The Beginning of Wisdom!

By Rich Kozlovich

For more years than I care to remember - I actually remember the 1970‘s oil crisis and Carter’s follies during that time - I have heard the environmentalists pontificate about oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear energy, wind and solar energy, and biofuels.  The environmental movement has a remarkable record regarding energy production.  They’ve been 100% wrong!  Nothing they’ve predicted has to come to pass and everything they've recommended has failed to work as predicted.  In the real world of business, that’s the definition of a failure. 

The world was told we were running out of oil, and have been doing so since the late 1940's.  We were told in the 1947 there were only 68 billion barrels of crude oil left in the world.  Over the next 50 years we used 783 billion barrels, and at the end of 1998 there were still 1,050 barrels of proven reserves.  In 1966 the proven natural gas reserves stood at 1,040 trillion cubic feet (tcf).  By the end of 1998 we had used up 1,880 tcf and yet an untapped 5,145 tcf remained.   The term proven reserves only tells us what’s been found.  It tells us nothing about what has yet to be found.  To assume otherwise is like saying we’re brilliant with what we know and learning anything else is unnecessary.  That’s not how life works, and that’s not how energy production works, and those who use the proven reserves argument to claim we’re running out of energy are either ignorant or using that statistic to deliberately mislead the public.   

That means the green movement is filled with people who are either ignorant or dishonest.  So why are they listened to? 

In spite of the history of energy production they continued to claim all fossil fuels were being depleted and soon there would be none, except coal and that was unacceptable - so 'alternative' energy was needed.  However, they protested nuclear power, then praised it for not producing CO2, then when other green groups protested their praise they went back to protesting nuclear.  They loved hydroelectric, then they hated it because the rivers weren’t free flowing; they loved bio-fuels, then they hated the environmental impact caused by its production; they loved solar, then they hated the effect it had on the land and animals; they loved wind and then hated it because windmills cause massive bird and bat kills. 

They end up not only protesting what works; they protest their own ideas, which don’t work.  You have to admit, that’s a remarkable record of failure, since there are so many from the science community involved in these groups who lend their names and credibility to these claims.   

The environmental movement isn’t monolithic.  It has no command and control structure, so anything one or more of these groups recommends or agrees to with other groups can be protested by groups within their movement.  That creates an interesting conundrum for those who believe they can negotiate with them and find common ground.  Common ground that will remain common ground!  But that’s a problem when dealing with social/green activists!  Invariably the only thing anyone will get out of these groups is a short period of silence.   

No matter how many concessions are made someone will find cause to vilify any businessman for doing what they all agreed was a good thing, and the media will support these activists.   Activists love technology!   As long as it doesn’t exist!  They love to hate technology once it becomes available.

For years I’ve been saying the price of gasoline is the beginning of wisdom.   I will add to that by saying – the depth to which the thermometer will drop is also the beginning of wisdom.

A couple of years ago I posted a bunch of articles about fracking – a great many from Steve Milloy’s Junkscience.com - showing all the claims by the activists were flawed, speculative or outright fraudulent.  For some reason Paradigms and Demographics started getting a lot of hits on those links and at the same time a lot of hits from Bulgaria.  Since I rarely had hits from there I wondered what that was all about.  About a week or two later there was a movement to overturn the Bulgarian government’s anti-fracking policy.  Eastern Europe had a very cold winter the year before and people froze to death for lack of energy.   No doubt that people freezing to death was the beginning of wisdom in Eastern Europe. 

So what really is the beginning of wisdom? 

With all environmental issues there are some basic values we must accept if we are to attain wisdom, which starts with the definition of wisdom!  Wisdom is the application of knowledge and understanding!  Once we fully recognize that we can move on to understanding that truth is the sublime convergence of history and reality.  That clearly is a sound basis to apply what is supposed to be the motto of science - De Omnibus Dubitandum – question everything!  Questioning everything forces us to do the research on these issues – or any issue for that matter – and conclude that everything the green/left coalition says are either lies of omission or lies of commission.   Once we are willing to accept that reality we must conclude the green/left movement is irrational, misanthropic and morally defective since everything they’ve promoted, and everything they are promoting is seriously detrimental to humanity.  This is a movement that has been directly responsible for more deaths than the socialist monsters of the 20^th century.  

That’s the beginning of wisdom!