Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Good News Few Will Report or Admit

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by

Steve Haner
in

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I ran across the illustration above on my favorite contrarian website, Wattsupwiththat.com, and decided to share. The media feed us a constant diet of gloom and doom and disaster, and only those with a sense of history understand this is a bit of a Golden Age (75 years ago the American and British armies were locked in the greatest land battle on World War II’s western front during a terrible winter).

Many of you will reject it merely because it comes from the Global Warming Policy Forum, which contains no Chicken Littles and sees no falling sky. But check the footnotes for the sources of the measured progress. The ten-year periods covered do not exactly match up, and course the decade really ends with 2020, not 2019. Perhaps the most important is the major drop in the percentage living in desperate poverty (thank energy supplies) and the incredible reduction (over a longer period of time) of deaths from natural disasters. 

The article is also worth reading. Matt Ridley is the author of The Rational Optimist and makes the case many of his predictions from 2010 are coming to pass. An excerpt:

Perhaps one of the least fashionable predictions I made nine years ago,” was that ‘the ecological footprint of human activity is probably shrinking’ and ‘we are getting more sustainable, not less, in the way we use the planet’. That is to say: our population and economy would grow, but we’d learn how to reduce what we take from the planet. And so it has proved. An MIT scientist, Andrew McAfee, recently documented this in a book called More from Less, showing how some nations are beginning to use less stuff: less metal, less water, less land. Not just in proportion to productivity: less stuff overall.

This does not quite fit with what the Extinction Rebellion lot are telling us.

Likewise their American extremist cousins.

— SDH

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18 responses to “The Good News Few Will Report or Admit”

  1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Perhaps the ecological footprint is shrinking and we are getting more sustainable are the result of all the warnings of the “extremists”. However, recent stories of the large decrease in the bird population and pictures of the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest indicate that there are still challenges ahead.

    However, your overall point is well taken. We usually focus on the bad and fail to recognize that humanity is better off now than in the past (just look at the James River!).

    1. Steve Haner Avatar
      Steve Haner

      I’m sure regulatory pressures have played some role, but conservation and efficiency are also both rational and profitable strategies without coercion.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Well.. it’s pretty much always been two steps forward and one step back… and I keep saying myself here on the pages that the glass can be half full or half empty and BR has no shortage of climate skeptics who also spout gloom and doom!

    We’ve got less use of energy resources at least party because of regulation – especially when it comes to cars, heat pumps, and other energy-using equipment AND we’ve got folks fighting against things like solar and wind and stormwater facilities and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. We’ve had to turn over the Omega thing to the Federal govt because our own GA refused to act.

  3. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Organizations traditionally begin to change their focus from addressing the cause or issues for which they were organized to address to sustaining their existence. Hence, they tend to suppress news of progress and success and focus on conveying a message of gloom and doom. And, of course, the MSM follows along blindly. For example, Time Magazine’s person of the year for 2019.

  4. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    TMT, the environmental movement certainly illustrates your point about “sustaining their existence.” But if there’s any truth to the notion that sea levels are, in fact, rising, then it is a legitimate environmental concern to try to address that fact. For example, I’m glad to see the five year effort by DEQ to reduce industrial groundwater withdrawals in Tidewater finally coming to a head. And rising sea levels are worthy of MSM attention [especially when a photogenic teenaged girl, opposed by a misogynist bully, takes up the cause of doing something about it].

    Yes, there is hype about ‘global warming’ that’s cringeworthy; but the Chesapeake Bay demonstrates what a massive and expensive multi-state and federal effort can accomplish — despite the obstacles and setbacks confronted even there.

  5. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    The point of Steve’s post is not that we should relax our efforts to clean the environment but that there is no justification for alarmism and hysteria. We do need to continue investing in the environment — the Chesapeake Bay is a good example of what a sustained commitment can accomplish. But alarmism and hysteria can lead to a massive misallocation of investment.

    Wind technology and solar technology have matured to the point where they are economically competitive with fossil fuels up to 30% or so of our fuel consumption. At some point (too soon to say when), battery storage will become a competitive way to provide massive back-up energy storage, and clean fuels will get to 100%. As a society we should continue investing in R&D in these areas, and we should dismantle regulatory barriers to their use. The United States is evolving toward a clean electric grid and a considerably cleaner automotive fleet. We’re going to get there — but we need to proceed carefully and deliberately. You don’t monkey around with the electric grid — unless you want to become like California.

  6. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Sea levels are rising. Yet we don’t know the details about causation. I would not argue that release of greenhouse gases has nothing to do with the rising sea levels. I don’t argue against the concept of renewable energy and energy efficiency. But we as a society do not know whether other causes are at work as well. We may well be in the midst of a natural warming period as well. How are the causes working together? Are we dealing with things we can address or are we largely fighting nature? Are we so focused on the human causes that we are not appropriately addressing the results of the natural phenomenon? Why are we not as focused on preventing new construction in, and ultimately evacuating habitation of, areas likely to be flooded as we are trying to push up the costs of energy? Noah built an ark. He didn’t try to stop people from heating their homes and cooking their food.

    We are setting up a massive transfer of wealth from the bulk of society to rent seekers and wealthy landowners located near water. Yet, the “liberal” media, which purports to care about those middle and working class people, is silent about this huge screwing of ordinary people. Where is Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden on the issue of this huge transfer of wealth that is coming down the road?

    And I’d have a more sympathetic reaction to the teenager in question if the very same media crucified Tom Steyer’s holier-than-thou crusade for the presidency and Democratic lawmakers financed in large part by his fund’s investments in coal. If all of us on the coastal Atlantic and Pacific were suddenly swallowed up by the sea, the rest of America would be better off.

  7. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Of course, we ARE doomed if more and more of us reject science and base our beliefs on folks who do not have degrees in science but are basically bloggers who are their own “media” and they tell us that scientists are engaged in a massive worldwide conspiracy to lie to us about global warming and the liberal “media” is in on it according to the same bloggers.

    In the age of the internet – facts are claimed to be not facts but lies promoted by nefarious folks posing as scientists.

    Folks who don’t like the way the world really is – just rearrange “facts” to suit their own beliefs and the irony is they get this from “media” also… even as they claim other “liberal” media is promoting lies…

    People no longer trust vaccines… who could imagine that when folks like Jonas Salk – a scientist, by the way – created his vaccine. Now – we actually have kids getting polio and measles again – because the media is in cahoots with lying scientists on the vaccine issue.

    We did not land on the moon nor were kids in Sandy Hook killed – both were “staged” by the media….

    If this dynamic does not scare the pants off – I don’t know what will.

    From now on, “science” and the lying liberal media are the same !

  8. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    That puts a smiley face on it ?

  9. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    Big fan of vaccines, myself. Big fan of science. My dad was Systems Command so I know we went to the moon. Science is based on evidence and experiment, never consensus, and much of what is being peddled in the name of the Global Warming Apocalypse has zero science behind it, just theory. There are no experiments to demonstrate their claims, and maybe 40 years of reliable observations when the surface temp has shown warming since the 1850s, and there were previous warming cycles. Science knows the sea has been rising 20,000 years, since the Ice Age, at a fairly steady rate, too. Science knows that many areas are just sinking on their own, Hampton Roads for example. The Left is just as willing to cherry pick science and ignore basic facts for its political aims. Greta has more in common with the Creationists then she does with real scientists.

  10. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Of course, it’s selective science. If a patient presents complicated symptoms that could be related to multiple causes, physicians generally explore them all. It is possible that a person could be suffering from multiple diseases at the same time. Or the patient has a virus that is causing havoc with a pre-existing condition. There may not be a simple cure for the patient because all factors must be considered. Medicine taken for the pre-existing condition might be contra-indicated for the new problem. Or a new drug that is effective for the new illness could rain havoc on the pre-existing condition. Is this not science?

    Often there is not one any only one cause (or one effect). I learned that in high school science classes.

    But we are now told that climate science is different. There is only one cause to changes in climate. The Earth is millions and millions and millions of years old. We know that climate change has been a constant. The Earth warms and cools. Could carbon emissions affect the rate of change? Quite possibly. But is that the only factor? Where is the proof? Where are the experiments? Where is the scientific skepticism that my 10th grade biology teacher instilled? “TMT, how do you know that?” Where is the scientific criticism of the altered measurements? Climate science is about money, power and secular religion. Does that mean it has no basis in science? No, but it is still about money, power and secular religion.

  11. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Consensus on science. There is a lawsuit that involves science – how did a car crash occur? What was the cause? Plaintiff claims it was poorly designed brakes. Defendant claims it was carelessness on the part of the driver and the brakes were engineered and built correctly. Plaintiff puts on one expert witness who testifies there was a flaw in the design of the brake pad. Defendant puts on six experts. Three testify that the brake pads were designed and manufactured correctly in conformance with engineering principles and scientific knowledge. The other three testify that, based on the nature of the plaintiff’s injuries, the driver was speeding and otherwise careless driving on a curve where the crash occurred.

    It’s a 6-to-1 vote. Can the judge or jury find that the plaintiff’s sole expert was correct in the face of consensus on the part of the other experts? Not if we apply the standards of climate science.

    Miasma Theory. For hundreds of years, extending into the 19th Century, scientists, including doctors, were of firm belief that miasma, a noxious form of “bad air”, also known as night air, caused malaria, cholera, chlamydia and the Black Death. Some scientists stared down the consensus and claimed invisible germs, not bad air, caused most diseases. Applying the standards of climate science, the “rebels” must be wrong. Indeed, the great English doctor and sanitary reformer, Thomas Southwood Smith, cast dispersion on the germ theory, as did Florence Nightingale.

    Acknowledging that human conduct can affect climate, why is climate science held to a different standard than any other scientific field? Or were we mis-taught when we learned the error of the generalization that “50 million Frenchmen cannot be wrong”?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      there are not 7 experts… there are hundreds/thousands around the world – 98% of them.

      If you bring in 100 experts and 98 agree – does the jury listen or does the jury listen to the guy who has no scientific background who says the 98 experts are all part of a conspiracy to lie?

  12. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: “selective science” – it’s the SAME science that we’ve always had – across the range from Cancer to genetics to Ozone Holes and paleontology.

    Science is a dynamic body of knowledge. It’s never the truth from on high from God to schmucks…

    And we’ve ALWAYS had people who reject science… they’ve always been with us…

    but NOW, we have people with no scientific background at all who set up blog sites and tell us that Science has misinterpreted it’s own data that it collected or worse they manipulate it and lie about it – this done by the 98% of scientists around the world – it’s a massive conspiracy to lie about climate – aided and abetted by the “liberal media”.

    1. Steve Haner Avatar
      Steve Haner

      This is when you get too tiresome to even pay attention to, Larry. Arguing about scientific evidence and conclusions IS NOT REJECTING SCIENCE. It is ENGAGING IN SCIENCE. It only works if the conclusions are constantly challenged and tested, compared to the the observed evidence, experiments are replicated, etc. That is how the Climate Crisis hypothesis fails.

  13. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: ” Arguing about scientific evidence and conclusions IS NOT REJECTING SCIENCE. It is ENGAGING IN SCIENCE.”

    “tiresome”? – no ,tiresome is characterizing science as a hoax – on a worldwide basis – a conspiracy – perpetrated – worldwide by people who actually have degrees in science – as opposed to bloggers who have almost zero background in science – that apparently others choose to believe over real scientists… worldwide mind you… NASA, NOAA, EPA they’re all conspiring with other scientists around the world to lie to citizens about Global Warming….. aided and abetted by the lying liberal media.

    It’s a gigantic conspiracy mind you……

    “engaging science” on the issue is NOT accusing them of perpetrating a world wide conspiracy – i.e. 98% of the do agree…. on the basiscs… that’s not “engaging science”.

  14. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Expert witnesses, including scientists, are tested in court. In federal court, each expert has to submit an expert report, which is challenged by the other side’s rebuttal report. There is discovery, including taking the deposition of the expert. Each side has to qualify its expert, and the other side can challenge the expert’s credentials and biases. And, of course, the expert is subject to cross-examination by the other side.

    What sort of testing is given to the mass of global warming experts? Who vets them? Certainly not other global warming experts who are also funded by people who want the same results. Certainly not the media. Has anyone ever seen the media ask an expert about other causes of climate change?

    I’m no scientist but I’ve worked with enough scientists and engineers to know their work is generally tested, often by skeptics. Climate change is the exception. There is no vigorous vetting because it’s the secular religion.

  15. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    First of all – Science IS consensus Steve – in ALL science.

    The thing that gets me about the Global Warming thing is that the skeptics and deniers are not questioning SOME scientists while agreeing with other Scientists ; they are essentially saying most ALL scientists and Science is wrong… and they get into it by having folks who have no background in science – “interpreting” selective data generated by the same science and claiming it is been hidden, manipulated, changed, etc… not one or two unethical guys but scientists around the world – it’s a conspiracy – across science – around the world to foist a “hoax” on everyone…

    that’s the narrative… it walks and talks almost exactly like the anti-vaccine movement does…. or the folks that believe in Laetril… they say the science is wrong – not one or two scientists – but all of them.

    Anyone who signs on to a movement that says science – most all science – virtually all of the scientists – 98% of them are frauds and perpetrating a hoax – worldwide – … that’s how it comes across …

    Basically the skeptics/deniers reject science – there is no two ways about it and they glom onto people who have almost no background in serious science who put up blogs and websites attacking science.

    This is, by far, s most serious indictment of our public school system – these folks go to school, and they don’t want to learn science – they avoid it – then later they become experts on science AND attack those who actually learned science in K-12 and went on to become legitimate scientists.

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