Climate Change A New Religion Part 2-"Combating Climate Change is a Moral Issue ?

Greetings from Winter Park Colorado!  My new address comes with a new elevation and while technically Barb and I are at 8,967 feet at our new address I am sitting about 20 feet higher while I type this, I figure that since I was actually at 5,055 feet in Salt Lake but only used 5,000 feet in my original Blog title I can safely rename it Observations from 9,000 feet and can reassure my readers that  I would never try to deceive them.

I hope my absence gave you all a satisfying break from my sermonizing.  I have a several new observations coming, based on the process of moving to Colorado and my Mom's transition  to assisted living which I hope to share.  Meanwhile I feel obligated to "finish' what I started on Climate Change.  This will be my 2nd and last post on this subject.

Why do I view this topic as so "important", primarily because from personal observations and conversations I find the entire topic to be a strong "tribal" indicator and symptomatic of the polarization of our entire society.

Before making my observations I would like to circle back to my old compass Jonathan Haidt.

Haidt observed that those who identify as "conservative" will generally understand the liberal argument and reject it as misguided.  Now Haidt would add that their biases may well be the source of the rejection, but conservatives in general do not consider their opposition as evil, just wrong.

 Liberals on the other hand will tend to reject the conservative position as not wrong or misguided but "evil" .  Climate Change in my mind has become THE prime example of this phenomena.  Just take a peek at those signs I posted on my first entry on Climate Change.  It is one reason that I have selected this topic as my first and likely most passionate post about today's political scene.


 My initial discussion you may recall dealt with my own impression that "pure science" is a fallacy.  Scientists, particularly those involved in speculative, or predictive science are subject to the same human failings, prejudices and peer pressure as anyone else.  I think climate "science" in particular has become extremely politicised and frankly taken on a life of its own controlled and manipulated by politicians and groups with agendas of their own.  Since my last post there has been a "significant" development with our pulling out of the Paris Climate accords.  For those of the progressive tribe this has brought great distress, confirming their belief that President Trump is the devil's advocate.  To me (who did not vote for Trump, or Hillary) it was the best thing to come out of Washington in 10 years.  Why?  Because we need to seriously look at this issue in realistic terms.

Any open minded political discussion of what to do about Greenhouse Gases cannot begin without first giving credit to what the benefits of utilizing abundant energy has done for mankind, not just economically but socially, and physically.  However, we have reached a point on this issue where we have turned any attempt at rational discourse into an issue of "Morality"particularly by those on the left.

Let me give a simple example from personal experience.  About two years ago Barbara and I attended a dinner benefit, unconnected to this topic where a very good friend (who is an ardent advocate that human induced climate change is a huge problem, and loves a good discussion on the subject)  equated the coal industry with the tobacco industry from a morality standpoint.  I believe my friend was "poking me" in an effort to stimulate dinner talk by using the same argument that a number of progressive Attorney Generals have made in their pursuit of legal action against "Big Oil".  In essence accusing them of distorted science and hiding facts about the impact of burning carbon on the future of mankind.  This friend then proceeded to ask us one by one our feelings on this concept.

 Now when I was asked my thoughts I responded essentially thusly:

Since the industrial revolution, which was made possible by utilizing cheap abundant energy (coal), mankind has more than doubled human life expectancy.  There is better sanitation, better healthcare, better education, all from lifting Billions of people out of poverty. This is hardly the result of "immorality".  I am sure Big Tobacco could never make such a claim. All of us have enjoyed the fruits of this, and to the average person in India, China, Africa etc. these benefits are still accruing.  In fact the underdeveloped nations, notably India and China will be allowed, under the Paris accords, to continue to build new coal power plants until 2025 or 2030.  They understandably "negotiated" this in the deal.    For those of us who have much it might be easy to overlook the costs associated with higher energy costs but to the average world citizen I am not sure that speculating on the impacts of what will happen in 60 or 80 years is more important in their day to day existence. It makes me crazy when I hear some on the left calling coal trains, many on there way to sell coal to these countries, "death trains", equating them with Nazi trains transporting Jews to extermination. This is not to say humankind should not "worry" about the future, but we cannot discount the fact that cheap energy is and has been a huge benefit to all of mankind.  I finished by posing this question to those around the table, "If in fact you all believed that the world was in real imminent danger from climate change you would not only advocate for policies that significantly reduce economic growth for billions but make significant changes to your own lives.  Many of you own 2 or more homes, and fly all around the world on vacations.  Some own places yards from the ocean but rail about rising sea levels.  Here in "green" New England energy costs have skyrocketed as the United Way helps the poor obtain free firewood to heat their houses.  I actually do not begrudge you this because
second homes and air travel benefit millions economically.  However, the average "Joe" wants these same opportunities.  In my opinion man's best hope is economic growth which long term enables us to live better cleaner lives.  So bottom line I think we need to look very skeptically at wild claims on what may happen in 100 years.

Needless to say it kind of ended the discussion on "morality".  The discussion turned to grandkids etc....


 Ok so why should I discount the "science" and claims of impending doom.

I have real concerns about how "Models" are presented by politicians as observable facts.  I have had a lot of business experience with models.  In my humble opinion models cannot be depended on to predict future outcomes with any certainty.  Just look at stock market models, if they could pick the future with certainty we would all be rich.

Ah, but Jim we all can be certain that the world's economies will continue to grow and that economic progress has left us with certainty that over the "long run"  for example, stocks go up.  Isn't that like adding carbon to the atmosphere, which will result in temperatures continuing to climb?  Maybe, but when looking at 3 Billion Years of earth's climate and cyclic ice ages, warm periods, changing solar activity, volcanic activity and yes periodic asteroid strikes man's influence really is a nit at this point.  Virtually every climate model has overstated the actual change in global rates  of warming over the last 25 years. In the last few weeks several studies by reputable climate scientists have acknowledged that virtually all models have overpredicted warming significantly in the last 20 years. I would be happy to share these very recent study, peer reviewed, by  reputable "scientists" who now acknowledge this.

Finally, virtually every study dealing with the potential impacts of rising temperatures, are actually theoretical models that attempt to project local effects using as a base other theoretical models that project global effects of 2-3 degrees of "warming" .  I am always amused that the claimed impacts are virtually always very "bad".  My mind boggles at that concept.  During warm periods in earth's history life adapted and flourished.

None of this is to say that studying this issue should be stopped, nor is it to say that advocates for modifying our approach to energy consumption should not be free to express their views.  However, we need to be aware that funding for studies is based on perceived  urgency.  If there is no urgency funding would dry up. Realistically studies that claim "urgency" are not hard to fund.  This easily contributes to bias.

My personal takeaway from all this is that so much of the Climate Movement's leadership is motivated by skeptics of population growth and capitalism (holdovers from Paul Ehrlich's thinking) that treat any opposing view as evil ar the true anti science advocates.

I leave you with a postscript:

I loved John Denver's music, especially "Rocky Mountain High".   Devnver's personal life was filled with the inconsistencies in thinking so indicative of humans (yes even myself).

 From Rocky Mountain High:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changing fast and it don't last for long 

Then later in the song

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

Denver moved to Colorado and lived an elitist life in Aspen.  He did much good for World Hunger and his songs were inspirational, but like all humans he sought out the best for himself then fought to keep his Colorado from others....I seem to remember he buried a huge gas tank at his house and he flew private aviation while fighting to keep oil drillers out of the Arctic.

John Denver, like all of us at times, could simply not comprehend himself.

 Reminds me of my neighbors in Utah who want to keep Utah "Wild"for themselves.


Next up no politics!  Just some stories on welcome to Colorado!