RoR: Forum

Global Warming... or Climate Change.... and most of the environmental policies that are pursued by Progressives are Trojan Horse Arguments. They were never about truth. They were about finding something that was morally attractive to those who are listening ("Save the planet"). Then, with the language all jacked up, the "bad guys" chosen (maybe the rich, maybe businessmen, maybe capitalism), they craft the non-objective laws to hide inside the Trojan Horse, the laws that once given to Progressive controlled regulatory agencies will create centralized political control by the elites.

The same thing is evident with Health Care, with Fighting Poverty, Subsidies, Bailouts, etc. All Trojan Horses for use by Progressives to transform the world from free enterprise to centralized control and to shift the money from the hands of producers to the elites. Redistribution and centralized control by an elite.

With a Trojan Horse, once some of the surface arguments used to launch it are shown to be untrue, it might limp a bit, look a little ratty, and be a little less attractive but until its reception goes totally negative, the Progressives still want us to take some version of it inside the walls. The truth never mattered to them. And the useful idiots, who are Progressive-lites, are hurt that something they once revered wasn't entirely true, but they are still deeply in love with other Progressive Utopian lies and just move on to a different Trojan Horse which they haven't seen for what it is.

Post 1

Saturday, September 21, 2013 - 10:33pm

Good essay. Here are 2 relevant articles:
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(1) A carbon cycle science update since IPCC AR-4. [ abstract ]
Notable quotes:

We conclude that: the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 due to fossil fuel burning have increased up through 2008 at a rate near to the high end of the IPCC emission scenarios; there are contradictory analyses whether an increase in atmospheric fraction, that might indicate a declining sink strength of ocean and/or land, exists ...

... the amount of carbon stored in permafrost areas appears much (two times) larger than previously thought; ...

... preservation of existing marine ecosystems could require a CO2 stabilization as low as 450 ppm ...

Recap:
CO2 emissions increase every year, but scientists cannot even agree on whether the atmospheric fraction (of all atmospheric C02) that is being attributed to man is actually increasing or not. When people like Al Gore tell you "Stop! There is a scientific consensus! We need to act now!" then they are talking out of both sides of their mouths -- just like salesmen on infomercials.
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(2) Against politicization of science [ full text ]
Notable quotes:

... we may not have fully grasped the conceptions and arguments of S. Keller. What stuck to us was the complaint that the IPCC, mainly under the influence of Bert Bolin, would have failed to issue an authoritative, ideally numerical specification about �a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system�.

Keller places any due blame on the shoulders of Bert Bolin for his inception of the role of the IPCC. But Keller, not explicitly, and perhaps even unaware, is contesting the need for scientific objectivity as a prerequisite for science, as discussed in terms of academic science versus �post-academic� science (Ziman 1996). Briefly, whereas academic science, among other things, attempts to adhere somewhat to Merton�s CUDOS model of science (Merton 1942; see below), non-academic science �is not directed to producing knowledge as such: it is directed to solving specific problems� (Ziman 1996: 752). Under conditions of �post-academic� science, academic science will hybridize �with knowledge and belief systems that do not share the same intellectual values and standards of �good science��(Ziman 1996: 753).

Scientific credibility would be at risk of being tarnished. The social capital of science��authority, trust, knowledge legitimation��would be squandered for the sake of political goals.

So what is this capital �authority�? When we use the term �authority�, we do not refer the authority to enforce something. This is exactly what S. Keller has in mind, when she wants to have science as a utility for a specific policy.

Instead, we refer to the ability to provide understanding about a complex world by reference to a superior analysis method and a superior body of knowledge. Climate science has such authority to provide two services��one is to satisfy curiosity, the other to enable the understanding of a complex social and natural environment (and thus the opportunity to influence these environments, as well as allowing people to live in more self-determination).

Recap:
There is a right and a wrong way to do science, and S. Keller wants science to be done in the wrong way. The purpose of science, like Bacon and Spinoza said, is to enable the human understanding of complex things in order to afford people with more self-determination than they previously had (before the science was performed). Contrary to purpose, people like S. Keller want to utilize science as a means to take away the self-determination of peoples -- i.e., to effect an asymmetry of political power (to get control over others in order to make them bend to your whims and pet theories).
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Ed

Post 2

Monday, September 23, 2013 - 6:18pm

Look how Steve's informal reply integrates with the formal discussion (published in the scientific journal, Poiesis & Praxis) that I quoted just above ...

Steve:

they craft the non-objective laws to hide inside the Trojan Horse

Poiesis Prax. 2010 October; 7(3): 211�219.:

Keller ... is contesting the need for scientific objectivity as a prerequisite for science

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Steve:

They were never about truth. They were about finding something that was morally attractive to those who are listening ... The same thing is evident with Health Care, with Fighting Poverty, Subsidies, Bailouts, etc.

Poiesis Prax. 2010 October; 7(3): 211�219.:

non-academic science �is not directed to producing knowledge as such: it is directed to solving specific problems�

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Steve:

Then, with the language all jacked up, the "bad guys" chosen (maybe the rich, maybe businessmen, maybe capitalism), they craft the non-objective laws

Poiesis Prax. 2010 October; 7(3): 211�219.:

Under conditions of �post-academic� science, academic science will hybridize �with knowledge and belief systems that do not share the same intellectual values and standards of �good science��

-------------------------------------------------------
Steve:

they craft the non-objective laws to hide inside the Trojan Horse, the laws that once given to Progressive controlled regulatory agencies will create centralized political control by the elites.

Poiesis Prax. 2010 October; 7(3): 211�219.:

she wants to have science as a utility for a specific policy.

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Uncanny similarity there.

Ed

Post 3

Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - 10:21am

Trojan Horses is the right description. I list a number of assumptions needed to justify the sort of policies that the eco-extremists promote. They usually want to argue for a little bit of the first assumption--the atmosphere is warming up--and a little of the fourth--humans made at least some contribution--and then jump to draconian measures.

Just before "An Inconvenient Truth" was released, I was in a meeting where Al Gore gave the slide show version of his movie. The first question after the presentation was, "Would you favor the policies you're promoting even if there were no global warming?" His revealing answer to the questioner was, "Yes."

Post 4

Thursday, September 26, 2013 - 7:20am

Trojan Horse is an apt description.

The first question after the presentation was, "Would you favor the policies you're promoting even if there were no global warming?" His revealing answer to the questioner was, "Yes."

For comparison, let me outline a parallel argument which the Greeks would absolutely hate; the reason they would hate it exactly illustrates the nature of their lie.

Here is an argument for promoting the exact same policy actions that they claim they espose which would be fought tooth an nail by these same greeks.

There would be enormous benefit to transitioning to a Fusion economy. There is an intermediate step along the way to Deuterium-Deuterium(DD) fusion, and that is Deuterium-Tritium(DT) fusion, easier to achieve than DD. Here is the carrot: in one gallon of water, there is the Deuterium fuel equivalent of 300 gallons of gasoline. Think about the implications of that. In the DD economies, the fuel to drive the economies would be as endemic as ... water. No more energy scarcity, and with enough endemic energy, with some irony, mankind would be powered to the stars via fusion.

DT requires Tritium, a rare element on earth, but the technology is being proven as we speak to self-breed Tritium from the Lithium cooling blankets shielding the reactors.

The issue is, both DT (and eventually, DD) are difficult development paths, and we are several decades away(no longer centuries away)from commercialization; the ITER project is finally on track and has broken ground in France, with the key element of self-breeding Tritium the last remaining hurdle for commercialization. (The major goal of sustained fusion plasmas of arbitrary duration has already been achieved.)

So what is needed is a time-bridge; a way of getting from the present fossil fuel based economies to the future fusion based economies. Because of the uncertain nature of the difficult development, we don't know exactly how long that bridge must be, and so, we need to build it to be as long as possible, with the competing goals of a] reaching that future and b] doing so without damaging current economies.

What policies would achieve those goals? Conservation of fossil fuels. Use of high efficiency processing. Reduced emissions as a consequence. Use of alternative bridge energy sources. Pretty much every policy advocated by the "CO2 is driving Climate But Only in Our Models" folks.

So why would the greeks/Eco-Luddites hate this argument with a passion? Because of where it is going. Because of what is at the end of the bridge. A world in which energy was as endemic as water would all but destroy "Big" Government. It would certainly change geopolitics as we know it. We going to be sailing oceans of energy in nuclear powered aircraft carriers in the name of defending access to hard to reach oil deposits?

The socialists need to create a world of increasing dependency on government, not decreasing dependecy on government.

There is also insight, I think, into why governments have been so lackadasical about pursuing fusion; many have imagined that world and realize it is a a geopolitical game changer. Hell, it is a geopolitical game ender. It is the end of centralized power in the world. It is the unleashing of endemic energy, and with it, dependency on "Big" government.

regards,
Fred

Post 5

Thursday, September 26, 2013 - 9:19am

The socialists need to create a world of increasing dependency on government...

Fred has a genius for accurately finding the heart of the issue. Dependency is itself is a kind of Trojan horse - another thing the Progressives put in motion to drive society towards their goal of centralized control of everything by them. All of the emotionally charged arguments they create, whether it is about the horrors of climate change, the plight of the poor, the dangers of trying to exist without their health insurance, etc., all are dangers that the public is encouraged to DEPEND upon them for a cure. "Terrible things are going to happen to you, but don't worry, we will provide for you, we will protect you... sign here please."

Post 6

Thursday, September 26, 2013 - 10:09am

Fred - Very thoughtful argument. I would raise questions about the economics. If the benefits are so certain, why wouldn't private investors be leading the way? If the timeline is uncertain, as you suggest, aren't we burdening present generations--me, my family--with high prices when my water-powered car might still be decades away?

But you get to the crux of one of the motivations of the global warming crowd: control by elites, dependence on elites.

I would add that the eco-extremists have another motivation. They've internalized the notion that the Earth, nature, "Gaia," have intrinsic value. Thus, by definition, any time we you trod on a blade of grass, you're violating the "rights" of the environment. For the appalling results of this religious dogma as well as a discussion of intrinsicist nature of these beliefs, see my Reducing Humans To Carbon Ash and Light Up The World For Humans!

Post 7

Thursday, September 26, 2013 - 3:44pm

Ed:

The 1 gallon of water = 300 gal of gasoline is the carrot, but it is far horizon, long term risk/reward. I don't think it is the certainty of the outcome or payoff that is at risk, it is the distance to the horizon that is at risk.

Can you imagine any VC folks lining up behind a payoff with a far horizon measured in decades, when there are other, shorter term alternatives? That isn't a criticism, I think it is just a description of the 'potential' well.

A similar impediment exists with governmental action on fusion; seriously, think of the implications of those economies. Energy as endemic as water.

It's as if we would need to find leaders motivated by the following: "We form this new government effort/national energy policy and all its power structures with the mission of launching a five decade effort to render the role of government largely moot...or at least, drastically reduced."

As likely as finding that VC guy willing to wait 20? 40? 60? yrs for a payoff, no matter how big that payoff is guaranteed to be.

What is at the end of that bridge to the fusion economies is totally changed global geopolitics. A reshuffling of world power. The M.E. will be on its way to Disneyfication-- we will create animatronic 'HolyLand' complete with fiber-automated Moses.

I think what will happen with fusion is, ITER will bump along at less than light speed, demonstrating milestone after milestone and proving out the commercialization until it is close enough, and then, that carrot ... 1 gallon of water = 300 gallons of gasoline -- will be enought to push private investment to critical mass, and it will be an avalanche. It will reach a critical point where that far horizon is near enough.

There will be transitional stages; a coal fired power plant, an oil fired power plant, a fission fueld power plant, a fusion fueled power plant ... all are very similar capital projects...at some point when the far horizon is not so far horizon, current plants will be built anticipating a changeover to the ultimate source of heat/fueling the power cycle; operators will be designing and building plants that will start out under one source, but during their lifetime be designed to switch over to fusion, as opposed to scrapping a plant and starting over fresh.

So, there will be commerical opportunities on the 'nearer' horizon than just the 'far' horizon.

The 'Energy Policy' question is, is it in our national interests -- whoever gets to define those given our politics -- to pursue building the bridge to that future-- even if those policys, under analysis, turn out to be -exactly- the policies advocated by the CO2 is climate driver folks?

The way to build an energy bridge of indeterminate length into the future is ... basically everything they say they advocate.

There are two sides of that question; would those who would see the economic benefit of bridging to those future economies agree to those policies, or abhor them precisely because they are the same as the CO2 crowd? As well, would the CO2 folks agree to them if the stated goal of that national energy policy was to build a bridge going there?

Their goals would be somewhat different. The pro-fusion bridge builders, pursuing similar interim policies, would have competing requirements; getting all the way there without unduly damaging current economies along the way.

The greeks/Trojan Horse folks don't want to bridge anywhere except to a world of increasing dependency on an ever stronger, more centralized world government, and part of their agenda is precisely the crippling of current economies along the way.

But the actual policies, at some level, in the interim would be identical:

1] Conservation of existing fossil fuels
2] Use of ever more efficient processes
3] Use of alternative energy sources
4] Reduced emissions as a consequence...if not a goal.

That is some catch, that catch-22.

regards,
Fred

Post 8

Friday, September 27, 2013 - 7:42am