RURAL AMERICA - IF NOT TRUMP, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Rural America – If Not Trump, Who?  If Not Now, When?

By Jim Beers

Twenty years of federal forcibly-imposed wolves and grizzly bears.  Human deaths; livestock losses in the millions; dog deaths in the thousands; disease vectors spread over untold miles and untold acres; game populations disappearing; ranchers and sheepmen disabled and gone; Local governments starved for revenues and steadily emasculated; and local communities’ economies and family life going the way of dodo birds: and what is the status of American governance and Rural American political life?

The US Congress holds a hearing and we are heartened that the Idaho Wildlife Chief boldly says the state will do a better job of managing wolves!  Congressmen pose with statements like this is a real problem and we are going to do something.  Newspapers whine about how the pro-wolvers are not getting enough attention.  Radicals scream about wolves and how they are of more importance than people or ranches or dogs, in truth the whole human race (that lives in rural America.  The Minnesota DNR remains silent as the big MN federal wolf biologist admits what he and the DENR absolutely denied for years: wolves kill and all but eliminate moose.

It is all posturing.  As long as the Endangered Species Act exists and its precedents honored - NOTHING WILL CHANGE, things will only continue to get worse.  Federal bureaucrats are untouchable and state bureaucrats have become little more than federal handmaidens.

I am in receipt of hate mail and condemnation of late for endorsing Trump when I am supposed to be only a former whistleblower with a grudge against the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Well, wolves, the ESA, property taking, et al in the natural resources arena are only some of the symptoms of the cultural corruption and elimination of traditions and decay of the rule of law all around us.

Today’s paper reports that Fox News’ Share Price has fallen 17% and revenue has dropped 5.7% in the past 12 months.  Why is this important?  Fox is the ONLY news network that WAS questioning the Imperial Presidency and the corrupt (lying, destroying evidence, granting immunity, private servers, Billions to Terrorists, etc.) government activity.  While Fox credits its losses to a sex scandal (surprise, surprise when you hire “babes” with mini-skirts and navel shirts for everything) in truth Fox, like the Republican “Establishment”, tuned out Rural America long ago.  All those Congressmen and Senators (both D & R) no more care for or understand Rural America than O’Reilly, Kelley, Cavuto, Baer or Hannity.  Like the Senators that no more represent “their” State (thanks to a popular election process that allows out-state and foreign to “buy” them) than Cavuto understands or portrays Local government issues: American media is sinking further into a morass of increasing government propaganda, lying, and criminality.

Also in today’s paper is an expose’ of “Utah’s Native Tribes” opposition to our Imperial President and his Secretary of the Interior’s march to “create a Federal Monument at Bears End” of 1.9M Acres in Utah.  The saga is complete with a US Senator crowing that “A wealthy man’s playground should never come at the expense of a working man’s home”.  Locals scream about how Clinton’s similar Proclamation of a Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah in 1996, “virtually eliminated historic social and economic stability”.    (Unmentioned was that Clinton got a big “donation” from the Indonesian owner of the world’s largest Low-Sulfur Coal deposits as he was running for re-election and the

“Grand’ staircase monument was the 2^nd largest Low-Sulfur coal deposit in the world and is now off limits .  Think of it as an unpunished and early example of “Pay to Play” that preceded the Clinton Foundation and followed the Capone/Big Jim Thompson Chicago model of Prohibition, similar to ESA  governance.  Think of all the ESA thefts and precedents of property taking cited today.)

The Natives are simply like all other Americans regarding things like Endangered Species and Wilderness; “The more distant you are as a Navajo tribal member the more likely you are to support the monument because you view it as an abstraction or concept or theory of tribal sovereignty”.  “The closer you get to the monument, the more likely you are to view it as land that can and should be used properly”.  Sound familiar?  If you don’t hear echoes of “Endangered species”, “Critical Habitats”, “Wilderness Declarations”, “Scenic Rivers Declarations”, “Historic Area Designations”, “All Waters of the US Claims”, etcetera, etcetera: you haven’t been listening.

The enrollment at one high school in the “Grand” staircase ”monument” “dropped by two-thirds from 150 students in 1996 to only fifty”.  Maybe the 50 should write a thank you to President Clinton for relieving classroom crowding and then hold a fund raiser for his spouse (?) who helps run their Foundation while running for President?

The newspaper reporting this debacle in Utah, quotes a “perfessor” “who specializes in natural resource and property law” to wit “the Bureau of Land Management could tailor the solution by withdrawing portions of the land from use in consultation with local tribes.”

The WSJ goes on to report, “consulting with tribes isn’t the way of Washington, which has a long history of patronizing Native Americans.”  You could add just like they patronize rural Americans, Local governments, and State governments.  WSJ goes on to conclude, “A better approach would be to let Native Americans exercise more control over their native lands”.  Really?  What about ranchers, dog owners, rural residents, sawyers, rural businessmen, State Legislatures, State bureaucracies, hunters, trappers, fishermen, elderly rural residents et al?  While native Americans are held back from responsibility for their very lives and communities; rural Americans watch silently as the very same political “Establishment” and ”THEIR” bureaucrats whittle away at the hard-won Rights and Freedoms of rural Americans for their very lives and communities.  The state governments we pay to protect us are becoming just like those tribal governments that the writer

describes as suffering, “the worst kinds of 19^th century paternalism.”

What a “witches brew”!  Radical Democrats; Neutered or co-operating for their own benefit (??) “Establishment” Republicans; the only news outlet with a modicum of interest in the reporting truth losing profit as they mimic and advocate “Establishment” Washington political preservationists; and another nail in the coffin of rural America as a mediocre at best President connives with HIS bureaucrats to close 2 M more Acres on the heels of another “Marine Preserve Declaration” just like his predecessor did as his term (hopefully) comes to an end.  All in one day!

Like I said, if you don’t see how this destruction of rural America is increasing and how our common attitude to ignore those things that do not affect ”ME” is slowly killing us; then God help us because we are unable to help ourselves.

So, unless you somehow want more of this; voting for Hillary is not defensible.  If you want more of these pandering “Establishment” Republicans that offer only an Obama-Lite brew; you will wind up at the same disastrous destination as Hillary, only about a year later.  Trump is a businessman, and like Reagan who was an actor, offers a fresh look, common sense values, and a willingness to fight overwhelming odds that have come to the fore (“No new taxes’ Bush is voting for Hillary, Kaisich is pouting at a remote location, and nearly all the Fox pundits are disingenuous to say the least when ever given the opportunity to comment on anything Trump).  Trump is willing to stand up to the “Establishment” and maybe, just maybe, give Rural America some positive attention for a change.  I would be remiss if I avoided offending some when what concerns me so deeply has no other real or potential ally or potential solution on the horizon.

Vote Trump, and as they say in Chicago (and every other Democrat-ruled urban area) – Vote Often!  While the Democrats mean stuffing ballot boxes (I was born in Chicago) or stationing thugs with blackjacks at the entrance to voting sites (like the two bums videoed in Philadelphia that our erstwhile Attorney General Holder demurred to prosecute) I mean tell your family, friends, associates and neighbors no matter their reaction or beliefs: more is riding on this every day that something is not done.

James Beers

24 September 2016

If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others.  Thanks.

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC.  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands.  He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC.  He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

OPEN LETTER ABOUT CLIMATE POLITICS - - FROM

An open letter about climate politics from seven responsible

climate researchers and friends of Science

Some 375 political activists attached to the National Academy of Sciences, supporting the totalitarian view on the climate question, have issued an open letter saying we “caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases”. 
We influence climate by returning to the air carbon dioxide that was there before. But so do termites, by emitting more methane than all the world’s farm animals combined. So do plants, by breathing carbon dioxide and returning oxygen to the air. So does the Sun, by supplying the Earth’s radiant energy. So do volcanoes, by ejecta that shade the Earth from the Sun. So do the oceans, by helping to keep the Earth’s temperature extraordinarily stable for more than 800,000 years.
The activists say we are warming the oceans. But even the worst assessment says this is just 1 degree Celsius every 430 years. 
The activists say we are warming the lower atmosphere. Yet all data shows the atmosphere is warming at less than half the rate originally predicted by the error-prone Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The activists say the oceans are “acidifying”. The truth is that we have no idea whether or at what rate the oceans are “acidifying”. What is known, however, is that the oceans are pronouncedly alkaline and are so powerfully buffered that alkaline they must remain.
The activists say our influence on climate is evident in “altered rainfall patterns”: but there is  little or no evidence of a link between our industries and enterprises on the one hand and global rainfall patterns on the other.
The activists say we are to blame for retreating Arctic sea ice. But Arctic sea ice variations, if objectively quantified with proper error estimates, are fully within the large natural range of changes that have no need of any unique explanation by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. In addition Antarctic sea ice, which they forget, has largely offset the loss of Arctic ice.
The activists declare their faith in the doctrine “that the problem of human-caused climate change is real, serious and immediate, and that this problem poses significant risks” to everything from national security via health and agriculture to biodiversity.  But this statement is based wholly on faith and is unsupported by reality. We know this because of the serially failed predictions made by the activists. Good science makes accurate predictions.
The activists say, “We know that the climate system has tipping points”. Yet, revealingly, “Tipping point” is not a scientific but a political term. The activists say that “rapid warming of the planet increases the risk of crossing climatic points of no return”, but there is no evidence for rapid warming of the planet today. 
The activists say warmer weather will “possibly” set in motion “large-scale ocean circulation changes”. The scientific truth is that, while the wind blows, the Earth rotates and its land-masses are approximately where they are, the ocean circulation must remain much as it is now. To suggest otherwise is mere rodomontade.
Scientists, like other citizens, are entitled and even encouraged to take part in the political process. This applies to non-citizens, which many of the 375 are. What scientists must not do, however, is pretend, as the activists did, that their totalitarian point of view is unchallengeable. In all material respects, unfolding events have proven their extremist viewpoint prodigiously exaggerated at best, plain wrong at worst.
Though the activists have attempted – falsely and improperly – to convey the impression that it is somehow illegal, immoral or damaging to the planet to vote for the Republican party’s candidate in the forthcoming Presidential Election because he disagrees with the totalitarian position on the climate question that they espouse with such religious fervor and such disregard for science, in truth it is not the business of scientists to abuse the authority of their white lab-coats by collectively suggesting that “Science” demands the voters should or should not cast their vote in any particular direction. 
Therefore, the signatories hereto repudiate the letter issued by the 375 activists as reflecting not scientific truth but quasi-religious dogma and totalitarian error; we urge the voters to disregard that regrettable and anti-scientific letter; and we invite every citizen to make up his or her own mind whom to elect to the nation’s highest office without fear of the multifarious bugaboos conjured into terrifying but scientifically unjustifiable existence by the totalitarian activists who have for decades so disrespected, disgraced and disfigured climate science.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/25/political-science-reply-375-concerned-members-national-academy-sciences/
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, William M. Briggs, David R. Legates, Anthony Lupo, Istvan Marko, Dennis Mitchell, and Willie Soon

WOLVES, TERRORISTS & PRO FOOTBALL

By Jim Beers

When wolves attack and kill humans; we are told it was something else that did it (just like Moslem Terrorist attacks whenever possible).

When an attack by a Terrorist is not deniable; government and CAIR tell us it was just a “lone wolf” (like the Minnesota wolf that attacked a camper and was determined to have a “deformed” brain by the state DNR).

Wolf attacks (just like Terrorist attacks) are denied, ignored and lied about by government and a media that sees the citizenry as unable to handle “the truth” purportedly for “their” (whose??) own good.

The Endangered Species Act was passed to “save species” and then changed to authorize wolves, grizzly bears, etc. wherever bureaucrats said they should be; just like immigrants and refugees from the lands tearing themselves apart between Morocco and the S Philippines are placed and protected where mandated by federal politicians and bureaucrats claiming a fictional US Moslem heritage and a humanitarian concern not shown Christian refugees and matched only by federal concern for illegal aliens surging over our southern border.

Tougher and tougher “Terrorism” Laws were passed and then Moslem Terrorists were credited with “domestic violence” and ranchers protesting abuse by federal bureaucrats were arrested and charged with “Terrorism” for protesting government actions.

Historic deadly dangers and destructive social effects from individual Moslems and large Moslem communities are denied; just like the historic deadly dangers and destructive social effects of wolves, whether alone or in dense populations, are denied and ignored by government and a media sympathetic to political correctness and blind to history.

“Collaring” and “transplanting” “problem” wolves is bureaucrat “babble”; like NYC Mayor Deblasio (“this is not terrorism”) or Minnesota Governor Dayton speaking in St. Cloud, MN to all Minnesotans (“if you don’t like it here, Move”) or President Obama commenting on rampant Moslem Terrorism (“crickets”) is double-dealing diplomacy.

Certain states receive Moslem refugees or do not receive them based on voting benefits to the political party credited with bringing them in and placing them (like prison releases with immediate voting rights return before an election); just like certain (western) states are forced to take wolves while others (New England) are spared to curry dense urban voting support.

Make no mistake, all of the above are funded by taxes from all of us and caused by bureaucrats that once “worked for us”.  The laws authorizing all of this were passed, protected and upheld by both political “sides” (i.e. D & R) of the Washington “Establishment” These two undeniable facts make all of this not only more outrageous; it makes us fools.

Enter “Pro”-Football –

A large proportion (like Moslem communities and wolves nationwide) of the National Football League is black and Moslem, millionaire football players.  Apparently (again like “vetted” Moslem refugees) an element (“lone” players, 5%, majority, who knows) of these players have made known their contempt and dislike for the United States of America by sitting, kneeling or raising a fist as the National Anthem is played before the games.

Of course they have right to do that.  I find it deeply offensive but do I have a “right” to that opinion?  As the son of a tank-combat-veteran Army father; and a brother of an Army paratrooper-combat-veteran; and as a former Naval Officer I find that their chosen “protest” leads me to dismiss anything they claim to be doing as folly.

What do their coaches do?  Why they whinny and befuddle the English language like DeBlasio and the New York Times addressing Terrorism or Governor Dayton and President Obama addressing wolves.

What do the NFL owners do?  Why they just sail merrily along threatening to move if they don’t get a new and bigger stadium and raking in billions and billions like career politicians running for re-election the 22^nd time.

What does the Players’ Union do? Answer: collect dues like PACS and feckless politicians.

What does the NFL do?  It lets them protest with their socks and disgusting anti-American behavior in the game venue.  Then, like bureaucrats, they steer the results to their own benefit by proclaiming their devotion to the “sport” like USFWS is devoted to wildlife, USFS is devoted to forests, etc.

What does Jim Beers do?

1. I will continue to write and speak about the corrupt nature and status of wildlife management in the US today.

2. I will continue to be aware of my surroundings and be prepared to protect myself and my family in the increasingly dangerous and deadly society that is America today.

3. I will support Donald Trump as the only glimmer of a chance to reform and reshape the Washington “Establishment” rather than the treacherous (“sign this pledge to support the winner of the Republican Primary”) and bitter (Romney, Kaisich, Cruz, Bushes, etc.) Republicans representing the status quo or the Democrat whoever it might be that will give us just more and more of the same plus gun confiscation while wolves and Terrorism increase all around us.

4. As a life-long Chicago Bears fan (I was born near Wrigley Field and lived with my grandparents during WWII near Wrigley Field - the home of the Bears for 50 years and still the home of the Cubs), I will no longer watch or support in any way National Football League games, products or teams.  I may have to pay taxes for government abuse thanks to an amoral and powerful federal IRS, and for new stadiums thanks to liberal “give-away” state and local politicians; but would I buy Ford F-150’s, no matter the price, if Ford employees publicly disrespected the flag and our country with the tacit consent of Ford Motors?  The answer is NO.

I submit that wolves, Islamic Terror and now professional sports as radical political venues are all related.  Blame what you will: things are bad and getting worse all the time.  Call it cultural rot, radical progressive ideas run amok, corrupt government, or loss of common moral values underpinning the nation: there is plenty of blame and plenty of factors to go around.

The only suggestion I can think of is to get a government grant (how else?) to buy 10 million fiddles and send them to:

-       The Washington “Establishment”.

-       The Democrat and Republican Parties.

-       The Supreme Court.

-       Retired federal politicians

-       The federal bureaucracy and retired bureaucrats.

-       The State Houses of states that go along with federal un-Constitutional decrees.

-       All the Non-Government Organizations collecting money for themselves disguised as helping (fill-in-the-blank) causes or groups that they actually despise.

-       The media from the cable news and newspapers to the radio reporters.

-       The school teachers and University “perfessors” turning young minds and science into mush.

That should leave a thousand or so fiddles, so I invite you to add to the List.

Like Nero who allegedly set the fire he watched burn Rome in 64 AD in order to blame Christians and justify a persecution; the above “perps” might as well fiddle as the US - the place like Nero’s Rome that they are and were paid to protect - goes up in flames.

Jim Beers

19 Sep. 2016

If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others.  Thanks.

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC.  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands.  He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC.  He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

CAPITALISM V. SOCIALISM

The Experiment:  Capitalism versus Socialism

What if we could have an experiment to compare the two systems? Wait – we already did.

By David R. Legates

Experimentation is a major tool in the scientist’s arsenal. We can put the same strain of bacteria into two Petri dishes, for example, and compare the relative effects of two different antibiotics.

What if we could do the same with economic systems? We could take a country and destroy its political and economic fabric through, say, a natural disaster or widespread pestilence – or a war. War is the ultimate political and economic cleansing agent. Its full devastation can send a country back almost to the beginning of civilization.

We could then take this war-torn country and divide it into two parts. It would have similar people, similar climate, similar potential trading partners, similar geography – but one part is rebuilt using capitalism as its base, while the other rebuilds using socialism and its principles. We’d let the virtues of each system play out and see where these two new countries would be after, say, fifty years.

Don’t you wonder what the outcome might be? Well, as it turns out, we have already performed The Experiment. It’s post-war Germany.                                                                                                                                                             Following the devastation of World War II, Germany was split into two parts. The German Federal Republic, or West Germany, was rebuilt in the image of the western allies and a capitalist legal-political-economic system.  By contrast, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was reconstructed using the socialist/communist principles championed by the Soviet Union. The Experiment pitted the market economy of the West against the command economy of the East.

On the western side, considering what’s being taught in our schools, one might expect that “greedy capitalism” would create a state where a few people became the rich elite, while the vast majority were left as deprived masses. Socialism, by contrast, promised East Germany the best that life had to offer, through rights guaranteed by the state, including “human rights” to employment and living wages, time for rest and leisure, health care and elder care, and guaranteed housing, education and cultural programs.

So the Petri dishes were set, and The Experiment began. In 1990, after just 45 years, The Experiment abruptly and surprisingly ended – with reunification back into a single country. How did it work out?

In West Germany, capitalism rebuilt the devastated country into a political and economic power in Europe, rivaled only by its former enemy, Great Britain. Instead of creating a rich 1% and a poor 99%, West Germans thrived: average West Germans were considerably wealthier than their Eastern counterparts. The country developed economically, and its people enjoyed lives with all the pleasures that wealth, modern technologies and quality free time could provide.

By contrast, East Germany’s socialist policies created a state that fell woefully behind. Its people were much poorer; property ownership was virtually non-existent amid a collectivist regime; food and material goods were scarce and expensive, available mostly to Communist Party elites; spies were everywhere, and people were summarily arrested and jailed; the state pretended to pay its workers, and they pretended to work. A wall of concrete, barbed wire and guard towers was built to separate the two halves of Berlin – and keep disgruntled Eastern citizens from defecting to the West. Many who tried to leave were shot.

By the time of reunification, productivity in East Germany was barely 70% of that in West Germany. The West boasted large, vibrant industries and other highly productive sectors, while dirty antiquated factories and outmoded farming methods dominated the East. Even staples like butter, eggs and chicken – abundant and affordable in West Germany – were twice as expensive in the eastern “workers’ paradise.” 

Coffee was seven times more expensive, while gasoline and laundry detergent were more than 2½ times more expensive. Luxury items, like automobiles and men’s suits were twice as expensive, color televisions five times more costly. About the only staple that was cheaper in East Germany were potatoes, which could be distilled into vodka, so that lower caste East Germans could commiserate better with their abundant Russian comrades.

Moreover, state-guaranteed health care in the East did not translate into a healthier society. In 1990, life expectancy in the West was about 3½ years longer than in the East for men, and more than 2½ years longer for women. Studies found that unfavorable working conditions, psychological reactions to political suppression, differences in cardiovascular risk factors and lifestyles, and lower standards of medical technology in East Germany were largely responsible for their lower health standards.

The socialist mentality of full employment for everyone led to more women working in the East than in the West. This pressure resulted in better childcare facilities in East Germany, as mothers there returned to work sooner after giving birth and were more inclined to work full-time – or more compelled to work, to put food on the table, which meant they had to work full-time and run the household. This also meant East German children had far less contact with their parents and families, even as West Germans became convinced that children fared better under their mothers’ loving care than growing up in nurseries.

As the education system in East Germany was deeply rooted in socialism, the state ran an extensive network of schools that indoctrinated children into the socialist system from just after their birth to the university level. While it’s true that today East Germans perform better at STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) studies than their Western counterparts, that may be explained in part by the influx of numerous poorly educated immigrants to former West German areas, and the extensive money invested in the eastern region since reunification.

However, schools of the East were not intended to establish creative thinking, which results in creativity and innovation. Rather, they were authoritarian and rigid, encouraging collective group-think and consensus ideas, rather than fostering outside-the-box thinking, novel philosophies and enhanced productivity. Thus, East German technology was slow to develop and students were often overqualified for available jobs.  

Did the East gain any advantage? Nudism was more prevalent in the East, if that was your thing.  Personal interaction was higher too, because telephones and other technologies were lacking. But even though East Germany was much better off than other Soviet satellite countries (a tribute to innate German resourcefulness), East German socialism offered few advantages over its capitalist western counterpart.  In fact, in the years since reunification, homogenization of Germany has been slow, due largely to the legacy of years lived under socialist domination, where any work ethic was unrewarded, even repressed.

Freedom was the single most important ingredient that caused West Germany to succeed. Freedom is the elixir that fuels innovation, supports a diversity of thought, and allows people to become who they want to be, not what the state demands they must be. When the government guarantees equality of outcomes, it also stifles the creativity, diversity, ingenuity and reward systems that allow people and countries to grow, develop and prosper. The Experiment has proven this.

These days in the United States, however, forgetful, unobservant and ideological politicians are again touting the supposed benefits of socialism. Government-provided health and elder care, free tuition, paid day care and pre-school education, guaranteed jobs and wages are all peddled by candidates who feel government can and should care for us from cradle to grave. They apparently think East German socialism is preferable to West German capitalism. Have they learned nothing from The Experiment?

A friend of mine believes capitalism is greedy and evil – and socialism, if “properly implemented,” will take us forward to realizing a better future. I counter that The Experiment proves society is doomed to mediocrity at best under autocratic socialism. Indeed, those who turn toward the Siren call of socialism always crash upon its rocks. But my friend assures me: “Trust me, this time it will be different.”

That’s what they always say. Perhaps Venezuela and Cuba are finally making socialism work?

David R. Legates, PhD, CCM, is a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. His views do not represent those of the University of Delaware.

SCIENCE DENIERS' GREATEST HITS

Science is a process, not a destination, and must not be immune to falsification by experiment.

By Bill Frezza

“And yet, it moves.”

Thus muttered Galileo Galilei under his breath, after being forced by the Inquisition to recant his claim that the Earth moved around the Sun, rather than the other way round. The public vindication of Copernican heliocentrism would have to wait another day.

Today, Galileo’s story is a well-known illustration of the dangers of both unchecked power and declaring scientific matters “settled.” Yet, throughout history, Galileo wasn’t alone.

Scientists once knew that light moved through space via the luminiferous aether – how else could its waves travel? In 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley proved that it wasn’t so, thanks to a “failed” experiment that was actually designed to conclusively demonstrate the existence of this invisible medium. Poor Michelson suffered a nervous breakdown when faced with such unexpected results.

In 1931 a book published in Germany, One Hundred Authors against Einstein, defended the “settled science” of Newtonian physics and proclaimed that Einstein’s theory of relativity was a fraud. Einstein was reported to have replied, “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

On these pages I recently recounted the story of the early twentieth century belief in Eugenics, a “science” widely adopted by governments around the world as a basis for social policy – with horrifying results.

Australian physicians Barry Marshall and Robin Warrens were ridiculed when they hypothesized that ulcers were caused by microbes, which “every scientist knew” couldn’t survive in stomach acid. Doctors were sure that peptic ulcers were caused by stress and spicy foods. In frustration, Marshall drank a Petri dish full of cultured H. pylori, proving the “settled science” wrong.

Hopefully, the Nobel Prize he and Warrens received compensated for the illness that resulted.

And remember the government’s dietary guidelines, including the warnings against salt and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Pyramid urging Americans to eat more carbs and fewer fats? That didn’t work out so well, did it?

We all grew up knowing that life began in the “primordial soup” of the seas, sparked by lightning. A recent paper in Nature casts doubt on that theory, producing evidence that life may have begun in hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor. The jury is still out on this one.

And that’s the point.

It’s worth keeping the above examples in mind, when someone proclaims that surely we are much smarter today than we were in the past. That we can finally put our faith in scientific certainty, especially when journalists and politicians and subsidized scientists tell us that 97 percent of scientists agree on something. That once consensus is reached among experts, it’s important to stop listening to criticism. 

If you have any doubts, just Google up the phrase “Science Says,” and view the parade of claims that carry that new and improved Good Housekeeping Seal of Infallibility.

Yes, reactionaries on the payroll of nefarious forces insist on reminding us that science is a process, not a destination. What difference does it make if a hypothesis has been artfully constructed to render itself immune to falsification by experiment?

Who cares if computer simulations enshrined at the heart of public policy have never made a correct forecast? How dare anyone imply that billions of dollars in government grant funding create perverse incentives for researchers to support the party line?

The important thing is that “settled science” can be used to spur the public to act.

And exactly what has the “settled science” of cataclysmic anthropogenic global warming convinced us to do? One thing above all: Deliver unprecedented power to politicians, activists and bureaucrats.

Power to commandeer entire industries. Power to pump billions of taxpayer dollars into half-baked schemes cooked up by crony corporatists. Power to redistribute income on a global scale.

And to maintain this power, when cracks begin to show in the narrative, power to criminalize dissent, much as the Inquisition did to Galileo.

Real science is characterized by healthy skepticism, relentless questioning, and a constant testing and re-testing of theories, systems and models. Casting dogma in stone – and then stoning non-believers – is a hallmark of intolerant religion, not science.

And when we finally wake up from our global warming-inspired public hysteria, our progeny will pat themselves on the back for being so much more advanced than we were. Before, alas, the cycle repeats again.

Bill Frezza is a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the host of the Real Clear Radio Hour.

GREEN RACISM

CONFUSION, MUDDLE, OBFUSCATION AND RACISM

As Obama, UN and EPA seek to dictate our lives and livelihoods,

the real issue is green racism 

By Paul Driessen

Winston Churchill called Russia a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. We could say Obama’s energy and climate policy is confusion wrapped in muddled thinking inside obfuscation – and driven by autocratic diktats that bring job-killing, economy-strangling, racist and deadly outcomes.

President Obama was recently in China, where his vainglorious arrival turned into an inglorious snub, when he had to use Air Force 1’s rear exit. He was there mostly to join Chinese President Xi Jinping and UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon, to formally sign the Paris climate treaty that Mr. Obama insists is not a treaty (and thus does not require Senate “advice and consent” under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution) because it is not binding – yet.

However, once it has been “signed and delivered” by 55 nations representing 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it will be hailed as binding. China and the US alone represent 38% of total emissions, so adding a few more big nations (Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan and Germany, eg) would reach the emission threshold. Adding a bunch of countries that merely want their “fair share” of the billions of dollars in annual climate “adaptation, mitigation and reparation” cash would hit the country minimum.

Few if any developing nations will reduce their oil, natural gas or coal use anytime soon. That would be economic and political suicide. In fact, China and India plan to build some 1,600 new coal-fired power plants by 2030, Japan 43, Turkey 80, Poland a dozen, and the list goes on and on, around the globe.

Meanwhile, the United States is shutting down its coal-fueled units. Under Obama’s treaty, the USA will be required to go even further, slashing its carbon dioxide emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. That will unleash energy, economic and environmental impacts far beyond what the Administration’s endless, baseless climate decrees are already imposing.

Federal agencies constantly harp on wildly exaggerated and fabricated “social costs of carbon” – but completely and deliberately ignore the incredible benefits of carbon-based energy.

The battle is now shifting to natural gas – methane. Hillary Clinton and Democrats promise to regulate drilling and fracking into oblivion on federal lands. California regulators are targeting cow flatulence!

EPA continues to expand ethanol requirements, even though this fuel additive reduces mileage, damages small engines, uses acreage equivalent to Iowa, requires enormous amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, gasoline, methane and diesel fuel – and releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it removes.

Wind turbines, photovoltaic solar arrays and their interminable transmission lines already blanket millions of acres of farmland and wildlife habitats. They kill millions of birds and bats (but are exempt from endangered species laws), to provide expensive, subsidized, unreliable electricity. Expanding wind, solar and biofuel programs to reach the 28% CO2 reduction target would increase these impacts exponentially.

But all this is necessary, we’re told, to prevent climate cataclysms, like an Arctic meltdown. “Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone,” the Washington Post reported. Icebergs are becoming scarcer, in some places seals are finding the water too hot, and within a few years rising seas “will make most coastal cities uninhabitable.” The situation could hardly be more dire. Oh, wait. My mistake.

That was in November 1922! Recent warming and cooling episodes are not so unprecedented, after all.

However, all this climate confusion, obfuscation, fabrication and prevarication are merely prelude, a sideshow. The real issues here are eco-imperialism, racism and racially disparate impacts.

Not the kind of racism the Washington Post alludes to by putting a front-page story about Donald Trump going to a black church in Detroit next to a piece about a black soldier being horrifically lynched at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1941. Nor absurd claims by Detroit Free Press writer Stephen Henderson that Trump is racist for daring to go to that church to “boost his stock among white middle-class voters,” when he has “no interest” in addressing inner city problems.

This racism is the sneaky, subtle, green variety: of government policies that inflict their worst impacts on the poorest among us, huge numbers of them minorities – while insisting that the gravest risks those families face are from climate change or barely detectable pollutants in their air and water.

In the Real World, soaring energy prices mean poor families cannot afford adequate heating and air conditioning, cannot save or afford proper nutrition, and must rely on schools, hospitals and businesses whose energy costs are also climbing – bringing higher prices, reduced services and lost jobs.

Workers who are laid off, dumped on welfare rolls or forced to take multiple lower-paying part-time jobs face greater stress and depression, reduced nutrition, sleep deprivation, greater alcohol, drug, spousal and child abuse, and higher suicide, stroke, heart attack and cancer rates. That means every life supposedly saved by anti-fossil fuel policies is offset by real lives lost due to government actions.

Unemployment among minorities, especially black teens, is already far higher than for the population at large. Crime and other inner city problems are far worse than elsewhere. Policies that further cripple economic growth, job creation and revenue generation will make their situation infinitely worse.

Of course, legislators, regulators, lobbyists, eco-activists, crony capitalists, judges and celebrities are rarely affected. Their communities are far from those that bear the brunt of their edicts, so they’re shielded from most impacts of policies they impose. They know what is happening, but are almost never held accountable for actions that are racist in their outcomes, if not in their supposed “good intentions.”

To them, a planet free from inflated, hypothetical dangers from modern technologies is more important than lives improved or saved by those technologies. In Earth’s poorest countries, the outcomes are lethal on a daily basis. There, billions live on a few dollars a day, rarely or never have electricity, and are wracked by joblessness, malnutrition, disease and despair. Millions die every year from malaria, lung infections, malnutrition, severe diarrhea, and countless other diseases of poverty and eco-imperialism.

And yet, President Obama, the UN, its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and myriad environmental pressure groups tell impoverished dark-skinned people they should rely on “clean energy strategies” to improve their lives, but not “too much,” since anything more would not be “sustainable.”

“If everybody has got a car and air conditioning and a big house,” Mr. Obama told South Africans, “the planet will boil over.” He can jet, live and golf all over the planet, but they must limit their aspirations.

Thus his Overseas Private Investment Corporation refused to support a gas-fired power plant in Ghana, and the United States “abstained” from supporting a World Bank loan for South Africa’s state-of-the-art Medupi coal-fired power plant. Meanwhile, radical environmentalist campaigns limit the ability of African and other nations to use DDT and insecticides to control malaria, dengue fever and Zika – or GMO seeds and even hybrid seeds and modern fertilizers to improve crop yields and nutrition.

No wonder Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said his country will not ratify the Paris climate treaty. “Now that we’re developing, you will impose a limit? That’s absurd,” he snorted. He’s absolutely right.

These anti-technology campaigns are akin to denying chemotherapy to cancer patients. They result in racist eco-manslaughter and must no longer be tolerated – no matter how “caring” and “well-intended” supposed “climate cataclysm prevention” policies might be.

If we’re going to discuss race, racism, disparate impacts, black and all lives mattering, and protecting people and planet from manmade risks, let’s make sure all these topics become part of that discussion.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on the environment.

ETHANOL IS THE WRONG SOLUTION

Ethanol is the wrong solution

by Marita Noon

University of Michigan’s Energy Institute research professor John DeCicco, Ph.D., believes that rising carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming and, therefore, humans must find a way to reduce its levels in the atmosphere—but ethanol is the wrong solution. According to his just-released study, political support for biofuels, particularly ethanol, has exacerbated the problem instead of being the cure it was advertised to be.

DeCicco and his co-authors assert: “Contrary to popular belief, the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas emitted when biofuels are burned is not fully balanced by the CO₂ uptake that occurs as the plants grow.” The presumption that biofuels emit significantly fewer greenhouse gases (GHG) than gasoline does is, according to DeCicco: “misguided.”

His research, three years in the making, including extensive peer-review, has upended the conventional wisdom and angered the alternative fuel lobbyists. The headline-grabbing claim is that biofuels are worse for the climate than gasoline.

Past bipartisan support for ethanol was based on two, now false, assumptions.

First, based on fears of waning oil supplies, alternative fuels were promoted to increase energy security. DeCicco points out: “Every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has backed programs to develop alternative transportation fuels.” Now, in the midst of a global oil glut, we know that hydraulic fracturing has been the biggest factor in America’s new era of energy abundance—not biofuels. Additionally, ethanol has been championed for its perceived reduction in GHG. Using a new approach, DeCicco and his researchers, conclude: “rising U.S. biofuel use has been associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO₂ emissions.”

DeCicco has been focused on this topic for nearly a decade. In 2007, when the Energy Independence and Security Act (also known as the expanded ethanol mandate) was in the works, he told me: “I realized that something seemed horribly amiss with a law that established a sweeping mandate which rested on assumptions, not scientific fact, that were unverified and might be quite wrong, even though they were commonly accepted and politically correct (and politically convenient).” Having spent 20 years as a green group scientist, DeCicco has qualified green bona fides. From that perspective he saw that while biofuels sounded good, no one had checked the math.

Previously, based on life cycle analysis (LCA), it has been assumed that crop-based biofuels, were not just carbon neutral, but actually offered modest net GHG reductions. This, DeCicco says, is the “premise of most climate related fuel policies promulgated to date, including measures such as the LCFS [California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard] and RFS [the federal Renewable Fuel Standard passed in 2005 and expanded in 2007].”

The DeCicco study differs from LCA—which assumes that any carbon dioxide released from a vehicle’s tailpipe as a result of burning biofuel is absorbed from the atmosphere by the growing of the crop. In LCA, biofuel use is modeled as a static system, one presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere in terms of its material carbon flow. The Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use study uses Annual Basis Carbon (ABC) accounting—which does not treat biofuels as inherently carbon neutral. Instead, it treats biofuels as “part of a dynamic stock-and-flow system.” Its methodology “tallies CO₂ emissions based on the chemistry in the specific locations where they occur.” In May, on my radio program, DeCicco explained: “Life Cycle Analysis is wrong because it fails to actually look at what is going on at the farms.”

In short, DeCicco told me: “Biofuels get a credit they didn’t deserve; instead they leave a debit.”

The concept behind DeCicco’s premise is that the idea of ethanol being carbon neutral assumes that the ground where the corn is grown was barren dirt (without any plants removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere) before the farmer decided to plant corn for ethanol. If that were the case, then, yes, planting corn on that land, converting that corn to ethanol that is then burned as a vehicle fuel, might come close to being carbon neutral. But the reality is that land already had corn, or some other crop, growing on it—so that land’s use was already absorbing CO₂. You can’t count it twice.

DeCicco explains “Growing the corn that becomes ethanol absorbs no more carbon from the air than the corn that goes into cattle feed or corn flakes. Burning the ethanol releases essentially the same amount of CO₂ as burning gasoline. No less CO₂ went into the air from the tailpipe; no more CO₂ was removed from the air at the cornfield. So where’s the climate benefit?”

Much of that farmland was growing corn to feed cattle and chickens—also known as feedstock. The RFS requires an ever-increasing amount of ethanol be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. Since the RFS became law in 2005, the amount of land dedicated to growing corn for ethanol has increased from 12.4 percent of the overall corn crop to 38.6 percent. While the annual supply of corn has increased by 17 percent, the amount going into feedstock has decreased from 57.5 percent to 37.98%—as a graphic from the Detroit Free Press illustrates.

The rub comes from the fact that we are not eating less. Globally, more food is required, not less. The livestock still needs to be fed. So while the percentage of corn going into feedstock in the U.S. has decreased because of the RFS, that corn is now grown somewhere else. DeCicco explained: “When you rob Peter to pay Paul, Peter has to get his resource from someplace else.” One such place is Brazil where previous pasture land, because it is already flat, has been converted to growing corps. Ranchers have been pushed out to what was forest and deforestation is taking place.

Adding to the biofuels-are-worse-than-gasoline accounting are the effects from producing ethanol. You have to cook it and ferment it—which requires energy. In the process, CO₂ bubbles off. By expanding the quantity of corn grown, prairie land is busted up and stored CO₂ is released.

DeCicco says: “it is this domino effect that makes ethanol worse.”

How much worse?

The study looks at the period with the highest increase in ethanol production due to the RFS: 2005-2013 (remember, the study took three years). The research provides an overview of eight years of overall climate impacts of America’s multibillion-dollar biofuel industry. It doesn’t address issues such as increased fertilizer use and the subsequent water pollution.

The conclusion is that the increased carbon dioxide uptake by the crops was only enough to offset 37 percent of the CO₂ emissions due to biofuel combustion—meaning “rising U.S. biofuel use has been associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO₂ emissions.”

Instead of a “disco-era ‘anything but oil’ energy policy,” DeCicco’s research finds, that while further work is needed to examine the research and policy implications going forward, “it makes more sense to soak up CO₂ through reforestation and redouble efforts to protect forests rather than producing biofuels, which puts carbon rich lands at risk.”

Regardless of differing views on climate change, we can generally agree that more trees are a good thing and that “using government mandates and subsidies to promote politically favored fuels de jour is a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc., and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column. Follow her @EnergyRabbit.