Rants

But they are short

I interrupt my regular programming to bring you a couple of rants.

Rant #1

Let’s say you are a dentist. You are at a cocktail party. You are sitting on a couch, and someone sits next to you. He asks you what you do for a living. I’m a dentist. He looks at you and without missing a beat says that even though he is not a dentist he figures he knows more about performing a root canal than you do. You politely nod because you don’t want to cause a stir even though what is coming out of his mouth makes no sense. After he is done you smile and say something neutral like—well that is a perspective on root canals all right.

Now let’s say that instead of dentistry you have expertise in the area of climate change—and I know several of you do. You tell someone what area you work in and have worked in for over 25 years. Regardless of that, the person insists on lecturing you on climate change as though you have never thought of the basic things he is mentioning. He goes on, ignoring that we are doing about $2.5 trillion per year in damages to the planet and that all the things he is talking about (including the benefits) have already been included in climate models and it still results in annual net damages greater than the GDP of Russia.

There was a time, not too long ago, that folks didn’t know enough to really have opinions. They’d often say something like—oh, that’s the ozone layer, isn’t it? The good news is that everyone knows about it now. The bad news is that in this age of the internet if someone wants to back up an opinion, they can find a website that will support that opinion. If you go to a “flat Earth” site, you will find all the evidence you want that the Earth is indeed flat. You will probably end up bonding with folks who agree in its flatness. This will reinforce your opinion. This appears to be what is happening with climate change. No matter the evidence that is presented to them, those not inclined to “believe in climate change” have circled the wagons against the enemy of cognitive dissonance. So, this Thanksgiving, when Uncle Billy starts his diatribe about the climate change alarmists, assuming he is not a dentist, you might want to ask him if he knows how to perform a root canal.

Rant #2

Michael Jordan was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He decided to take a break from basketball and tried playing baseball. It didn’t go well. Genius in one discipline does not often transfer to another. This phenomenon can rightfully be called the Michael Jordan Effect.

The current best example of this effect is Nobel Prize winning physicist John Clauser. He has declared that “there is no climate crisis.” Given that he is 80 years old it is likely less of a crisis for him than for younger folks. He won the Nobel Prize for 50 years of science related to quantum physics. His opinion on climate change is based on his knowledge of cloud cover. During that 50-year period was he secretly doing original research on cloud cover?  I think we know the answer. Water vapor is the principal cause of natural warming. Every climate scientist on Earth knows this. His knowledge of cloud cover is no doubt gained from reading the work of climate scientists. These climate scientists who taught him about cloud cover are the very same ones who are telling us we have a climate crisis. Adding increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases is the problem we face—irrespective of the original natural source.

Now we have John Clauser and his followers—many of whom are very wealthy. So here is my proposition to him and his followers. Form an insurance company to cover those folks in the flood prone areas of Florida and elsewhere. If you are correct and the conventional insurance companies that are raising rates dramatically or even abandoning whole regions are alarmists, then you will not only provide a needed service but make money at it. If your response is “insurance is a complex business and I don’t have enough expertise in that area to start a company,” then I’d say, “congratulations on admitting your expertise is limited to your actual area of knowledge.”