Reality sets in
Lead Summary
By
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
The climate change momentum is running into a few bumps in the road these days. The proponents seem to become ever shriller with each passing day.
As the general population awakens to what net zero carbon dioxide means to them, resistance is building. In the Netherlands, the protests by the agricultural community have become near riots as farmers learn the government intends to restrict the use of synthetic fertilizers (due to the consumption of natural gas to make these products), cull cow herds (to eliminate the methane production for which cows are famous) and on and on. The Netherlands, despite its tiny size, is (or was?) the 10th largest agricultural product exporter in the world.
In an article in National Review on July 11, 2022, Andrew Follett said that as recently as 2018, both Republicans and Democrats had a great deal of confidence in the scientific community. However, by last year, there was a widening gap, with 65% of Democrats having a great deal of confidence in the scientific community while only 32% of Republicans felt the same way.
And the science continues to get nuttier, with Follett citing papers submitted to peer-reviewed journals that were just out-and-out hoaxes, the writers playing a game to see what they can get by “woke” reviewers.
Some of my favorites: In the journal, "Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society," an article was published titled, “Embracing Fatness as Self-Care in the Era of Trump.”
This was written by a comedian.
Or how about this one: "Glaciers, gender and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.” Follett conveniently provided a quote from this one as follows: “Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” Sounds like something Kamala Harris would say.
As Follett points out, the serious issue is this. DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – the folks that really invented the Internet) has studied the repeatability of results in social science papers. The standard is considered significant if a finding has a 95-percent chance of not being random. Yet by 2018, according to DARPA, 55.8 percent of research in this area “failed to replicate,” meaning that you could not get the same outcomes in over half the experiments when repeating them.
In other words, the researchers are making this stuff up.
To put this in terms we can visualize, the 95-percent chance of not being random would be equivalent to the U.S. having “only” 2,250 airplane crashes per day. The 55.8 percentage number raises that to 19,890 airplane crashes per day.
It is obviously impossible to get a straight story on the science behind global warming, for all the scientists involved, as well as many companies, are making their living off the climate change narrative. It is required to be true for them to survive. They cannot let themselves be impartial.
But there is more. We are told we must get to net zero (carbon dioxide emissions) as soon as possible. OK, so what happens after that? Are all the scientists, engineers, managers and so forth that have put the effort in to getting us there going to go home? Highly doubtful.
Colleges and universities are promoting all sorts of environmental and climate change related careers for a lifetime. They are training and equipping people in these fields right now. Yet, today’s 20-somethings receiving degrees in these fields today will still have 12 years to go in a typical 40-year career if we achieve “net zero” by 2050.
They will need something else to do, along with all the environmental career specialists following behind them. Their mischief will continue. They will create new crises. This is a monster that will defy death.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
The climate change momentum is running into a few bumps in the road these days. The proponents seem to become ever shriller with each passing day.
As the general population awakens to what net zero carbon dioxide means to them, resistance is building. In the Netherlands, the protests by the agricultural community have become near riots as farmers learn the government intends to restrict the use of synthetic fertilizers (due to the consumption of natural gas to make these products), cull cow herds (to eliminate the methane production for which cows are famous) and on and on. The Netherlands, despite its tiny size, is (or was?) the 10th largest agricultural product exporter in the world.
In an article in National Review on July 11, 2022, Andrew Follett said that as recently as 2018, both Republicans and Democrats had a great deal of confidence in the scientific community. However, by last year, there was a widening gap, with 65% of Democrats having a great deal of confidence in the scientific community while only 32% of Republicans felt the same way.
And the science continues to get nuttier, with Follett citing papers submitted to peer-reviewed journals that were just out-and-out hoaxes, the writers playing a game to see what they can get by “woke” reviewers.
Some of my favorites: In the journal, "Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society," an article was published titled, “Embracing Fatness as Self-Care in the Era of Trump.”
This was written by a comedian.
Or how about this one: "Glaciers, gender and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.” Follett conveniently provided a quote from this one as follows: “Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” Sounds like something Kamala Harris would say.
As Follett points out, the serious issue is this. DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – the folks that really invented the Internet) has studied the repeatability of results in social science papers. The standard is considered significant if a finding has a 95-percent chance of not being random. Yet by 2018, according to DARPA, 55.8 percent of research in this area “failed to replicate,” meaning that you could not get the same outcomes in over half the experiments when repeating them.
In other words, the researchers are making this stuff up.
To put this in terms we can visualize, the 95-percent chance of not being random would be equivalent to the U.S. having “only” 2,250 airplane crashes per day. The 55.8 percentage number raises that to 19,890 airplane crashes per day.
It is obviously impossible to get a straight story on the science behind global warming, for all the scientists involved, as well as many companies, are making their living off the climate change narrative. It is required to be true for them to survive. They cannot let themselves be impartial.
But there is more. We are told we must get to net zero (carbon dioxide emissions) as soon as possible. OK, so what happens after that? Are all the scientists, engineers, managers and so forth that have put the effort in to getting us there going to go home? Highly doubtful.
Colleges and universities are promoting all sorts of environmental and climate change related careers for a lifetime. They are training and equipping people in these fields right now. Yet, today’s 20-somethings receiving degrees in these fields today will still have 12 years to go in a typical 40-year career if we achieve “net zero” by 2050.
They will need something else to do, along with all the environmental career specialists following behind them. Their mischief will continue. They will create new crises. This is a monster that will defy death.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.