegations that could be used to condemn the technology; alternative opinions are ignored and nightmare futures are a staple ingredient; multinationals are attacked along with science; much is made of the alleged social costs of genetic engineering while the benefits are treated as mere assertions.
Astonishing increases in agricultural productivity made possible by chemical and genetic engineering do not rate a mention along with their social benefits; ideological claptrap is passed off as informed opinion and scientists are denigrated as being part of some mysterious "bio-elite"; green organizations are paraded as acting in the public interest, though they are self-appointed and ideologically opposed to economic growth; public fears and concerns about genetic engineering that environmentalist organizations fuelled are used to justify political control of the technology.
Particularly irritating was their tactic of frequently quoting themselves or each other in support of their own arguments. A sure sign that there is little or no genuine scientific support for their views! What is particularly striking, however, is the book's complete lack of humanity, despite its humanitarian pretensions. People merely appear as background scenery for the authors' ideological setting.
There is no acknowledgement of the role Western science, technology and chemical companies have played in eliminating the threat of mass famine from the planet. The extent to which the Third World has benefited from technology transfers is completely ignored. But this attitude should not surprise us once we consider that the book's proposals would even see an end to the production of life-saving genetically engineered vaccines. The very fact that their proposals would literally amount to a death sentence for millions of people, just as the ban on DDT did, is enough to condemn them as a vicious bunch of misanthropic green.
The real Frankensteins are greens fanatics and their media mates who have tried to create a monster out of a life-saving technology so they can get it banned. What does this say about them? Plenty, is the answer.
Gerard Jackson is Brookesnews' economics editor
Thursday, January 15, 2009
“In Balance With Nature”
(This was sent to me by Terry Witt, one of my regular readers at Oregonians for Food & Shelter (OFS). (RK)
“In Balance With Nature” is a thought-provoking verse written by the late Dr. John Carew, former head of the Horticulture Department at Michigan State University. His original version was first published in 1970. It paints a scary picture of where our society may be headed. (*updated with 2008 statistics)
IN BALANCE WITH NATURE
In the beginning, there was Earth, beautiful and wild.
And then man came to dwell.
At first, he lived in caves like other animals,
Feeding himself on creatures and plants around him.
And this was called IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.
Soon man multiplied.
He grew tired of ceaseless hunting for food.
He built homes and villages. Wild plants and animals were domesticated.
Some men became Farmers so that others might become Industrialists, Artists, or Doctors.
And this was called Society.
Man and Society progressed.
With his God-given ingenuity, man learned to feed, clothe, protect, and
Transport himself more efficiently so he might enjoy Life.
He built cars, houses on top of each other, and nylon.
And life became more enjoyable.
The men called Farmers became efficient.
A single Farmer grew food for 143* Industrialists, Artists and Doctors,
And Writers, Engineers, and Teachers as well.
To protect his crops and animals,
The Farmer produced substances to repel or destroy Insects, Diseases, and Weeds.
These were called Pesticides.
Similar human substances were made by Doctors to protect humans.
These were called Medicine.
The Age of Science had arrived and with it came better diet
and longer, happier lives for most members of Society.
Soon it came to pass, that certain well-fed members of Society
Disapproved of the Farmer using Science.
They spoke harshly of his techniques for feeding, protecting,
and preserving plants and animals.
They deplored his upsetting the “Balance of Nature.”
They longed for the simplistic life referred to by some as the “Good Old Days.”
And this had emotional appeal to the rest of Society.
By this time Farmers had become so efficient,
Society gave them a new title: Unimportant Minority.
Because the well-fed Society could never imagine a shortage of food,
Laws were passed abolishing Pesticides, Fertilizers, and Food Preservatives.
Insects, Diseases, and Weeds flourished.
Crops and animals died.
Food became scarce.
To survive, Industrialists, Artists, and Doctors were forced to grow their own food.
But they were terribly inefficient providers.
Parks, golf courses and wilderness had to be converted to growing food.
Soon people and governments fought wars to gain more agricultural land.
Millions of people were exterminated.
Those who survived, faced plagues and famine.
In the end, only a few remained.
They lived in caves like animals,
Feeding themselves on creatures and plants around them.
And this was called, IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.
_____________________________________
“In Balance With Nature” is a thought-provoking verse written by the late Dr. John Carew, former head of the Horticulture Department at Michigan State University. His original version was first published in 1970. It paints a scary picture of where our society may be headed. (*updated with 2008 statistics)
IN BALANCE WITH NATURE
In the beginning, there was Earth, beautiful and wild.
And then man came to dwell.
At first, he lived in caves like other animals,
Feeding himself on creatures and plants around him.
And this was called IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.
Soon man multiplied.
He grew tired of ceaseless hunting for food.
He built homes and villages. Wild plants and animals were domesticated.
Some men became Farmers so that others might become Industrialists, Artists, or Doctors.
And this was called Society.
Man and Society progressed.
With his God-given ingenuity, man learned to feed, clothe, protect, and
Transport himself more efficiently so he might enjoy Life.
He built cars, houses on top of each other, and nylon.
And life became more enjoyable.
The men called Farmers became efficient.
A single Farmer grew food for 143* Industrialists, Artists and Doctors,
And Writers, Engineers, and Teachers as well.
To protect his crops and animals,
The Farmer produced substances to repel or destroy Insects, Diseases, and Weeds.
These were called Pesticides.
Similar human substances were made by Doctors to protect humans.
These were called Medicine.
The Age of Science had arrived and with it came better diet
and longer, happier lives for most members of Society.
Soon it came to pass, that certain well-fed members of Society
Disapproved of the Farmer using Science.
They spoke harshly of his techniques for feeding, protecting,
and preserving plants and animals.
They deplored his upsetting the “Balance of Nature.”
They longed for the simplistic life referred to by some as the “Good Old Days.”
And this had emotional appeal to the rest of Society.
By this time Farmers had become so efficient,
Society gave them a new title: Unimportant Minority.
Because the well-fed Society could never imagine a shortage of food,
Laws were passed abolishing Pesticides, Fertilizers, and Food Preservatives.
Insects, Diseases, and Weeds flourished.
Crops and animals died.
Food became scarce.
To survive, Industrialists, Artists, and Doctors were forced to grow their own food.
But they were terribly inefficient providers.
Parks, golf courses and wilderness had to be converted to growing food.
Soon people and governments fought wars to gain more agricultural land.
Millions of people were exterminated.
Those who survived, faced plagues and famine.
In the end, only a few remained.
They lived in caves like animals,
Feeding themselves on creatures and plants around them.
And this was called, IN BALANCE WITH NATURE.
_____________________________________
Friday, January 9, 2009
“What’s Bugging You?”
by Harry L Katz
FEAR occupies an inordinate part of our time. Fear of more illness, fear of the stock market, world politics, our children’s welfare, and fear of the insects and other pests, etc, etc. The universal fear that I would like to discuss is the fear of perceived danger of the toxicants that we use to control the pests.
Living in an area that was once a semi tropical swamp, we have perennial invasions of many pest species. We kill a colony of ants in the apartment. But another colony comes in to take its place. Most residents call the pest management people and wait for service. Others are too impatient to wait for service and resort to using sprays., disregarding a subconscious fear of the danger of toxicants.
Over sixty years ago, fear of toxicants was indeed real. That was before the BC (Before Carson) Era, and before the Environmental Protection Agency cancelled the registrations of most toxicants. I know of one case in which a woman disposed of her obnoxious husband by buying a tube in a hardware store of “Electric Paste” which contained phosphoric acid rat bait. She squeezed some of it into his fourth glass of beer… and he died. The EPA has since removed all such toxicants from the retail market. In the process, however, they did of good job of overkill in warning of the dangers of all toxicants in our environment.
This legislation all began after Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” when a Congressional Committee was appointed to investigate the hazards of pesticides. A good friend of mine, Dr Carroll Weil, was called to serve on that committee. He was president of the Toxicology Society of America and a Fellow at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. The other members of the committee were all anti-pesticide people.
The committee decided to ban the use of DDT because they said it was carcinogenic. Dr Weill explained that the tests used to reach this conclusion were badly flawed. The committee argued late into the night, but Carroll would not agree to a unanimous decision to ban DDT. Finally, the committee promised that an addendum by Weill could be published, and he gave up. This proved to be the death knell of millions of natives of third world countries who died of malaria from mosquitoes. DDT that had prevented these deaths had been taken off the market.
One of the “Myth Conceptions” that plagues the mindset of the general public, as well as various regulatory communities, is that a low dose of a toxicant is just as bad as a gross dose that can cause a tumor, benign or cancerous. If this were true, according to Bruce Ames of the University of California, at Berkley, we should not eat carrots, celery, parsley, mushrooms, cabbage, brussels sprouts, mustard, orange and grapefruit juices, pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, raspberry or pineapple. All these foods contain natural toxicants that cause cancer in rats or mice when they are tested at the same gross levels that are used to test pesticides. Dr Ames further claims that the natural level of toxicants in these foods is far higher than the trace residues in treated foods.
So, for those of you who are overly concerned about the pesticides that are on the market, all registered by the Environmental Protection Agency, you can remove pesticides from your “worry list“.
_____________________________________
FEAR occupies an inordinate part of our time. Fear of more illness, fear of the stock market, world politics, our children’s welfare, and fear of the insects and other pests, etc, etc. The universal fear that I would like to discuss is the fear of perceived danger of the toxicants that we use to control the pests.
Living in an area that was once a semi tropical swamp, we have perennial invasions of many pest species. We kill a colony of ants in the apartment. But another colony comes in to take its place. Most residents call the pest management people and wait for service. Others are too impatient to wait for service and resort to using sprays., disregarding a subconscious fear of the danger of toxicants.
Over sixty years ago, fear of toxicants was indeed real. That was before the BC (Before Carson) Era, and before the Environmental Protection Agency cancelled the registrations of most toxicants. I know of one case in which a woman disposed of her obnoxious husband by buying a tube in a hardware store of “Electric Paste” which contained phosphoric acid rat bait. She squeezed some of it into his fourth glass of beer… and he died. The EPA has since removed all such toxicants from the retail market. In the process, however, they did of good job of overkill in warning of the dangers of all toxicants in our environment.
This legislation all began after Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” when a Congressional Committee was appointed to investigate the hazards of pesticides. A good friend of mine, Dr Carroll Weil, was called to serve on that committee. He was president of the Toxicology Society of America and a Fellow at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. The other members of the committee were all anti-pesticide people.
The committee decided to ban the use of DDT because they said it was carcinogenic. Dr Weill explained that the tests used to reach this conclusion were badly flawed. The committee argued late into the night, but Carroll would not agree to a unanimous decision to ban DDT. Finally, the committee promised that an addendum by Weill could be published, and he gave up. This proved to be the death knell of millions of natives of third world countries who died of malaria from mosquitoes. DDT that had prevented these deaths had been taken off the market.
One of the “Myth Conceptions” that plagues the mindset of the general public, as well as various regulatory communities, is that a low dose of a toxicant is just as bad as a gross dose that can cause a tumor, benign or cancerous. If this were true, according to Bruce Ames of the University of California, at Berkley, we should not eat carrots, celery, parsley, mushrooms, cabbage, brussels sprouts, mustard, orange and grapefruit juices, pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, raspberry or pineapple. All these foods contain natural toxicants that cause cancer in rats or mice when they are tested at the same gross levels that are used to test pesticides. Dr Ames further claims that the natural level of toxicants in these foods is far higher than the trace residues in treated foods.
So, for those of you who are overly concerned about the pesticides that are on the market, all registered by the Environmental Protection Agency, you can remove pesticides from your “worry list“.
_____________________________________
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Saving lives with coal
By Paul Driessen
(I would once again like to thank Mr. Driessen for allowing me to post his work. RK)
There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually, they argue.
It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.
It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.
Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz.
Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. “Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe,” Schwartz says.
The alleged death toll is based on speculative links between pollution and disease, and unwarranted extrapolations from responsible estimates to levels that grab headlines and prompt contributions.
Coal helps keep American homes, businesses, factories, airports, schools and hospitals humming, and provides myriad benefits that never get mentioned by anti-coal factions. Even if we accept these groups’ assertions as fact, the benefits of coal should be considered in any policy debate – just as we acknowledge (and strive to reduce) motor vehicle deaths, but recognize the value of transporting people, products and produce.
Coal generates half of all US electricity, and 60-98% in twenty-two states, according to the Energy Information Administration. Modern, state-of-the-art, low-pollution coal-fired generators have replaced both antiquated power plants and monstrous industrial furnaces that were the backbone of our nation’s steel-making and industrial might just two generations ago. They build and power thousands of products that improve and save millions of lives.
Imposing excessive new regulations, or closing coal-fired power plants, would produce few health or environmental benefits. But it would exact huge costs on society – and bring factories, offices and economies to a screeching halt in states that are 80-98% dependent on coal: Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Coal’s reliable, affordable electricity creates millions of high-paying jobs, and thus provides health insurance, rent and mortgage money, nutrition, clothing and retirement benefits for countless families. It keeps people warm (and alive) on freezing nights, and comfortable during summer heat waves like the 2003 scorcher that killed 15,000 elderly French citizens who didn’t have air-conditioning.
Thanks to coal-based electricity, CT scans, x-rays, colonoscopies and other examinations detect cancer, heart disease and other health threats, saving numerous lives every year. Life-saving and enhancing surgeries are performed because doctors have lights, lasers, computers, and sterile operating rooms and equipment. Premie wards and life-support systems carry people through critical illnesses.
Children and adults get vaccinations that remain viable because of dependable refrigeration. Millions avoid deadly intestinal bacteria, due to refrigerators and freezers, and water that is sterilized and piped in large measure because of electricity.
American families live in houses that are built from stronger materials and to higher standards, because of electricity. Tens of millions have been warned of natural disasters, and given time to flee, thanks to radios and televisions.
Environmentalists talk glibly about replacing America’s 600-plus coal-fired power plants, and the 2 billion megawatt-hours of electricity they generate annually. But with what?
Most greens detest nuclear power as much as they hate coal. They want to dismantle dams, not build new ones. They oppose drilling for natural gas that could partially substitute for coal, and fuel essential backup generators for wind farms. They support geothermal energy in theory, but rarely in practice.
They oppose construction of new state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that America needs to supply more baseload power, to serve a growing population and electricity-hungry products and equipment of every description. Most do support wind energy – and it must also play a role.
However, right now, wind turbines provide a mere 1% of all US electricity. Wind power leader Texas gets just 2% of its electricity from breezes – versus 36% from coal. On blistering summer afternoons, when they most need reliable air-conditioners, Texans can count on wind turbines to generate at only 9% of their installed capacity, because that’s when the wind blows least. (Compare that to 80-95% reliability for coal, gas and nuclear.)
How exactly will Texas replace 36% of its electricity with renewable energy? How exactly will Indiana and North Dakota replace the 94% of the low-cost electricity that they get from coal?
What happens to all those benefits when coal power is legislated, regulated, litigated, priced or cap-and-traded to the sidelines? To lives that are improved and saved with that electricity?
A little specificity, moral clarity and social responsibility would help here. We generally can’t expect it from environmental activists – who excel at denigrating and opposing energy, but do little to generate anything but hot air and political power.
However, we should expect, and demand, clear answers from judges, elected representatives and unelected government regulators. That’s the essence of ethics and social responsibility.
If we are going to end this recession, retain American jobs and living standards, and rejuvenate our economy, we will need vast quantities of electricity from coal – and every other source – now and for decades to come. The rest of the world also needs coal, to lift people out of poverty and save lives.
In impoverished countries, two billion people rarely or never have electricity. Four million infants, children and parents die every year from lung infections – caused by smoke, soot and other pollutants from open fires that heat their homes and cook their meager food, because they don’t have electricity. Two million more perish from intestinal diseases, caused by unsafe water and spoiled food, because they lack refrigeration, sanitation and water treatment.
Radical environmentalists trumpet the exaggerated death count from producing electricity here in the United States. But they callously battle every proposal to build coal, gas or hydroelectric projects in these destitute countries.
24,000 speculative deaths versus six million very real deaths is hardly a fair tradeoff.
As we usher in 2009, may America and all nations resolve to implement policies that honestly reflect the costs, benefits and power-generating capabilities of traditional and alternative energy options that exist in the real world.
_____________________________________
(I would once again like to thank Mr. Driessen for allowing me to post his work. RK)
There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually, they argue.
It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.
It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.
Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz.
Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. “Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe,” Schwartz says.
The alleged death toll is based on speculative links between pollution and disease, and unwarranted extrapolations from responsible estimates to levels that grab headlines and prompt contributions.
Coal helps keep American homes, businesses, factories, airports, schools and hospitals humming, and provides myriad benefits that never get mentioned by anti-coal factions. Even if we accept these groups’ assertions as fact, the benefits of coal should be considered in any policy debate – just as we acknowledge (and strive to reduce) motor vehicle deaths, but recognize the value of transporting people, products and produce.
Coal generates half of all US electricity, and 60-98% in twenty-two states, according to the Energy Information Administration. Modern, state-of-the-art, low-pollution coal-fired generators have replaced both antiquated power plants and monstrous industrial furnaces that were the backbone of our nation’s steel-making and industrial might just two generations ago. They build and power thousands of products that improve and save millions of lives.
Imposing excessive new regulations, or closing coal-fired power plants, would produce few health or environmental benefits. But it would exact huge costs on society – and bring factories, offices and economies to a screeching halt in states that are 80-98% dependent on coal: Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Coal’s reliable, affordable electricity creates millions of high-paying jobs, and thus provides health insurance, rent and mortgage money, nutrition, clothing and retirement benefits for countless families. It keeps people warm (and alive) on freezing nights, and comfortable during summer heat waves like the 2003 scorcher that killed 15,000 elderly French citizens who didn’t have air-conditioning.
Thanks to coal-based electricity, CT scans, x-rays, colonoscopies and other examinations detect cancer, heart disease and other health threats, saving numerous lives every year. Life-saving and enhancing surgeries are performed because doctors have lights, lasers, computers, and sterile operating rooms and equipment. Premie wards and life-support systems carry people through critical illnesses.
Children and adults get vaccinations that remain viable because of dependable refrigeration. Millions avoid deadly intestinal bacteria, due to refrigerators and freezers, and water that is sterilized and piped in large measure because of electricity.
American families live in houses that are built from stronger materials and to higher standards, because of electricity. Tens of millions have been warned of natural disasters, and given time to flee, thanks to radios and televisions.
Environmentalists talk glibly about replacing America’s 600-plus coal-fired power plants, and the 2 billion megawatt-hours of electricity they generate annually. But with what?
Most greens detest nuclear power as much as they hate coal. They want to dismantle dams, not build new ones. They oppose drilling for natural gas that could partially substitute for coal, and fuel essential backup generators for wind farms. They support geothermal energy in theory, but rarely in practice.
They oppose construction of new state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that America needs to supply more baseload power, to serve a growing population and electricity-hungry products and equipment of every description. Most do support wind energy – and it must also play a role.
However, right now, wind turbines provide a mere 1% of all US electricity. Wind power leader Texas gets just 2% of its electricity from breezes – versus 36% from coal. On blistering summer afternoons, when they most need reliable air-conditioners, Texans can count on wind turbines to generate at only 9% of their installed capacity, because that’s when the wind blows least. (Compare that to 80-95% reliability for coal, gas and nuclear.)
How exactly will Texas replace 36% of its electricity with renewable energy? How exactly will Indiana and North Dakota replace the 94% of the low-cost electricity that they get from coal?
What happens to all those benefits when coal power is legislated, regulated, litigated, priced or cap-and-traded to the sidelines? To lives that are improved and saved with that electricity?
A little specificity, moral clarity and social responsibility would help here. We generally can’t expect it from environmental activists – who excel at denigrating and opposing energy, but do little to generate anything but hot air and political power.
However, we should expect, and demand, clear answers from judges, elected representatives and unelected government regulators. That’s the essence of ethics and social responsibility.
If we are going to end this recession, retain American jobs and living standards, and rejuvenate our economy, we will need vast quantities of electricity from coal – and every other source – now and for decades to come. The rest of the world also needs coal, to lift people out of poverty and save lives.
In impoverished countries, two billion people rarely or never have electricity. Four million infants, children and parents die every year from lung infections – caused by smoke, soot and other pollutants from open fires that heat their homes and cook their meager food, because they don’t have electricity. Two million more perish from intestinal diseases, caused by unsafe water and spoiled food, because they lack refrigeration, sanitation and water treatment.
Radical environmentalists trumpet the exaggerated death count from producing electricity here in the United States. But they callously battle every proposal to build coal, gas or hydroelectric projects in these destitute countries.
24,000 speculative deaths versus six million very real deaths is hardly a fair tradeoff.
As we usher in 2009, may America and all nations resolve to implement policies that honestly reflect the costs, benefits and power-generating capabilities of traditional and alternative energy options that exist in the real world.
_____________________________________
Thursday, January 1, 2009
My Predictions for 2009
By Rich Kozlovich
Since everyone else seems intent on making predictions for 2009, I thought I might do so as well. Along with the thinking of my friend Alan Caruba I will say this...If I am right...I will crow about it! If I am wrong, I won't see the need to bring it up again. Especially since "prediction is really hard...especially about the future".
For those who read a great deal, think that history is important and spend a great deal of time watching the world and thinking about what they are seeing, you will not find anything said here startling. There is one thing that I will say that many will find potentially disturbing. History will mark 2008 as the year when everything changed. Dramatically!
1. Pesticides will come under even greater attack by the new head of EPA, in line with those actions by Browner and Ruckelshaus.
2. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to eliminate preemption laws.
3. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to implement new regulations which will mandate IPM language in all locations, not just schools.
4. There will be strong efforts to implement a new IPM licensing requirement in all states.
5. The pesticide manufacturing, distribution and applications industries will continue to jump on the green band wagon.
6. The national and state trade associations for the pesticide applications industries will be forced to implement green initiatives.
7. The national and state trade associations will face financial difficulties.
8. There will be fewer trade associations defending the pesticide applications industries.
9. There will be fewer, or at least less viable, pesticide manufacturers and distributors by the end of 2009.
10. The pest control industry will make more money than ever before, but because of economic issues there will be fewer companies.
11. The pest control industry will adapt to whatever is required.
12. Bedbugs will become a nationwide plague.
13. Strong efforts will be made to remove pyrethroids from the market place for use by the general public.
14. Strong efforts will be underway to remove them from the professional pest controller’s arsenal.
15. Rodenticides will be lost for use by the public.
16. Work will be under way to remove them for use by professional pest controllers.
17. Rodent control will suffer and their numbers will increase dramatically.
18. Prices for pest control services will become so high that those with the most need will be unable to afford it.
19. Insect and rodent borne diseases will increase startlingly, or at least this will be the start.
20. The poorest least educated among us will turn to illegal means of getting the relief that they need from pests that the government and green activists have deprived them of.
"We live in a time when great efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to falsify the record of the past and to make history a tool of propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties, and sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was." - Islam Bernard Lewis', historian
Since everyone else seems intent on making predictions for 2009, I thought I might do so as well. Along with the thinking of my friend Alan Caruba I will say this...If I am right...I will crow about it! If I am wrong, I won't see the need to bring it up again. Especially since "prediction is really hard...especially about the future".
For those who read a great deal, think that history is important and spend a great deal of time watching the world and thinking about what they are seeing, you will not find anything said here startling. There is one thing that I will say that many will find potentially disturbing. History will mark 2008 as the year when everything changed. Dramatically!
1. Pesticides will come under even greater attack by the new head of EPA, in line with those actions by Browner and Ruckelshaus.
2. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to eliminate preemption laws.
3. Green activists and EPA will pressure states to implement new regulations which will mandate IPM language in all locations, not just schools.
4. There will be strong efforts to implement a new IPM licensing requirement in all states.
5. The pesticide manufacturing, distribution and applications industries will continue to jump on the green band wagon.
6. The national and state trade associations for the pesticide applications industries will be forced to implement green initiatives.
7. The national and state trade associations will face financial difficulties.
8. There will be fewer trade associations defending the pesticide applications industries.
9. There will be fewer, or at least less viable, pesticide manufacturers and distributors by the end of 2009.
10. The pest control industry will make more money than ever before, but because of economic issues there will be fewer companies.
11. The pest control industry will adapt to whatever is required.
12. Bedbugs will become a nationwide plague.
13. Strong efforts will be made to remove pyrethroids from the market place for use by the general public.
14. Strong efforts will be underway to remove them from the professional pest controller’s arsenal.
15. Rodenticides will be lost for use by the public.
16. Work will be under way to remove them for use by professional pest controllers.
17. Rodent control will suffer and their numbers will increase dramatically.
18. Prices for pest control services will become so high that those with the most need will be unable to afford it.
19. Insect and rodent borne diseases will increase startlingly, or at least this will be the start.
20. The poorest least educated among us will turn to illegal means of getting the relief that they need from pests that the government and green activists have deprived them of.
"We live in a time when great efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to falsify the record of the past and to make history a tool of propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties, and sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was." - Islam Bernard Lewis', historian
Monday, December 29, 2008
DDT and Chlordane Killed By Politics, Not Science
I would like to thank Harry Katz, who is a legendary defender of our industry and the products we use, for allowing me to re-publish this 1998 article and I hope to use more of his articles. This article was published before many of the new products became available, but his points regarding why these two safe and reliable products were taken off the market are worth reporting and worth repeating. We must keep the history correct; no matter what regulators claim or impose….we must know the history, we must remember the history…correctly. History is the stepping stones to the future. Harry Katz was there and he remembers the events as they occurred….let’s not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the latest philosophical flavor of the day. RK
By Harry Katz
3/1/1998
A lie becomes the truth if it is repeated often enough. This has happened, I believe, with the boomer generation that grew up weaned on the Myth Conception that DDT is carcinogenic. According to Carrol Weil, past president of the Toxicology Society, there have never been any valid scientific tests that prove DDT can cause cancer in test animals or in humans.
Numerous tests were made on animals, mostly mice that were bred to be supersensitive to chemical stress. The mice were given massive doses of DDT long periods of time. Tumors did develop, but they did not metastasize into cancer cells. Many of the mice that were not fed DDT also developed tumors.
This didn’t matter to the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA regulations consider a benign tumor to be a cancer that justifies cancellation of registration. It should be noted that according to EPA regulations, a single positive test by one researcher takes precedence over the negative test results of 100 researchers.
LOW VS. GROSS DOSE. One of the Myth Conceptions that plagues the mindset of the general public, as well as various regulatory communities, is that a low dose of a toxicant is just as bad as a gross dose that can cause a tumor. If this were true, according to Dr. Bruce Ames from the University of California-Berkeley, we should not eat carrots, celery, parsley, mushrooms, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, mustard, orange and grapefruit juices, pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, raspberry and pineapple. All these foods contain natural toxicants that cause cancer in rats or mice when they are tested at the same gross levels that are used to test pesticides. Ames further claims that the natural level of toxicants in these foods is far higher than the trace residues on treated foods.
The Myth Conception of the carcinogenicity of DDT has a corollary with chlordane. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), when chlordane is used at label rates, there is no valid scientific test that shows carcinogenicity in humans. In 1984, a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed existing data on chlordane and concluded that the evidence of carcinogenicity to experimental animals was indeed limited.
CHLORDANE’S EFFECT ON HUMANS. Many studies were made of chlordane’s effect on humans. The WHO reports about a study in 1981 in which mortality of 782 workers who manufactured chlordane and heptachlor for up to 20 years showed no increase in cancer in comparison to normal death figures. In another study by Wang and MacMahon in1980, all cancer deaths were lower than expected. In a follow-up study in 1982, the two Harvard researchers looked again at the mortality rates of termite control technicians and found there was no significant increase of cancer cases.
As secretary of the Western Pennsylvania Pest Control Association and as a formulator, I was concerned about the safety to PCOs. A Pittsburgh physician, Dr. Cyril Wecht consented to give annual physicals to employees of WPPCA members. In those days, the service technicians used chlordane carelessly. They had it on their hands, clothes, and breathed it in crawlspaces. Dr. Wecht found no effect on the liver or other vital organs, after several years of examinations.
MORE EXPENSIVE, LESS EFFECTIVE. There is much ado about the misapplication of termiticides. The regulators’ preoccupation with spacing of holes has little relationship with the concentration of toxicant in each cubic inch of soil. Backfills are usually a hodgepodge of building debris, hunks of clay and roots from dead foundation plantings. The most conscientious technician who carefully measures the concentrate and calibrates the flow of solution cannot be sure that every cubic inch of soil barrier is properly treated. Termites have nothing else to do but to look for that window of opportunity, an untreated pocket of soil.
In the Mallis Handbook of Pest Control, 8th Edition, Dr. Michael Potter claims that liquid dilutions tend to disperse randomly over the subslab fill, resulting in inconsistent coverage, and diversion from target areas.
If government tests of termiticide efficacy were made using the same label procedures mandated for PCOs, we would have no registered termiticides. As tested, the label should call for removal of the backfill to be treated, then mixing it with the termiticide solution in a cement mixer and finally replacing the mixture in the ditch. Fill material to be covered with a slab should also be treated the same way. Further, in testing for the presence of toxicant years later, multiple cores should be mixed and then tested.
The regulatory communities, who are looking for a fall guy to blame for the rash of termite control failures, ignore this double standard. Perhaps the officials should look in the mirror. When they killed relatively innocuous chlordane, they forced the public to pay three or more times the cost for termite control with no increase in safety and with limited residual value.
ENVIROMENTAL VIEWS - THE WORST CLIMATE PREDICTIONS OF 2008?
Prediction is very difficult…especially about the future. - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (1885 - 1962)
By Dennis T. Avery
(Editor's Note: I would like to thank Mr. Avery for allowing me to publish his work. I expect to take liberal advantage of his expertise. RK)
CHURCHVILLE, VA—“2008 will be the hottest year in a century:” The Old Farmers’ Almanac, September 11, 2008.We’re now well into the earth’s third straight harsher winter—but in late 2007 it was still hard to forget 22 straight years of global warming from 1976–1998. So the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted 2008 would be the hottest year in the last 100.
But sunspots had been predicting major cooling since 2000, and global temperatures turned downward in early 2007. The sunspots have had a 79 percent correlation with the earth’s thermometers since 1860. Today’s temperatures are about on a par with 1940. For 2008, the Almanac hired a new climatologist, Joe D’Aleo, who says the declining sunspots and the cool phase of the Pacific Ocean predict 25-30 years of cooler temperatures for the planet.
“You could potentially sail, kayak or even swim to the North Pole by the end of the summer. Climate scientists say that the Arctic ice . . . is currently on track to melt sometime in 2008.” Ted Alvarez, Backpacker Magazine Blogs, June, 2008.
Soon after this prediction, a huge Russian icebreaker got trapped in the thick ice of the Northwest Passage for a full week. The Arctic ice hadn’t melted in 2007, it got blown
into warmer southern waters. Now it’s back. (Reference)
Remember too the Arctic has its own 70-year climate cycle. Polish climatologist Rajmund Przbylak says “the highest temperatures since the beginning of instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s” based on more than 40 Arctic temperature stations.
“Australia’s Cities Will Run Out of Drinking Water Due to Global Warming.”
Tim Flannery was named Australia’s Man of the Year in 2007—for predicting that Australian cities will run out of water. He predicted Perth would become the “first 21st century ghost city,’ and that Sydney would be out of water by 2007. Today however, Australia’s city reservoirs are amply filled. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun reminds us Australia is truly a land of long droughts and flooding rains.
“Hurricane Effects Will Only Get Worse.” Live Science, September 19, 2008.
So wrote the on-line tech website Live Science, but the number of Atlantic hurricanes 2006–2008 has been 22 percent below average, with insured losses more than 50 percent below average. The British Navy recorded more than twice as many major land-falling Caribbean hurricanes in the last part of the Little Ice Age (1700–1850) as during the much-warmer last half of the 20th century.
“Corals will become increasingly rare on reef systems.” Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
In 2006, Dr. Hoegh-Guldberg warned that high temperatures might kill 30–40 percent of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef “within a month.” In 2007, he said global warming temperatures were bleaching [potentially killing] the reef.
But, in 2008, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network said climate change had not damaged the “well-managed” reef in the four years since its last report. Veteran diver Ben Cropp said that in 50 years he’d seen no heat damage to the reef at all. “The only change I’ve seen has been the result of over-fishing, pollution, too many tourists or people dropping anchors on the reef,” he said.
No More Skiing? “Climate Change and Aspen,” Aspen, CO city-funded study, June, 2007.
Aspen’s study predicted global warming would change the climate to resemble hot, dry Amarillo, Texas. But in 2008, European ski resorts opened a month early, after Switzerland recorded more October snow than ever before. Would-be skiers in Aspen had lots of winter snow—but a chill factor of 18 below zero F. kept them at their fireplaces instead of on the slopes.
DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net
*Sources:
Predictions of 25-30 year cooling due to Pacific Decadal
Oscillation: Scafetta and West, 2006, “Phenomenological Solar Signature in 400
Years of Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere Temperature Record,” Geophysical
Research Letters.
Arctic Warmer in the 1930s: R. Przybylak, 2000,
“Temporal and Spatial Variation of Surface Air Temperature over the Period of
Instrumental Observation in the Arctic,” International Journal of Climatology
20.
British Navy records of Caribbean hurricanes 1700-1850: J.B. Elsner
et al., 2000, “Spatial Variations in Major U.S. Hurricane Activity,” Journal of
Climate 13.
Predictions of coral loss: Hoegh-Guldberg et al., Science, Vol.
318, 2007. Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2008, issued by the Global Coral
Reef Monitoring Network, Nov., 2008.
Aspen climate change study: Climate
Change and Aspen: An Assessment of Potential Impacts and Responses, Aspen Global
Change Institute, June, 2007.
_____________________________________
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Get Your Story Right
By Wendell Krossa
(Note: A new extremist religion/ideology is taking hold in public consciousness across the world. This new religion has a grand myth or narrative with which it hopes to shape human consciousness and thereby enslave the human spirit. This religion exhibits many of the basic themes and drives of previous religious movements- an unchallengeable truth impervious to scientific fact, the demand for a strictly constrained and regulated lifestyle in accordance with the core beliefs, an orientation to fear as a basic motivation, and so on. The material below outlines some of the basic features of this new environmental religion and points to facts that counter its central themes.)
All of us inform our lives with stories and we live our lives as individual stories. Living a story is essential to what it means to be human. And various groups in our societies present us grander stories or narratives that powerfully influence our own personal adventures. Many of us live our lives in terms of some in-group story, whether it be religious, ideological, scientific or other.
Global warming alarmism is perhaps the most prominent public story being that is being embraced across the Earth today. While there has been some effort to place this story within the realm of science, at core it is just the latest version of the same old doom/salvation narratives held by our ancestors. Nonetheless, this story has successfully lodged itself in the public consciousness because it resonates with a number of widely accepted themes that have long been beaten into human consciousness. These would include:
Life and ecosystems are fragile (the “great planetary imperilment myth”, according to www.ecofascism.com ).
Life is heading for some soon-to-arrive calamity (this central apocalyptic theme with its related fear-mongering and despair has an especially long history in human story telling- see, for instance, Mircea Eliade’s History of Religious Ideas).
Human intervention in nature is mainly destructive (this is based on the belief that people are inherently bad) and therefore people need to be strictly regulated and constrained. They cannot be trusted. (This theme of pure nature as victim of evil humanity is perhaps one of the more central ideas to this great warming myth. Evil humanity is destroying pure and delicate nature which must be protected from such a greedy species). Life is static and unchanging, hence any change is evidence of decline and fragility. This distortion is most notable in pop ecology and its endless hysteria over any discovered changes in ecosystems.
Resources are scarce and life is stingy or strictly limited. Hence, severely curtailing consumption (which is essential to human progress) is the one and only way of salvation. Guilt and fear are the primary emotions that are manipulated here.
Various other related themes could be added here such as the primitive tribal view of ‘limited good’ which argues that because resources are limited if some take more than a “fair share” then others will suffer loss. Another theme supporting the alarmist climate warming story is plain old anti-capitalist ideology and the drive to halt economic growth. This anti-capitalist ideology fits well with the limited good or limited resources view of contemporary environmentalism. Many environmentalists view capitalism as built around what they believe to be the fallacy of unlimited resources and endless growth. They believe unfettered (free) capitalism will lead to the exhaustion of resources and breakdown of environmental systems. Wilfred Beckerman (A Poverty of Reason), Huber and Mills (Bottomless Well), and Julian Simon (Ultimate Resource), among others, all deal with this primitive and distorting view of limited resources.
Related to the concept of limits is the religious belief in the moral superiority of a low consumption lifestyle (Julian Simon, a rare voice on this issue, deals thoroughly with the importance of consumption and its benefits to all life in his book Ultimate Resource). This set of anti-economic development themes has coalesced in the crusade to enact centralized control and regulation to constrain and even stop economic growth, which makes it a crusade to halt human progress. The socialist element in this crusade is driven by the old collectivist urge to deny the value and freedom of the individual in favor of some greater good. Closely related to this anti-economic growth ideology is the pagan demonization of humanity along with the sacralization of nature as a greater good. In such nature worship, evil humanity is to be sacrificed on the altar of pure and pristine nature.
Julian Simon notes a variety of other elements in the outlook of the lead narrators of the alarmist story. He points to the arrogant debasement and dismissal of other human beings evident in the comments of leaders promoting the socialist/environmental tale. For instance, Paul Erhlich has said that giving people access to cheap, inexhaustible supplies of energy, “is like giving a machine gun to an idiot child” (Ultimate Resource, p.298). Another theologian of environmental apocalyptic, Garret Hardin, said, “People ask me- don’t you have faith in anything? And I always have the same answer…I have an unshakable faith in the unreliability of man” (p.299). Would he also categorize himself and his own views as unreliable?
And then there is the elitist selfishness of the people who want to conserve pristine nature for their own enjoyment to the exclusion of others. “When some famous conservationist tells us that there should be fewer people so that it is easier for him or her to find a deserted stretch of beach or mountain range or forest, she or he is simply saying…’I enjoy it, and I don’t want to share it’” (p.284). This call to save nature for me and my environmentally enlightened friends demands that others be eliminated. The obvious question that is begged here is who decides who should be removed so some may enjoy more untouched nature? Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said, “The human population is the AIDs of the earth…(and) should be cut by 85%”. The rest should return to a primitive lifestyle and only a very small percentage should be allowed to reproduce (“Send in the assmonkeys”, National Post, May 15/07). Would those 85% cut include him and his family? And would the tiny percentage allowed to reproduce include him and his wife?
Simon also notes the perverse orientation to death and destruction evident in the narration of leading environmentalists. Instead of focusing on things like planting and growth (human creativity, productivity, and inventiveness), environmentalists focus on destruction and death (the supposed loss of species and habitat, which has often been proven to have been based on false claims). While there are areas where loss and destruction are a genuine concern, too often the focus on relatively minor problem areas is extrapolated out to damn all human activity and engagement of nature. In this perverse view of human engagement of nature as harmful, harvesting of nature’s resources is not celebrated but damned as destructive. This is evident, for instance, in the environmental charge that using too much paper destroys forests. But people are not told that trees are planted and forests created in order to make paper. Or that only 5 percent of the world’s forests are required to meet humanity’s demands for wood and paper products (Bjorn Lomberg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.115).
With the dismal view of humanity and human activity as destructive is it any wonder that the environmental/socialist response is to advocate for the strict control and restraint of other people? This moralistic urge to tell others how to live their lives is based primarily on the moral and aesthetic preferences of the environmental extremists and not on any sound scientific reasoning. It is a primitive tribal urge to dominate and control others. It has no place in modern human society.
These basic themes and drives, along with others, shape the core of environmental mythology. And they distort the actual nature of life. But they have been effective in reinforcing the current global narrative of fear and despair. They affirm the basic outlook on life that is held by the narrators of this story, an outlook oriented to doom and destruction. To maintain this orientation to disaster the narrators of this story ignore the actual fundamental trends of life to focus too often on aberrations that confirm their addiction to despair (episodes of disease, disaster, and human fallibility).
Nonetheless, this story appeals to many people with its emphasis on looming disaster and promises of salvation. It stirs the urge to heroic action and sacrifice to save something.
But it is a pathological story that has inspired a severe case of denial and, at times, even lunacy among its advocates. The free private property economic system that people have devised over the past three centuries has produced a level of human well being that has never before been attained in the history of the world. Things have never before been so good. We are wealthier, healthier, we live longer with fewer diseases and disabilities, and we are cleaning up and improving our environments as never before. Yet these climate hysterians want to shut down this economic growth and insist on blaming it for all the ills still present in the world. Ills that should more correctly be blamed upon the excessive state interventionism that they advocate.
The promoters of this story of despair are perhaps the most dangerous people on earth. Their hysteria drives them to halt economic growth and development which will only endanger human life and progress as well as undermine our ability to protect the environment. For example, remember the anti-chemical hysteria stirred by Rachel Carson which led to the banning of DDT. That ban led to immeasurable human suffering and the unnecessary deaths of multiple millions of people in some of the poorest regions of the world (see DDT FAQ at JunkScience.com). It has significantly set back the development of regions like Africa.
Contrary to the environmental mythology, the actual story of life is rooted firmly and safely in the following facts:
Life is exceedingly durable and resilient. It possesses incredible self-buffering and self-regulating capacities such as protective and life-enhancing feedback mechanisms/loops. This is especially evident in relation to climate. The Earth has experienced repeated spells of cooling and warming over its history, going through climate changes more sudden and severe than those of today. Yet species have adapted to such changes and life has continued to thrive. Remember that polar bears have survived the repeated entire melting of Arctic ice.
Life has evidenced an amazing creative adaptability in progressing toward something better from the very beginning.
Intelligent human intervention has improved the state of nature and worked well to rescue it from its own dead ends (predation) and deformities (viral, natural disaster- see Craig Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth). This affirms the fundamental goodness of conscious humanity and humanity’s valuable contribution in bringing order to the randomness of nature (as Simon notes, we create more than we destroy).
Life has never known an original and static condition that can be called natural, but is ever-changing and often massively and rapidly.
Life encompasses a generous outpouring of energy and resources to be harvested and ‘wasted’ in creating more order, organization, and wealth (see Hard Green and Bottomless Well by Huber and Mills).
To properly comprehend the nature of life we need to look at the long term trends where we find no reason for fear or despair but rather much evidence for profound hope and optimism. Check the data sources listed at the end and see for yourself what the actual long term trends of life are about. And remember, it was the genius of researchers like Julian Simon to note the long term trends and not to focus on downturns, setbacks, and other aberrations to the fundamental trends of life.
For instance, Bjorn Lomberg gives the example of Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University who ignored the long term trend of improvement in treating tuberculosis and instead focused on a small reversal of this trend in the 1990s. Pimentel then tried to make the argument that TB was getting worse and extrapolated this out to a more general argument that all disease was getting worse (The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.21-26). Ignoring the long term trends to focus on aberrations will lead to such distorting conclusions about life and its fundamental features. This has been a repeated error of the climate hysterians.
The long term rise and progress of life is most evident in the history of humanity and the human engagement of life. Here we find millennia of evidence of creativity, adaptation, development, and progress in health, wealth, peace and order, and general living conditions. This is due to the fundamental human impulse to find and make something better. This basic human impulse has resulted in ongoing improvement to the state of the world. It is an impulse that operates best in a climate of freedom.
Julian Simon said that scares come and go. And it is entirely irresponsible and unscientific to react to each change in life (especially in climate) with schemes of massive government intervention and regulation. Policy choices that are enacted out of fear and that over-react with excessive regulation to prevent imagined catastrophes, such policy choices are detrimental to freedom and progress. History has shown that the state interventionist approach has been the most destructive response to human freedom and progress (note for instance, the devastating impact- on people and the environment- of last century’s grand experiment in socialist intervention and control).
We end up looking real silly when we blow our whole wad, for instance, on each shift in climate. And slowing economic growth will not stop the climate from changing anyway. It has been noted that if Kyoto were fully enacted the impact on climate would amount to a small fraction of one percent which is statistically insignificant and probably not even measurable. It would likely not slow climate change at all. Climate will continue to warm and cool as it has done repeatedly over Earth’s history (remember that just as recently the 1970s we were being warned of climate cooling disaster- that scare crusade was also fueled by an anti-capitalist or anti-industrial ideology).
Recent research now shows that since 1998 no further warming has occurred and this may signal the fact that we are already entering another cooling period (CCNet Dec.20/07). In response to these natural swings in climate it is wiser to promote further economic growth in order that our societies, with increasing wealth, may be able to better assist their populations in adapting to more climate change, whichever direction it takes.
But behind the proposed Salvationism of the global warming alarm story there exists the more fundamental assault on economic freedom and growth by people who want to control others and dictate to them how to live their lives. This drive to dominate is visible in the current widespread endeavor to regulate and constrain economic growth, and to redistribute wealth. It is just more of the same old socialist meddling that destroyed economies and environments across the earth in the last century.
I would suggest that this primitive drive to dominate and control others, to tell others how to live their lives, is one of the core drives behind the global warming alarmist narrative (and it is also behind contemporary Islamic extremist threats, as well as other forms of totalitarianism). It is a perverse drive of people who mistakenly believe that they have a final truth and want to convert all others who lack their level of enlightenment.
This drive to dominate and control assaults the most important human right of all- that of individual freedom. The right of individual freedom has been best stated in the libertarian ideal- that each person is free to live their life as they choose, as long as they grant the same freedom to all others.
Only individual freedom of this type can make a society truly human or humane. As Lanny Ebenstein said in his biography of Milton Friedman, “There is no good of society not found in the good of the individual, just as there is no society apart from the individuals who compose it. In Friedman’s, the libertarian, the classical liberal, and the utilitarian philosophies, all place the individual at the center of the universe and place the individual’s greatest good, happiness and freedom as the summum bonum or ultimate good” (p.141).
Ebenstein continues, noting that what motivated Friedman was his passion for individual human freedom. “Friedman’s philosophy, following the utilitarians, is individualism. ‘The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual’, Friedman writes. Friedman passionately believes that each individual has value. This is why he so strongly emphasizes human freedom. Only in a condition of freedom can each individual develop himself or herself to the fullest” (p.141). Where individual freedom is protected and promoted, there individuals reach their fullest potential. And this is the primary obligation of any state, to protect and promote individual freedom, not some collective good. When states forget the primacy of individual freedom and interfere to promote some imagined public welfare or greater good then individual freedom suffers. And, as Milton Freidman and others have argued, the promotion of individual freedom will result in the highest collective good in the end, anyway. The highest form of any greater good is the sum of free individual choices or free individual lives, diverse as they may be.
On any scale of human well being it is unacceptable for some people to coercively impose restrictions on other’s lives especially when that coercion is based on beliefs that are simply wrong about the real nature of life. This is an intolerable assault on individual freedom. The outcome of the domination impulse in modern society has been the endless crusade to enact new laws and regulations to cover every conceivable potential ill. This regulatory trend often unnecessarily hinders the freedom of others who will never contribute to any potential ill anyway. And more recently, this drive for regulation has been co-opted by those seeking to prevent economic growth by prohibiting the use of the energy that is vital to such growth. It is an endeavor to criminalize the very economic growth and development that is essential to all human progress and well being.
In recent years, the anti-capitalist narrators have focused their crusade to demonize capitalism in the anti-CO2 or anti-energy campaign and would love to halt it entirely or severely hamper its use with all sorts of regulations, bans and caps. But energy is the life blood of our economies (and remember that carbon is the very basis of all life). The extremists simply will not recognize that our free private property economic system has done more than any other system to lift people out of poverty and to consequently clean up and protect the environment (Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World presents evidence of the ‘environmental transition’ where increasing wealth via economic growth and development has resulted in an improved environment). Add to this the fact that scientific evidence has not yet established the linkage of CO2 to global warming. In fact, the evidence shows that CO2 increases follow warming periods.
In the grand narrative employed by those fighting capitalism there is also the continuing devaluation of people as essentially greedy and selfish. This disparagement of people is entirely wrong-headed. Our history proves that, to the contrary, we have steadily improved life. Our history shows that in net terms we are far more creators than destroyers. Central to a more accurate story of life must be the fact of the essential goodness of people and what Joseph Campbell calls the wonder of being human (The Power of Myth). This basic human goodness requires freedom from any constraining government intervention and regulation in order to reach its fullest potential.
I would add here that Milton Friedman countered the grand narrative of his time- that the supposed failures of capitalism required massive government intervention a la Keynes- with a dogged presentation of facts and eventually convinced people of the need to lessen government intervention. Many of his policy proposals to limit government have become conventional wisdom across the globe (see recent biography ‘Milton Friedman’ by Lanny Ebenstein). His policy proposals have done more to advance freedom than perhaps the work of any other individual over the past few centuries.
But admittedly, many devotees of the environmental religion and its doom narrative will not listen to scientific facts or scientific reason. They are enthralled to the grand Salvationist story they have created, a story that appeals to the basest drives in human psyches- fear of the future and change, the urge to convert and control others, guilt over consumption and the felt need to live simply, and hatred of an economic system that is built around consumption. All of these powerful themes reinforce the grand narrative and render scientific reason and fact of little value in the thinking of the committed devotee of the grand story.
In this current global warming hysteria we are observing the irresponsible terrorizing of public consciousness with an alarmist story of climate apocalyptic. Psychologists have even noted the increased levels of anxiety and fear over this climate alarmism (“Anxiety brings memories of nuclear threat”, National Post, Feb.10/07).
This incredible tale of looming disaster is being promoted to hinder and halt the very economic growth that will lift people out of poverty and enable them to properly adapt to whatever climate challenges the future will bring. But scaring people has always been an effective way to manipulate and control them. Once terrorized, people are all too willing to give up their freedom to those who promise to save them from whatever has been employed to terrorize them in the first place. This is why these climate hysterians, like Al Gore, are the most dangerous people on earth. They pose a threat to freedom that has potential to cause more damage to human progress than any other form of terrorism today.
After more than two centuries of theorizing, practical experimentation, and refinement we now know that the story of human and environmental success is built on such things as freedom of commerce and trade, private property rights, limited government, privatization, protected investment markets (good contract and other law), a scientific approach to problem solving, and modern technology, among other elements.
Understand well the global warming narrative that is being beaten into the public consciousness. Note its underlying themes and check them against the real story of life and humanity and what has worked best to advance life on earth. Some excellent sources of data are listed immediately below to aid in checking the fundamental trends of life and the true nature of life. These will help in the creation of a grand new story based on life as it actually exists and functions. This factually based story of life will unleash hope, human potential, and unlimited progress in all areas. It is a life-affirming and humanity-affirming narrative.
The real story of life assures us that we need not fear life or the future. It is critically important that we structure our life and beliefs around the authentic story of life. This will enable us to avoid unnecessary guilt or despair over life and prevent us from taking the wrong actions when engaging life (e.g. the unnecessary demonization and regulation of CO2, which is not a pollutant but is a nutrient of critical importance to life and progress). Embracing the wrong story can lead to much wasted time, resources, and effort. It can severely restrain human potential and progress.
Suggested reading: Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource, Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World, Bjorn Lomberg’s Skeptical Environmentalist, Greg Easterbrook’s A Moment On The Earth, James Payne’s History of Force, Stephen LeBlanc’s Constant Battles, Alston Chase’s In A Dark Wood, and the CCNet archives online.
Wendell Krossa wkrossa@shaw.ca
_____________________________________
(Note: A new extremist religion/ideology is taking hold in public consciousness across the world. This new religion has a grand myth or narrative with which it hopes to shape human consciousness and thereby enslave the human spirit. This religion exhibits many of the basic themes and drives of previous religious movements- an unchallengeable truth impervious to scientific fact, the demand for a strictly constrained and regulated lifestyle in accordance with the core beliefs, an orientation to fear as a basic motivation, and so on. The material below outlines some of the basic features of this new environmental religion and points to facts that counter its central themes.)
All of us inform our lives with stories and we live our lives as individual stories. Living a story is essential to what it means to be human. And various groups in our societies present us grander stories or narratives that powerfully influence our own personal adventures. Many of us live our lives in terms of some in-group story, whether it be religious, ideological, scientific or other.
Global warming alarmism is perhaps the most prominent public story being that is being embraced across the Earth today. While there has been some effort to place this story within the realm of science, at core it is just the latest version of the same old doom/salvation narratives held by our ancestors. Nonetheless, this story has successfully lodged itself in the public consciousness because it resonates with a number of widely accepted themes that have long been beaten into human consciousness. These would include:
Life and ecosystems are fragile (the “great planetary imperilment myth”, according to www.ecofascism.com ).
Life is heading for some soon-to-arrive calamity (this central apocalyptic theme with its related fear-mongering and despair has an especially long history in human story telling- see, for instance, Mircea Eliade’s History of Religious Ideas).
Human intervention in nature is mainly destructive (this is based on the belief that people are inherently bad) and therefore people need to be strictly regulated and constrained. They cannot be trusted. (This theme of pure nature as victim of evil humanity is perhaps one of the more central ideas to this great warming myth. Evil humanity is destroying pure and delicate nature which must be protected from such a greedy species). Life is static and unchanging, hence any change is evidence of decline and fragility. This distortion is most notable in pop ecology and its endless hysteria over any discovered changes in ecosystems.
Resources are scarce and life is stingy or strictly limited. Hence, severely curtailing consumption (which is essential to human progress) is the one and only way of salvation. Guilt and fear are the primary emotions that are manipulated here.
Various other related themes could be added here such as the primitive tribal view of ‘limited good’ which argues that because resources are limited if some take more than a “fair share” then others will suffer loss. Another theme supporting the alarmist climate warming story is plain old anti-capitalist ideology and the drive to halt economic growth. This anti-capitalist ideology fits well with the limited good or limited resources view of contemporary environmentalism. Many environmentalists view capitalism as built around what they believe to be the fallacy of unlimited resources and endless growth. They believe unfettered (free) capitalism will lead to the exhaustion of resources and breakdown of environmental systems. Wilfred Beckerman (A Poverty of Reason), Huber and Mills (Bottomless Well), and Julian Simon (Ultimate Resource), among others, all deal with this primitive and distorting view of limited resources.
Related to the concept of limits is the religious belief in the moral superiority of a low consumption lifestyle (Julian Simon, a rare voice on this issue, deals thoroughly with the importance of consumption and its benefits to all life in his book Ultimate Resource). This set of anti-economic development themes has coalesced in the crusade to enact centralized control and regulation to constrain and even stop economic growth, which makes it a crusade to halt human progress. The socialist element in this crusade is driven by the old collectivist urge to deny the value and freedom of the individual in favor of some greater good. Closely related to this anti-economic growth ideology is the pagan demonization of humanity along with the sacralization of nature as a greater good. In such nature worship, evil humanity is to be sacrificed on the altar of pure and pristine nature.
Julian Simon notes a variety of other elements in the outlook of the lead narrators of the alarmist story. He points to the arrogant debasement and dismissal of other human beings evident in the comments of leaders promoting the socialist/environmental tale. For instance, Paul Erhlich has said that giving people access to cheap, inexhaustible supplies of energy, “is like giving a machine gun to an idiot child” (Ultimate Resource, p.298). Another theologian of environmental apocalyptic, Garret Hardin, said, “People ask me- don’t you have faith in anything? And I always have the same answer…I have an unshakable faith in the unreliability of man” (p.299). Would he also categorize himself and his own views as unreliable?
And then there is the elitist selfishness of the people who want to conserve pristine nature for their own enjoyment to the exclusion of others. “When some famous conservationist tells us that there should be fewer people so that it is easier for him or her to find a deserted stretch of beach or mountain range or forest, she or he is simply saying…’I enjoy it, and I don’t want to share it’” (p.284). This call to save nature for me and my environmentally enlightened friends demands that others be eliminated. The obvious question that is begged here is who decides who should be removed so some may enjoy more untouched nature? Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said, “The human population is the AIDs of the earth…(and) should be cut by 85%”. The rest should return to a primitive lifestyle and only a very small percentage should be allowed to reproduce (“Send in the assmonkeys”, National Post, May 15/07). Would those 85% cut include him and his family? And would the tiny percentage allowed to reproduce include him and his wife?
Simon also notes the perverse orientation to death and destruction evident in the narration of leading environmentalists. Instead of focusing on things like planting and growth (human creativity, productivity, and inventiveness), environmentalists focus on destruction and death (the supposed loss of species and habitat, which has often been proven to have been based on false claims). While there are areas where loss and destruction are a genuine concern, too often the focus on relatively minor problem areas is extrapolated out to damn all human activity and engagement of nature. In this perverse view of human engagement of nature as harmful, harvesting of nature’s resources is not celebrated but damned as destructive. This is evident, for instance, in the environmental charge that using too much paper destroys forests. But people are not told that trees are planted and forests created in order to make paper. Or that only 5 percent of the world’s forests are required to meet humanity’s demands for wood and paper products (Bjorn Lomberg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.115).
With the dismal view of humanity and human activity as destructive is it any wonder that the environmental/socialist response is to advocate for the strict control and restraint of other people? This moralistic urge to tell others how to live their lives is based primarily on the moral and aesthetic preferences of the environmental extremists and not on any sound scientific reasoning. It is a primitive tribal urge to dominate and control others. It has no place in modern human society.
These basic themes and drives, along with others, shape the core of environmental mythology. And they distort the actual nature of life. But they have been effective in reinforcing the current global narrative of fear and despair. They affirm the basic outlook on life that is held by the narrators of this story, an outlook oriented to doom and destruction. To maintain this orientation to disaster the narrators of this story ignore the actual fundamental trends of life to focus too often on aberrations that confirm their addiction to despair (episodes of disease, disaster, and human fallibility).
Nonetheless, this story appeals to many people with its emphasis on looming disaster and promises of salvation. It stirs the urge to heroic action and sacrifice to save something.
But it is a pathological story that has inspired a severe case of denial and, at times, even lunacy among its advocates. The free private property economic system that people have devised over the past three centuries has produced a level of human well being that has never before been attained in the history of the world. Things have never before been so good. We are wealthier, healthier, we live longer with fewer diseases and disabilities, and we are cleaning up and improving our environments as never before. Yet these climate hysterians want to shut down this economic growth and insist on blaming it for all the ills still present in the world. Ills that should more correctly be blamed upon the excessive state interventionism that they advocate.
The promoters of this story of despair are perhaps the most dangerous people on earth. Their hysteria drives them to halt economic growth and development which will only endanger human life and progress as well as undermine our ability to protect the environment. For example, remember the anti-chemical hysteria stirred by Rachel Carson which led to the banning of DDT. That ban led to immeasurable human suffering and the unnecessary deaths of multiple millions of people in some of the poorest regions of the world (see DDT FAQ at JunkScience.com). It has significantly set back the development of regions like Africa.
Contrary to the environmental mythology, the actual story of life is rooted firmly and safely in the following facts:
Life is exceedingly durable and resilient. It possesses incredible self-buffering and self-regulating capacities such as protective and life-enhancing feedback mechanisms/loops. This is especially evident in relation to climate. The Earth has experienced repeated spells of cooling and warming over its history, going through climate changes more sudden and severe than those of today. Yet species have adapted to such changes and life has continued to thrive. Remember that polar bears have survived the repeated entire melting of Arctic ice.
Life has evidenced an amazing creative adaptability in progressing toward something better from the very beginning.
Intelligent human intervention has improved the state of nature and worked well to rescue it from its own dead ends (predation) and deformities (viral, natural disaster- see Craig Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth). This affirms the fundamental goodness of conscious humanity and humanity’s valuable contribution in bringing order to the randomness of nature (as Simon notes, we create more than we destroy).
Life has never known an original and static condition that can be called natural, but is ever-changing and often massively and rapidly.
Life encompasses a generous outpouring of energy and resources to be harvested and ‘wasted’ in creating more order, organization, and wealth (see Hard Green and Bottomless Well by Huber and Mills).
To properly comprehend the nature of life we need to look at the long term trends where we find no reason for fear or despair but rather much evidence for profound hope and optimism. Check the data sources listed at the end and see for yourself what the actual long term trends of life are about. And remember, it was the genius of researchers like Julian Simon to note the long term trends and not to focus on downturns, setbacks, and other aberrations to the fundamental trends of life.
For instance, Bjorn Lomberg gives the example of Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University who ignored the long term trend of improvement in treating tuberculosis and instead focused on a small reversal of this trend in the 1990s. Pimentel then tried to make the argument that TB was getting worse and extrapolated this out to a more general argument that all disease was getting worse (The Skeptical Environmentalist, p.21-26). Ignoring the long term trends to focus on aberrations will lead to such distorting conclusions about life and its fundamental features. This has been a repeated error of the climate hysterians.
The long term rise and progress of life is most evident in the history of humanity and the human engagement of life. Here we find millennia of evidence of creativity, adaptation, development, and progress in health, wealth, peace and order, and general living conditions. This is due to the fundamental human impulse to find and make something better. This basic human impulse has resulted in ongoing improvement to the state of the world. It is an impulse that operates best in a climate of freedom.
Julian Simon said that scares come and go. And it is entirely irresponsible and unscientific to react to each change in life (especially in climate) with schemes of massive government intervention and regulation. Policy choices that are enacted out of fear and that over-react with excessive regulation to prevent imagined catastrophes, such policy choices are detrimental to freedom and progress. History has shown that the state interventionist approach has been the most destructive response to human freedom and progress (note for instance, the devastating impact- on people and the environment- of last century’s grand experiment in socialist intervention and control).
We end up looking real silly when we blow our whole wad, for instance, on each shift in climate. And slowing economic growth will not stop the climate from changing anyway. It has been noted that if Kyoto were fully enacted the impact on climate would amount to a small fraction of one percent which is statistically insignificant and probably not even measurable. It would likely not slow climate change at all. Climate will continue to warm and cool as it has done repeatedly over Earth’s history (remember that just as recently the 1970s we were being warned of climate cooling disaster- that scare crusade was also fueled by an anti-capitalist or anti-industrial ideology).
Recent research now shows that since 1998 no further warming has occurred and this may signal the fact that we are already entering another cooling period (CCNet Dec.20/07). In response to these natural swings in climate it is wiser to promote further economic growth in order that our societies, with increasing wealth, may be able to better assist their populations in adapting to more climate change, whichever direction it takes.
But behind the proposed Salvationism of the global warming alarm story there exists the more fundamental assault on economic freedom and growth by people who want to control others and dictate to them how to live their lives. This drive to dominate is visible in the current widespread endeavor to regulate and constrain economic growth, and to redistribute wealth. It is just more of the same old socialist meddling that destroyed economies and environments across the earth in the last century.
I would suggest that this primitive drive to dominate and control others, to tell others how to live their lives, is one of the core drives behind the global warming alarmist narrative (and it is also behind contemporary Islamic extremist threats, as well as other forms of totalitarianism). It is a perverse drive of people who mistakenly believe that they have a final truth and want to convert all others who lack their level of enlightenment.
This drive to dominate and control assaults the most important human right of all- that of individual freedom. The right of individual freedom has been best stated in the libertarian ideal- that each person is free to live their life as they choose, as long as they grant the same freedom to all others.
Only individual freedom of this type can make a society truly human or humane. As Lanny Ebenstein said in his biography of Milton Friedman, “There is no good of society not found in the good of the individual, just as there is no society apart from the individuals who compose it. In Friedman’s, the libertarian, the classical liberal, and the utilitarian philosophies, all place the individual at the center of the universe and place the individual’s greatest good, happiness and freedom as the summum bonum or ultimate good” (p.141).
Ebenstein continues, noting that what motivated Friedman was his passion for individual human freedom. “Friedman’s philosophy, following the utilitarians, is individualism. ‘The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual’, Friedman writes. Friedman passionately believes that each individual has value. This is why he so strongly emphasizes human freedom. Only in a condition of freedom can each individual develop himself or herself to the fullest” (p.141). Where individual freedom is protected and promoted, there individuals reach their fullest potential. And this is the primary obligation of any state, to protect and promote individual freedom, not some collective good. When states forget the primacy of individual freedom and interfere to promote some imagined public welfare or greater good then individual freedom suffers. And, as Milton Freidman and others have argued, the promotion of individual freedom will result in the highest collective good in the end, anyway. The highest form of any greater good is the sum of free individual choices or free individual lives, diverse as they may be.
On any scale of human well being it is unacceptable for some people to coercively impose restrictions on other’s lives especially when that coercion is based on beliefs that are simply wrong about the real nature of life. This is an intolerable assault on individual freedom. The outcome of the domination impulse in modern society has been the endless crusade to enact new laws and regulations to cover every conceivable potential ill. This regulatory trend often unnecessarily hinders the freedom of others who will never contribute to any potential ill anyway. And more recently, this drive for regulation has been co-opted by those seeking to prevent economic growth by prohibiting the use of the energy that is vital to such growth. It is an endeavor to criminalize the very economic growth and development that is essential to all human progress and well being.
In recent years, the anti-capitalist narrators have focused their crusade to demonize capitalism in the anti-CO2 or anti-energy campaign and would love to halt it entirely or severely hamper its use with all sorts of regulations, bans and caps. But energy is the life blood of our economies (and remember that carbon is the very basis of all life). The extremists simply will not recognize that our free private property economic system has done more than any other system to lift people out of poverty and to consequently clean up and protect the environment (Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World presents evidence of the ‘environmental transition’ where increasing wealth via economic growth and development has resulted in an improved environment). Add to this the fact that scientific evidence has not yet established the linkage of CO2 to global warming. In fact, the evidence shows that CO2 increases follow warming periods.
In the grand narrative employed by those fighting capitalism there is also the continuing devaluation of people as essentially greedy and selfish. This disparagement of people is entirely wrong-headed. Our history proves that, to the contrary, we have steadily improved life. Our history shows that in net terms we are far more creators than destroyers. Central to a more accurate story of life must be the fact of the essential goodness of people and what Joseph Campbell calls the wonder of being human (The Power of Myth). This basic human goodness requires freedom from any constraining government intervention and regulation in order to reach its fullest potential.
I would add here that Milton Friedman countered the grand narrative of his time- that the supposed failures of capitalism required massive government intervention a la Keynes- with a dogged presentation of facts and eventually convinced people of the need to lessen government intervention. Many of his policy proposals to limit government have become conventional wisdom across the globe (see recent biography ‘Milton Friedman’ by Lanny Ebenstein). His policy proposals have done more to advance freedom than perhaps the work of any other individual over the past few centuries.
But admittedly, many devotees of the environmental religion and its doom narrative will not listen to scientific facts or scientific reason. They are enthralled to the grand Salvationist story they have created, a story that appeals to the basest drives in human psyches- fear of the future and change, the urge to convert and control others, guilt over consumption and the felt need to live simply, and hatred of an economic system that is built around consumption. All of these powerful themes reinforce the grand narrative and render scientific reason and fact of little value in the thinking of the committed devotee of the grand story.
In this current global warming hysteria we are observing the irresponsible terrorizing of public consciousness with an alarmist story of climate apocalyptic. Psychologists have even noted the increased levels of anxiety and fear over this climate alarmism (“Anxiety brings memories of nuclear threat”, National Post, Feb.10/07).
This incredible tale of looming disaster is being promoted to hinder and halt the very economic growth that will lift people out of poverty and enable them to properly adapt to whatever climate challenges the future will bring. But scaring people has always been an effective way to manipulate and control them. Once terrorized, people are all too willing to give up their freedom to those who promise to save them from whatever has been employed to terrorize them in the first place. This is why these climate hysterians, like Al Gore, are the most dangerous people on earth. They pose a threat to freedom that has potential to cause more damage to human progress than any other form of terrorism today.
After more than two centuries of theorizing, practical experimentation, and refinement we now know that the story of human and environmental success is built on such things as freedom of commerce and trade, private property rights, limited government, privatization, protected investment markets (good contract and other law), a scientific approach to problem solving, and modern technology, among other elements.
Understand well the global warming narrative that is being beaten into the public consciousness. Note its underlying themes and check them against the real story of life and humanity and what has worked best to advance life on earth. Some excellent sources of data are listed immediately below to aid in checking the fundamental trends of life and the true nature of life. These will help in the creation of a grand new story based on life as it actually exists and functions. This factually based story of life will unleash hope, human potential, and unlimited progress in all areas. It is a life-affirming and humanity-affirming narrative.
The real story of life assures us that we need not fear life or the future. It is critically important that we structure our life and beliefs around the authentic story of life. This will enable us to avoid unnecessary guilt or despair over life and prevent us from taking the wrong actions when engaging life (e.g. the unnecessary demonization and regulation of CO2, which is not a pollutant but is a nutrient of critical importance to life and progress). Embracing the wrong story can lead to much wasted time, resources, and effort. It can severely restrain human potential and progress.
Suggested reading: Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource, Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World, Bjorn Lomberg’s Skeptical Environmentalist, Greg Easterbrook’s A Moment On The Earth, James Payne’s History of Force, Stephen LeBlanc’s Constant Battles, Alston Chase’s In A Dark Wood, and the CCNet archives online.
Wendell Krossa wkrossa@shaw.ca
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