With kids around the world being encouraged by teachers to skip school to protest about global warming, many cities had their own band of anti-reason students. I thought to give them a little guidance.
Ottawa, Ottawa, Montreal, Saskatchewan, BC, National Post, HuffPost Canada, Kingston
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I have been studying the subject of climate science as a personal interest for almost 20 years. There is a vast body of research including fundamental findings that proves the alarm over dangerous man-made global warming is vastly overblown and that in fact the world is becoming ever better for humanity. I am not referring to a few studies, but many hundreds, even thousands of them, published over decades of work by some of the most experienced and prominent scientists in their fields, available in the peer-reviewed literature with another such study published on average every day all year long.
For any youth interested in this subject, I encourage them to learn more about the scientific method and the various disciplines related to climate, then your minds will be at ease and you will be able to dedicate your life to creating value for yourself and others through productive work and helping humanity to flourish and progress instead of spending time lobbying scientifically ignorant politicians. There are professors right near where I live in Ottawa, at Carleton University and University of Ottawa who are experts in this and if you ever make it to their classes you will learn much more than I could explain here.
Please, read widely and weigh the research - you will find one side that tells you to stop thinking there are alternative explanations, that the science is settled, is filled with exaggerations, unwarranted extrapolations, models that are poorly constructed and have failed to forecast anything, misused statistical methods, a reversal of cause and effect, suggestions for a massive violation of individual rights and essentially a reversal of human progress since the industrial revolution, while the other side urges caution, asks you to check all your assumptions, to be thoughtful and to weigh all the evidence.
It is clear from their signs, their attributed quotes and the interview clips that the marching kids have no idea of the meaning of what they are saying. For example:
It is clear from their signs, their attributed quotes and the interview clips that the marching kids have no idea of the meaning of what they are saying. For example:
- They demonstrate their ignorance of environmental science when they say the environment is getting worse, when in fact every important measure of air, water and food pollution has been improving at a rapid rate for decades. One sign I saw said "the planet needs you to give a shit" - the sign wielder apparently is ignorant of the fact that before industrial scale energy from carbon fuels, the streets were actually full of shit and the water was polluted by it, causing plagues and death on a massive scale.
- They demonstrate their ignorance of politics by holding signs saying "change the system, not the climate" with big fists pictured (typically indicating a Marxist ideology) when in fact many countries are clearly already headed towards Marxism and the concept of a free, capitalist society is almost completely unknown and has certainly never existed.
- They demonstrate ignorance of health science when they claim people are killing others through carbon dioxide, when in fact the death rate from extreme weather events has fallen 98% since we started using carbon fuels in earnest almost a century ago; so the correlation between carbon dioxide production and deaths has an extraordinarily strong negative correlation.
- They demonstrate their ignorance of chemistry, being against the use of carbon fuels yet they wave signs made from carbon fuels, march on carbon-based and carbon made roads, wear clothing and knapsacks literally made of and with energy from carbon fuels, carry phones made of carbon fuels eagerly use an internet powered by carbon fuels, drink from bottles made with the energy of carbon fuels - the list goes on and on because 85% of world energy comes from carbon fuels.
- They demonstrate ignorance of economics because they hold signs claiming the economy is being prioritized over human life, when in fact the economy is nothing except human beings working to improve their lives through production and trade with other human beings.
- They demonstrate ignorance of history because before the industrial revolution and especially since the availability of safe, reliable, cheap energy from carbon fuels, 95% of humanity lived in abject poverty for all of history, suffered from disease, starvation and a short, brutal life while dangerous nature tried to kill them at every turn.
- They demonstrate ignorance of finance and the very meaning of wealth because they protest against the pursuit of money, clearly not understanding that money is not a goal, but rather is simply a means of recognizing and exchanging productive values like food, shelter, transportation, communication, education, health care, entertainment, etc.
- They demonstrate a hatred of human life - I saw a sign showing a skull and crossed swords saying "artist activist for the Earth" suggesting the valuing of non-human Earth above the advancement of human civilization.
- They demonstrate their ignorance of how the planet has been improved for human life, not made worse - the planet is actually greening as farmland is made more productive and so less of it is needed. A higher carbon dioxide level in the air is recovering from its historically low level and feeds hungry plants of all types, nourishing forests and shrinking deserts.
In summary, these student marchers and their supporters have no idea what they are talking about and should get back to studying reality if they hope for a good life in the future.
