Climate Alarmism vs Climate Dialogue

The claim that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is an existential threat has finally been officially debunked. A group of very smart people dove into the reference literature and published conclusions, and can now explain how we got here … and it is not pretty. In fact, the summary of their work is that the science community has lost almost all its credibility for not speaking up.

An article in the WSJ says it all: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-more-honest-climate-science-82f928a0?st=sqtyga6kczap3en&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The reason they have remained silent is due to the tactic climate activists have embraced which include alarmism and outright attacks. The scientific community has been hijacked by a relatively small group of environmental activists who have a clear plan of what they want and are taking shreds of evidence that support their position while ignoring mountains of evidence that refutes everything they are saying.

The movie and podcasts available through www.aclimateconversation.com exposes how a history of alarmism and eco-socialism resulted in the canceling of scientific debate and reason. As with so many other social issues, there is no longer any room for debate.

David Legates is the author of In Climate and Energy, The Case for Realism, the #1 bestseller on Amazon. Co-Written with E. Calvin Beisner, the book also features contributions from a host of other scientists. The book provides a clear, cogent, and beautifully written history of climate alarmism; how it began, what the drivers were, and how the economic agenda of the major players, who are far more well organized than may be realized, is the true aim, is not “saving the planet” as a matter of changing climate.

Dr. Legates has a PhD in Climatology and has witnessed, and been a significant player in, the great climate crisis for 30 years. Dr Legates has taught at Louisiana State University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Virginia, and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Climate Data Center. There can be no credible argument that Dr Gates is not an expert in the field of climate who knows more about atmospheric and temperature effects and their measurement than the vast majority of scientists involved in the IPCC.

The largely untold and unknown story of climate alarmism, which can fairly be described as a contrived crisis led to eco-socialism that is the driving UN goal: global wealth redistribution. The authors prove that prosperity has been driven by hydrocarbon-based energy, has produced longevity and reductions in mortality on a dramatic scale.

As you watch the free movie available on the website you will be confronted with the facts that carbon dioxide is a beneficial agent for feeding our modern world, and that the ideology of banning fossil fuels without realistic and affordable alternatives, is like jumping out of a plane at altitude without a parachute.

There are some issues the movie fails to capture, like how since the 1960s Clean Air Act our cleaner air is also increasing the earth’s temperature, and that the planetary load resulting from bringing all citizens of this planet up to our standard of living is unachievable. And, the plastic garbage problem is pictured but none of these professionals had the time in this film to suggest what to do about it.

Another documentary that speaks volumes on this issue is Planet of the Humans available on Amazon Prime Video or for free with ads. In it, the most telling scene is an interview with Al Gore and Richard Branson who are both making fortunes on the alleged Climate Crisis. They are asked if they consider themselves prophets. Their telling answer, “It depends on how you spell Profits!” And they laugh hysterically.

No … it isn’t funny at all. We are all paying for something we are not getting.

Will They Beat a Path to Your Door

I grew up with the adage that if you build a better mousetrap people will beat a path to your door. My second masters degree is in product innovation and new product introduction. Central to my training was the idea that improving a product would result in people beating a path to your door. It is interesting to note that the origins of this phrase are murky but most people know the adage and will repeat it indicating it is a somewhat universal belief.

Well … maybe not if this New York Times article is any indication … https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/nyregion/glue-trap-rodents-nyc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gk0.QKot.aq4J-js-6hF3&smid=url-share

Banning glue traps is the latest in what some would insist is governmental overreach. I think we all understand the arguments about abortion, but are we really concerned about the suffering of rats? I have used and do use glue traps to catch cockroaches all the time and frankly, I know my wife is not sympathetic to how they die. It is funny to me how much these insects freak her out. She can’t go near a dead one no less be anywhere near a live one. She is less afraid of poisonous spiders or snakes. But, I do have to admit I have some empathy for field mice.

I know people who won’t even swat a mosquito because killing an insect is wrong to them. Sorry, that doesn’t bother me at all. However, the idea of a field mouse dying a slow and painful death does disturb me a bit. I have used glue traps and put a few of those little critters out of their misery when I found them in the traps.

Product innovation has moved from “utility” … aka how well a product works to achieve an end result to something much fuzzier to define. How do we define ridding the house of something that lives and whose life might be deemed valuable?

Rats bring less sympathy to my mind and heart than field mice. I have never been successful in using live traps for either. I have used live traps to relocate a whole family of raccoons from our back yard successfully. They didn’t like the process, but none of them were harmed. Interestingly I have been warned that you had better move them at least 10 miles from their natural habitat or they will find their way back.

My wife is in a perpetual battle to keep deer out of our garden and to stop them from eating her favorite plants. I love the product named “Not Tonight Deer” which repels deer by coating the plants with an odorant. This seems innocent and effective. The name is a hoot!

Setting all the anecdotes aside, I do find that today’s consumer attitudes are less knowable in these areas without awareness and education. Otherwise, It seems we have selective sensitivity about the pain and suffering of animals. Dogs and cats would never be trapped using inhuman methods … at least knowingly.

But, what about those adorable dolphins we see performing at SeaWorld? Now that we better understand how killer whales have been treated the days of their lives in captivity are numbered. Watch the movie Blackfish if you want to understand that issue. So, once again, if the American consumer is made aware of the “rest of the story” they respond.

The New York Times article points out that today’s consumer perspectives are much more nuanced than the simple attributes we used to justify product innovation. Simply said, it matters how a product is improved and the full supply chain for the product itself. We all remember when diamond mining was discovered to endanger the lives of Africans … we called them blood diamonds. Today’s EVs have a similar supply chain characteristic with the mining of lithium and other metals used in batteries. Fortunately, governments are onto these abuses and the horrible impacts of current production methods are likely to change for the better.

If you want to see how modern methods to reduce cost in things like garlic, chocolate, etc. please watch “Rotten” or “Seaspiracy” and of course “Planet of the Humans.” In every case innovation might cause people to beat a path to your door, but only as long as they are kept in the dark about how they are killing off their brothers and sisters on this planet.
It is time to present the full picture and let the market decide whether they care or not. The jury may still be out on rats, but personally I find our complacency toward the sickness and death of others pretty damning.

I do have a suggestion someone made that we should stop using rats for biological testing and use lawyers instead. Their reasoning was that we were running out of rats and seemed to have an excess of lawyers. Secondly, you don’t become nearly as attached to lawyers. And, finally, there are some things you just can’t get a rat to do.

So far this too has just been a suggestion.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

Wow … what a wild word we are living within! A Harvard professor is implying his team can bring the fountain of youth to reality. Of course, there are skeptics and calls for his termination as well. https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/05/david-sinclair-harvard-longevity-scientist-reversing-aging-dogs/

Do you all remember when superconductivity was claimed at room temperature? Take a look at this article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01174-6

The scientific community has become tainted by opportunists and frankly … liars … who are so hungry for funding they will compromise their ethics and “fake it till you make it” as the Silicon Valley adage goes. Theranos is the classic example but we have so many these days that the abuse of public trust and investor confidence is tragic.

I suspect we are about to see similar reversals of praise in the climate change claims of so many. The attraction of simple answers to complex questions always lures us. Knowing professionals realize how complex today’s questions have become.

A recent New York Times article in the New York Times struck me as refreshing.  These paragraphs are IMHO some of the most profound writing I have seen:

“I warn my students. At the start of every semester, on the first day of every course, I confess to certain passions and quirks and tell them to be ready: I’m a stickler for correct grammar, spelling and the like, so if they don’t have it in them to care about and patrol for such errors, they probably won’t end up with the grade they’re after. I want to hear everyone’s voice — I tell them that, too — but I don’t want to hear anybody’s voice so often and so loudly that the other voices don’t have a chance.”

“And I’m going to repeat one phrase more often than any other: “It’s complicated.” They’ll become familiar with that. They may even become bored with it. I’ll sometimes say it when we’re discussing the roots and branches of a social ill, the motivations of public (and private) actors and a whole lot else, and that’s because I’m standing before them not as an ambassador of certainty or a font of unassailable verities but as an emissary of doubt. I want to give them intelligent questions, not final answers. I want to teach them how much they have to learn — and how much they will always have to learn.”

There is a lot we can learn from these recent articles which should cause us to question almost everything we are being told. We need an informed electorate or we are going to elect charlatans again and again.

Is Good Health Good Business?

I have long wondered whether the dominant use of chemotherapy we all hear about and experience is really all that good for our health? According to many health professionals I talk to … some is and most is not. However, it is all good business for those who provide it … that is when you define good business as making profits.

Interestingly, MIT Research is now concerned about the health care research business.  Here is their excerpt:

“There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work.”

“We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones.”

For many, especially those with severe diseases, an experimental treatment may be better than nothing. But if companies struggle to get funding following a bad outcome, it can delay progress in an entire research field.

A key part of our health is of course what we eat. We are all told to eat fresh vegetables and to avoid salt, yet our food companies push us toward prepared foods and salty snacks with low to no nutritional value. They also push bottled water which pollutes the planet.

Many of us donate our time and resources to local food banks, and tend to emphasize good food choices … well, perhaps a bit heavy on the carbs, but let’s let that go.  When I see an article pleading with us to help those with food insecurity I have to wonder. Here is our government’s latest initiative: FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Launches the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities, Announces New Public & Private Sector Actions to Continue Momentum from Historic Hunger, Nutrition, and Health Conference | The White House

Please square this with the following summary statement from the energy efficiency and green choice advocacy group greenbiz.com recently:

“It’s a sad truth that at least 10 percent of American households are experiencing food insecurity. At the same time, diet-related diseases including type-2 diabetes, obesity and hypertension are increasing. These are preventable problems that have been manufactured, in part, by big food companies. But now is the time for the private sector to step up.”

So, big food companies are deliberately deteriorating our health because they make more money doing that. I don’t see any warnings on the packaging about limiting our daily consumption or how to eat a balanced diet.  Meanwhile our government is banning natural gas in stoves, water heaters, and space heating in new construction, and banning internal combustion engines. These alternatives all raise our costs … the very thing that puts financial strain on those who can least afford it.

Also think about all those ads you see that promote drugs to reduce rashes, lose weight, increase memory, and cure this or that.  Notice that the ad has about 1/3 promises to make your life better followed by 2/3 lists of warnings of side effects, often including the possibility of death!  Most of us had no idea that there were drugs for this or that so this must lead to overprescribe medications.  My physician friends tell me they are all being pushed to overprescribe.

Clearly this is not good health but smacks of good business, if you measure good by financial returns rather than “do no harm” physicians signed up for.

Our government is banning lots of things these days, so why aren’t they banning salty snacks that lead to serious health concerns?

You rightly snap back at me with the obvious: We have freedom of choice! Or, if you are following the theological implications, use the phrase “free will.” And, I agree, but why do others have the rights to limit my choices then when it comes to heating in my home and what kind of transportation I choose?

And, why are you asking me to pay to help/correct the problems that others have imposed on the food insecure citizens of our country and around the world?

As I have said all along … follow the money.

Leaving Your Mark

My wife Susan and I were visiting a friend’s home this week and I noticed what appeared to be a branding iron embossed with his initials hanging on the wall. He shared that it was a gift from a friend enabling him to brand steaks he grilled.

That triggered an almost instant connection to the concepts of branding in companies, artists, and service providers. They all leave a mark on their products that distinguishes it or them from competitors and hopefully from copycats.

It turns out that mental connection was right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand

There you see the origin of branding irons was to prevent theft. I think we all are aware of cattle being branded so rustlers could be caught and the cattle they stole recovered. Knowing this traceability, clever thieves would simply slaughter the cattle in the fields and leave the hides behind.

Today, companies recognize that brand identity and differentiation are crucial elements in brand loyalty. Then, how do you differentiate a commodity like electricity or natural gas that are indistinguishable from providers. The only clear differentiator is price, right?

Some of you quick thinkers will respond insisting that it is the way electricity is made that differentiates the provider. Was it produced using solar, wind, hydro, nuclear. or fossil fuels? Others of you will remark that the time and duration of supply matters because the value of keeping the lights on for everyone changes all the time.

So, the value of the commodity depends upon the value of timely and reliable supply for a customer. Therefore, customers who are flexible about when they get their power should pay a lower price than those who simply want it available at the flip of a switch.

In every case, the energy provider leaves a mark on the minds and hearts of their consumers. Now that we define this objective, it seems to me that education and proof of your generation, delivery, and reliability excellence also define that mark.

Over the years, energy providers learned that one of the most important brand differentiators was their energy efficiency and demand response programs and services, which educated and enabled consumers to be participants in this brand identity.

I am not sure energy providers realize how important this is any longer. The mark being left today is the impression that the industry simply doesn’t care about these essentials any longer. The result is we reduce this all to price … it is moving back to a pure commodity.