Image: The Sad Truth About The Sacrifice of the Greatest Generation
By Viv Forbes
My grandfather was part of the Great Generation. Toughened by wars and depression they were patriotic nation builders.
Their monuments are long-term productive assets like the Mount Isa and Broken Hill mines, smelters and refineries, the Wollongong Steelworks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the transcontinental railway, the overland telegraph line, the Yallourn coal mines and Power stations, the Renison and Mt Lyell mines and railways, the Kalgoorlie Goldfields, the Weipa and Gladstone bauxite industries, Pilbara Iron, the Perth-Kalgoorlie pipeline, the Kidman Cattle Empire, the world’s biggest merino flock, QANTAS, the Holden car, Southern Cross windmills, the Sunshine Harvester and a network of roads, railways, towns, power lines, ports and airports.
The pioneers survived floods, droughts, bushfires and plagues of mice, rabbits, locusts and prickly pear to develop an agricultural industry that provides food and fiber for millions of consumers. They were frugal and inventive.
They built everything themselves with corrugated iron, shingles, guttering, poles, posts, nails, rivets, solder and wirehouses, humpies, haysheds, milking barns, sheep yards, shearing sheds, water tanks, grain stores, dairies, meat houses, dog kennels, chook sheds and the dunny up the back. They created parks and planted orchards and forests for timber and paper.
They welcomed boat-loads of hard working migrants from many countries to farms and factories and celebrated the arrival of “clean coal energy by wire” to every home.
The Great Generation made sure their kids behaved at school and did their homework. Mostly kids were “seen but not heard”. The kids walked, rode bikes or horses to school, and parents reinforced school discipline.
That generation loved and trusted the ABC which provided unbiased news and weather forecasts and wholesome entertainment.
Our lives are now controlled by the Green Generation, who follow a Globalist agenda. This generation has devalued science, engineering and trade skills and pollute education curricula with the mantras of the green religion.
They encourage the climate alarm, anti-enterprise, anti-family bias evident on the staff-controlled, taxpayer-funded ABC.
And now they mobilize noisy truant kids for political rallies.
Too many of the Green Generation specializes in obstruction, destruction, and delay, while themselves consuming the assets of the past.
They cheer the demolition of coal-fired power plants and use green law-fare to stop or delay almost everything else.
Among their battle trophies are South Australian and Victorian coal mines and power stations, most new industry proposals in Tasmania, much offshore oil exploration, new dam proposals in every state, and every new proposal for coal development, gas exploration or fracking.
They hope to hang the scalps of Adani Coal, Rocky Point Coal, Wandoan Coal, and all Galilee Basin developments on their trophy wall. Australia has huge uranium resources but nuclear power is banned.
Nowhere is the contrast between the generations starker than in the Snowy Mountains.
The Great Generation planned, financed and built the Snowy Hydro-electric Scheme (without UN direction or advice). This nation-building project captures Snowy water, uses it to generate reliable electricity, and diverts the water to irrigate towns, orchards, and crops on the dry western plains.
The Green Generation supports Snowy Hydro 2, a hollow-shelled project that steals electricity from the grid and water from Snowy 1 to pump water uphill and then recovers part of that electricity by letting the water run back down again (when their intermittent green energy fails). It will be a big, power-consuming, expensive battery.
The sad history of Whyalla is instructive. The Great Generation built an iron mine, a steelworks and a great shipbuilding enterprise there. Most of it is idle now.
This generation of techno-phobes looks like trying to build foreign nuclear-powered submarines there but with diesel-electric engines (presumably running on bio-fuel.)
The British navy that ruled the world ran on coal for the war-ships and bread, salt beef, lard, limes and rum for the sailors. Today’s green dreamers hope to feed the multi-sexual crew on nuts and raisins and use the alcohol to power the motors.
A truly modern navy runs on nuclear fuel.
But is this Australia’s next all-green warship under construction?
The Great Generation created our present world and left many useful assets as their monuments.
The Green Generation is destroying our future. The way things are heading, the lasting monuments to the Green Generation will be the skeletons of abandoned solar “farms” overgrown by lantana scrub, the concrete foundations of bankrupt wind “farms”, and spider-webs of useless sagging transmission lines and towers.
These memorials will serve to remind the next generation of the long, costly and futile war on hydrocarbon energy and the many failed climate forecasts.
Ref.: https://principia-scientific.org/the-greatest-generation-vs-the-greenest-generation/
Global Warming: Science or Political Science?
By John Droz, jr
In paleoclimatologist Dr. Curt Stager’s recent Adirondack Almanac piece about me it’s startling that he so openly disavowed traditional Science. By comparison, consider his insightful quote back in 2011:
“… my preference is for refraining from aggressive activist stances. I do so because I value Science itself more than any individual topic that it addresses.
“I consider Science to be one of the most valuable inventions of human civilization, and I recognize how precious and vulnerable to corruption it is as one who believes in objective reality, the fallibility of human perception, and the need for objective methods of seeking truth.
“I also recognize that public trust in Science itself depends heavily upon trust in the objectivity of those who pursue it. We must walk a fine line between defending truth and trying to force it on other people, and I personally choose to take a cautious approach in walking that line.”
I agree with every word of his well-phrased, important statement. However, the above-referenced article indicates that Curt has apparently abandoned his earlier commitment to traditional Science, and has evolved into a card-carrying political science activist. Since this transformation is becoming distressingly more common among scientists, let’s look into some ways he now deviates from real Science.
This is a key sentence in his article: “The consensus position that global average warming during the last half-century is real and mostly caused by humans, shared by the vast majority (97%±) of truly qualified climate scientists, is the result of huge amounts of peer-reviewed research from many independent branches of the sciences that have been conducted worldwide over many years.”
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Let’s start with this definition: “Anthropogenic Global Warming” (AGW) is the belief that unusual global warming is caused almost exclusively by man-made influences.
#1 — When two scientists disagree, each one politely presents the best empirical evidence that they believe supports their case. Disparaging the other’s motivations, past associations, etc. (e.g. “Droz has been associated with ultra-conservative, pro-fossil-fuel organizations such as ATI”), and calling them names (“denier”) are political tactics, outside the realm of science.
#2 — Curt inaccurately asserts that the only people competent enough to assess the validity of the AGW matter, are “truly qualified climate scientists.” Whether the AGW hypothesis is true or not rests on the scientific validity of its proponents’ claims. Anycompetent Scientist can see whether other scientists (in their field or otherwise), have failed to follow scientific protocol.
#3 — Curt mischaracterizes a Scientific hypothesis by disparagingly calling it “mere guesswork.” Here’s a reasonable definition:
“The formulation and testing of a hypothesis is part of the scientific method — the approach scientists use when attempting to understand and test ideas about natural phenomena. The generation of a hypothesis is a creative process, based on existing scientific knowledge, intuition, or experience. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesis are falsifiability and testability.”
OK, now we understand that, here is the really important part: what does it take for a scientific hypothesis to become a scientific theory, the next step up the ladder?
“Theories, are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. They are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable.“ One scientific theory (cited as an example by this source, UC Berkeley), “has proven itself in thousands of experiments and observational studies.”
However, in this case, the Global Warming promoters have simply decreed that their AGW hypothesis has been elevated to the level of a scientific theory — but without adhering to the necessary scientific protocol. Such proclamations are the tactics of political scientists.
#4 — Curt is well aware of all this, but is averse to admitting that the AGW matter is a hypothesis: because he (and other AGW proponents) do not want to adhere to traditional scientific methodology. Typical excuses they give are: a) it’s too time-consuming, b) AGW is too complicated to be analyzed by traditional Science, c) AGW is not falsifiable, and d) traditional science methodology casts significant doubt on the AGW hypothesis. In other words Curt is effectively saying “let’s skip over this burdensome Science stuff, and cut to the chase.” That’s a political science person’s perspective: let’s get on to changing policies!
#5 — It’s unfortunate that Curt did not publicly acknowledge that we have HUGE gaps of knowledge in our understanding of climate. How accurate can computer models be when there are substantial unknowns involved? Traditional Scientists are very clear about exactly what we know and don’t know. Political scientists glaze over the unknowns.
#6 — Curt makes multiple references to “peer-review” but fails to inform readers that there are 2000± peer-reviewed papers that contest his AGW position (e.g. see here). A scientist objectively presents both sides of any dispute. (Note Curt’s quote about that at the beginning!) On the other hand, political scientists just promote their own agenda, pretending that there is no other reasonable conclusion than theirs.
#7 — Curt’s reference to “consensus” is similarly problematic. If he has irrefutable science to support his AGW hypothesis, why would he talk about such unscientific matters as consensus? The Scientific Method says nothing about consensus.
What is also indisputable is that there have been numerous cases in the past where the consensus of what scientists believed, was subsequently proven to be wrong. Genuine scientists are well aware of that reality, so they would never try to justify a hypothesis by referencing other scientists’ beliefs. On the other hand political science is all about getting a consensus.
#8 — Despite his lengthy commentary, Curt didn’t actually address renewable energy — the topic of my article that he disliked. When politicians are asked questions that might embarrass them, they smoothly change the topic. That’s another stark difference between real science and political science.
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Those with Science on their side (on any topic) will put forth a position: 1) that follows traditional science conventions, 2) that honestly acknowledges how much we don’t know about the subject, 3) with no ad hominems, 4) without references to unscientific matters like consensus, and 5) without making false implications about the veracity of peer-review. Those taking a political science perspective will do the opposite.
It’s quite clear from all this that the AGW issue is not really about CO2. Instead AGW is just a convenient vehicle for those who want to radically alter our American way of life — to literally convert us to an agrarian, Marxist society. Just closely examine the elements (and consequences) of the Green New Deal, which is just a trial balloon for the real agenda here.
The bottom line is that AGW activists want us: a) to accept a hypothesis that has not followed traditional Science protocols, and b) to fork over $100± Trillion to implement “solutions” (like industrial wind energy) that are scientifically unproven. What could go wrong?
(Note: see here for a more detailed response to Dr. Stager’s polemic.)
John Droz, jr. physicist 3-25–19
