"Who Am I?"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Who am I?”

June 3, 2025

 

“Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am?”

                                                                                                                                Lear, speaking to the Fool

                                                                                                                                King Lear. Act I, Scene IV, 1606

                                                                                                                                William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

Besides satisfying a personal curiosity, the study of one’s ancestry is fascinating in an intellectual sense: First, it personalizes history. How much more interesting it is to read about the American Revolution or the Civil War with knowledge of an ancestor then alive. Second, such a study considers a mathematical paradox –We know that about 75,000 years ago small groups of earliest humans began migrating out of Africa, traveling north, east and west. Those few humans have given us a global population today of over eight billion. But we also know that each of us descend from two parents, four grandparents, and eight great grandparents, a process that doubles with each generation going back. How could so many ancestors be reduced to so few that came out of Africa? How to reconcile that apparent contradiction? The answer – we are all related.  

 

A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking. She was born in England, raised in France, and as a nine-year old crossed the Pyrenes in 1940 on foot with her family to avoid Nazi occupation. In our conversation, she referred to me as a “Real American.” I was prompted to see if I could name all of my four-greats grandparents, most of whom would have been born before the American Revolution, and to discover if all (or most) were born in North America.

 

Starting with the surnames of my four grandparents, I spent many hours researching, working backwards into the past.  I had the invaluable help of a sister who had done most of the preparatory work years ago, and was thankful for the internet, which is a plethora of information, though not always accurate. Ultimately, I was able to name, with relative certainty, sixty of the sixty-four. (I believe I know the names of the other four, but I am not certain.) Of course I also had to come up with names and dates of thirty-two three-greats grandparents, along with sixteen two-greats and eight great grandparents – 120 names in all. Of the sixty four-greats for whom I was able to name and find a birth date, fifty-eight were born before the American Revolution (between 1713 and 1770), one in 1777 and one for which I could find no date. All but two were born in Colonial America. Two were born and died in Ireland – Martha Jackson (1777-1808) and Col. Hugh Hanna (1770-1806). A brother of Martha, James Jackson (1782-1840), brought their orphaned daughter – my three-greats grandmother Mary Jackson Hanna (1801-1843) – to Alabama in 1818, where she married Joseph Lawrence Dawson Smith (1799-1837). More on James later.

 

One of the fun things about studying one’s ancestry is coming across colorful characters; for most of my ancestors, to quote Henry David Thoreau, had to have led lives “of quiet desperation,” in an unsettled country, alive with danger. To name a few of the more interesting ones: James Williams (1741-1826) was a four-greats grandfather who married Susanna Shaw (1744-?). He was captain of a militia unit that marched to  Roxbury, Massachusetts on April 20, 1775 where they met no resistance. While he was not at either Lexington or Concord, he was still considered a “Minute Man.” Asa Messer, senior (1739-1806) and Abiah Whipple (1746-1809) gave birth to Asa Messer, junior (1769-1836) who married Deborah Angell (1776-1862). The younger Asa, a three-greats grandfather, became the third president of Brown College, then known as Rhode Island College. Noah Webster (1758-1843), the lexicographer, and his wife Rebecca Greenleaf (1766-1847) were four-greats grandparents. A seven-greats grandfather was Richard Hunnewell (c.1645-1703) of Scarborough, Maine. He was known as the “Indian killer.” Fittingly, he was killed by Indians, at what is now known as Massacre Pond near Prout’s Neck, on October 6, 1703. 

 

There is a connection to T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) on both my father’s and mother’s side. My grandfather Sydney M. Williams (1873-1963) was a second cousin of the poet, as they shared great grandparents: Thomas Heywood Blood (1775-1848) and Mary Sawyer (c.1775-1850). My grandfather once told me that the only time he met the poet, who was fifteen years younger than he was, Eliot was wearing a sailor’s suit. On my mother’s side, her father Henry Stuart Hotchkiss (1878-1947) descended from his three-greats grandparents, William Greenleaf (1725-1803) and Mary Brown (1728-1807). Those two were one set of T.S. Eliot’s two-greats grandparents. There is also a distant connection to Gideon Welles who was Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. He and my two-greats grandmother Isabella Welles Hunnewell were third cousins, sharing a common ancestor in Samuel Welles (1660-1731) who lived in Glastonbury, CT, which was home to Gideon Welles.

 

As for the southern branch of my family, the James Jackson mentioned above emigrated to Tennessee and then to Alabama, where he owned a large cotton farm, “Forks of Cypress.” He was a two-greats grandfather of Alex Haley, author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and Queen: The Story of an American Family. James and Martha Jackson (a four-greats grandmother of mine) were children of Hugh Jackson (1709-1777) and Elinor Gault (c.1710-1791), both of whom lived and died in Ireland. Thus Alex Haley and I – he as the three-greats grandson of Hugh and Elinor, and I as the five-greats grandson of the same couple – are cousins. James Jackson was also the owner of “Peytona,” considered the greatest race horse of the time. His race against the mare “Fashion” on May 13, 1845 at Union Course on Long Island – a race between the north and the south (as well as mare versus stallion) – was the subject of a Currier & Ives print. “Peytona,” who had traveled 1,500 miles, won the race.

 

The most colorful connection, however, is Edward Augustus Silsbee. He was the youngest of eleven children, seven of whom lived into adulthood. My paternal grandmothers’ maternal grandmother (in other words, a two-greats grandmother) was the third oldest, Sarah Ann Silsbee. She was born June 18, 1814 in Salem, MA. He was born on February 19, 1826 in the same town and died on April 5, 1900 in Boston. At age 24 Silsbee commanded the clipper ship Columbia on an 18^th month voyage from Salem to San Francisco, the East Indies, Calcutta and back home. The Log of the voyage is now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. A copy of it is at the home of our son who was named for Edward Silsbee. Following his career at sea, Silsbee, a life-long bachelor, became, as described in 2017 by Dr. Tim Sommer, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Houghton Library, “a Shelley enthusiast and ardent collector in pursuit of literary relics.” Silsbee lived in Florence between 1872 and 1879. There, he ingratiated himself with Claire Clairmont and her niece Paulina. Claire had been an intimate companion of Percy Bysshe Shelley who had died in 1822. The story of Silsbee, Clair Clairmont and her niece inspired Henry James’ novella, The Aspern Papers. Ultimately, Silsbee acquired Shelly’s notebooks and donated them to the Houghton Library at Harvard. A charcoal sketch of Edward Silsbee by John Singer Sargent (photo attached) is now at the Bodleian Library at Oxford (donated by him in 1899), with other Shelly artifacts Silsbee had collected. In the portrait, Silsbee’s craggy face is discernable behind his flowing white beard.

 

On my desk I have a photograph of my only great-grandparent who lived to see me born. In the photo, she holds me – at a slight distance, as though I had soiled my clothes. I look happy (see attached photo). Sadly, I do not remember her. She was born Mary Bolling Kemp in Petersburg, VA on January 15, 1861. Her mother died young, in 1867, likely from the effects of the siege of the city, which lasted from June 9, 1864 until March 25, 1865.

 

Marriage among cousins was not unusual at the time. Four sets of three-greats grandparents married cousins: Benjamin Williams (1757-1830) married Lydia Williams (1774-1845) on November 28, 1793. She was his first cousin once removed. John Welles (1764-1855) married his first cousin Abigail Welles (1776-1844) on April 28, 1795. Justus Hotchkiss (1772-1812) married his third cousin Susanna Hotchkiss (1775-1825) on April 27, 1800. And on March 12, 1812 Joseph Washington (1770-1848) married his second cousin once removed, Mary Cheatham (1796-1865).         

 

History comes alive when personalized. We know these people lived. They laughed and they cried; they loved and they argued; most important, they bred and produced descendants. Their lives cause us to behold the miracle of our own birth. It is difficult, with our conveniences, to imagine the lives they led – no paved roads or even trains; no telephone, telegraph, or flush toilets. Leaving home, many expected to never return. Most of my four-greats grandparents lived to see the United States gain its freedom from Britain, yet they all died before slavery ended. Most of their grandchildren (my great grandparents) died before women gained the vote. 

 

Like us, they grew to adulthood. As the 1950s were my generation’s time to grow from child to adult, and the 1920s the decade for my parents and the 1890s for my grandparents, my four-greats grandparents came of age in the years just before, during, or just after the American Revolution. It is sobering to think of the challenges they faced, and one is reminded of these lines from Kipling: “Beyond all outer charting/We sailed where none have sailed.”[1]

 

Yet their values were the ones we espouse: humility, justice, diligence, dignity, responsibility and kindness. “We are,” former Senator Paul Tsongas (D-MA) is quoted, “a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and grandchildren.” When asked why spend so much time looking back to those long dead, I am reminded of Edmund Burke’s quote in Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790: “People will not look forward to posterity who never looked backward to their ancestors.” Can we derive wisdom from the past? Perhaps. Though Canadian comedian Norm MacDonald once wrote: “The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast.” That it does.

 

I think of the question that titles this essay: Who am I? Unlike Lear’s relationship with Goneril, my daughter loves me. While I have genes from all my ancestors, I am not them. I am my own self, an individual who has tried to do the best he could with the talents he inherited and with the knowledge he acquired. I love my wife and the children we raised together, and the children they, with their chosen spouses, have raised. One’s personal history does provide a sense of belonging, but we are a consequence, not the cause. As for who we are, Dr. Seuss put it well in Happy Birthday to You: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” So, yes, even though not all of my four-greats grandparents were born in North America, I proudly accept the moniker of “Real American.” 

 

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[1] Rudyard Kipling, “The merchantmen,” first published in Pall Mall Budget, May 15, 1893.

"Where Has Time Gone?"

 My wife and I had a wonderful trip through the farm country of central Pennsylvania and the horse country of northwestern Virginia last week. We visited three student grandchildren. There was no talk of having classes cancelled, or of having been offered milk and cookies. We were uplifted by their positive outlook, their youthful enthusiasm, and their intellectual curiosity. They made us optimistic for the future.

 

I had begun this essay before we left, but daily drives of three and four-hours provided time to think more deeply on the subject – something personal to each of us, yet universal in its appeal. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Where Has Time Gone?”

November 16, 2024

 

“It is strange how much you can remember about places like that

once you allow your mind to return into the grooves that lead back.”

                                                                                                  E.B. White (1899-1985)

                                                                                                 “Once More to the Lake,” 1941

                                                                                                   Essays of E.B. White, 1977

 

Where has time gone? Shaving, I am reminded of the song: “All I see is an old man/ Where a young man used to be.” Dressing, I think of J. Alfred Prufrock: “I grow old…I grow old… I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.” All this causes me to, momentarily, yearn for the past. “Backward turn backward, O Time in your flight,” wrote Elizabeth Akers Allen in 1883, “Make me a child again just for tonight.” 

 

But when I think of the ever-increasing speed with which time passes, it is not of my own childhood, which stretched out for years, or even that of my children who took their time growing up. It is of my grandchildren I think. We expect special moments to last forever, even as the seconds and minutes tick by. Was it eighteen years ago that a photograph was taken of Caroline and me at the Hillsboro Club in Florida, each with an armful of squirming grandchildren? Now, the oldest is working in New York City and the youngest in her penultimate high school class. “How did it get so late so soon?,” asked Dr. Seuss. 

 

Time is tricky. Each day consists of twenty-four hours and each hour is comprised of sixty minutes. Yet as we age, each hour and day represent a smaller fraction of our lives. So time, which stretched interminably when we were children, is compressed as we age, with days and weeks flying toward our inevitable end. But time, as Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote, “leaves its shadow behind,” in its impact on those we knew. 

 

To our children, but especially to our grandchildren, we are the continuum of history, that the past is never gone. It lives on in memories, letters and photographs. It affects those who come after – it is the shadow to which Hawthorne refers. I recently came across a photograph of my great-grandfather, born in 1837, whose name was Sydney Williams, holding his only child (also a Sydney Williams) shortly after his birth in Vevey, Switzerland in 1873. Looking at the photo gave me pause to consider all that has transpired during the 187 years since the birth of my great-grandfather – of how progress improved our lives. Yes, the past remains.

 

White’s essay, quoted in the rubric, is of taking his son to the lake where his father would take him. The final sentence reads: “As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” When we think of time, we recognize our mortality, and that, with the exception of God’s love, nothing is eternal. Respect for the past, tradition and values is not antithetical for a desire to improve the quality of the lives of our descendants. To our grandchildren, when they reach our age, we will be historical figures to their children and grandchildren. They, too, will think of the passage of time, of the impact we have had (which we hope is positive), and how the world has changed – which we pray will be for the better.    

"Lola"

  

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Lola: May 3, 2010-June 29, 2024”

July 2, 2024

 

“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never

lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.”

                                                                                                                                Attributed to Helen Keller, 1880-1968

 

Toward the end of E.B. White’s novel Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte is dying and she speaks to her good friend Wilbur: “All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur – this lovely world, these precious days…You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing…After all, what’s a life anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.” Whether human or animal, in the larger scheme of things, we do only live brief lives; but life is about the love we bring to others during the time we are allotted. Lola, a gentle, but fiercely proud Cockapoo, was liberal in the love she bestowed, and in death she gifted us the sights, sounds and smells she had known.

 

Death is never easy. In his last book before he died, Oh, The Places You’ll Go, Dr, Seuss wrote: “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.” Growing up on a small farm in New Hampshire, death was, if not common, not rare. I remember my father burying a horse in our rocky barnyard, and I recall one wintery day digging a shallow grave for a goat that had succumbed. But Lola was the sole pet of our daughter, her husband and their three children. She was integral to their lives. For their children, now 19, 21 and 23, Lola was part of their growing up. In the memories of all who knew her, she lives on. 

 

Every death provides a moment to consider the miracle of life. The “miracle” does not refer to the mechanics of the process nor to the intricate biological composition of a living species, but rather to its uniqueness – the right sperm interacting with the right egg. The odds of that happening are measured in the billions or trillions to one. No living creature could ever live at a time other than when it did. Just as it is a miracle that each of us is alive, Lola’s birth was a miracle. Her good fortune at being born was enhanced by the luck she had in abiding with our daughter and her family. 

 

Dogs, Winston Churchill is alleged to have said, look up at us. Cats he claimed look down on us. He favored pigs who he said look us in the eye. Lola was not subservient, and she did not have the arrogance of a cat. She treated people as equals, loving to cuddle, but then protecting us when an animal appeared on the television screen.

 

On June 7, 1945, General George S. Patton, speaking at Boston’s Copley Hotel, said: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.” Lola’s immediate family especially, but all of us who knew her, including her dog cousins in Darien and Lyme, will miss her. Tears have been, and will be, shed. But we are thankful she lived and was part of our lives for fourteen years.

 

Rest in peace, Lola.

"Time"

 With so much going on – debt negotiations, a Presidential race on the gathering horizon, war in Ukraine, failing schools, and corporations and universities that have lost their moral compass – it may seem trivial to write an essay that lacks gravitas, but we all need a break, so this seemed timely.

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

More Essays from Essex

“Time”

May 23, 2023

 

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here

before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

                                                                                                         Attributed to Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel, 1904-1991)

 

Time is both precise and ambiguous. Computer scientists measure it in zeptoseconds, the time it takes a particle of light to cross a hydrogen molecule, which has an ionic radius (don’t ask) of 0.208 nanometers, one billionth of a meter. The longest measurement of time is a supereon, three billion years. For us, time is finite. In my 83^rd year, I have lived just under 730,000 hours, barely a nanosecond for a paleontologist.

 

Stopwatches are used to measure the time it takes a runner, skier, race car, or horse to cross the finish line. But the word can be vague: ‘She won’t give me the time of day,’ ‘Will the doctor have time to see me?’ ‘My love for Caroline, my children and grandchildren is timeless.’ “And indeed there will be time,” wrote T.S. Eliot in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, “to wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and Do I dare?’” A Tale of Two Cities begins: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” While ambiguous, we know what Dickens meant. And then there is this quote from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, which reflects his time in the trenches during the Great War: “‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” 

 

While every hour has sixty minutes and each minute sixty seconds, hours and minutes spent in childhood seemed longer than those spent in adulthood, probably because each hour of childhood was a larger percent of our lives. And time continues to accelerate as we age. Nevertheless, we have more time than did our great grandparents. In 1860, life expectancy in the U.S. was 39.4 years. By 2020 it had doubled to 78.9 years. Will it double again for our great grandchildren? And time varies by species. An hour represents about 4% in the life of a Mayfly, while for Jonathan, a 190-year-old Seychelle giant tortoise, an hour represents only 1/1,664,400th% of his life. It is possible that future scientists might learn from the immortal Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish, which, once it reproduces, reverts to a polyp stage and starts life all over again.

 

But we are not jellyfish. As we get older, old photographs capture the past – Caroline in her wedding gown, a child’s school play and another’s college graduation, our daughter’s wedding, and our grandchildren growing up – images of moments in time, moments savored that molded us into the people we have become. Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have once said, “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” Timely words from a wise man.

 

So, relax, take it easy, don’t worry. You have time. But, for me, now is the time to end this essay.

"Uncommon Common Sense"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Uncommon Common Sense”

January 19, 2020

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

                                                                                                Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

                                                                                                Literary Remains, Volume 1

                                                                                                Edited Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1836

At some point in the mid 1950s I attended a party at Dr. Edwin Land’s summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I was fifteen and Dr. Land’s thirteen-year-old daughter was my girlfriend. I found myself listening to three or four learned men trying to define horse sense. There was no unanimity. Having grown up with horses, I knew they were not the most intelligent of animals, but I also knew they had enough sense to seek shelter when it rained and come to the barn when hungry for grain. They had (and have) common sense. Horse sense and common sense are born of the same mother, though I was too intimidated to say anything 65 years ago. Webster’s agrees. Horse sense is defined: “the ability to make good judgements.” W. C. Fields also agreed, when he said that “horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Besides providing a horse laugh, there is a lesson in that adage.

Coleridge was right. Wisdom is the exercise of common sense. Wisdom is rare, especially in politicians who choose political correctness (the world as they would like it to be, not as it is), identity politics (segregation over unity), and victimization (the passing of blame rather than the assuming of responsibility). Common sense bases judgements on empirical evidence, on “self-evident truths,” as Robert Curry wrote in his book Reclaiming Common Sense: Finding Truth in a Post-Truth World. Meanwhile, politicians appeal to emotions, not reason, for example getting attendees pumped at rallies, which common sense says is a reason not to allow early voting.

“Facts,” as John Adams is supposed to have said, “are stubborn things.”  Nobody in Washington seems to worry about deficit spending even in a period of economic growth, yet last year’s deficit of just under a trillion dollars is equal to $3,000 per person. The published national debt is an obligation of $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation. When one adds in the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, per person debt rises to $380,000. Facts tell us that our population is aging – that the number of workers is shrinking, while the number of retirees is expanding. Yet, the six candidates for President in last week’s debate in Iowa were interested only in programs that would add to the deficit, add to the national debt and add to unfunded liabilities. Even the Republican Party, the party supposedly of thrift seems to care little about running a fiscally responsible administration. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: “How did we get so stupid so soon?”

Listening to those candidates in Iowa talk about the economy, one would conclude prospects are grim for lower income folks and depression is around the corner. They claimed things have worsened for lower income workers since Mr. Trump took office. Yet facts tell a different story. Unemployment, at 3.5%, is the lowest in fifty years. Employment for Blacks and Hispanics is the highest on record. Last year, income gains for the bottom tenth of workers rose faster than income gains for the top ten percent – something that never happened during the Obama years. Net worth gains for the bottom half of households have risen 47% since the 2016 election, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. GDP, in the first three years of the Trump administration, has risen 30% faster than it did during the last seven years of the Obama administration. And, take the Trump Tax Reform Bill: When Democrats shed crocodile tears over the unfairness of the Bill, were (are) they thinking of the 20% reduction in rates for median households, or were (are) they really concerned that deductions for state and local taxes were limited to $10,000? Keep in mind, for plutocrats in California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – those making two million dollars – the limit has cost each $100,000 or more. Between Democrats and Republicans debate, whose policies have done more for working people, and which party is appealing to common sense and which to sensibilities, as Jane Austen might have asked?  

Or take the killing of Qassim Soleimani. Here was a man that all facts demonstrated had been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans and even more Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Lebanese and even fellow Iranians. Yet, the Left found it more palatable to see him as a martyr, a Martin Luther King, or, at a minimum, an Iranian politician deserving of respect. His death became a rallying point to curb the ability of the American President to respond to imminent, or even not so imminent, threats. And what about the problems of illegal immigration, border walls and sanctuary cities? There are, by some estimates, thirty million illegals in this country. And there are those who do not see this as a problem, financially, socially and culturally? Does it not make sense to control immigration? It is not a question of not wanting immigrants. We need them for the jobs they perform  and for what they offer the Country. We need, in my opinion, more legal immigrants. But should not all of us want to control the process? A wall may not be the only (or even the best) answer, but it won’t increase the flow of illegals. Sanctuary cities break federal law. Would it be okay if a city in Idaho or Texas broke federal laws regarding the carrying of firearms? Or should mayors and governors enforce only those federal laws they like? Should judges be allowed to make laws, or should that be the responsibility of legislatures, or a referendum voted on by the people? Was not our government, a nation of laws, set up on the principle of three independent branches, with clear and distinct responsibilities – a legislature to enact laws, an executive to administer them and a judiciary to interpret them. Each branch serves as a check on the other two. Common sense says that the answers to these questions are not complicated. The problem is, as Will Rogers once said, “Common sense ain’t common.”

But it is in the politicization of our changing climate where common sense is most needed, yet it is where it has been abandoned most ardently. Michael Moore and Al Gore made fortunes predicting catastrophes that never happened. Admittedly, there is a small coterie who do not believe that man has any affect on climate. But man is not the only cause of climate change. Why, for example, did global temperatures decline during the 1940s when the world was engulfed in the spewing of toxic gasses from bombs and vehicles during World War II. (According to a May 2007 edition of NewScientist, global temperatures dropped 0.02 degrees during the decade.) There are millions of people in our ivy-coated universities and colleges who do not seem to understand the power of nature. They appear unaware of the way in which the world has changed over millions of years, of tectonic shifts that have caused continents to shift, mountains to rise and shorelines to move – all long before man began spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Consider the energy produced from volcanoes, like the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington that produced energy equal to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Or think of the fact that one average hurricane crossing the Atlantic produces the energy equivalent to approximately half the electrical generating capacity of the planet. Nature is still more powerful than man. Common sense says we shouldn’t live in the path of hurricanes or within the range of volcanoes, yet populations living in coastal areas continue to expand at a rate 50% above the national average. And, we should not forget, technology has improved conditions in the U.S. Since 2005, carbon emissions have fallen 14% while GDP has increased 50%. Why? It had nothing to do with the 2015 Paris Agreement. The reason had to do with technology– fracking and horizontal drilling that allowed cleaner natural gas to replace oil and the capture of carbon emissions from coal plants. Energy from solar and wind will continue, and we should encourage their expansion, but today they contribute less than ten percent of our energy needs.

My point is not to argue that climate change is not real. It is and always has been. Evidence suggests the Earth is in a warming period and storms, it is claimed, are more frequent. It is the politicization of the issue that has put emotion above reason. We should focus on the elimination of pollutants not because that will affect temperatures, but because a cleaner environment is healthier and more pleasant. To believe that man can halt the increase in temperatures or cause the oceans to stop rising is to believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

If the Earth continues to warm, and to the extent natural causes are in part to blame, are we not better off to focus on adaption than seeking blame? The Country, and ultimately the world, will move away from fossil fuels, but the move should not come at the expense of economic growth, as is happening in Europe where they have not only placed their economy at risk but also their security. Energy independence has empowered the U.S., made it safer and allowed us to face global tensions with more confidence. Consider the difference between the U.S. and Europe. With North Sea wells drying up, Europe imports its energy needs from Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Yet, we read that the amount of shale gas in Europe is thought to exceed that in the U.S. As well, they have given up on nuclear power. Is it not realistic to believe that European energy companies would be more environmentally friendly than those in Russia, the Middle East or Africa? It is a lack of common sense that prevents them from tapping their own resources and building nuclear power plants. A lack of energy independence has made Europe hostage to a hostile Russia and a volatile Middle East and Africa. In the meantime, with an aging and shrinking populations, their economies have been anemic since the 2008 credit crisis.

My father used to tell me to never argue with a dope, because a passerby could not distinguish one from the other. Thomas Paine is alleged to have said something similar: “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Politics is the search for and the exercise of power. As it has descended into a morass of emotionalism and away from reason, it has made our lives increasingly divisive. Our universities should be bastions of search, reason and debate. Instead, they have become advocates for passion and histrionics. The same can be said about our media. The search for truth and sense has been abandoned. “Common sense is not so common,” Voltaire reminded us in his A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary. The responsibility of educators and pundits should be to make common sense more common.