"The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

 Two lessons come with Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia: One, Republicans should stick to issues, such as education, which are more important to voters than personalities, and two, endorsements by Donald Trump are fine, as long as he does not campaign in the candidate’s district.

 

New Jersey, as I write, is still too close to call.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Boy Who Cried Wolf”

November 3, 2021

 

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you

start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.”

                                                                                                       Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

                                                                                                       American author & filmmaker

                                                                                                       Michelin Lecture, Caltech, January 17, 2003

 

The moral of Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf is that false cries for help mean real calls for help will be ignored. A climate apocalypse has been forecast for years, sometimes by the well-intentioned but naïve looking to do good, but often by the cynical seeking political or personal advantage. 

 

Two years ago, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, recognizing that global temperatures are indeed rising, compiled a list of dire climate predictions that did not happen. Here is a sample: In 1969, the Nobel winning German scientist, Paul Ehrlich predicted that everybody would “disappear in a cloud of blue steam.” In 1974 Time Magazine warned that “space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.” The New York Times in 1978 reported that an “international team of specialists” feared the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” Over the next ten years, Cassandras changed their forecasts from cooling to warming: An Associated Press headline from 1989 read, quoting UN officials: “Rising seas could obliterate nations.” And who could forget Al Gore’s 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth, in which he predicted that Artic ice would be gone in seven years. Today, doomsayers blame every forest fire, drought and hurricane on anthropological-caused climate change.

 

I am not a climate change denier. In fact, I know of no one who is. The term is used by climate disciples to belittle heretics who dare question the dogma that man alone is at fault for a warming planet. They are ruthless in their treatment of those skeptical of their professed causes of a changing climate. In National Geographic’s film Before the Flood, Bjørn Lomborg is listed as one of the ten most prominent “climate deniers.” Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and, in my opinion, the most reasonable voice on the subject. He begins every interview by repeating that he believes the Earth is warming. His sin is that he uses empirical evidence, logic and common sense to demonstrate that claimed apocalyptic consequences are more hyperbole than factual, which he explains in his 2020 book False Alarm. Fostering panic over climate change gets Progressives elected, sells books and movies and abets corporate welfare for renewable sources of energy. But for the rest of us, it does more harm than good.

 

Nobody really knows the costs of climate change, but it is not cheap. “Analysts,” according to an article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, “say as much as $150 trillion is likely needed over the next three decades to fund renewable energy projects, upgrade electric grids, mothball fossil fuel plants, seed new agricultural technologies, and pay for damages tied to climate change.” The questions have always been: What are the economic and social costs of doing nothing versus the economic and social costs of holding the rise in temperature below two degrees Celsius? And, is that possible? Regardless, funds will be needed. The job of convincing the world’s banks of the urgency of adjusting their loan portfolios to accommodate what politicians are calling for has fallen to Mark Carney, former head of central banks in Canada and the UK, and now the United Nation’s point man on climate-change finance.

 

It was the Industrial Revolution, which raised living standards for all fortunate to live in countries affected, that caused man-made emissions of CO2. And it has been that wealth over the years that has enabled the problem to be addressed. Assuring future economic growth is the best antidote to the problems of climate change (and of poverty). Policies that hinder growth, such as raising the cost of energy, whether in developing or developed nations, will harm living standards. We should all take responsibility for how we live our lives, which means being environmentally sensitive. But leaders must avoid fomenting a class war. We must recognize that the poor, whether individuals or nations, need affordable sources of energy to improve lives. Feel-good corporate welfare, in contrast, funds favored businesses in exchange for political support and boondoggles that are more spectacle than substance. 

 

A meeting of the G-20 in Rome last weekend preceded the United Nations’ 26^th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. Leaders of five countries (China, Russia, Mexico, Japan and Saudi Arabia) failed to show up. Those five countries represent just over 40% of all CO2 emissions, according to worldometer. The meeting in Glasgow brought together between 20,000 and 25,000 politicians, officials and businesspeople from about 140 nations, fifty fewer than met in Paris in 2015. Nevertheless, London’s Daily Record estimated on Sunday that “more than 400 private jets will blast 13,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere…which will produce more global warming gas than 1600 Scots burn through in a year.” 

 

In Rome, President Biden brought with him seven cabinet officers, including Secretaries of State, Treasury, Interior and Transportation. He traveled in an 85-car motorcade for a one-on-one meeting with the Pope. All vehicles had been shipped to Italy, with some shipped on to Scotland before heading back to the U.S. Perhaps such grandeur was felt necessary, but it seemed excessive and insensitive when the subject was man-caused climate change. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have united in condemning such a monarchial display by the President.

 

With the exception of a trade agreement with the EU on steel and aluminum, most news reports said the Rome meetings failed to live up to expectations. In an interview with the Associated Press, Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa said of the G20 meeting in Rome: “The world’s biggest economies comprehensively failed to put climate change on the top of the agenda ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.”

 

On the Glasgow conference’s opening day, Jeremiah’s continued with dire predictions. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the meeting, likened the challenge to a James Bond “doomsday,” saying time was running out to save the world from global warming: “this is not a movie – and the doomsday device is real.” He warned that, in the worst-case predictions, cities like Miami, Alexandria and Shanghai could be lost “beneath the waves.” Johnson was followed by Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN. He said we are “digging our own grave.” The Prince of Wales, told the world leaders that “time has quite literally run out.” At some point, doomsayers will be right. The Earth had a beginning. It will have an end. Scientists have estimated that that time is probably a billion or two billion years in the future, based on a six or seven-billion-year life.  A changing climate is a prospect for which we must be prepared. But rather than giving a false sense of hope that we can forestall the inevitable, we should focus on adaption. What happens if we hit net zero in terms of CO2 emissions and climate continues to warm…or cool? Those who issue calls of doom would be wise to re-read the story of the boy who cried wolf.

"Creating Problems to Secure Elections"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Creating Problems to Secure Elections”

April 28, 2021

 

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s

cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for

our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

                                                                                                                  C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

                                                                                                                  God in the Dock: Essays on Theology, 1970

                                                                                                                  Published posthumously

 

A problem endemic to successful countries is the need to create issues that get people excited when things are going relatively well. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, except for a few years following 9/11, the United States has not faced a major crisis that galvanized and unified the nation. In 2008, we faced a credit crisis. It could have undone the global financial system but, truth be told, the crisis was over by the end of calendar year 2008 when the TED spread – a calculation used to measure risk in financial markets – narrowed sharply from its October-November highs, and high-yield bonds began to rally. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 last year was seized by politicians and called a crisis. A (deliberate?) confusion of correlation with causation regarding reported deaths was used as an excuse to expand governmental power and curtail individual rights. Despite conventional opinion, however, we do not know if shutting down the economy did more harm than good. 

 

The United States has achieved high living standards and diminished poverty because of capitalism and individual freedom. Is everything perfect? No. Should we rest on our laurels? Of course not. There is always more to be done. But the world, and especially the West, is richer and more at peace than at any time in history, which is a problem for politicians whose campaigns are all about needed change. 

 

It is true that external problems lurk. China threatens peace in the western Pacific. Russia is flexing its muscles along borders of its old empire in Ukraine. Iran, an impoverished state with little to risk and much to gain, is disrupting the Middle East with a revival of its nuclear program. North Korea, another state so impoverished it has little to lose, is led by a man who in a normal country would be committed.

 

However, in this time of relative prosperity and peace, Progressives convert addressable issues into partisan crises. While there are several, two, in my opinion, are forefront: race and climate. Others include policing, guns and immigration, with the latter having become a serious problem on our southern border. Methods used to create and promote crises are insidious: claim the moral high ground, censor speech, disallow gender-specific pronouns and cancel history. A consequence is the intimidation (and worse) of those in academia, corporate offices, entertainment, and professional sports who do not hew to an approved narrative. 

 

There is no question that there are racists in the United States. A country of 330 million people harbors every conceivable type of good and bad individual. Has racial equality been achieved? No. Bias against race is embedded in all societies, including in parts of ours, and change always happens more slowly than proponents would like. But positive change has occurred. In 1970, according to U.S. Census data, 60% of all Americans had a high school education, while only 30% of blacks did. By 2020 those trends had almost converged, with 90% of all Americans having a high school diploma and 88% of blacks. Interracial marriages have increased. In the 1967 decision Loving versus Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that anti-miscegenation marriage laws were unconstitutional. It is hard to believe today, but 54 years ago such marriages were illegal in seventeen states. Since that decision there has been a five-fold increase in interracial marriages, so that today, according to a Pew Research study, one in six marriages is interracial. Race is still an issue, but the situation is miles from where it was half a century ago. We are not systemically racist, and Critical Race Theory is derisive to blacks and disruptive to society. The assumption that blacks are victims and cannot compete against whites is an insult to the black community. Consider the success of black Americans in every field, from finance, medicine, politics and law to literature, the media, sports and entertainment. The term “victim” is tossed out too freely, as when LeBron James (worth an estimated $500 million, according to Forbes), Tweeted “Your next,” beneath a picture of Columbus, Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon, to his 50 million followers. When followers complained his message was inflammatory, he asserted he was a victim. What kind of a country do Progressives want? Do they believe Reverend Jeremiah Wright was on target to preach after 9/11: “No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America!” No true American has ever claimed we have achieved perfection. But we should all be able to say we are a better Country today than we were 200, 100, even 50 years ago. We must take care that we continue to move forward, not backward. The teaching of Critical Race Theory is guaranteed to foment discrimination and segregation, pushing us backward into the Jim Crow era. 

 

The public debate over climate is another issue Progressives have cynically seized for political purposes. Their arguments ignore knowledge and promote advocacy, which was clear a few years ago when “global warming” became “climate change.” An apocalypse has been falsely predicted by many. In 2006 former Vice President Al Gore, who sold his cable channel company Current TV to Al Jazeera for $500 million in 2013, said that unless drastic measures were taken to reduce greenhouse gasses within ten years the world would reach a point of no return. Led by China and India, greenhouse gasses have continued to increase, yet no apocalypse has arrived. Nevertheless, like the problem of race, there is truth in the fact we face climate change. And there is no question that man has affected what has always been the case – that climate is in a constant state of flux. The Earth has warmed and cooled over the millennia and will continue to do so. In his new book, False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish economist who has been studying and writing about climate for twenty years, quoted the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that had studied flooding around the world and “found that it’s not clear whether it’s getting more or less frequent, [or whether] there is a human fingerprint involved.” Lomborg points out the value of wealth and adaption in addressing climate concerns. (Wealthy people prefer to live in a clean environment yet continue to build homes in flood-prone areas). A review of the book in Forbes noted: “In the 1920s, climate-related disasters killed almost 500,000 people each year. Today the number is lower than 20,000.”

 

President Obama’s Under Secretary for Science in the Department of Energy Dr. Steven Koonin recently published Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t and Why It Matters. In an op-ed about his book, published in the New York Post, Dr. Koonin made certain points that would shock those who believe we are headed for catastrophe: “…Heat waves in the U.S. are now no more common than they were in 1900…The warmest temperatures in the U.S. have not risen in the past fifty years…Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century…Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago.” Man’s impact on climate has been real, but, despite claims by Progressives, it is unclear what exactly that impact has been. To add perspective, in his op-ed Dr. Koonin quoted a former colleague at Caltech, Professor Richard Feynman (1918-1988), a theoretical physicist known for his work on quantum mechanics who gave the 1974 commencement address: “Give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution, not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.” Humility among politicians is a rare, but treasured, commodity. What is ignored is that, like the problem with race, we are moving in the right direction. With natural gas substituting for coal, U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions declined 24% between 2000 and 2017, while U.S. GDP rose 94 percent.  

 

A hundred and fifty years ago, in the December 1870 magazine, New and Old, James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888), an American theologian, penned words whose wisdom still applies: “A politician thinks about the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” “Woke” Progressives claim the moral high ground, but it is passion, not reason, that motivates them. Passion may help win elections, but thoughtfulness and reason help politicians become statesmen. In his poem “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats wrote: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” Bertrand Russell, in his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy, expressed similar sentiments: “the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always sure of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt.” Beware politicians whose promises lead to the tyranny C.S. Lewis warned of in the rubric that heads this essay.  

 

Win at any costs has become the mantra of Progressives. In a recent interview with Mathias Döpfner of Germany’s Axel Springer, Henry Kissinger commented on the belief that American society has been immoral from its beginnings: “It’s a revolutionary view in the sense it aims for victory, not compromise.” The cost is societal division. A lack of civility has become common. People are not held accountable. Rules of behavior are not taught at home. Schools don’t demand respect from students. Great books are no longer required reading, and civics and history are no longer emphasized. Equity, as a goal, has replaced equality. Victimization has been substituted for personal responsibility. The crises Americans face are ones of behavior and epistemology, not structural racism or a climate apocalypse.