Keith,
It's not just the barely educated who pose a problem. It extends into the
ranks of people who believe they are educated. There is much misinformation
that people assume is true because to be educated means that you accept
these things.
There are three such major projects. There are others but we'll stay with
the most publicized.
Global Warming
AIDS
Overpopulation
These three consume enormous amounts of our substance and criticism of them
is almost unheard of among people who believe themselves knowledgeable. I
believe I've made you uncomfortable when I've referred to them in the past,
for surely I am acting like a crackpot.
GLOBAL WARMING
Global warming is a creature of the computer. Maybe, this machine has
become oracular in it effect on people. I don't know. The disagreements
with its prognostications have mounted based on its failure to predict
correctly - yet the GW campaign continues, fueled by government and
foundation money.
Just two items will do for this. There was a cooling in mid century that
lasted through the forties, fifties, sixties and most of the seventies -
even as CO2 increased. I've found that many (most?) advocates of GW appear
to be unaware of this. (Even though many climatologists feared it was a
warning of a coming Ice Age.)
Perhaps, because people like me would say that back then surface
temperatures showed cool, whereas now surface temperatures show warm. Maybe
in 20 years we will all be freezing again. It's the weather you know.
However, major fly in the Global Warming ointment is the temperature of the
troposphere. As you know this is the lower atmosphere extending perhaps 18
km in the tropics to about half that at the poles.
This is where "weather" is formed - particularly long range weather.
Satellite measurements show over the last three decades, not a warming, but
stability. Actually, a tiny drop in each decade of about 0.06 C - but then
who's counting.
Not the GW's who issue predictions based on their interpretations of the
computer models. So, do you lay greater credibility on the measurement, or
on the interpretation? A couple of separate predictions from the computer
shows them covering all bases. They predicted increased precipitation, and
drought.
There has been a paper suggesting that decay in the satellite orbits (I
think there are 9 of them) may be responsible for incorrect readings, but
that assertion has been countered. In any event, the 63 radiosonde balloon
stations measuring tropospheric temperatures confirm the satellite
measurements.
No warming - none.
Yet any intelligent well-read individual knows there is global warming.
And he would be right, for we've probably been warming since the Little Ice
Age.
But laying it on our emissions of CO2 turns global warming into Global
Warming - a political campaign. Carbon dioxide, at best, is a minor
greenhouse gas. Measuring our contribution against Gaia's natural store
makes the proposition ridiculous.
Yet the Global Warming Campaign trundles on.
AIDS
More than $92 billion has been spent on this political campaign and
apparently they haven't yet cured anyone and they haven't come up with
anything that can be used to cure anyone - except the ubiquitous AZT, which
is a poison and apparently serves the purpose of shuffling AIDS patients
off our mortal coil.
Maybe they are doing something wrong? Could that be possible? All the
evidence is there to show what?
Actually there appears to be plentiful evidence of egregious errors of
science, or rather the scientists who practice the discipline.
Yet, the AIDS Campaign trundles on.
OVER-POPULATION
Enormous amounts of money and effort are spent to tackle overpopulation.
So, this week something over 1.5 billion new babies will be with us for the
first time.
The best advocate for over-pop I know is Steve Kurtz. I hope he would admit
we have failed in our attempt to stop "overpopulation". Rather like the
AIDS campaign, I would suggest, pretty mildly that we may be doing the
wrong things.
Instead of trying to limit the torrent of baby faces, or at least adding to
this project - perhaps we should be thinking of making the torrent easier
to feed by freeing food and other production in the third world.
The twin benefits are first to fill the torrent of mouths that come with
the faces; and second to raise the standards of living of the third world.
Generally, there is a reduction in births as living standards improve and
opportunities increase - if families are kept smaller.
So, this may not work either, but it is tackling the beginnings of the
problem rather than the problem in full flight.
In any event, the present Over-Population problem will go trundling along -
and failing.
Shall we add Sustainability, surely a sensible objective though it's
trundling with the rest.
How about adding to the list the Cloned Economic Systems that have failed
again and again. The likelihood of world-wide depression is high. Yet,
there is nothing arcane about it. It's on the table before us.
The conditions for economic failure are writ clearly on the wall - with
evidence equally obvious to anyone who will look. Yet, like the others the
orthodox view, so often shown to be wrong trundles on.
I think I'll change the subject to "Trundling".
Harry
--------------------------------------------------------------
Keith wrote:
>Ed,
>
>Yes, a good article ("There's no going back" by Thomas Homer-Dixon, Globe &
>Mail, 11 September) and worth reading.
>
>There's an important sentence in his penultimate paragraph which is at the
>root of modern developed society. However, he fluffs answering his own
>question in the last paragraph.
>
>The important sentence referred to:
><<<<
>How can societies make responsible and democratic decisions about climate
>change, for example, when nearly half their citizens -- as a recent
>National Science Foundation poll found in the United States -- are so
>ignorant of basic science that they don't know it takes a year for Earth to
>go round the sun?
> >>>>
>
>It isn't just basic science, it's also basic economics -- in fact, it's
>also basic all sorts of things such as history, geography, and goodness
>knows what else. The average modern citizen is bewildered by most of the
>policies that parties list on their manifestos.
>
>The complexity of modern life has two main effects:
>
>(a) the vote will continue declining;
>
>(b) most developed countries (whether those with proportional
>representation systems or first-past-the-post) will continue to drift
>towards a two-party system with similar middle-of-the-road policies because
>neither can afford to go out on a limb.
>
>I suggest that we're drifting steadily away from anything that can be
>called "democracy" and towards special-interest representation (involving
>maybe 20% of the population at the very most).
>
>Keith
******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
*******************************
