Total investment in just renewable energy (a subsector of the green industry) was $211 billion in 2010 (see also, here at page 35). To give you a sense of size, the entire US pharmaceutical industry R&D budget for new medicines and vaccines in the same period was $67.4 billion.  For every $1 a US company spends trying to cure cancer, Parkinsons, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes, the world spends $3.10 inventing, manufacturing and selling panda-shit burners, solar panels, corn-based gasoline and wind farms.

Not enough money is not the problem in the green industry.  For one thing, you cannot sell something for $3 when it costs $6 to make and expect to continue for long.  Talk about unsustainable.  Natural economic failure, the lack of a real threat, bad science and politicians trying to pick winners is the problem in the green industry.  Moreover, less than half of Americans believe that Global Warming™ is caused by man, if at all.

But this reflex response is not limited to the green industry.  Liberals have the same reaction when it comes to spending money on education. But there is no evidence that simply increasing the budget will improve results.  Even the uber liberal Center for American Progress, in their exhaustive, district by district review of educational spending, had to admit that “without clear controls on how additional school dollars are spent, more education spending will not automatically improve student outcomes.”  Not a ringing endorsement for more spending.

Indeed, increasing investment in a company, an industry or even a school can have unintended consequences.  When a budget is tightened, management has to make harder choices.  If you run a business and have an unlimited budget, you will never need to decide whether it’s better to send your account manager, Mark to Denver or your business development lead, Kim to San Diego.  You can send them both.

But when spending is limited, choices have to be made.  An effective manager (with accurate information) is one who can make the right choice and put every dollar spent to the most productive use.  If you think this is all theoretical, it’s not.  No well run company will invest in a start up until it is big enough to know what to do with the money.  In addition, a company with a tightened belt will comb its expenses reports, accounts payable and accounts receivable and ferret out fraud, waste and abuse.  All of these factors will increase the productivity of every dollar invested.  In other words, more money doesn’t buy better results.  Just ask the Philadelphia Eagles.

Krugman points out that Rick Perry recently said that evolution is “just a theory,” and it has “got some gaps in it.”  Flabbergasted, Krugman claims that a “vast majority of biologists” would disagree.  Really?  Perry was talking about one particular area of evolution, the theory that man evolved from apes.  There are other theories.  Creationism is one.  Douglas Adams’s theory that we descended from an alien race of telephone cleaners is my favorite.  Maybe Krugman’s, too.  Like any theory, human evolutionary theory has its gaps.

I have a BS in Physics and an MS in Atmospheric Physics, so I’m not a biologist, but I’m certainly closer to one than an economist is.  I’m not going to defend creationism, nor do I think evolution is wrong–I believe it to be true.  But it is only a theory.  And there are major gaps.  In fact, almost four years ago, Krugman’s own paper did a story about the missing fossil evidence of the “dark age” of evolution.  Oops.  Maybe the Times actual science reporters are closet Republicans.  Krugman dismisses these missing pieces of information because, apparently, being a Times columnist means never have to check your facts.

Anthropogenic Global Warming should barely qualify as a theory.  It is a hoax.  It’s not a super secret decoder ring, dark cloaks, blood oath conspiracy.  Not is it run by a cabal that meets in secret.  It is just the predictable product of rational people operating independently under an irrational system.

In the late 1990′s, liberal politicians began to embrace anthropogenic global warming as club with which to beat businesses and individuals over the head.  If carbon fuels–the cheapest and simplest form of fuel we have–were really killing the planet, businesses and individuals would have to submit to regulation.  Carbon fuels and other “greenhouse gases” touch everything.  Power generation, leisure and business travel, soaps, beef, rice–everything that moves, breaths or farts produces carbon emissions.

If you can get people to agree to carbon regulation, a central planned economy would be inevitable.  So liberals, starting with Al Gore, began a quest to promote a silly, inane little theory into gospel. That meant that any science funding that tied to or tended to prove AGW was given priority.  That’s not science, it’s propaganda.  And it leads otherwise well meaning scientists into compromising positions, where their scientific integrity is pitted against their ability to make a living.  Guess which side wins?

Krugman’s assertion that there is a code of silence over global warming is more laughable than his assertion that evolution is somehow a proven fact.  There is a petition, signed by over 31,000 scientists stating that global warming is not proven, and that Kyoto is a really, really bad idea.  31,000.  You would think the Times would cover something like that.  Unless, of course, it disagrees with their agenda.

As a scientific theory, Global Warming is childish.  It holds that the absorption spectrum of CO2, which disproportionately traps infrared radiation emitted from the Earth as it is warmed by the sun, traps heat like a greenhouse.  The theory has been around since the 1880′s, but like many childish theories of the Left, it ignores reality to reach a preferred conclusion.  The climate models used to predict global warming effects have to ignore realistic cloud formation, macro-weather effects, volcanic activity and scores of other real world events in order to get fractions of a degree of warming.  In fact, just this weekend, CERN physicists announced new discoveries in cloud nucleation, which will require massive rewrites of climatology models.  This may be in the weeds for Krugman, but that’s where real science is done.

There’s a tremendous amount of hubris involved in thinking that a simple numerical model that ignores whole swaths of reality can accurately predict a fraction of a degree change in tempereature over 100 years.  Especially when the same type of numerical models cannot accurately predict the difference between a Category 3 hurricane and a tropical storm over the span of less than a week.

As a trained scientist, and a Republican, I don’t fear facts or science.  I am not afraid that new information might change my perception of the world–if my perception was wrong, I welcome it.  It is Messrs. Gore and Krugman who fear the free competition of ideas.  Their ad hominem tantrums underscore their fear of being proven wrong.  But no amount of fist banging, name calling, bullying or childishness will turn a wish into a fact.  Anthropogenic global warming is not a fact; it is the pipe dream of anti-business, pro regulation liberals like Paul Krugman.  Republicans don’t hate science, we hate the politicization of science.

“We here at EventRoots believe that it is the moral duty of hotel owners and convention centers to provide us a forum to express our vitriol against them,” noted Hope Okrasy, spokeswoman for EventRoots.  “We are a nation of laws,” she continued, “and those laws should require private businesses to provide us with a public forum to air our ideas, no matter how condescending, hypicritical or idiotic.”  The group’s website states that it is in favor of defending individual rights, intellectual property and personal freedom, “even if it means seizing hotel and conference room space at the point of a gun.”

Ms. Okrasy is calling for EventRoots supporters to join the EventRoots Congress in Providence, Rhode Island next year.  “We want our supporters to come out of their parents’ basement and show their support for the cause.”

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. . . . We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. . . .Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.

The struggle to which Feynman refers is, of course the centuries of dispute between science and religion.  A dispute that often resulted in the excommunication or death of the scientist.  It is not without irony that those now purporting to be on the side of science are screaming heresy at those who actually are on the side of science.

As I noted earlier, calling someone who does not believe in Global Warming™ a Holocaust denier is not just hyperbole, it’s idiotic, narcissistic and thoughtless.  Exactly the kind of thing you would expect from a celebrity.  Of course, there is a major difference between science and history–especially recent history.  We may never know how many Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and other innocents the Nazis condemned to death, but we know they did it.  You can speak, even today, to Holocaust survivors.  We know it was done, and it is a black mark on the soul of humanity.  But those who have doubts about Global Warming™ are more like War of the Worlds deniers.

Global Warming™, is a theory.  A theory that started out as a crackpot joke, but was endorsed by politicians, first to gain leverage over coal miners, then to guilt the world into economic starvation.  The science of climate change is vast and complex.  Scientists cannot even agree on a baseline of historic temperatures (unless, of course, they are fabricating them).  Moreover, much of the anecdotal evidence in favor of the theory has fallen apart in recent years.

The massive ice sheets that cleave off of Antarctica were recently found to have been caused by a change in the flow of an Antarctic glacial river after millennia of erosion, not you driving an SUV for the last 5 years.  The Earth has been warming for thousands of years as we emerge from the last ice age.  An honest scientist would tell you that we cannot rule out that this long-term warming is not the cause of any minor variations we see today.  Such a scientist would also tell you that the evidence of a connection between historical CO2 and temperature points to a lagging one–temperatures rise first, then CO2 increases.

Liberals have a problem allowing for the possibility of doubt, or a rationale that cannot be blamed on consumption.  This is because blaming a climate disaster on human consumption gives them access to guilt, taxes and regulation–the favorite tools of liberal governance.  If you can blame humanity for a crisis, you can gain control over human lives.  You cannot tax the sun for its natural variability, nor can you regulate millennia of natural warming.  Rice patties do not respond to guilt.

As challenges to their Global Warming™ religion come closer and closer to debunking their whole belief system, alarmists become more desperate and hyperbolic.  A scientist would consider alternative viewpoints and question their premises.  This is the purpose of peer review in science.  But a religious fanatic will scream “death to my enemies” and slit your throat over a cartoon.  Global Warming alarmists like Paul McCartney have more in common with religious zealots than scientists.  Their fears are irrational, their minds are closed, and their plans will destroy mankind.

Oh, and the Beatles sucked.  Elvis lives, baby.

The conversation started over why, as Jon Stewart so eloquently pointed out (start at the 7:00 mark), that every President since before I was born has tried to solve our foreign oil problem, and yet, it keeps getting worse.  The problem, I explained, was that the government cannot mandate ingenuity.

Obama’s plan, as all “green” projects in the past have, is to shove money at the problem and naively Hope™ that bureaucrats and politicians can pick a winner from primitive, undeveloped versions of future technologies.  Of course, these people have their own biases, and often find that the only projects that will work are ones in their own district or ones from which they or their union friends will personally benefit.  Even assuming you can level the playing field, you are asking people with little or no background in physics, engineering or astrology to decide which technology will, after billions of dollars and decades of false starts, be the one that pays off.  This is a lot like asking a 2 month old infant to pick your mutual fund–it may work out, but chances are you’re just pissing money away.

This is a lot like asking an infant to pick your mutual fund–it may work out, but chances are you’re just pissing money away.

The stick in all of this, of course, is that the government will fund this bad idea on the backs of taxpayers and energy consumers.  Just as they did in Spain, Germany and Denmark, “green” initiatives will increase the cost of energy, including low cost existing sources like oil, coal and natural gas.  A cap and trade program is a way to mandate an increase in the cost of existing fuel.  Even Obama admits that his policies would “bankrupt” the coal industry.

So I began to think what a carrot would look like.  By far, the most palatable incentive for free market types is a tax break–but “green” policies already provide tax incentives to “go green.”  In the context of our current energy issues, this is very much like giving a $5 off coupon for brass polish to the captain of the Titanic.  What is needed is an incentive to innovate that cannot be turned down.

Here is my two part proposal:

First, drill, baby, drill.  Access all of our natural resources domestically until that Texas tea cannot be found anywhere under American feet or swimsuits.  Start an immediate program to bring to market every ounce of oil under American control, shale, natural gas, ANWR–everything.  As Krauthammer pointed out last month, we are only drilling in deep water because environmentalists won’t let us drill where it is safe.  This is absurd and self defeating and needs to stop.  Cut the red tape, bar the law suits and start drilling.

Second, for the carrot–call it the federal X-prize: the first company (or individual) who patents and brings to market either of the “new energy technologies” listed below will not have to pay federal taxes for the next 25 years.  The President will, in his infinite wisdom, set out the basic objective criteria for a “new energy technologies” in direct power and power generation.  The criteria must be vague enough to allow for unforeseen solutions, and specific enough to be used to determine success objectively.  My suggestion for the direct power criteria are;

1. A source of energy (e.g. a battery or a motor) that can power a standard size SUV for 300 miles at highway speed without stopping to refuel.
2. Weighs less than 25 gallons of gasoline or provides sufficient additional power to compensate.
3. Is renewable or reusable (a battery or a primary source).
4. Is non toxic to the environment and its users.
5. Is marketable (price point without subsidies) to ordinary consumers.

The argument, of course, will be on the definitions for the above.  For power generation, I suggest the following criteria:

1. A source of energy that can provide energy on a large scale (at least 500 MW) at or below the national average cost per kWh (currently, about $.15 per kWh) with the builder recouping construction costs.
2. Is renewable or reusable.
3. Is non toxic to the environment and its users.
4. Is capable of mass production and use in large and small markets.

So these are the product criteria.  If you bring a product to market, you won’t owe Uncle Sam a dime for the next quarter century.

This would spark a search like none other since the Holy Grail.  Every company in the world, technology companies, aerospace companies, oil companies, credit card companies, would make massive investments to win the brass ring: a 60-70% increase of after tax profits for 25 years.  [For the math inclined, a corporation pays roughly 35% in federal taxes out of a total tax burden of 40-50% for most companies.  If you take off the 35% federal tax, after tax profits (the percentage the company keeps) will go from 50-60% to 85-95%.  85%/50% = 170%; 95%/60% = 158%.]

To give this some real world numbers, Exxon, the largest U.S. company by revenue, pays about $5-7 billion in federal taxes each year.  So at the maximum, this would be about a $175 billion “investment” over 25 years.  Of course, unlike Obama’s $50 billion plan, not a penny of this would be wasted–we would only make the “investment” after the goods were delivered.

For perspective, all of the world governments combined spend $500 billion per year on “green” subsidies that are largely a waste of money.  So for a maximum of 1% of that price, the United States could revolutionize the energy industry and solve our foreign oil problem.

Looking at it a different way, the U.S. imports 9.73 million barrels of oil per day.  That’s about $980 million per day going to stalwart allies like Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Venezuela.  That’s $357 billion of American money exported per year.  I know liberals hate the idea of even one corporation not paying taxes, but we get very little tax revenue from the $357 billion we send over seas.

This idea may seem extreme, but (1) no government subsidy has ever worked to move the needle for oil consumption and (2) it is completely cost free if it works.  Moreover, it is not unprecedented.  Many countries provide low or zero tax agreements to companies in order to spur local economic growth.  Singapore and Dubai, for example, have economic development councils that encourage multinational corporations to build their regional business there.  The company gets a massive tax break and the host country gets higher employment, ancillary economic growth (workers need food, lodging and entertainment) and bragging rights.

Under my plan, companies would be given the incentive to expand their R&D departments, hire more employees and develop technologies that, even if they do not win the prize, will at least be taking us in the right direction.  (We might not have digital thermometers or cordless tools if not for the space program.)  If the research resulting in a dead-end, the cost is borne by the private company, not the taxpayer.  And no technology would have a defacto advantage through bureaucratic endorsement.  The government would be encouraging risk and innovation, rather than underwriting it, or worse, stifling it.

The CARD Act, passed late last year, was intended to create a “Cardholder Bill of Rights.” Far from it, the Credit CARD Act has prompted credit card companies to raise their prices (APR on balances); restrict lending by reducing available credit; charge annual fees on basic cards that have not been seen for decades; and refuse to offer products that were on the market only a year ago.

We were told that credit card companies were evil and shouldn’t profit so much. We were told that credit card companies should not be able to change their price based on risk–if you default on one loan, why should another lender be able to raise your rates? Congress declared an end to the law of cause and effect. Amazingly, there were unintended consequences from Congressional hubris.  Sure, you have marginally clearer disclosure on credit card practices now, but what good is disclosure for a product you can’t afford?  I’m sure the people at Maserati put out a fantastic brochure, but that doesn’t help me at the Dodge dealership.

And now, the Democrats tell us that health insurance companies are unfairly profiting from you. We are told they should not be able to underwrite based on risk–if you’re already sick, why won’t they give you insurance? It takes little brains not to realize what will happen to insurance premiums and plans. But then again, that is what Congress is known for–little brains.

In case you have missed it a hacker–who shall never go thirsty or hungry if he or she is within range of the Daily Danet’s expense account–hacked into the East Anglia Climate Research Unit email server and found and published some telling gems of Global Warming alarmist fraud.  As a reformed atmospheric scientist, many of my friends and colleagues have asked my opinion on the matter, which I am all too happy to give:

The rigor and challenge of being a scientist is to prevent yourself from cheating to get a result subconsciously.

First, the emails are and should be shocking.  No scientist should be manipulating data, studies or conclusions to achieve results.  The rigor and challenge of being a scientist is to prevent yourself from doing this subconsciously.  To do this openly, and with such childish joy (and in writing) should end careers.  As an aside, when I started my legal career at a very prestigious law firm, I was given one piece of advice by the chairman about email: never put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want printed out of context on the front page of the Wall Street Journal the next day.  (I was also told to “err on the side of not erring.”)

Second, generally, the development of Global Warming and the manipulation of data is understandable (ironically) at a capitalist level.  Scientists survive on grant money, which is far easier to come by if there is a crisis or a problem that needs solving.  If Global Warming is either (a) not occurring or (b) not man-made (caused by the sun, for example), and there is nothing we can do about it, funding will dry up.  (This, by the way, is why it does not matter whether the Earth is warming or cooling–Climate Change® is enough, so long as it is man made.)  This is not to say that integrity should be compromised, but anyone would hesitate before biting that hand that feeds them.

Third, the irony of Global Warming™ as a religion is that it started in the early ’80s as Margaret Thatcher’s way of breaking the coal unions.  She wanted to prove that coal was damaging to the environment and nuclear energy was safer, and so fostered research on a then little known theory called the greenhouse effect.  Of course, today, that theory is being used to oppress entire regions of the globe, keeping most of Africa and Asia in the dark ages by starving them of the one thing that modern civilization needs: fossil fuels.  Secondarily, Global Warming™ is also being used as the liberals’ second pet cause: redistribution of wealth.  Senator Kerry is spearheading (or charging into the jungle like he sees an unarmed Vietnamese teenager) a drive to throw billions of your tax dollars into developing nations in order to “offset” the effects of Global Warming™ legislation.  The greatest wealth transfer in history, all because of a sick joke meant to break a union dispute.

Senator Kerry is spearheading, or, rather, charging into the jungle like he sees an unarmed Vietnamese teenager…

Finally, to go further down the rabbit hole, why would truly smart people (not the scientists, but the businessmen and power brokers) get behind a belief system so obviously built on shaky evidence and doomed to destroy developing nations and burden developed ones?  Put aside liberal guilt as the easy excuse, and you’re left with two reasons: control and protectionism.  Paternalistic liberals like Kerry want to control the purse strings and dole out huge (trillions) amounts of international aide to developing countries, rather than allow them to develop and stand up on their own.  Unions like the SEIU and their backers are terrified of regions like Africa developing into the next Taiwan and China.  Imagine the entire continent of Africa developed into a first world capitalist society competing with the unionized labor forces of Detroit, Chicago and New York for business not just here, but in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

So you have a situation where the scientists, the politicians and the masters all have unified in pushing an agenda where Global Warming™ had to true, and it had to be man-made.   Surprise, surprise, it was.

In advance of yet another international climate change conference, the media and liberal fear-mongers (but I repeat myself) are fretting over what might not be done in Copenhagen.  In the medal for the most idiotic overstatement, Gordon Brown is currently in the lead for saying “we have only 50 days to save the world.”  In the spirit of a far better, and far more intelligent Englishman, Douglas Adams, and with full knowledge that “stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the galaxy and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following fact[] will now be revealed in advance:” Nothing of significance will be accomplished in Copenhagen.

(Except, perhaps, someone may sustain a slight bruise to their upper arm.  The safe bet is that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will both later claim sniper fire was involved.)

Here is why, in a bulleted list, nothing will come of the Copenhagen Climate Council:

1. Global Warming™ is only a theory (and growing less accepted each day).
2. The Earth has not warmed, but in fact has cooled, over the past 11 years.  Yes I said 11.
3. In order to noticeably reduce CO2 emissions on any meaningful time frame, draconian measures are required that would destroy every civilized economy. That is not a point capable of exaggeration.  Every world economy would grind to a halt.
4. Politicians, regardless of their political stripe, are not that stupid.

Taking each point in turn, allow me to explain:

Global Warming as a Theory.

Science is a funny business.  Even if everyone agrees that something is true, it is still, in almost every case, a theory at some level.  Generally accepted scientific principles like Evolution and Relativity (general and special) remain merely “theories.”  But all theories are not equal.  For example, Flat Earth is also a theory, as is Nemesis Earth.  These are discredited theories, but they are still, technically theories.

The theory of Global Warming™ is built on successively weaker bricks, in much the same was as a government highway project would be.

Global Warming, like many theories that liberals embrace, is simple on a third-grade level.  (They love that poster: everything I needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten.)  The problem, however, is that real life is played at the graduate level and above.  But at a simple level, Global Warming says the following:

1. CO2 absorbs light more efficiently in the IR end of the spectrum than in the visible end. (True)
2. So it acts like a filter, allowing sunlight in and “trapping” heat coming off of the Earth–much like a greenhouse.  (Maybe).
3. As humans continue to emit more CO2 (by burning fossil fuels, among other things), we will continue to add to the levels of atmospheric CO2–in other words, there is no removal mechanism.  (Not so sure.)
4. As the amount of atmospheric CO2 increases, the “trapping” factor will cause the global temperature to increase and nothing will act to counteract the effect–in other words, there is no negative feedback mechanism. (Probably not true.)
5. All of this will lead to polar bears drowning, or swimming to your house in St. Loius and killing you in your bed. (Now you’re making stuff up.)

The theory of global warming is built on successively weaker bricks, in much the same was as a government highway project would be.  Point 1 is absolutely true and has been verified in laboratory experiments.  CO2 molecules do absorb more IR light than visible.  The rest, however, is just a theory and has never been proven.  When you get to point 2, the problem becomes that you have to move from a controlled laboratory environment to the atmosphere.   And there, things get messy.  CO2 is barely noticeable in the atmosphere.  If you took 1,000,000 Poland Spring bottles and filled them with air; and then separated them into the different gases in the atmosphere, you would have about: 781,000 bottles of Nitrogen, 209,250 bottles of Oxygen; 9,350 bottles of Argon; and only about 350 bottles of CO2.  (You would also have 18 bottles of Neon; 1 bottle of Methane; and 1 bottle of Kryton, plus some trace gases.)  This also assumes a static atmosphere.  The atmosphere is not static, lightning strikes, particulate matter, ozone and a host of trace chemicals acts as catalysts to scrub and convert atmospheric gases constantly.

In terms radiative transfer (the transfer of heat through light), atmospheric CO2 is not going to have a noticeable impact on global temperature, regardless of its absorption profile–there just is not enough of it in the atmosphere.  But that is my opinion.  Other scientists have their opinions.  Many people, scientists and lay people, base their opinions on climate models.  A quick word about those: useless.  A climate model is a large, expensive, horribly complicated program that is only as useful as the theory you put into it.  They are very useful at telling you what your theory means, but they are utterly useless at telling you whether or not your theory is accurate.

For example, if you programmed into a climate model that a .5% increase in CO2 would cause a zombie virus to infect mankind–guess what?  You would find that, if what don’t cut down our emissions, we would all living a Will Smith movie.  Using a climate model to prove the theory that went into it is complete idiocy.  That brings me back to the essential difficulty with point 2.  We do not actually know what happens in the atmosphere when CO2 interacts with the menagerie of gases and particles.

Moving on to points 3 and 4 in the immediately above list, there are natural feedback mechanism that cutoff any impact that CO2 might have on temperature.  Mother nature may abhor a vacuum, but it also abhors excess.  We are already seeing huge increases in CO2 absorption in seaweed as the oceans act as a sink, causing predicted levels of CO2 to drop off.  Moreover, as temperatures rise (whether or not due to CO2) convection will usually increase, leading to cloud cover and rainfall.  This acts as a natural break in any runaway temperature increase.  Just as with tax increases, liberals have applied their rules and assumed nothing will changed because of their rules.

The Real Inconvenient Truth

The second important reason why nothing will happen in Copenhagen is that, as the BBC noted last week, the warmest year on record was 11 years ago.  How is that possible to reconcile with the prophecies of doom?  Al Gore and the IPCC can talk about El Niño and solar variability (when it suits them), but 11 years is a long, long time.  No one is willing to destroy their economy on the word of a former Vice President when faced with the coldest winter in decades and there has been no net warming since their teenager was in diapers and Clinton was in office.  The thing that amazes me is that no one has thought to say that this means Kyoto, which occurred in 1997, was a success.  (It was a patent failure, but moving on….)

If you want to know what it will really take to cut CO2 emissions in half by 2050, look at the person next to you; now kill them.

Draconian Measures

If you want to know what it will take to cut the world’s CO2 emissions in half by 2050, look at the person next to you; now kill them.  CO2 comes from everything. It is a natural part of the human biological process–you are emitting it right now–you filthy polluter–just by breathing.  Of course, it is also part of the Krebs cycle (one deranged lunatic’s pollutant is another man’s plant food.)  Even if you could (and you cannot) switched overnight to solar, wind and other “renewable” power sources–where would those power sources come from?  How can you manufacture an enormous wind turbine without plastics?  Plastics are made from refined petroleum products, which, in refining, produce CO2.

In addition, a lot of “greenhouse” emissions are not even fossil fuel based, but are from farm animals, rice paddies and termites, all of which give of methane, another “greenhouse gas.”  In order to actually reduce true greenhouse emissions, you would have to convince the worlds population to stop eating beef and rice and stop making their homes out of wood–oh, and stop using plastics as well.  And don’t forget–give up your car and take the bus or bike to work.  And you can forget about air travel unless you are the type of person who now takes a private jet anyway.

All of this in an environment where, again, the weather is getting colder (long-range forecasting is calling for the coldest winter in a decade or longer) and there has been no global warming in 11 years.  The scientific consensus (which never really existed, as much as a code of silence in exchange for funding) is collapsing and the climate of fear is giving way to one of ridicule.

Politicians are not that Dumb.

This brings me to my final point.  Politicians are not that dumb.  They know that businesses have to kowtow to environmentalists, as do they, the politicians.  They also know that the hemp wearing, no soap, trust fund hippies will never be happy no matter what you do, so there is no point in trying to satisfy them anyway.  The point of these conferences is to give the appearance of moving forward, blame the large developing countries (India and China) for not being able to reach a meaningful agreement and agree to meet again in a few years.  On the plus side, the weather in late fall is gorgeous in Copenhagen.  Try the hot chocolate.

The award, which was founded on the guilt of Alfred Nobel, has turned into the Shame of Norway.

The rationale for awarding President Obama, who through his nine months in office has done nothing of note in foreign policy, is that, in essence, he talks a good game. In fact, his words have done nothing but buy time for a nuclear Iran to become a reality. But this goes beyond liberal nonsense of everyone deserves a trophy for just showing up. What does it say to those who have actually fought and died to make the world a better place? What about the hundreds of thousands of men and women who liberated Iraq and established a peaceful democracy in the cradle of civilization–is that not worthy of note? What of President Bush’s work to relieve malaria and AIDS in Africa over the past 8 years–ask anyone on that continent what their opinion is of the man from Crawford and you will hear more honest praise of him than of Obama.

But this is less about Obama than it is about the Nobel committee. A once legitimate and prestigious honor has become an embarrassment and a joke. The award is meaningless. Giving it to a president who has accomplished so little in nine months as has Obama is as idiotic as giving a peace prize to Al Gore and the IPCC for a politicized report on Global Warming™. The award, which was founded on the guilt of Alfred Nobel, has turned into the Shame of Norway.

Professor Cavanagh’s story (too long ago to remember and too good to check) was about a group of executives on a dais at an industry conference. These executives were on a panel to discuss topics relevant to the industry, but during the Q&A, they were led astray and began to discuss price. Future price. One of the executives–and this is the bit a young corporate lawyer remembers–one of the executives stood up, dumped a pitcher of ice water all over the table, and shouted “you people are talking price, it is illegal, and I am leaving.”

That caused one hell of a scene. When the murmuring quieted down, the Q&A discussion continued without that executive. Several years later, however, as the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s case was being made, all of the corporations were named in a price fixing scheme–all but one. There were literally hundreds of witnesses who remembered crazy Charlie, who dumped the pitcher of ice water, shouted about price fixing, and left the room.

Notwithstanding Maureen Dowd’s fantasies, which involve sipping mint juleps on her plantation while bossing around her slaves, Joe Wilson’s outburst was not racist.

For obvious reasons, undignified outbursts have been on my mind lately. Notwithstanding Maureen Dowd’s personal power fantasies (which apparently involve sipping mint juleps on her plantation while bossing around her slaves–Maureen, it’s called projection, see a professional, get help), Joe Wilson’s outburst was not racist.  The Obama administration was lying to the public, and was calling Republicans liars for exposing the lie.  Faced with this hypocrisy, Wilson lost his temper and his composure and shouted in rejection.

Now, I am not suggesting that Wilson was correct or that he need not apologize.  What he did was inappropriate, but not necessarily wrong.  First, he had a duty to his constituents to protect them and their property from what he saw as a threat (the taking of their money to pay for healthcare for illegals).  His outburst was successful in a way no civil discourse was.  The Obama administration was forced to agree to a provision it had previously rejected, mandating that illegal aliens not be covered by ObamaCare.  I am reminded about the French proverb about a small carafe of wine being illogical, immoral, and inadequate.  In some circumstances, doing the impolite thing is the only way to do the right thing.

Not only is this normal, it is healthy and far too infrequent.  In one of my favorite, life-changing books,  The Wisdom of Crowds, James Suroweicki describes conformity and peer pressure experiments first conducted by Solomon Asch.  In the basic experiment, the scientist places between 4 and 20 subjects in a room and shows each subject a note card with a straight line on it.  The scientist then projects an image with three lines, labeled A, B and C of varying lengths, and asks each subject which of the labeled lines is the same length as the one on the note card.  The process is repeated with different note cards and new projected images.

The trick is that only one of the “subjects” is actually a subject.  The others are all actors who are told that after the third or fourth note card, they are all to intentionally and unanimously pick the same wrong line.  The real test is to see whether the actual subject (who always picks last) will go along with the group, who is obviously wrong.  The fascinating conclusion of these experiments is that, to a large degree, people will go along with a group they know to be wrong, simply because no one else will speak up.  The implied (or explicit) consensus of the group acts to silence dissent.

Even more fascinating is that, no matter how many wrongheaded people there are making up the groupthink bubble, that bubble will burst when just one actor speaks up.  In other words, if “A” is the correct answer, and there are 10 “subjects” (9 actors and 1 actual subject), even though 8 actors (wrongly) say the right answer is “B”, but the ninth says “A”, suddenly the subject is liberated.  The peer pressure vanishes and the subject is free to speak their mind.  What is even more fascinating is that, even if the ninth subject says “C”, the other wrong answer, the effect is the same.  The subject is still liberated simply by the bubble bursting–even if it’s by a wrong answer.

Whether for the sake of comity, job security or apathy, we do not speak up when others tell tall tales or plan our or their own downfall.

This is the theory behind the centuries old Catholic practice of the Devil’s Advocate.  When a person is considered for sainthood, the Church will appoint an expert in canon law (yes, there are attorneys who are allowed in church) to argue against canonization.  Although the Devil’s Advocate will of course raise valid points, he will also allow others who have doubts to be free to raise them without feeling peer pressure.  The Church, in 1587, codified an anti-groupthink process that is only now becoming mainstream.  (Sometimes tradition is ahead of the times.)

Too often, in our personal, professional and political lives, we  let things slide.  We hear lies, half truths and hypocrisy and we don’t call each other on it.  Whether for the sake of comity, job security or apathy, we do not speak up when others tell tall tales or plan our or their own downfall.  That failure to speak up–to dump a pitcher of ice water on a table once in a while–happens every day in small, but important ways.  Ordinary Americans are starting to fight against Hope·ocrisy, and we need to do more.

We need to keep speaking up.  At work, at home, and everywhere else, when you hear lies, hypocrisy, and things that just don’t sound right, challenge them openly.  Be that dissenting voice and know that, when you speak, you will be bursting the bubble for millions of others–even if you don’t have all the right answers.  When someone brings up Global Warming™, don’t politely change the subject, challenge them, even if you don’t have an advanced degree in climatology (they don’t either).  Opening a dialogue is the point.  Challenging the “consensus” is all you need to do, someone else may hear you and that alone will be enough to make them question the status quo.

We also need to encourage those who speak out against Obama, Reid and Pelosi, (and, for that matter, Michael Steel, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and everyone else in a position to direct public opinion and policy)–even if we disagree with those who speak up.  Their dissenting voices help to burst the groupthink bubble–even if they don’t have the right answers.  The mere fact that they speak up is enough to burst the bubble.

This weekend, nearly 2 million Americans poured a pitcher of ice water on Washington D.C.  The bubble is already bursting.