You People Waste My Money #5 12/15/09

“Ruling” with the Staff of Science In My Hand
I have had some comments that these articles are rather long. I have to apologize for this one in particular. But this discussion warrants a construction of arguments and examples. Get ready because this one is no less lengthy. By that same token this discussion is even more important, so hang in there as best you can.

Governing by Right of Birth, or Some Other Justification
There was a time when those who ruled did so by a claim that they were born to rule, justified by the size of the army they could raise. Dynasties were only as secure as the last war they won, even if the war was fought against your own people. After all, “Order must be preserved.”

At one point in the Bible, the people clamored and begged God to make a king to rule over them. You can check that out in First Samuel 8, and keep reading until Israel get’s their first King, Saul. As the story in First Samuel develops you will find David, anointed as a boy to be the king of Israel (I Samuel 16:13) even before he had made quick work of Goliath, and even while Saul, the first king, was still alive. It is from this development when David refuses to raise a hand against Saul, who seeks to kill David, that another ‘Right to Rule’ developed and crept into our society. David, when asked if he will kill Saul while he sleeps (I Samuel 23:6) says, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD'S anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.”

Since then, Christian kings have flocked to the doors of the Church looking for the anointment given to Saul and David, to be declared the, “Lord’s Anointed,” so that to raise a hand against the King or Ruler was to raise a hand against God. Understanding that God has created three authorities in the earth, the Family, the Church and the Government of Man, God never attached a sort of, “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” to any government specifically. God has attached a standard to men, however. And of course, governments are comprised of men, so you do the reasoning and figure out the relationship for yourself.

In any case, in each of these examples, by one means or another, men have used some justification to rule over others, control other people’s lives and other people’s property.

And then some people came to a new land to escape religious repression and to have some say about how they would live their lives. Over the course of time, those whose ancestors had lived and died for the opportunity to make that land their home began to think that there was something natural about people governing themselves.

These people reasoned that if they were paying taxes they should be represented in the government that then takes their money and spends it, often times against their own interests. In 1776 the tax money was used to fund troops to keep the tax payer in line. Kind of like being forced into prison and then forcing the family to pay for your keep. I read somewhere in a book that this was the way things used to work. At any rate, these reasoning people got together and wrote out their ideas on how the relationship between the governed and the government should work, especially when the people are educated, involved and reasoning.

This insurrection of independent thought caused the King to declare war and the people to declare their independence, although the cause and effect may be out of order as I describe it here. Those people fought, bled and died for the right to establish a government of the people, by the people and for the people. A government that derived it’s power from the people who consent to be governed. A representative republic based on laws of equity, so that a majority could not disenfranchise a minority. The idea was that God had given man some rights that no government could take away, and that no government had the right to grant.

And since that time, there has been an ongoing struggle with those who think these unalienable, undeniable rights should be limited, monitored and managed, and those who think that government should keep their hands off of the unalienable, undeniable rights.

But what if I can suggest a really good justification to limit, monitor and mange your rights? What would you say then? I would say, “NO” no matter what your argument is. But for the sake of this discussion let’s look at some justifications that are popular in the public square right now.

C.S. Lewis’ Discussion of Progress
Justification of limiting, monitoring and managing a people’s rights was a major topic of discussion in a set of articles in 1958 in the ‘Observer’ that discussed man’s ability to ‘progress’.

C.S. Lewis wrote an article in this discussion. (The article is reproduced in the book, “God in the Dock – Essays on Theology and Ethics” and it is well worth the time to read the article. Of course it is well worth the time to read most anything Mr. Lewis wrote.) Mr. Lewis contemplates the impact of science’s advance on both mankind and Government.

Through the course of his examination and discussion, Mr. Lewis comes to the following observation, quoting: “…I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretensions which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They ‘cash in’. It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants’ science – they didn’t think much of Hitler’s racial theories or Stalin’s biology. But they (that object) can be muzzled.”

He concludes that from this reasoning, “We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce… (the solutions that are needed to address) the extreme peril of humanity at present.” Finally he writes that we will see one day that, “We have on the one hand desperate need; hunger, sickness, the dread of war,” or any current crisis, “We have on the other, the conception of something that might meet it; omni-competent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement?”

Mr. Lewis looked to a day when men would take charge of the destiny of others, and do so with the might of science behind them, offering them solutions that require the limiting, monitoring and managing of people’s rights in exchange for these crisis solutions.

Interestingly, Mr. Lewis uses the phrase ‘Government and subjects,” as opposed to those who govern and those who are governed. Was there a message in this choice of words as well? So let’s turn the page of time to look at the how things have developed.

The Weather and the Climate Part I – Once upon a Cooling
Give me a few paragraphs by way of an introduction for this segment. I was a young person who was on his way to an Engineering Degree in a prestigious east cost engineering and science school. I was a founding member of the Planetary Society, where the intellect of science greats, such as Carl Sagan, were board members. I looked to Carl Sagan as a model of how a scientist and scholar could bring complex information and technological data to the public in a means that could be understood and reasoned. Dr. Sagan was a Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell, and he was part of the development team for Viking and Voyager expeditions. I respected his credentials and his accomplishments.

In his popular books and his series, “Cosmos” he presented technical scientific information in a manner that any thinking person could begin to contemplate. He did not shy away from difficult concepts and did not avoid the ‘messy process’ of scientific understanding.

In a book he released in 1974 called, “Broca’s Brain,” Dr. Sagan discussed a concept called the Scientific Method. Dr. Sagan wrote that the Scientific Method’s most striking property was its self-questioning and self-correcting aspect in reasoning and consideration. He wrote, “Vigorous criticism of new ideas is a commonplace in science… It does not matter what reason the proponent has for advancing his idea or what prompts his opponent to criticize them: all that matters is whether the ideas are right or wrong, promising or retrogressive.” In the scientific community, Dr. Sagan described, any objection of substance is allowed in the debate, as long as ad hominem attacks on the personality or motives of the authors are excluded.

Dr. Sagan explained in an examination of ‘questionable science’ the following approach to discussing these ideas:

“But the success of science, both its intellectual excitement and it practical application, DEPENDS (emphasis added) upon the self-correcting character of science. There must be a way of testing any valid idea (emphasis added). It must be possible to reproduce any valid experiment (emphasis added). The character or beliefs of the scientist are irrelevant; all that matters is whether the evidence supports his contention. Arguments from authority simply do not count; too many authorities have been mistaken too often. (emphasis added) I would like to see these very effective scientific modes of thought communicated by the schools and the media; and it would certainly be an astonishment and delight to see them introduced into politics. Scientists have been known to change their minds completely and publicly when presented with new evidence or new arguments. I cannot recall the last time a politician displayed a similar openness and willingness to change.[1]”

I wonder if Dr. Sagan would recognize the scientific community today?

Dr. Sagan joined with several other prominent scientists to put forward the concept of “Nuclear Winter,” in his TAPPS report. The summation of the finding was that if 100 megatons of nuclear weapons were detonated, “in low yield airbursts over cities,” with the resulting fires and the associated smoke, “an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case (would result). The threshold for what Richard Turco has called The Nuclear Winter is very low.”

And so started a discussion in the press and science publications concerning, first Nuclear Winter, and then Global Cooling. On the issue of Nuclear Winter, there was back and forth on the estimates of the impact of man on the environment. There were discussions in the Planetary Report, the magazine sent as part of your membership to the Planetary Society, as to the models used and data analyzed. I can’t locate my old copies I had since my charter membership (yep, I kept them), but I remember the debate between Dr. Sagan and one of the founding Advisory Council members concerning Global Cooling and the merits of the science. I remember discussions about the effects of saturation bombing in Dresden and the lack of microclimate changes noted in the aftermath. I remember several other issues and no satisfactory rebuttal to the concerns of over stating the facts and the rate with which the ecosystem (meteorological, biological and physical) recovered and the lack of empirical evidence to support the idea that these man-made events would with any permanence impact the climate. The balance of the Earth’s systems (thermodynamic, meteorological and physical) were exceptionally elastic and self-correcting.

The debate was rich and it seemed genuine. No one’s status as an ‘expert’ made one claim more valid that any other, only the data, the analysis and facts established the arguments.

I remember the weather models that were based on fluid mechanics simplified so that water did not changed state from water to water vapor, because the transfer of heat could not be included in the calculations. I remember boundary value statements that threw out turbulence impacts and weather singularities like tornadoes and micro bursts that caused the models to fail.

In all my review of the material of that time (1974 to 1985) that I had collected, read and studied in my degree pursuit and otherwise, there was never a scientific study that finally fixed the idea that the world was cooling and the cause was man’s industrial and biological activities. Every computer model, run for hours on some of the biggest crunchers available then, always failed to model a pattern or scenario that resembled the dangers described in the initial debate. The empirical evidence didn’t fit, unless huge conditions were placed in the analysis that did not model reality. Things that made sense when modeling jet engines made no sense in atmospheric models and the science did not conform.

Scientific conjecture became apocalyptic warnings. “But can you risk it, if this is proven as correct?” where the concluding remarks in studies that did not prove the hypothesis of Man-made Global Cooling. Computer models that proved the hypothesis did not come close to modeling the real world, with so much idealizations and data set grooming. Although the process was repeatable, the mathematics and computations were never accepted as any type of proof.

In the end, the issues settled into a quiet discussion that stopped deserving the degree of consideration and attention that they had demanded. Based on real science, the global reasoning always lacked the meteorological ‘missing link’. And as such most of America forgot this issue and scientists and researchers were honest enough to agree when the facts did not line up and the results did not support the anticipated conclusions.

But through all of this, the science never found its way in to the political discussion. It never reach a place where the desire to find a positive conclusion prompted scientist to mortgage their integrity and to be more concerned about the message than the truth.

The Weather and the Climate Part II – And Now for Some Heat
Over the course of the next ten years, all through the 90’s, the scientific research continued. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo Volcano in the Philippines in 1991 demonstrated that even in the aftermath of such a cataclysmic event which caused a recorded drop in global temperatures of one degree Celsius, the effects balanced out within a year.

Theories concerning sun spots had been proposed as driving climate swings that might propel a cycle that appeared to be more than 100 years in its period.

But something happened to the debate. Over the course of time findings were being made and data was being presented as conclusive in the argument of man’s impact on the climate. When questions were asked the dissent was not directly addressed. When data was scrutinized and questioned no clarifications came. Conclusions that would have been debated were more and more being presented as accepted fact. The tone of the journals changed, debate became a chorus of like minded fellows congratulating themselves on being intelligent. When opposing criticism was submitted, the validity of the reasoning or challenge to the analysis was not addressed and discussed, but the virtue of the person raising the issue became the focus of the ‘debate’. And over time it seemed the nature of funding for research that was supposed to explore the validity of conclusions became money paid for findings that supported the popular chorus of opinion, not research and analysis that anyone wanted to be repeated and validated by peers.

Then, somewhere in the mix, the popular media got involved. The news reporters pulled the issues and analysis from the scientific journals and began reporting on opinions as conclusions. The Chorus grew louder. Now politicians were taking up the tune. The UN got in to the act. Global ‘Man-made’ Climate Change became something someone referred to like one might refer to the ‘Theory of Evolution’ not understanding why the issue of the ‘missing link’ is still so vital to the proof of the hypothesis. And the funding grew, because now it had the full backing of a political issue.

You can be shouted down if you don’t believe. You can be marked as a backwards, uneducated hick if you dare question the parts of the ‘findings’ that should not be presented as ‘FACTS’ but rather as a Theories.

There is an old saying in statistics that correlation does not demonstrate causality. Just because you see more falling stars on the day you eat more eggs, doesn’t mean that the number of eggs you consume in any given day will have anything to do with a meteor shower later that night. (Re-read that last sentence, it makes sense, really.)

Some how trained and credentialed members of the different scientific disciplines abandoned the scientific method as a way to validate ideas. Instead the ‘scientific community’ began making a consensus as though a political compromise of facts will some how create and substantiate the laws of physics, complex systems, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, meteorology and a host of other disciplines that are part of the puzzle.

And so the cacophony rose to a crescendo as a former Vice-President received a share in a Nobel Peace prize and ‘environment journalists’ made fake movies about drowning Polar Bear cubs. And from somewhere in Washington DC, maybe the UN Building, a giant booming voice declared, “All the science has been worked out, there need be no more dissent, but let the Consensus that replaces truth be proclaimed, taught, learned and digested as a core fact of the universe.”

Of course, the only casualty was the facts and all the millions and trillions of dollars wasted in trying to impact something we have shown no ability to change no matter how many dollars we burn. Oh, wait that would add to global warming, right?

The Point and the Waste
When you actually believe something, that belief impacts your life and the way you live it, unless you are just a psychopath. When you stand up and say, “This is so important we want you all to do things that will impact billions of lives, so that the world’s fever can be quenched!” And instead of living an example of how life should be lived to put the fire out, you do everything to add to the fire. Consequently your sincerity in your fundamental belief has to be called in to question.

Some people deny God by saying, “There is no God.” Others deny God by saying, “I am a child of God, I believe!” and then do everything to create a negative testimony by how they conduct their life. The word so eloquently applied by those who love to catch a Christian in a non-Christian circumstance is ‘hypocrite’. Those who believe in God will fall into sin, it’s the great struggle between man and what he is called to become. But a hypocrite is something else. A hypocrite might be described as a person who professes beliefs and opinions that they don’t really hold in order to conceal their real feelings, beliefs or motives. “Do as I say, not as I do,” can often be sited as evidence of such a divided heart.

If I believe it, I have to live it. More so if I call for sacrifice. And the whole ‘man-made, global climate change’ issue is a call for all of us to sacrifice. I could write another 7 pages just on the sacrifices we are all supposed to embrace, sacrifices to stop ‘global climate change caused by man’ and his activities. But the activities of the global climate change advocates are contrary to the sacrifices they are calling us to make. Leave the details of that argument for another day. Rather, look at how the world governments and the United Nations are attempting to address the issue. Through the transfer of money.

And now we stand on the precipice of Waste in the grand finale of ‘man-made global climate change’. If the singular issue was saving the planet, then the advocates would start with their own backyard. The advocates would be leading the way in going ‘green’ and reducing their carbon footprint. But observation would testify against them. They look to trade indulgences in their ‘man-made global climate change’ sins by exchanging money in carbon credits for the carbon ‘climate pollution’ they make. As if breathing and living were pollution.

Carbon Credits, whose hellish idea was that? If I sin in the religion of climate change my penance and ‘mia copa’ is to go to the temple of the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange or the CarbonFund (http://www.chicagoclimatex.com and http://www.carbonfund.org – just in case you think I made that up) purchase an indulgence where your sins are washed away by the clinking sound of coin and rustling of dollars to expunge the footprints made by your carbon path. And how do those moneys translate into reversing the bad you have done? Well according to one Carbon Credit Website, your ‘tax deductable donation’ goes to “high quality, third-party validated renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects.” Check them out and make your own judgments for the individual.

But in the global arena, the UN expects huge carbon producing countries like the US to give huge numbers of dollars to all the other nations. What would those dollars do exactly? What have any of the dollars given to the UN ever done before? Should I go through the list of abuses, or should I get a list of actual, documented, verified programs that have achieved their humanitarian purpose, and then analyze how much of each dollar goes to administration, positions filled by uncles and sons of some ambassador or such. If this sounds jaded and one sided, maybe I have seen too many UN programs that have been polluted and defiled by this group before.

Better solutions for developing nations abound that have nothing to do with ‘climate change’ that would have an immediate effect on those nations if the actual dollars given ever reached the people for which they were intended. But that is another story for another time, as well.

In the mean time, here at home, our Federal Government with its one hand firmly grasping the authority to declare opinion is fact in this ‘man-made-global-climate-change’ issue, and with its other hand reaching deep into our pockets, makes the claim that it must legislate a cooler climate for the United States and it’s people. I am pretty certain that was somewhere after “promote the general welfare” in the Preamble of the Constitution.

From inconclusive science combined with opinions of people who should be defenders and practitioners of the scientific method, coupled with political figures with agendas and a media that won’t think past the hype, we have a mania that looks and feels like a run away train. Don’t question the findings, don’t argue about our authority, don’t wonder about how the money will solve the problem, just do as we say! WE HAVE SCIENCE ON OUR SIDE! And we have the full faith and power of the Federal Government, who has solved all problems they have targeted to solve. Like the War on Poverty or Veterans’ Health Care or improving Education (at any level) or any of 1000 failed programs. (Ok Veterans’ Health Care has not fully failed and there are a few veterans who actually get treatment and live…)

Millions and millions of dollars in Cap-and-Spend, oops, Cap-and-Trade are being bet against our economy on a gamble that is called ‘man-made-global-climate-change’. Do you remember what C.S. Lewis wrote, mentioned earlier in this article? “We have on the one hand desperate need; hunger, sickness, the dread of war,” or any current crisis like ‘man-made-global-climate-change’, “We have on the other, the conception of something that might meet it; omni-competent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement?”

Your money will be confiscated by law under the authority of what is best for us and the world. The current budget from the White House for 2010 includes the revenues in its projection from the yet-to-be-passed Cap-and-Trade. And as if this country’s citizens life blood in the form of the dollars raised from our labor were not enough, we have a ton of special interests that have been persuaded by research dollars or the way the Federal Government is going to spend our tax dollars.

Look at the publicly traded companies lined up and ready to waste more dollars. Which companies have spent millions on convincing our Federal Government to make laws concerning which light bulbs you can buy under the proclamation they reduce ‘man-made-global-climate-change’! Just ignore where those bulbs are made and what impact the manufacture has on ‘man-made-global-climate-change’ by the carbon foot print it leaves in China. Or the cost difference in the two products. Or the environmental impact if one of the new CFL’s break! Got your hazardous materials crews on stand-by? What about the Government owned Auto makers or the Ethanol farmers, how much money from our economy and additional cost do those efforts represent?

In the end I have lost trust in the Scientific Community and our Federal Government. The first question that comes to mind any more is, “What are you selling, how much will it cost me, and what truth aren’t you telling me?” The public trust has been damaged. We have lost public servants and only have career politicians and folks with masters and PhDs in science grubbing for the Federal handout to fund their pet project. Who cares if the science is right or wrong, just get the next funding nut.

Our government is not supposed to be trying to control us. The purpose of our government is to govern us with laws and through a representative democracy. That is what is says in the Constitution. This government was not empowered to lie to its people, to coerce them into giving up more of their freedom in exchange for some money and some goodies so that they might be enslaved through the magic of applied science. The government’s job is to serve the electorate, WE the People. The idea was to be a servant to the people, not a leech using politically derived conclusions and calling them ‘science’ so no one will argue.

“I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretensions which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They ‘cash in’.” Mr. Lewis warned us all. This country was not founded on the idea that there is a right of rulers to rule and do what is best for us even if we don’t like it.

WE the People have an obligation. We must keep ourselves engaged and educated. Even when it has been a hard day’s work, we have to be vigilant and aware, questing and striving to understand or we will get fooled again… and again.

What is that I hear? Are those the sounds of chains being dropped or picked up? Are we going to allow this waste to happen to our destruction and allow them to teach what is unproven as truth to our children? Are we just going to leave it to the really smart people or rather to people who say they are smart, smarter than you and me…Can you buy carbon credits for killing polar bears?

If this kind of waste and these kinds of lies go unchallenged, there is no end to what can be done to us in the name of, “our own good”. I was wondering if there were openings in the Thought Police, but then I changed my mind. I think when I grow up, I will just join the Green Police. So give me your money, turn off your car and candescent lights, stop breathing so hard, and cool off. All your effort is changing the climate, and the weather is on the change. Watch out for the storm.


[1] Sagan, Carl, Broca’s Brain, “Chapter 5 – Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers; Sense and Nonsense at the Edge of Science”, New York, NY, Ballantine Books, 1974.