Answer to the front lines of climate change

Vincent J. Curtis

29 June 23

RE: An urgent message from the climate change front lines. Op-ed by Alyssa-Mae Laviolette and Alienor Rougeot both of Environmental Defence.  The Hamilton Spectator 29 June 23.

We received a message allegedly from the front line of climate change that was written by people nowhere near it.  Allegedly, the locals of Fort Chipewyan have never seen anything like this forest fire that threatened the area before, but somehow know that fireweed is what first grows “after the land burns.”

Climate change is supposed to be a global phenomenon, but it having a front line means that it’s local, and local disasters are happening somewhere all the time.

And we’re assured that “the intensity and scale of this wildfire season is due to the climate change caused by the production and consumption of fossil fuels.”  Now that the fires are out, does that mean that climate has changed again or that the season is over?  On the theory that CO2 causes climate change, the production of fossil fuels doesn’t contribute to climate change, only its consumption that does.

We have here another example of white people speaking on behalf of the voiceless Indian and Metis, and I didn’t read a single reference to the Fort Mac fire of 2016, when a major municipality of non-indigenous was severely damaged by a forest fire.

The problem with English lit majors writing on science-cum-social-justice is that they come across as uninformed busybodies to those who are paying attention.

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You have no evidence

Vincent J. Curtis

26 June 23

RE: Racism in our justice system is real. Hamilton Spectator editorial 26 June 23.

The editorial position that the racial disparities in jails and prisons demonstrate that racism exists in the Justice system was refuted nearly fifty years ago by American economist Thomas Sowell.  You can find his detailed examination of the issue in at least three of his books: Discrimination and Disparities; Visions of the Anointed ; and The Quest for Cosmic Justice.

The editorial’s contention is circular: seeing racial disparities in prison means racism exists.  Okay, what’s your proof that racism exists?  Why,…the racial disparities in the prison system!  If the editors looked a little deeper, they’d find that Asians were underrepresented in the prison system.  The racism theory falls apart under that little fact.

The reason Blacks and aboriginals are overrepresented in the prison population is cultural.  And it does the Black and aboriginal communities no good to release prisoners of their race prematurely back into them.  The bad people only commit more crime – primarily in their own communities.

Don’t blame the white man for putting Blacks and aboriginals disproportionately in jail out of racial animosity or another reason based on race.  They’re protecting Black and aboriginal communities by doing so.

The circular logic of saying that disproportionate representation is caused by racism is exposed.  But progressives don’t want to hear that refutations of their beliefs and canards were published decades ago.

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The Zombie Project

Vincent J. Curtis

26 June 23

RE: Hamilton hits $1 billion worth of permits.  News item by Fallon Hewitt. The Hamilton Spectator 26 June 23

Twenty years ago, the city fathers thought that Hamilton was a dying town.  There was no private investment; the city hadn’t pulled out of the recession; and the steel companies were in trouble.  Mayor Fred Eisenberger got the idea that spending $811 million on an LRT was a way of pulling the city out of its doldrums.  At the time, building an LRT was considered the gambler’s last throw of the dice.

Not an inch of track has been laid; the cost of the LRT project has jumped to around $5 billion; and Hamilton is setting records for new, private investment.  The objective of the LRT was met actually well over a decade ago - without a dime being spent on it; but like a zombie. the project continues struggling forward.  Why?

The LRT will thoroughly disrupt east-west traffic flow because King Street will be choked with the line.  Compounding this is the disruption caused by adding bike lanes to Cannon Street, and the planned two way traffic conversion of Main Street.  Could it be that making car travel in Hamilton as unpleasant as possible is an objective of the city?  Could fashionable environmental craziness have overwhelmed city planners?

The LRT has taken on a life of its own.  Its original purpose has been met.  Why spend more money on it, especially, in addition to the disruption, the operation of the line will be a scandalous money loser?  The purpose of continuing with this zombie project that won’t die needs to be re-assessed.

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Take the fork in the road

Vincent J. Curtis

24 June 23

RE: Hamilton urban planning faces fork in the ‘stroad’ Op-ed by Paul Shaker.  The Hamilton Spectator 24 June 23.

In his work Dialectics, Aristotle explains how to put an argument without impairing its persuasiveness.  Paul Shaker hasn’t read Aristotle, and a critical analysis of Shaker’s argument concerning “stroads” finds it tedious and unpersuasive.

Main Street in Hamilton is an arterial road.  This confuses Shaker.  That ‘Main Street’ is a proper name, while arterial road is a technical common noun, is the source of his confuses.  Hence he offers definitions of streets and of roads to explain his bafflement, and attempts, in so doing, to baffle the reader.  The old technical term in urban geography for Shaker’s “street” is a commercial ribbon.  King Street between Wellington Street and Caroline Street is a commercial ribbon; James Street from Barton Street to Young Street is another.  Shaker’s definitions of streets and roads arbitrarily reduces the multitudinous purposes of city streets into just two, and to explain a third, he invents “stroad.”

All of this tedious formalism is to distract the reader from the ideological straitjacket being fitted for the conception of proper purposes, and therefore proper structures, of city streets.  Shaker eventually contends that Hamilton’s streets and roads are all messed up, ought to be something else, and need to be revised according to his ideological framework.

It never occurs to an ideologue that the reason reality doesn’t conform to the ideology is that the ideology is wrong.

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Fallacious moralizing

Vincent J. Curtis

23 June 23

RE: There is no ‘market price’ for dead children.  Op-ed by Paul Racher.  The Hamilton Spectator 23 June 23

Paul Racher said perhaps more than he intended.  He observed that Canada went from being a few acres of snow to being one of the world’s leading economies within two centuries, and this miraculous transformation occurred after and perhaps because the Europeans got the aboriginals out of the way.  His issue is the way in which the aboriginals were gotten out of the way.

Riddled with guilt because he believes that aboriginals are not getting sufficient compensation for being gotten out of the way, Racher goes so far as to say that all the wealth developed in this country is insufficient to make appropriate amends to the aboriginals.  Apparently, integrating aboriginals into mainstream Canadian society and sharing the benefits and bounty that way is unacceptable; and Rachel’s expiation of guilt takes the form of more money and heavier compensation, which he has already said can never be enough to make amends.  Otherwise he retains the status quo.  Aboriginals suffered because they didn’t participate in Canada’s development.  This is the status quo Racher thinks should be retained.

Racher’s crack about there being no “market price” for dead children is unacceptable.  Group guilt is unacceptable.  The crack is pathetically unexamined, but if he wants personally to feel guilty for events that occurred a century ago, that’s up to him.  Don’t accuse me.

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A Poole’s Progress

Vincent J. Curtis

22 June 23

RE: Who will save us from ourselves?  Op-ed by Wayne Poole.  The Hamilton Spectator 22 June 23.

Wayne Poole has gone from authoritatively crying “wolf!” to complaining that not enough people are listening to cries of “wolf!” anymore. Maybe it’s because they’re exhausted by all the failed cries of wolf in the past, and are suspicious of the central planning implicit in buying the climate change scam.

In 1988, the UN declared that unless the world had stopped using fossil fuels by the year 2000, then humanity was doomed.  And we didn’t have time to discuss it.  They’ve since moved the date to 2050 for “NetZero.”

We’ve had endless forecasts of the Arctic Ocean going ice-free by now, and it’s as ice-covered as usual.  We’re heard endless forecasts of sea-level rise, and of lower Manhattan being drowned, and Pacific island nations being submerged; those haven’t happened either.  Every unusual weather event is attributed to “climate change” notwithstanding doing so is to employ the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, and that “climate change” is non-falsifiable, non-specific, unscientific and was invented because the globe simply stopped warming in 1998.

Hectoring Canadians about their bad behavior goes nowhere because by now people realize that, contributing only 1.6 percent of global CO2 emissions, even if you accept the theory, Canada isn’t part of the problem and therefore can’t be part of the solution.  Especially, when China, India, and Russia, which together contribute 50 percent, don’t care, and don’t believe you.

Canadians ought to reject all the plans for destroying our economy, er, attempting to ward off by their own heroic efforts the disaster of climate change.

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Robinson Huron Treaty

Vincent J. Curtis

21 June 23

The Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850 is in the news, as a substantial new financial settlement is being worked out among some 21 Indian bands and the Federal and Ontario governments.  The figure of $10 billion is being kicked around as a final settlement.

The importance of this news is not that Indians are owed so much money, or that land claims remain unsettled to this day; it is that the treaties still mean something.  So far as Canadians are concerned, that something is the uncontestable legitimacy of Crown ownership and title of the land within Canada’s borders.  Crown sovereignty over Canadian territory with respect to foreign powers has not been in dispute since the Treaty of Paris of 1763, by which French sovereignty over New France was surrendered to the British Crown.  Within that territory, and territory subsequently accessed to the Crown in Right of Canada, settlements and Treaties were made with Indian bands found in possession of territory within Canada’s boundaries.  The purpose of these settlements and treaties was to delineate where Europeans could settle and establish their society without molesting and without being molested by Indian bands.  European settlement was an unstoppable developing reality, and the Crown sought to make these changes to the facts on the ground as peaceful as possible.

Despite what aboriginal extremists might say, Canada belongs to Canadians in the fullest legal sense.  This talk of changing the national anthem to say, “our home on native land” is romantic nonsense; harmful thinking, actually, for it undermines the legitimacy of agreements.  Our predecessors bought it; we own it.  And own the land in the British legal sense of land ownership, a faculty never developed by aboriginals.

There is a romantic fashion within the Liberal government tending to undermine the legal legitimacy of Canada’s title to its own territory.  The logic of that position raises the question that if Canadians aren’t living on land truly under the title of the Canadian Crown, why are we paying taxes to the Canadian governments?  We aren’t their serfs.  If Canadians aren’t living on Canadian soil, then who does Ottawa think they’re pretending to govern, and tax?

So far as Hamilton is concerned, the importance of these Treaties is that no valid Indian claims lie upon the city.  In particular, the Nanfan Treaty has no application to Hamilton, and never did.

It also means that many of these pathetic “land acknowledgement” incantations are often false and misleading, and seem to vitiate the terms of settlements made more than a century ago. They amount to romantic nonsense, and, being false, romantic, and misleading can only lead to disappointment as the implications of their words are rejected in fact.

The treaties validate Canada’s title to its own land, notwithstanding aboriginal extremism.

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A question for Don

Vincent J. Curtis

20 June 23

RE: Actions speak louder than words.  Op-ed by Don McLean.  McLean is Chair of the Hamilton 350 Committee.  The Hamilton Spectator 20 June 23.

Don McLean holds that climate change was responsible for the wildfires in Canada this spring.  Now that the fires are out and the smoke is cleared, what can he say now?  The climate change on us again?

Jasper, AB, was blanketed with 8 inches of snow just two days before the summer solstice, was that weather event due to the smoke from the wildfires, the burning of the wood, or the burning of fossil fuel that occurred last year?

On June 21, 2018, Greta Thunberg tweeted out “A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.” Well, it’s five years on; why are we still here?  Could this be a sign that all those top climate scientists and spokespersons are utterly and completely at sea?  And if so, why should we trust their forecasts now?  Why is the Arctic Ocean still covered in ice, speaking of unfulfilled prognostications?

Climate change is a hoax when it isn’t an outright scam.  No action is necessary on the Net Zero front.

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SSDE

Vincent J. Curtis

19 June 23

RE: The way to extinguish “Blame Canada” Editorial by Amy Mann.  Amy is a student organizer and researcher at the University of Toronto.  She is a native of Winnipeg.

The editorial editor surrendered his chair to a college student this morning.  I wondered what was up.  The writing style was somewhat more pleasing than usual, though the editorial still retained that smug stupidity and sheer irrationality one expects in a Spec editorial.  “Pointing directly at the companies selling out our country for a profit!”; “the right will only double down on their violent rhetoric.  Blame Canada will not disappear in a puff of smoke, but ravage on like a wildfire.” Ouch.  Etc.

So, what’s it about?  Climate change, again.  Climate change caused massive wildfires, and New York City got enveloped in a different smelling cloud of smoke, this one possessed of fresh pine and wood fragrance.  Canada is being blamed for fumigating New York City and endangering it citizens.  Blame Canada!

Nobody on the right is blaming Canada, or climate change, for wildfires.  They happen.  The global average temperature is 14.16℃, the same as it was in 2010 and 1997.  NOAA reports that global temperature declined by 0.296℃ between January, 2015 and May, 2023.  Global warming is a bust; there’s no correlation between CO2 and global temperature.  That’s the data.  We aren’t going to reach a 1℃ rise by 2100, not that anyone has said what happens at 16℃ that will cause climate collapse.

If climate change caused the wildfires, what can you conclude now that they’re out?  The climate change on us again!

Nobody’s blaming Canada except the loony Left.

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You come to Rome; Rome doesn’t come to you

Vincent J. Curtis

17 June 23

RE: Catholic Schools need to venture beyond borders.  Op-ed by Richard Shield.  The Hamilton Spectator 17 June 23.

Richard Shield’s article was like the great London Fog of 1952: opaque, lacking in solidity, and it stank.  To add some solidity to the picture of Catholic education drawn by Shield, here are a few solid facts:

The identity of the “modernists” of which Shield speaks is clear from the encyclical Pascheni Dominici Regis of Pope Pius X, issued on September 8, 1907.  Modernists today are called “progressives,” and both their invincible self-confidence and self-contradictory beliefs Pius found dangerous to the teaching of the true faith of Rome.  The disasters in the political and social fields that progressivism has wrought amply confirm Pius’ worry and decisions.  Progressivism is what leads to Pride months.

The Catholic Church has been a teaching institution for well over a millennia.  From the fall of ancient Rome until the medieval period, the learning of the ancient world was preserved in Europe in the Christian monasteries.  The first universities of Europe were founded by the Latin Church and staffed with learned monks; and when the Kings of Europe began founding universities, they also were staffed largely with monks from the teaching orders.  Catholic education in Upper Canada was followed by public education, and will continue in some fashion even if the public funding guaranteed in the Constitution Act, 1867, is halted.

As was recently reported, Separate Schools did better, in some cases dramatically better, than public schools in scholastic attainment in reading and math at the grade 3 and 6 levels.  You wouldn’t know how poorly some public schools were performing without the Separate Schools to compare them to.  Scholastic attainment is less of a problem in Separate Schools than in public schools.

It is obvious that Shield’s problem is a poor understanding of Catholic doctrine.  For example, he says “doctrines and devotions are meant to be bridges to the reality of God in our world…”  It’s not God in our world; it is God, period.  Doctrines and devotions aren’t “bridges” because a bridge implies a kind of separation, which is completely inconsistent with the idea of becoming one with God.  And that about sums it up: Shield doesn’t understand Catholicism well enough at all.  I can tell he understands nothing of the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas.

And the intellectual rigor of Aquinas’s teaching is lacking in Catholic Schools too.  None of stuff about supporting Pride can withstand Scholastic analysis.  Shield’s quotes of Charles Taylor emerge as quite infantile under Scholastic analysis.

If there is a shortfall in Catholic education in Ontario it is a lack of teaching of the incredible logical rigor that supports the sacred teachings of the faith.  It shouldn’t be Catholic schools venturing beyond some imaginary borders; it should be people flocking to them to gain a superior understanding of the world.  If you want intellectual candy, you have to go to the candy store; the store doesn’t magically go to you.

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Giroux’s latest abomination

Vincent J. Curtis

16 June 23

RE: There’s no democracy without education.  Op-ed by Henry A. Giroux.  The Hamilton Spectator 16 June 23

Along King Street, across from Gore Park, you’ll often find men sitting cross-legged, talking loudly to themselves, gesticulating occasionally, and expostulating at the sidewalk.  You’d be forgiven if you thought you has stumbled into the McMaster University faculty lounge, for that was my impression upon reading Henry A. Giroux’s latest abomination.

Who knew that Gender Identity Theory and Critical Race Theory were “far-right assaults on education?”  Who knew that we were on the cusp of authoritarianism in Trudeau’s Canada, and Joe Biden’s America?  You mean those crazy far-right conspiracy theories are true??

Who knew the ‘history of trans students were under attack as their history is being erased from school curricula’ when trans students don’t exist, and sex change operations for kids only started three years ago – maybe? Who would have thought that education was a “moral and political project rooted in the goal of emancipation for all people.” Whatever became of reading, writing, and arithmetic?

Democracy is a means of making political decisions.  An educated electorate in nice, but no more wise than the electorates of 1265, 1628, 1689, 1789, and 1867.  It’s not education that’s essential in an electorate; it’s wisdom.  A point Professor Giroux completely missed in his latest expostulation to the sidewalk.

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Protecting a class that doesn't exist

Trans students don’t exist in Canada

Vincent J. Curtis

16 June 23

A sign of the power of the trans lobby is the recent editorial of the Globe and Mail calling on the government to protect a class of people that don’t exist.  “The state has a duty to protect trans students” the Globe thundered.

It’s illegal in Canada to perform sex change surgery on minors; and students, generally speaking, are minors; so unless illegal surgery has taken place in Canada, trans students don’t exist.

There might be children on puberty blockers; but that doesn’t make them trans; not until after surgery.  So, what have you got except kids putting on airs?  “I want to be a boy!”  “I think I’m really a girl!”

This is the kind of behavior that invites bullying, mockery, and harassment; and schools should be on guard against those inevitable responses.  Schools ought to stop school fights, but they still happen anyway.  Like it or not, the rising generation is going to sort itself out in the usual way of humans, and it is the duty of the current generation to make sure that that process remains within civilized bounds.

The observation here is the power of the trans lobby.  They can induce (bully?) mature adults to demand special treatment for their alleged people, a class of people that don’t exist.  Now, that’s mockery!

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What makes a trans person “trans”?  A kid on puberty blockers remains a pre-pubescent kid.  Surgery certainly begins the transition to trans process, but in Canada such surgery is illegal on minors.  Taking the hormones of the opposite sex to develop the physical characteristics of the opposite sex could be said at some point to be the initiation of the process because taking one pill once can’t count as a commitment to transitioning.  The upshot here is that for minors, i.e. those under 18, in Canada can’t be anywhere but at the starting gate of transitioning to trans.  Hence, a “trans” student can’t exist in Canada, legally anyway.  And the number of illegal cases there may be in Canada is insufficient to warrant dramatic government intervention to protect them as a class.

Casual Marxism & the housing crisis

Vincent J. Curtis

14 June 23

RE: Free market is failing on housing.  Op-ed by Noelle Allan.  The Hamilton Spectator 14 June 23

This kind of casual Marxism that can maintain that the “free market is failing” at anything is a mental block against a solution to the crisis.  Unless maintaining the crisis is a tactic in promoting a Marxist overthrow.

Let’s start with the housing crisis.  American economist and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell has said for nearly fifty years that skyrocketing housing prices are caused by a shortage of land available for development; a shortage usually caused artificially by government policy.  And it makes sense: if you freeze housing development, then the price of housing will skyrocket in the face of rising population.  The Greenbelt was created to prevent new housing development; and the housing crisis in Ontario, along with homelessness, is the natural and foreseeable consequence of preventing the development of new housing.

It’s not enough to allow a limited amount of land for development.  If the land available is limited, then developers are going to build the most expensive housing they can to maximize their profit; and that’s why you see neighborhoods of monster homes.

If you’re truly interested in solving the housing and homelessness crisis – and many aren’t, it being too politically useful – then the Greenbelt needs to be abolished and land made available to developers in abundance.

The free market responds to market forces, and it won’t solve the housing crisis if government policy prevents it.

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Leadership, Part 3

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Oct 22

Previous pieces on this subject recounted how the Canadian army in 1964-65 went about developing an all-new leadership doctrine based on the Leader-Follower-Situation concept.  Significantly, the process followed was empirical in nature.  It didn’t lay down dogmatisms and elaborate from them.

The process began with a review of applicable philosophy, that of John Locke and Immanuel Kant.  Locke’s philosophy gave an understanding of the general philosophical assumptions and outlook on life of the pool of future recruits: the men of Canada (this is 1965, remember!).  Kant’s philosophy delivered the justification for the demands of military service: duty, sacrifice, and a moral imperative.  From there, the army turned to the work of the world’s expert on leadership of that day, Dr. Ralph Stodgill.

The leadership theory prior to Stodgill, accepted by the army prior to 1965, was the “great man” theory, or trait theory.  “Great men” are born with certain traits that somehow makes them natural leaders of men.  It is a paradox to study the traits of “great men” since these traits cannot be implanted into lesser mortals.  Stodgill undermined the “great man” theory by observing that some traits are useful in some situations, but not others.  Other workers observed that it wasn’t so much traits, but the behavior that seemed to issue from those traits, that was the operative manifestation of leadership.

Putting the three elements together, you arrive at a Leader-Follower-Situation concept with the traits of leadership understood to be behavioural.  Leadership behavior was something that could be observed and taught to a general audience.  Situation was congenial to a military context because a military situation almost always involved a terminal end, i.e. the achievement of a mission or a goal.  Hence the famous Canadian definition of leadership: the art of influencing human behaviour so as to achieve the mission in the manner desired by the leader.  Implicitly, if the goal was achieved in a manner other than that which the leader desired, the leader didn’t really lead the group to the achievement of its mission, and despite success, was a failure of leadership.

Following Stodgill, three styles of leadership were identified as: authoritarian, or command style; the participative style, and the free-rein style, which was of minimal control.  These styles are well thought of as analytical tools which explain what the leader is doing from moment to moment.  For example, at the opening parade of personnel at the MSE depot, the leader might call his followers to attention in a parade square manner, exhibiting the authoritarian style.  After standing his followers easy, the leader might inform the followers of important news and priority of work for that day and take questions, exhibiting the participative style.  After dismissing his followers to go about their daily work, the leader exhibits a free-rein style letting the followers go about their work with only occasional supervision and inspection.

Another important aspect of the style elaboration is as a diagnostic tool.  What results when the wrong style is used for a situation?  Especially, what happens when one style is relied on too much, the most notorious being an overreliance on the authoritarian style?  The table of diagnostics are uncannily accurate.

As remains the fashion of philosophical ideology, the army identified ten ‘principles’ of leadership, which are traits expressible as behaviour: achieve professional competence, appreciate your strengths and weaknesses and pursue self-improvement, seek and accept responsibility, lead by example, make sure your follows know your meaning and intent, know your [men] and promote their welfare, develop the leadership potential of your followers, make sound and timely decisions, train you [men] as a team and employ them up to their full capabilities, keep you followers informed – of the mission, the changing situation, and the overall picture.

After the revolution of sixty years, how well does the theory hold up?  The followers have changed after the admission of women, and the philosophical outlook is different, containing much postmodernism, but the structure, principles and diagnostics hold up well.

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Just stop oil!

Vincent J. Curtis

10 June 23 

The Just Stop Oil movement is one of several environmentalist movements that believe they can stop climate disaster if somehow the use and consumption of fossil fuels were eliminated.  But is this even possible?  I say it’s impossible to end the use of fossil fuels, because oil is essential even in an ideal world.

Let’s say that only electric vehicles were permitted, and wind turbines and solar panels became the primary sources of electric power.  Those wind turbines will still need lubricating oil in their gearboxes.  Electrical transformers will still need oil as the dielectric.  The wheel bearings on those electric vehicles will still need lubricating grease.  The gear sets will still need lubricating oil.  The transmissions will still need lubricating oil.  The machining of gear sets is typically done with the aid of cutting oils.  Any kind of machinery with gears, in fact, will need oil for lubrication.  Hydraulic systems require hydraulic oil.

So, oil cannot be eliminated, and we’ll still need it in our ideal world.  Where does oil come from?  It comes from the refining of crude oil.  The oil fraction is what is left of crude oil after the solvents, gasoline and diesel fractions, tar, and asphalt have been removed.  It depends on the crude oil, but typically, the oil fraction of crude oil comprises much less than half of the total volume of the crude.  And oil thus separated needs to be purified.  Purification is typically done by hydrotreating.  Where does the hydrogen come from to hydrotreat oil?

The hydrogen for hydroteating comes from the catalytic cracking of the gasoline fraction.  “Cat-cracking” gasoline raises the octane rating of the gasoline, and that process releases hydrogen, which is fed to the lube plant for hydrotreatment of oil.  Hence, to get the oil we know we’ll still need in our ideal world, we’ll still produce vast quantities of high octane gasoline and diesel fuel.  What is supposed to be done with those vast amounts of gasoline and diesel that are the by-product of the production of quality lubricating oil that we know we’ll still need?  The quantities of gasoline and diesel will be so vast that they cannot simply be stored or dumped somewhere, like mine tailings.

The only sensible thing that can be done with them is to burn them.  They can be burnt to produce electric power, or they can be burnt in internal combustion engines to produce propulsion.  There’s no getting away from it.

The economics of forcing the use of EVs and of trying to eliminate the sale of internal combustion engines will be to depress the price of gasoline and diesel and to raise the price of lubricating oil, as the oil companies try to make a profit from their refining operations.  The oil companies would be inclined practically to give away gas and diesel just to make lube oil.  Hence, the cost of operating gas and diesel powered cars, trucks, and other equipment will drop, making them more economically competitive against battery powered vehicles, which now and in the future will require subsidies for people to afford them.

Government can try to intervene further, after banning internal combustion engines, by placing punitive taxes on gas and diesel; but the absurdity of forcing the use of EVs will lead to a crisis in the economy, transportation being so important.  This conundrum cannot be avoided, or resolved.

Hence, gas and diesel powered vehicles cannot be sensibly eliminated from use, on account simply of our continuing need for lubricating oil.  Our ideal world contains an economic contradiction that cannot be avoided.  As Thomas Sowell is wont to say, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

By taxation and subsidies, EVs can become a part of the passenger vehicle mix, but they cannot be the entirety or even the principle modes of private transport in any sensible way.

The modern world simply cannot “just stop oil.”  It is an impractical ideal.  Our need for lubricating oil makes it impossible.

What has Just Stop Oil got to say about this?  Well, nothing at all.  I doubt they have thought this far ahead.  But it is typical of the environmental movement to ignore the question of “at what cost” and to offer no solutions to the obvious consequences of their demands being met.  It should be expected of Just Stop Oil and other such movements movement (and even of governments) to offer a solution to the problem we can see coming.

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Speaking of stupid intolerance

Vincent J. Curtis

9 June 23

RE: York trustees invite a day of reckoning. Editorial by Martin Regg Cohn.  The Hamilton Spectator 9 June 23.

Martin Regg Cohn was especially stupid and belligerent in this column today. He wonders at Catholic Schools refusing to fly a Gay Pride flag, but it never occurs to him to wonder about Pride flags not being flown over mosques.

If flying the flag wasn’t a choice, why was it put to a vote?  Why wasn't it simply ordered by the Minister of Education?

It’s true that the Ten Commandments contain no provision for the funding of Separate schools, but The Commandments do say, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

The BNA Act, 1867, likewise does not condition the funding of Separate Schools upon a submission to 2SLGBTQIA+ ideology, but the existence of that right in S92 foresaw religious differences between Separate Schools and Public Schools in ethos.

With his “inviting a day of reckoning” comment, if I didn’t know that Cohn was a pussy, I’d think he was making a threat.

Given the poverty and sheer stupidity of Cohn’s argument, I’d find out which schools he attended and have them closed.

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Crying Wolf Again on Arctic sea ice

Vincent J. Curtis

7 June 23

RE: Research advances date for likely summer ice-free Arctic by decade.  CP story by Bob Weber.  The Hamilton Spectator 7 June 23.

The CP faithfully report the latest cries of “wolf” by climate fraudsters on the make for their next research grant.  The question is, why are people still buying this one?

The cry of an ice-free Arctic ocean was made by the father of the modern global warming movement, Dr. James Hansen.  He said in 1988 that the Arctic would be ice free by 2008.  Then, in 2008, Hansen forecasted 2014-2018.  At his 2007 Noble Prize acceptance speech, Al Gore forecasted an ice-free Arctic in 2014.  Later, at the COP 15 conference in 2009, he predicted 2016.  John Kerry, on the floor of the Senate said in 2009, that the Arctic would be ice-free in 2014.  The Guardian newspaper said 2015, and the Sierra Club Canada said 2013.

The prediction has been made many times before by people in high authority, but the ocean remains stubbornly ice-covered, even in summer.  There is no trend, based on actual measurements, for the Arctic to become ice-free in summer, either.  The story isn’t that the Arctic was supposed to be ice-free in the 2070s, or 2050s, and it’s now trending to the 2030s; it’s that the Arctic should be ice-free by now and that hasn’t happened.

All those other experts cried wolf, and there is no reason based on actual data to believe this latest cry of wolf will turn out differently.

But there’s no need to worry about Arctic sea ice in the 2030s. On June 21, 2018, UN Climate Representative Greta Thunberg predicted the world would end within five years, which is right about now.

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Who is anti-science?

Vincent J. Curtis

3 June 23

Who is “anti-science?”  The epithet “anti-science” is often thrown about these days to impugn those who don’t go along with the “climate change” hypothesis.  But what makes a person “anti-science?”

Science is an organized body of knowledge about a subject matter, and the philosophical approach to science is an open-minded search for truth; being undismayed by unorthodox conclusions.

A person who is anti-science is someone who places conformance to an orthodoxy above the evidence.  Characteristically, a person who insists on conformance to an orthodoxy is dismayed by unorthodox conclusions because the orthodoxy is the supreme thing that mustn’t be challenged.

Let’s look at an historical example for illustration.  Nicholas Copernicus in the 16^th century proposed that the solar system was heliocentric.  At the time, the scientific consensus was the Ptolemaic view, that the earth was the center of the universe and that all celestial objects revolved around it.  The earth being the center of the universe was also congenial to the theology of the times, since it suggested the importance of mankind, who were at the center of God’s creation.  Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis challenged both the scientific and the theological views and consensus, and was therefore of great interest to astronomers, who were guided by an open-minded search for truth.

Though imperfect, Copernicus’ theory became accepted by astronomers because it explained the movement of celestial bodies better than Ptolemy’s theory did.  Copernicus’ theory held erroneously that the planets revolved in perfect circles around the sun, and correcting for the fact that planetary orbits were elliptical made the correspondence with observation even closer.  The theologians came to accept the heliocentric theory because, to theology’s credit, it maintained that theology could not be at odds with science.

So, who was anti-science?  Actually, none on either side of the dispute was, because both astronomers and theologians accepted Copernicus’ challenge; they didn’t dismiss it as contrary to consensus.  His theory may have been dismaying, but the search for truth prevailed over prejudice.  After Sir Isaac Newton and his theory of gravitation explained heliocentricism, no one could seriously challenge the heliocentric view of the solar system; and if someone today insisted on the archaic Ptolemaic system without some extraordinary evidence, they would be anti-science.

Today, there is a different orthodoxy that is being insisted upon.  Its foundational belief is that Western Civilization is the heart and the cause of evil in the world.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western Civilization stood alone and unchallenged in the world for its economic, cultural. scientific, and technological successes.  How to humble the Western powers?  Apart from incessant and unprincipled moral criticism, one way is to cripple its economic success, by making its energy production uneconomic.  Nuclear power generation having been made into a boogie-man, the next step was to abolish power generation by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.  And that was the point of the Kyoto Treaty of 1995.  The Kyoto Treaty was founded upon the belief that the continued burning of fossil fuels was going to destroy the planet.

(Note: I dispute calling methane, natural gas, a “fossil fuel.”  Its abundance elsewhere in the solar system indicates that methane on earth may not be primarily of biological origin.)

That carbon dioxide, a product of the burning of carbonaceous fuels, absorbs light in the infra-red spectrum, and thus could trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, was known in the 19^th century.  The great Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius first proposed that more CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to uncontrolled atmospheric warming; but his theory was discredited by the actual events of the 20^th century.  The earth did warm from the beginning of the 20^th century until 1940.  Then, despite rising CO2 level, the earth cooled until 1979.  The climate scare of the 1970s was of a coming ice age.  Then, the earth began to warm again until 1998, when warming paused.  That pause caused the cry of “global warming” to be changed into the vague and non-falsifiable “climate change.”  It’s hard to maintain in science a theory of rising CO2 causing global warming when CO2 is rising but global temperature isn’t.

(Note: we now understand why Arrhenius was wrong.  The greenhouse effect of CO2 is maxed out by 100 ppm concentration.  Adding more CO2 above 100 ppm traps practically no more infra-red radiation.)

The global warming file, re-started in 1988 by NASA scientist James Hansen, was given to Al Gore when he became Vice-President of the United States in 1993.  Gore conditioned the receipt of Federal science funding upon the advocacy, somehow, of the global warming hypothesis.  The Kyoto Treaty was Gore’s triumph.  The world didn’t have time to discuss it; global disaster was just around the corner; and the pre-cautionary principle commanded immediate action.

However, all the forecasts of apocalypse that came out of the global warming hypothesis, from 1988 onwards, proved wrong in the event; the most obvious of which were the many forecasts of the Arctic Ocean becoming ice-free in summer, of a rise in sea level with the accompanying inundation of coastal cities; the submersions of Pacific islands, and a catastrophic and accelerating rise in global temperature.  The failed forecast problem was answered with greater ferocity of orthodoxy enforcement and with more frightening apocalyptic forecasts.

The political orthodoxy which followed upon the global warming hypothesis did, however, succeed in crippling the growth of cheap energy supply in the Western world, and China became the center of world manufacturing over the last twenty years.

The only things supporting the ‘burning-of-fossil-fuels-causes-global-warming’ hypothesis are models, which are nothing more than specific articulations of that hypothesis.  Models aren’t data.  Models aren’t evidence.  Models demand evidence for their validation.  None of the models match the temperature data except for the Russian models.  The non-Russian models all forecast warming, and warming isn’t happening.  The Russian models don’t forecast warming, and are therefore the closest fit to the actual data.  Are you dismayed by this unorthodox outcome?

So, who is anti-science?  Are the Russian models anti-science because they correctly forecast no warming?  Or are those anti-science who place the orthodoxy ahead of the data?  Who places orthodoxy ahead of the evidence?  Who is not guided by an open-minded search for truth, and is dismayed by the unorthodox conclusions? 

The refusal to entertain hypotheses which challenge the orthodoxy is anti-science.  How else is theoretical science to advance except by challenges to the received orthodoxy, with theories which better explain the evidence?

Can a scientist be trusted whose daily bread relies upon his claiming that this or that phenomenon is a sign of climate change?  The use of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent can often keep bread on the table and the conscience somewhat clear.

The latest fallacious climate claim is to attribute the Nova Scotia fires to ‘climate change.’  Let’s sort this out.  Okay, the hypothesis is that climate change caused the fires: what evidence have you got to support that hypothesis?  The phenomenon itself cannot serve as the proof of its own cause.  That’s obviously fallacious.

There is no evidence offered; the hypothesis that climate change caused fires is merely affirmed as consistent with the orthodoxy, which fails utterly to confirm the hypothesis at issue, namely that the cause of the fires is climate change.  This is the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent: fires, therefore climate change.

But drought is not climate change.  Drought is a normal abnormal condition; it is a prolonged but temporary condition of a lack of rain when rain is expected.  Climate change is when Nova Scotia turns into a desert.

It seems clear that those hurling the accusation of being “anti-science” are themselves the ones who are anti-science.  Lacking evidence that supports their hypothesis, they place the orthodoxy above the evidence; they are dismayed by theories and conclusions that deny the orthodoxy; they reject theories that explain the evidence better than the received orthodoxy, and their standard mode of argument is to affirm the consequent.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  Those throwing around the epithet “anti-science” to enforce an orthodoxy are the ones who are anti-science.

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Why there's a doctor shortage

Stick to your knitting

Vincent J. Curtis

5 June 23

RE: 400 doctors stand against fossil fuel expansion.  Op-ed by Dr. Samantha Green.  She is president-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.  The Hamilton Spectator 5 June 23.

There’s a doctor shortage in Ontario.  If you want to know why, look no further than this article.  Here are 400 doctors who have time to engage in moral narcissism, and time to say stupid things about matters they know nothing about.

Climate change presents threats to health?  Let’s disregard that climate change is a hoax, but given the numbers of climates around the world, from Arctic to Equatorial, mankind faces and overcomes all sorts of different climates.  That “air pollution causes one in sever premature deaths in Canada” is a canard that I refuted when the “pre-mature deaths” business was first floated by the OMA twenty years ago.  (1500 “pre-mature” deaths per year or some such were allegedly caused by the Nanticoke and Lambton coal fired power plants, and the OMA wanted them closed early.)

Natural gas is a fantastic source of energy for electrical generation: it’s clean burning, cheap, abundant, rich in hydrogen, and the generators can be fast cycled to meet rapid changes in demand.  The Chinese unreliables, wind and solar, couldn’t be used without natural gas power generation to back them up.  Guess what the doctors prescribe.

The doctors also swallowed the nonsense about wind and solar being less expensive than natural gas generation.  Never mind the accounting chicanery in the assumptions, when they can’t produce power, the Chinese unreliables are highly expensive, and useless, white elephants.

The doctors should never mind the climate change nonsense.  Fix something in their bailiwick, like wait times, or cancer.

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Kick Alberta out of Confederation – Please!

Vincent J. Curtis

1 June 23

RE: Will Alberta endanger climate goals? Hamilton Spectator editorial. 1 June 23.

It never occurs to the Spectator to ask, first, are those goals worth anything?  Canada isn’t meeting its goal of 2 percent of GDP for NATO, but the Spec doesn’t care about that.  Canada’s climate goals are practically meaningless, and nothing would change if Canada simply ignored them.

Canada is responsible for 1.6 percent of world CO2 emissions, while China, India, and Russia together are responsible for half of global emissions.  They don’t care about CO2; and Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin aren’t going to follow any moral example set by international fool Justin Trudeau.  Canada isn’t part of the problem, and so can’t be part of the solution.

Natural gas fired electrical generation provides 95 percent of Alberta’s electricity.  The Chinese unreliables, wind and solar, are particularly unsuited to Alberta because of prairie dust, persistent snow cover, great lack of sunlight in winter, and lack of wind.  (And dangerously high winds when they do blow.)

Alberta would be a great candidate for the next generation of nuclear power generation, but the Federal government has shown no interest in that.  Given the Federal governments proclamations about fertilizer and cattle flatulence, a paranoid conspiracy theorist could get the impression that Justin Trudeau is out to screw up Alberta because it never votes Liberal.  (Alberta’s three main economic sectors are oil & gas, agriculture, and cattle ranching.)

Ottawa and its “climate goals” can go to hell.  If Alberta is a problem child, then – please! – kick us out of Confederation.

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