Hot Air

Another ruse to make our lives worse.

Atlanta, GA

July 31, 2023

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. - Thomas Sowell

At some point we’d like to think people would tire of perpetual panic and fabricated fear.

After the turn of the century…following the 9-11 attacks and decades of Middle East meddling (which we’re assured were unrelated)…we were warned of bombs on every plane and terrorists under our beds. 

To protect what was suddenly transformed into “the Homeland” from malicious Muslims, the US government targeted the usual suspects:

Us.

Searches, surveillance, and scans became common in public (and many private) places. “For our own safety”, we were groped and degraded to enter arenas or board flights. 

Our shoes were deadly, toothpaste explosive, and water bottles lethal. Despite the Fourth Amendment, private calls were monitored, emails read, and records checked. Snitching was encouraged and eggshells were everywhere. 

Wherever we went, we were told to keep alert and stay on guard. If we saw something, we needed to say something. Moronic “color codes” (they always seemed to be “orange”) were created to gauge the size of the terrorist threat.

Over time, the “threat” dissipated and fear faded. But, as always happens, the controls remained. Security theater continued to perform. Even today, the show goes on.

The last few years a new peril took the stage. Pestilence perched on every breath, and contagion crawled around every corner. 

Around the world, benevolent bureaucrats demanded we stay at home and keep our distance. The monomaniacal calculus of “public health” made human interaction a reckless relic of an uncontaminated age.

If we had to go out, we’d need to stay on our stickers and behind our masks. Plexiglass shields, closed parks, shuttered schools, isolated elders, and one-way grocery aisles were “The Science’s” way of seeing us thru. 

Above all, the “New Normal” required us to follow orders and do what we were told. Those who didn’t were separated and shunned. After all, we were “all in this together.”

As the lunacy subsided and viral angst eased, a new danger mounted the dais. For the last few weeks, it hasn’t shut up. 

As predicted a couple years ago, the fossil fuels that sustain our lives are the latest menace that’ll cause us to die.

As with all these overhyped scourges, the “solution” is always to “follow the science”, which invariably leads to more power for the State and less liberty for us. 

The type people willing to risk nuclear war (which probably would affect the climate) over a Slavic skirmish demand we forgo reliable fuel to “save the planet”. A generation of kids is being frightened into hiding under desks to escape the sun.

Myriad essentials of modern society are presented as selfish luxuries of bourgeois life. Amenities we take for granted…reliable energy, freedom of movement, gas stoves, incandescent bulbs, family farms, grass-fed beef, conditioned air, high-flow toilets, high-pressure showers…must be curtailed or extinguished, by enlightened decree by our ruling elite. 

This onslaught of imposed deprivation is (once again) presented as being for our benefit, and that of some undefined “greater good.”

What’s increasingly frustrating about these alarmist crusades (which usually produce privation without bringing benefit) isn’t just how sinister they are. It’s how stupid they’ve become. 

The climate swindle surfaced decades ago. The racket was initially branded “global cooling.” Academic lackeys and pseudoscientific stooges warned the world of an impending ice age. 

When I was a kid growing up in Tampa, they prophesied that within the lives of our grandchildren, the northern US could be uninhabitable. 

Frigid temperatures would conquer Florida like Caesar’s army capturing Gaul. Orange groves would vanish, roads would freeze, and shivering snowbirds would stay south all summer.

But a few years later, we were told to put away our parkas. As it always does, the weather changed. When it did, public skepticism rose. 

So “the science” shifted.

Emissions that previously deflected rays that warmed the planet now retained heat that would ultimately immolate it. Like an arms merchant inventing new enemies, the Climate Cult found its new foe.

With frost vanquished, global heat filled the gunsight. Carbon…an essential component of life on Earth…became the culprit. The “greenhouse effect” was its deadly threat. And, as we’re scolded each day, the ramifications are with us now because ignorant rubes wouldn’t listen then.

Government funding gushed, to spread the lie of “an inconvenient truth”. Connected insiders put their mouths to the spout. A crony industry was born. Suckling careers were hatched. And state-sponsored “scientists” created or corroborated a “settled consensus” around what they were paid to say.

We’ve reached the bubble phase of this market in bull, a mania of ludicrous pronouncements, blatant grift, and obvious fraud. 

The US government budget (to say nothing of countless states and agencies around the world) includes trillions of dollars to “confront climate change.” With the mother’s milk of politics flowing free, litters of piglets rush to the teet. Those who deny the narrative risk dying of thirst. 

The propaganda is thicker than humidity in Savannah. Every heat wave, thunderstorm, hurricane, or tornado is now blamed on human behavior. Power plants, mines, family farms, cattle ranches, and automobiles are all liable to inflame the earth. Even blizzards are attributed to people’s selfish desire to enjoy their lives. 

The dodge is more transparent than J Lo’s dress. This has always been about controlling energy. The sector is large. But, as Dr Richard Lindzen put it, “there are fortunes to be made…even if your only activity is destroying the system.”

He who controls energy rules the world. According to those being enriched by the scheme, the only way to preserve the planet is to shovel taxpayer dollars into corrupt ratholes of unreliable energy.

We’re told these boondoggles are vital because their output is “clean”. But no energy source is inherently “clean” or “dirty”. When activated, every source of energy produces waste and heat.

But they don’t all produce the things we need, including technology to clean our environment. Only a few do. Steel, cement, plastic and fertilizer are among the indispensable materials of modern civilization. All are impossible without fossil fuels.

And most “renewable” energy is neither renewable nor “sustainable”. It requires back-breaking labor (often by children) and environmental destruction to extract materials to construct its eyesores. That it usually requires State subsidies or government mandates proves it’s uneconomic.

Hydrocarbons are the essential ingredient of industrial civilization. The conversion of fossil fuels to reliable power enabled the phenomenal development of the Western world. 

They are nature’s batteries…a source of dense energy that’s uniquely capable of fulfilling humanity’s needs. The world needs to consume more of them, not less. 

Economic prosperity depends on consumption of energy. The rise of the West wouldn’t have been possible without taking coal from the ground or extracting oil from the earth. 

Fossil fuels not only don’t cause meteorological deaths (the vast majority of which are caused by cold, not heat). They’re directly responsible for their dramatic decline.

Harnessing hydrocarbons is the reason this planet can support eight billion people, and why even poor Americans live better than Medieval kings. Yet "compassionate” zealots demand destitute billions be denied the blessings of these geologic miracles.

But who am I to be giving an opinion on such specialized subjects? What do I know? Shouldn’t the fate of our lives be decided by anointed “experts” dependent on government grants to sustain their research?

We live in an age when common sense succumbs to (and can be silenced by) professional credentials. Fortunately, on this subject, I can boast both!

I have a background in economics, and earned an engineering degree from a top five program where extensive knowledge of environmental science was a prerequisite to graduate. I was subsequently licensed in three states, and followed the politicization of this topic with avid interest and rolling eyes.

When I first studied this subject, few people cared. It was interesting, but relatively inconsequential. Later, during the Clinton Administration, connected interests caught on (including especially the Vice President) and funding increased fifteen fold. 

Washed by infinite fountain of fiat funding, “scientific” opinion naturally went with the flow. Skeptics who scoffed were deemed dangerous “deniers”, societal threats to be silenced and shunned. This is a template repeatedly applied.

The beauty of the climate con, or of any grand government crusade, is the enemy is elusive, and victory impossible. Like the “fight for equality” or the “wars” on drugs, terror, or poverty, the indelible adversary can’t be eradicated.

Glaciation, warming periods, and ice ages come in recurring cycles across geologic time. There’s nothing we can do about it. Whatever humans have done in the century-and-a-half “since records have been kept” is an inconsequential zit on a geologic gnat.

Solar activity, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions are the primary influences on ambient conditions. Those are the only type climate that’s relevant. References to “global climate” are ridiculous. 

There are countless climates around the world, affected by natural forces beyond the power of man. To think we can control them is the height of hubris.

As we’ve seen in economics and epidemiology, the aggregation of data that shouldn’t be combined creates faulty conclusions that (intentionally?) lead us astray.

As every summer, temperatures go up. This is normal, and we used to know it. But in recent years, these seasonal patterns have become reasons to panic.

The globe isn’t “boiling” (to quote the newest moronic proclamation from the inept UN). Pundits and politicians hyperventilate about southern European heat, while ignoring abnormally cool conditions across the north of the continent. 

There have recently been fires around the Mediterranean. Propagandists rightly ascribe them to “human activity”, yet dishonestly finger the wrong one. 

Flames rage not because millions of people cranked their ignition or ate a steak, but because a few punks (or provocateurs) lit some matches.

Like con-men grifting a gullible mark, the atmospheric hysterics rarely acknowledge the obvious arson. And when they do, they deftly dismiss it, blaming “anthropomorphic climate change” for stoking deliberate blazes. 

It’s like the duplicitous tactic of attributing motorcycle deaths to covid because a person killed in the accident was carrying the bug. No matter what the problem, the crisis du jour is always the cause.

Thomas Sowell called politics the art of convincing the public that politicians’ selfish desires are in everybody’s interest.

As with covid, we’re hearing calls for governments to declare a climate “State of Emergency.” Aside from being preposterous and pointless (at least regarding its stated aims), such a notion is outrageous and ominous. 

As we should’ve just learned, no entity should have authority to proclaim a “State of Emergency” that grants power to the entity making the proclamation. Such a declaration would give government absolute power over every aspect of our lives, with (obviously) no effect on climate.  

And even if it did, how do we know that it’d be “good”? What’s the appropriate temperature for the planet? Says who? 

Imagine the arrogance to “know” that answer, or to think people have the power to bring it about.

There’s no reason to impoverish the planet while enriching a host of hustlers who peddle hysteria. Climate cultists are no different than the apocalyptic preachers we pass on street corners and wisely ignore. 

For the humans to flourish and the planet to prosper, we must stop listening to these Climate clowns.

JD