The Multidisciplinarian

Young people around the world protested for climate action last week. 16-year old Greta Thunberg implored congress to “listen to the scientists” about climate change and fix it so her generation can thrive.

OK, let’s listen to them, and assume for sake of argument that we understand “them” to be a large majority of all relevant scientists, and that say with one voice that humans are materially affecting climate. And let’s take the IPCC’s projections for a 3.4 to 4.8 degree C rise by 2100 in the absence of policy changes. While activists and politicians report that scientific consensus exists, some reputable scientists dispute this. But for sake of discussion assume such consensus exists.

That temperature rise, scientists tell us, would change sea levels and would warm cold regions more than warm regions. “Existential crisis,” said Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday. Would that in fact pose an existential threat? I.e., would it cause human extinction? That question probably falls much more in the realm of engineering than in science. But let’s assume Greta might promote (or demote, depending on whether you prefer expert generalists to exert specialists) engineers to the rank of scientists.

The World Bank 4 Degrees – Turn Down the Heat report is often cited as concluding that uncontrolled human climate impact threatens the human race. It does not. It describes Sub-Saharan Africa food production risk, southeast Asia water scarcity and coastal productivity risk. It speaks of wakeup-calls and tipping points, and, lacking the ability to quantify risks, assumes several worst imaginable cases of cascade effects, while rejecting all possibility that innovation and engineering can, for example, mitigate water scarcity problems before they result in health problems. The language and methodology of this report is much closer to the realm of sociology than to that of people we usually call scientists. Should sociology count as science or as philosophy and ethics? I think the latter, and I think the World Bank’s analysis reeks of value-laden theory and theory-laden observations. But for sake of argument let’s grant that climate Armageddon, true danger to survival of the race, is inevitable without major change.

Now given this impending existential crisis, what can the voice of scientists do for us? Those schooled in philosophy, ethics, and the soft sciences might recall the is-ought problem, also known as Hume’s Guillotine, in honor of the first writer to make a big deal of it. The gist of the problem, closely tied to the naturalistic fallacy, is that facts about the world do not and cannot directly cause value judgments. And this holds regardless of whether you conclude that moral truths do or don’t exist. “The rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason,” observed Hume. For a more modern philosophical take on this issue see Simon Blackburn’s Ethics.

Strong statements on the non-superiority of scientists as advisers outside their realm come from scientists like Richard Feynman and Wifred Trotter (see below).

But let’s assume, for sake of argument, that scientists are the people who can deliver us from climate Armageddon. Put them on a pedestal, like young Greta does. Throw scientism caution to the wind. I believe scientists probably do have more sensible views on the matter than do activists. But if we’re going to do this – put scientists at the helm – we should, as Greta says, listen to those scientists. That means the scientists, not the second-hand dealers in science – the humanities professors, pandering politicians, and journalists with agendas, who have, as Hayek phrased it, absorbed rumors in the corridors of science and appointed themselves as spokesmen for science.

What are these scientists telling us to do about climate change? If you think they’re advising us to equate renewables with green, as young protesters have been taught to do, then you’re listening not to the scientists but to second-hand dealers of misinformed ideology who do not speak for science. How many scientist think that renewables – at any scale that can put a real dent in fossil fuel use – are anything remotely close to green? What scientist thinks utility-scale energy storage can be protested and legislated into existence by 2030? How many scientist think uranium is a fossil fuel?

The greens, whose plans for energy are not remotely green, have set things up so that sincere but uniformed young people like Greta have only one choice – to equate climate change mitigation with what they call renewable energy. Even under Mark Jacobson’s grossly exaggerated claims about the efficiency and feasibility of electricity generation from renewables, Greta and her generation would shudder at the environmental devastation a renewables-only energy plan would yield.

Where is the green cry for people like Greta to learn science and engineering so they can contribute to building the world they want to live in? “Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us?” asked Greta. One good reason 16-year-olds might do this is that in 2025 they can have an engineering degree and do real work on energy generation and distribution. Climate Armageddon will not happen by 2025.

I feel for Greta, for she’s been made a stage prop in an education-system and political drama that keeps young people ignorant of science and engineering, ensures they receive filtered facts from specific “trustworthy” sources, and keeps them emotionally and politically charged – to buy their votes, to destroy capitalism, to rework political systems along a facile Marxist ideology, to push for open borders and world government, or whatever the reason kids like her are politically preyed upon.

If the greens really believed that climate Armageddon were imminent (combined with the fact the net renewable contribution to world energy is still less than 1%), they might consider the possibility that gas is far better than coal in the short run, and that nuclear risks are small compared to the human extinction they are absolutely certain is upon us. If the greens’ real concern was energy and the environment, they would encourage Greta to list to scientists like Nobel laureate in physics, Ivar Giaever, who says climate alarmism is garbage, and then to identify the points on which Giaever is wrong. That’s what real scientists do.

But it isn’t about that, is it? It’s not really about science or even about climate. As Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff for Ocasio-Cortez, admitted: “the interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” he added. To be clear, Greta did not endorse the Green New Deal, but she is their pawn.

Frightened, indoctrinated, science-ignorant kids are really easy to manipulate and exploit. Religions – particularly those that silence dissenters, brand heretics, and preach with righteous indignation of apocalypses that fail to happen – have long understood this. The green religion understands it too.

Go back to school, kids. You can’t protest your way to science. Learn physics, not social studies – if you can – because most of your teachers are puppets and fools. Learn to decide for yourself who you will listen to.

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I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy — and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter. – Richard Feynman, The Value of Science, 1955.

Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man, distinguished in one of the departments of science is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else. – Wilfred Trotter, Has the Intellect a Function?, 1941